Justice
Rating: G
Disclaimers: This world and all its characters belong to J.R.R. Tolkien and his estate. No money is made and no infringement of copyright is intended.
Summary: Elrond muses about the race of Men and the future of the world he leaves behind him. Short and very angsty.
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I shall always belong to two kindreds, regardless of the choice I made so long ago, yet now I find that even as I am true to my elven self I betray the younger race and leave them to the darkness.
I cannot dispel the notion that this is unjust. Were not the elves taken out of Middle-earth at the beginning of our history and led to blessed Aman? And was that not done to save us from the wiles of Morgoth? But none of the Valar now lead Men home, and the wide waters forever keep them from that which we accept as our destiny.
And we will leave, and all we have built will decay, and Men will eventually be alone in their sorrow. I would stay. I would guide them and protect them and cherish them as my children, but I cannot. The sea calls to me every day, and Celebrían whispers to me in my dreams. My time here is ended, and even if we prevail and Sauron is destroyed the Power of the Three will wane, and we will pass into the West.
But they, who are so weak, so frail, who so quickly sicken and die. will remain. Even if Sauron's dominion ended and a new springtime came to these lands, yet still the echoes of the discord of Morgoth Bauglir would resound in Arda Sahta, and the Second-born would not be safe from their pernicious influence.
With my failing foresight I am cursed with dim fears, with visions of what is to come. Snow awaits them, and sorrow, and even the cities of the mighty will fall before it, for none can stop it. And proud Gondor will crumble into the dust, its topmost towers frosted with cruel ice.
There will be no knowledge of past deeds left among Men and they will stumble in the shadows like caged beasts, afraid even of themselves. They will be unaware of the glories which once they beheld, only yearning for that which will have passed away, until they forget even that, and yearn no longer except in their deepest hearts.
Perhaps in the Blessed Realm the elves will let the grief of Middle-earth slip away, and be glad again, and they too will forget in their own way. I cannot… I will not. My heart is forever bound to the Outer Lands, and my descendants will walk across these mountains and high pastures, bowed beneath a burden of cold and ignorance, even when my name itself, and those of the heroes of days gone by, of Galadriel, of Eärendil the Mariner, of Gandalf the Grey, have passed into myth.
For I gave my greatest treasure to you, my son, whom I have blessed and cursed. You have no right to demand this of me, or of Undómiel whom you love, yet I give it to you freely enough, despite the bitterness at her choice which falls over me like the pall of night.
Would I change this if I could? I do not know, for half my being cries out, pleading that I should bear her away to the ships which await us in Círdan's havens, but when she looks at you I see in her eyes a reflection of the light which was, and still is, I pray, in Celebrían's as they rested on my face. How can I deny her a taste of that which calls me so inexorably across the sea? How can I forbid her the joy which beckons me to my wife's arms across such distances?
But what do I leave you to, my Estel, the little boy who played by my feet as I wrestled with the affairs of Middle-earth? What lies before you and Arwen, who will stand by your side as the Queen of Gondor, except the dying grandeur of the twilight beyond which I see no hope of the dawn?
What words of consolation can I offer you? How, if I were there, could I soothe your heart as you lay dying?
I can offer you nothing, my children, for I see neither truth nor justice in your fate, Ilúvatar forgive me for my doubts.
Where is the truth in the darkness?
Where is the justice in your suffering?
Once I would have answered that this is the fate of Men who are born to die, and that none can gainsay it, but now I tremble before the awful reality, and my heart cries out that it is treachery to leave you. My mind is swept away like leaves before the winds of autumn, and my bared soul weeps for you.
Why should you live brief lives in misery while we are allowed to seek solace in Valinor?
No answer comes to me from the void, for the will of Ilúvatar is hidden from us, and even the Valar do not know his mind.
And I am left alone, alone to face the darkness both within and without, and to mourn for that which I cannot change.
FINIS
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Arda Sahta – the marred world.