Into the Shadow
By The Last Evenstar
A/N: I'm very sorry about not updating on Friday. Unfortunately, there was a death in my family and I was unable to get online. Also, I'm leaving for California in a week, which might make it difficult to update again. Once again, I apologize for all the delay. And I know that this isn't the best chapter in the world, but bear with me. It gets better.
For a full account of the events on Cerin Amroth as I see fit to interpret them, you can see my fic And Then She Knew. I must warn you, though – I was young and inexperienced.
91 reviews! Let's see if we can make it 100 . . .
Journey Update: Entering Lothlórien
Chapter Eight: The Long Walk Through Memory
"Arwen? Arwen!" Elrohir shook his sister in fear and desperation. "Wake up!"
She moaned, her glassy eyes lolling listlessly. Elrohir trembled. "Lasto beth nin, Arwen! Tolo dan ngalad [Hear my voice, Arwen! Come back to the light!]"
Elladan, Halbarad, and Glorfindel were all clustered around them by now. "Elbereth Gilthoniel!" cried the fair elf. "Some darkness has taken her. We must ride for Caras Galadhon with all due haste!"
Elladan was beginning to panic. "It's a day at least," he muttered, "unless you go alone. Take her, take her straight to the Lady!"
Glorfindel shook his head. "Send Rimbhor, or Ithindel. We ride south; there is no time for delay."
Elrohir frowned. "You want us to leave Arwen in Lórien while we ride into Mordor?"
"Wasn't that you plan?"
The young warrior frowned. "It was, but I should like to stay and see if she's all right."
"There is no time. Unless you'd like to take her yourself.?"
Elrohir paused, lines of worry creasing his flawless Elven complexion. "I'll go. We must save Estel."
Glorfindel nodded. "It is decided then. Ithindel! Take the Lady Arwen, and ride to Caras Galadhon as fast as the elements will allow."
~~~~~~~
"Who are you?" Arwen demanded tremblingly. "What do you want with me?"
The figure smiled an evil grin. "That doesn't matter. All you know is that I have something you want."
"Estel," she gasped. "What have you done to him?"
The evil grin widened. "He's fine. Well, he's alive, that is." He paused. "But not for long."
Arwen's heart pounded. She had been right. All those months of waiting – they had not been in vain.
"But," the creature continued, and Arwen could see that it was losing shape as man and instead becoming a shadowy form of nothingness, "why settle for a ranger, when you can have an Evenstar?"
She recoiled. "You cannot take me! My body is safe within the bounds of Lórien!"
The voice grew more wicked at each word. "Unless you decide to leave Lothlórien. Unless, by your own free will, you ride into Mordor."
She suddenly understood what Aragorn had meant. "A trap," she murmured. "Well, it's too late for that! I won't go!"
A sudden blaze of fire shot out from the figure. It was now a great eye, a flaming, evil eye. "I think you will. Because I have something you care about."
The last thing she saw was a bent figure; a defeated figure. A dead figure.
"Estel!" she cried, and then the white light took her.
~~~~~~~
She awoke in a soft white bed, and upon closer inspection she found herself in a familiar talan. "Atara-ra?" she whispered, and Galadriel appeared at her side. "What happened?"
Her grandmother sighed and sat down. "A messenger from your party brought you in, with tidings of your quest. I ask you, Arwen, how could you do so foolish a thing?"
Her face fell. "I have to save him. I have to save him!" With a sharp intake of breath she remembered what she had seen. A trade. He wants a trade. "What can I do?"
"You can stay here, that's what you can do." Galadriel's voice was sharp. "I know what you saw. But there's nothing you can do except hope that your brothers will suceed."
Arwen nodded blankly. "I – I would not have gone," she said softly. "I know better than that."
Her grandmother stood. "Good. I'll leave you to your thought." She exited the talan in a whirl of white silk.
Arwen stood and made her way to the window. Before her stretched the fair land of Lórien, a cascade of golden foliage and rippling green hills. Always before the land had filled her heart with joy, but now it seemed as empty as her heart.
She walked down the long, spiraling stairs and through the bright glades of Caras Galadhon. At last she stopped in one familiar grove, flung herself onto a stone bench, and began to cry.
She tried not to think about him. She tried not to think what would become of him now. She knew that her brothers' quest was folly; that with the eye of Sauron himself watching and waiting, there would be no rescue.
It wasn't meant to end like this! she thought, sobbing. He was their last hope. My last hope.
She remembered the day, twenty years ago, when her life had changed right here in this grove. She had seen him coming toward her, clad in white, like a high king of the West.
Her choice had been made, and her doom appointed.
She walked further, not able to bear the memories. She ran, trying to escape them, for a time that could not be told. He is gone. It is over.
At last she collapsed in the soft grass, weeping. All around her head the elanor and niphredil gave off their sweet scent. Through a blur of tears, she realized where she was.
She stood slowly, as if in a trance, and kicked off her shoes. Up the hill she began to walk, slowly but surely, in an echo of the Midsummer twenty years past.
.
It was an evening of joy and laughter and light-headed kisses. All around her songs rang shrilly through the air, but the loudest one was playing in her own heart.
"Walk with me," he said, and they escaped the festivities in a flurry of running and laughing and holding hands.
Time seemed to stand still as they trod up Cerin Amroth. They didn't say a word to each other, but Arwen knew that the silence held a multitude of words, not the least of which were "Amin mela lle."
It was there, up on that green hill overlooking the land of her kin, that she knew she was ready to give up everything. It was there that she first knew she had found Him, the man she would love forever and beyond.
It was there that those three fateful words – Amin mela lle – were said for the first time. And as he had kissed her, as he had slid the heavy ring onto her finger, she had never been so sure and so unsure of anything in her long life.
They had looked to the Shadow in the East, and she had said to him, "Dark is the Shadow, but my heart rejoices, for you, Estel, shall be among those whose valor shall destroy it."
And he had looked at her, her eyes so full of confidence, and she had seen the fear that he tried so hard to mask. But through the fear she saw strength, and past the strength there was love. And in that moment the love grew so powerful that she forgot all else, and knew only that through it they would overcome anything.
.
Arwen sat on the top of the hill, teardrops falling like rain. At last she had to face it. She had made the long walk up Cerin Amroth, and this time she had done it alone.
Just as their fate was now hers alone.
She looked at the silver ring on her finger, and remembered all that it stood for. He was a King of Men, destined to reunite them and be their leader. But who was she? An elf maiden whose choice was to love him, for better and for worse, through the sweet and the bitter.
Two serpents there were entwined, but only one carried the fate of humanity on his shoulders.
And what is my role in all of this? she wondered. He was everything. Their chance. Their hope. And I? What is my purpose?
The cold terror in her heart reminded her that she already knew.
She took the ring from her finger and placed it in the soft grass. He would know where to look.
She wiped the tears from her eyes and stood.
It was a long way to Mordor.