He lay awake, and the summer wind came soft into the room. It tasted of night, of rich blacks and blues, of red currants and raspberries jeweled with dew, of fireflies that fell like small stars. It tasted of dreams.

Not his dreams. No sleep had come to him this night, although the moon drove his silver chariot across the sky, waiting for his daughter to return him.

He had heard that tale since he was a boy at the knee, but it was only now that he grieved in his heart for Máni, the desolate father.

And this night, this strange, beautiful night, was restless with the dreams of a world slipping past, a leaf on a current. So he lay awake, sacrificing his thoughts to the sleepless night. Shapes repeated before his exhausted eyes. There was fear and memory, magic and pain, buried deep in the bones of the world. A hand, a sword, a grail, a dragon tooth, a hidden seed.

He thought of Fangorn Forest, with the lichen trailed across branches like the beards of old men. Old and moldering now. The Elves had no power to wake the ancient ones now, and the tree-shepherds closed their eyes.

For the world belonged now to men, men with their sordid struggles and petty pleasures. And also, to men, with their burning love and their full-blooded joy. To them, the future was unreal, and also the past, and they lived and loved only in the present. The life allotted to them was but a scrap of time, but they counted neither minutes nor years. They lived not long enough to be bowed by thousands of grey winters, and to view the summers with sorrow. Winter could be cruel to men, but their summer was golden, and they trusted with blind faith and bright hope that it would always come again. They believed themselves immortal and invincible, and in that, they were beautiful, and in their own way, immortal.

Then with a bird's-eyes gaze, he fled East, across long waves of rolling red sands. And there, on the very edge, standing on the brink of eternity, were two trees. One was bone-white, its branches cruelly cracked and beaten by sand and wind. By it, standing like a lover, was a greater tree, strong, and knotted, with a lofty head. Still, a few brown leaves clung to its dry branches and hoary bark to its grey bole. And Éomer beheld in the depth of unfathomable eyes an abiding hope that one day, greater creatures than men could ever know might walk in the willows-meads of Tasarin, and that their branches would be laden with butterflies, all the colors of tourmaline.

So with the night wind, he returned West. He saw a dark youth leaning on the window, a ruby-pointed crown by his elbow. A girl black as jet wrapped her arms around him, shyly, and he kissed her hands, for now, they would bound not only by duty. And at the edges of the sandstone city was a great garden, and a small cottage. In a straw pallet lay the Lioness and her shepherd boy. He slept, and the many scars on his face were accented silver by moonlight. But she lay propped on her elbow, and looked down on him, and her black eyes were sad with the years lost.

Still further West he went, towards a white city with diamond towers. There a tree flowered, its branches blanched with silver blossoms, and by it sat a Queen, and she sang a song of Valinor, and her hands rested on the swell of her belly. Her King sat by her, his black hair a crown, and looked at her with eyes of love.

And in a green forest, an Elf with hair pale as cornsilk sang, and the hurts of the wood knitted together and healed themselves. And in a small cottage, a golden-haired woman stirred, for her arm still pained her, and she sat up and gazed at the moon.

Then the night-wind turned, and a nightingale sang, and he saw a great craggy crave, and a Dwarf with many braids in his beard laid down his hammer, and looked towards a pale crystal, in which were captured strands of gold and silver, like filaments of sunlight and moonshine, and he smiled.

And still further the wind went, and he went with it, and he saw a great green grass sea, and then a shining, hong-pronged hall, its gables wide and high, its roof glittering gold. And in that hall, a black-haired woman smiled at him, a curving, sweet smile, and a babe nursed at her breast, with hair like ink and eyes like mountain tarns.

And then the nightingale fell silent, and the night-wind breathed a final breath, and Éomer held his wife and son to his heart, and knew that of all that was in the world, he loved them the best.