Title: The End Has Come.
Author: B-witched83uk (bwitched83ukaol.com)
Rating: PG-13
Summary:
Disclaimer: I do not own The Lord of the Rings. The whole of Middle Earth belongs to Tolkien.
Dedication: All the friends I have made through fanfiction, my fellow authors and lovely reviewers. Big cuggles to you all x.
A/N: The children and Grandchildren of Aragorn and Arwen are blessed with long life, therefore they will not look as old as they are. Eldarion will still only look about 35 and his daughter will look about 20
Additional info: Aragorn and Arwen's children:-
Eldarion 72
Galadwen 69
Celebriel 66
Luthien 64
Silmai 49
Aragorn and Arwen's grandchildren (only the ones that feature in the story.):-
E: Estelai 45
G: Gwydion 39
E: Elwing 38
Important back ground information: Legolas married Galadwen, Aragorn's eldest daughter. Eldarion, Aragorn's only son, married Ithiliwen, Eomer's daughter. The other children are not in this story, as I thought it would get bogged down with too much detail. Any writing that appears in italic is a flashback. It is not necessary that you have read all of my previous fics, all 20 odd of them, so long as you understand the family's ties to one another.
This will be my final fic as I feel that I have taken my characters as far as they can go. All your favourite characters will be in this one, including two new ones. The prologue is necessary for the rest of the story, I know you don't know the first character we come to but please stick with it, you will grow to love him lol.
A huge thank you to Jenny aka The Last Evenstar for editing this and being my Tolkien know it all, I am forever in your debt Petal. And a huge thanks to all of you who have been reading my stories over the last 9 months, you don't know how happy you have all made me. x
The End Has Come
Prologue
Gwydion, the only son of Galadwen and Legolas, lay silent in his bed. His sleeping form shuddered violently, and his brow and bare chest wept with sweat. The smell of the sea filled his nostrils, both comforting and frightening him. His eyelids began to flutter softly and he let out a sharp groan.
It was inside his head as it had been many a time before. His dreams were no longer his dreams. They had been taken over. This dream was like many before it; it had started out pleasantly enough.
The beautiful lady entered through his open window, floating through the cool night air. She would stand before his bed, smiling at him and holding out her hand. "Awake, my Prince, and take my hand. The light has long since waned and the sea calls ever strongly." Her voice was a waterfall of silver.
Gwydion would sit up in his bed and hold out his hand for the woman, who seemed to sooth his entire being. Before he reached her hand, another would always join them - a man, although that was being kind. It was a man who had seen better days. His grey hair tangled with seaweed, his skin looked as though it had been emerged in water for thousands of years. His eyes were ocean blue, and they fixed on Gwydion with a gentleness he knew he could trust.
The man also extended his hand, barnacles on almost blue skin. "The sea calls ever strongly; your time has come to join us."
Gwydion would take both the lady's and the man's hands, and before he knew it, he was in a different time and place.
He didn't know how he knew where he was, as he had never actually seen it before, but he knew this place had to be the Grey Havens, the harbour, the gateway to the Undying Lands.
It was always twilight, the hour before the sun had firmly risen. He would look to the man and lady, on either side of him, and wait for them to tell him what to do.
"I aearon can bell," they would tell him in unison.
The sea calls ever strongly
He would walk closer to the edge of the sea, allowing the ice-cold water to splash over his bare feet. Deep inside of him, he knew he had to go in to the water, but he found himself frozen with a crippling fear. In waking life, he had no fear of water; in fact, he had no fear whatsoever. Turning his head to look once more at the man and woman, he desperately waited for reassurance.
"I glaur a i ithildin dar an lle." Their voices mixed together like music.
The golden light and the moonshine are waiting for you.
"I cannot go in; I am afraid," he would say, his voice resembling the small child he had not been in some time. "I am afraid of what lies beneath."
"Ennas al nad na achas; achas man dar men na beleg."
There is nothing to fear; fear is what stops us from being great.
He would turn back to look at the sea, and hear a faint whisper of words on the rolling waves. Something, whatever it was that they wanted him to retrieve, would whisper to him, would beckon him into the cool water.
The whispering that come from the sea would be beautiful, soothing yet eerie. He would then begin to give in to his body, which would tell him not to fight it, to emerge himself in the cool liquid. He would begin to wade into the sea, gasping as the icy water would lovingly caress his skin.
A great need would then go through him, a desperate desire to find what lay beneath the surface and hold it in his hands; never share it with the rest of the world. The need he would feel for something he has never even seen would frighten him further. He would shakes his body, trying to rid it of the passion and fear it would be feeling, and run out of the water, his steps made heavy by the waterlog.
When he would reach shore, he would stops, breathless, in front of the man and woman. The look they both give him would make his chest tighten and hurt. They both look disappointed and greatly pained.
They gently shake their heads at him, and fade before his very eyes.
That is when Gwydion would wake up, sweating, shaking, feeling the need to be sick. The cool air from his open window begins to dry his skin and he settles back down in bed, safe in the knowledge that it was only a dream.
Chapter one
The beginning of the end
The night had long since grown cold. The world had long since aged. Much that once had been was no more. The people of Middle-earth had started speaking of the Elves as though they came from legend and not history; angelic beings all but gone.
Rivendell had been all but abandoned, bar the solitary Elven lord that now remained. Elrohir felt the call of the sea each morning he woke, and in every breath he took. He was old. He felt as old as the very foundations of the earth.
His heart had been broken when he had lost his mother, all those years ago. His father had long since traveled to Valinor to join her. He missed them, he ached for them.
His brother, his twin, the other half of his soul, had spent the past few decades in Gondor, with their sister and her family. Elladan no longer depended on him as once he did. So why was Elrohir still here, in this place of ghosted memories, where none found peace, alone and so cold?
The Elves had all but gone, yet he remained. Inside his heart he knew why. He had known it was coming since his father had left. A choice, a decision, lay before him; a decision he dreaded with pure desperation.
He knew that to leave now for Valinor would force his brother to make a choice, a choice that was made by another so long ago. Elrond and his brother Elros had been told to choose between immortality and power. If Elrohir left for Valinor, then his brother would either have to leave with him or stay and except a mortal fate, for history would repeat itself and they would have to make the choice as did Elrond and Elros.
Aragorn looked down at the Evenstar pendant gracing his neck. He let his rough fingers glide slowly over the cool silver, his eyes drifting shut. Arwen's scent filled their chambers; it always did. It was the first thing he smelled in the morning and the last thing at night, flooding his senses, giving him a sense of ease.
His now greying hair fell about his face, framing the soft lines and crinkled eyes. Aragorn was the embodiment of masculine beauty. Although he had aged, he had aged well. He was still able to make the serving girls' hearts flutter as he bid them good morning.
His fingers closed around the pendant, the symbol of the love he shared with his beautiful wife. His life had begun the day they met; his heart had beat for the very first time. At first he had thought it a mere dream, because how could something that lovely truly exist? He remembered the night she had given him the Evenstar, the night before he left with the Fellowship. He remembered how she smelt, how she looked, and how she felt when she had placed her lips against his own.
"You cannot give me this." Aragorn's voice was a rasped whisper, desire and pain flowing from his mouth.
Arwen simply smiled with warmth and love, and closed his fingers around the pendant. "It is mine to give to whom I will." She looked deep in to his grey eyes and knew that if he did not come back from this quest, what need would she have for her immortality? She would already be dead. Every time he left her, something inside of her died. Something just stopped. He already had her heart, she had given it to him on the fair hill of Cerin Amroth. "Like my heart."
Her lips were warm as she leaned in gently, giving him all of her and taking as much in return.
"Are you ready for the feast, meleth?" Arwen's soft voice filled his head, waking him from his thoughts and making him smile.
He turned to look at his wife, a vision, an apparition, who, for some reason, chose to grace him with her presence. He could do nothing but nod as he took in every inch of her. Her figure had not changed greatly; she was still slim and soft. Her hair still as black as shadow, her eyes as bright as stars. Arwen's full red lips turned up in to a smile.
They had spent over a hundred years together and he still looked at her each night as though he was utterly ravenous, as though he needed to touch her, taste her. Arwen held out her hand for him to come to her, which he wasted no time in doing.
"You still take my breath away." His whisper against her pointed ear made her shudder softly, and pull his body close to hers. She rested her head in the crook of his neck, as his hands smoothed through her soft hair.
They simply stood there, holding on to one another, for what seemed like hours. They both knew that the end was coming. It would not be long now before they were parted in this world, only to be reunited again after death. For what was death? Just another path, one that we all must take. The love between Aragorn and Arwen was stronger then the very foundations of the earth, a trivial thing such as death would never change that.
TBC
Next chapter: The feast.
