Disclaimer: Niether the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, nor the Lord of the Rings belongs to me. I am simply borrowing them, as well as the chacter Arwen to use in the only thing that accually belongs to me: this story. Another thing I don't own is this computer. I do own, however, the tape around my fingers.
The Bitterness of Mortality.
And bitter it was, long and slow, yet fast as the time slipped between her fingers like the sand on the shores of the fabled Valinor she had chosen to forsake. She chose the mortal life, so she could join him, in life and beyond, though that hope had faded long ago.
Her eyes were empty and as hollow as they had been, if not more, the day she learned that he chose to at last leave this world in glory. She no longer could weep, the tears spent eternities ago. Maybe she wasn't allowed to join him; maybe the Valar chose for her a different path-one that she walked down in sorrow everlasting until the breaking of the world.
"Estel, Estel!" she cried to the dim morning light, growing behind the far mountains, her eyes roamed the lands below her, the City of Kings within she dwelled. Still in glory it remained, as much as it had all those Ages ago when Elendil and Gil-Gilad and all the great kings had walked the earth.
She knew that her time was coming to leave the City at last, and in her mind she preserved a faint destination that she dared not think of until she got there, lest the memories overtook her as they so often did.
She bid farewell to those she loved most, her son the King and her fair daughters and her young hand-maiden, Elanor Samwise Gamgee's daughter. She kissed their brows, and watched them weep the tears she could not, and with a sigh she turned her back upon the City of the Men of Númenor.
Her travels were long and she spent much time wandering the lands she had known as home for so long, she came to Mirkwood and wandered among the darkened forest for many miles, and then she bid farewell to the home of her Woodland kin. She traveled for many days, un-sure of where she was going, until she came upon the familiar dwelling of Imladris. She stayed for many days, but her heart ached and she knew that it was time to depart.
Lothlórien was much the same as she remembered if a little less golden and joyful and magical than it had been when the Lord and Lady dwelled here before they departed over the sea into the West. It was a forsaken land now, and she could faintly hear the voices of the trees and the wind singing sorrowful of the passing of the Elves. She walked for days until she came at last to the place she longed to be, though not quite. She came to Cerin Amroth where the leaves had once been golden and bright and laughter and songs had once echoed through the trees, but no more.
Lying down upon the fading grass among the elanor and nipherdil beneath one of the many great mallorn-trees, she closed her eyes, letting the memory flood her mind.
Then for a season they wandered together in the glades of Lothlórien, until it was time for him to depart. And on the evening of Midsummer Aragorn Arathorn's son, and Arwen daughter of Elrond went to the fair hill, Cerin Amroth, in the midst of the land, and they walked unshod on the undying grass with elanor and niphredil about their feet. And there upon that hill they looked east to the Shadow and west to the Twilight, and they plighted their troth and were glad. And Arwen said: "Dark is the Shadow, and yet my heart rejoices; for you, Estel shall be among the great whose valour will destroy it."
But Aragorn answered: "Alas! I cannot foresee it, and how it may come to pass is hidden from me. Yet with your hope I will hope. And the Shadow I utterly reject. But neither, lady, is the Twilight for me; for I a mortal, and if you will cleave to me, Evenstar, then the Twilight you must also renounce." And she stood as still as a white tree, looking into the West, and at last she said: "I will cleave to you, Dúnadan, and turn from the Twilight. Yet there lies the land of my people and the long home of all my kin."
She smiled faintly at the memory, clear as fire in her mind and how her heart burned with sorrow and regret for not being able to join him, and for turning from the Twilight forever. But her choice had been made, and she was glad it was the one she had chosen to make.
With a soft sigh, she turned her head from the West; turning at last and forever from the Twilight and the home of her kin. Come the morning, both she and the Twilight would be only memories within the Ages of the world.
Her choice had been that of Lúthien, whom she was said to look alike, and was often mistaken for: but her choice was the same, to love a mortal man was to die, but she did not regret that. With the dying of the light upon Cerin Amroth, Arwen Undómiel said her last goodbye.
But she chose mortality, and to die from the world, so that she might follow him; and it is sung that they met again beyond the Sundering Seas, and after a brief time of walking alive once more in green woods, together they passed, long ago, beyond the confines if this world.
THE END