A/N: The title for this chapter comes from the song Into the West from the soundtrack of The Return of the King and sung beautifully by Annie Lennox. The first time I heard this I was listening to my new CD while wrapping Christmas presents; I almost cried because the song was so fitting for Tolkien's tale and Peter Jackson's movie – bittersweet and haunting. Here is the relevant verse:

Hope fades

Into the world of night,

Through shadows falling,

Out of memory and time.

Don't say

We have come now to the end;

White shores are calling,

You and I will meet again.

And you'll be here in my arms,

Just sleeping.

It was an increasingly known fact that Legolas look beautiful in black. It was a color that he almost never wore; wood-elves tended to favor green, browns, and on special occasions silver and he was no exception. This hadn't changed much for him since he'd married Aragorn and moved into a city of Men, except that now there were a few blue, red, and white garments in mixed into his closet too. To the elf the color of his clothing was symbolic; consisting of the palate of the earth and moon when he was just the prince of the Woodland Realm, growing to embrace the more Mannish colors of red and blue when he bound himself to a Man, and adding in white because of its special ties to the city that had become his home.

Legolas never cared to wear garments solely because they enhanced his physical beauty. The complicated and dull debate over which color made which feature stand out more was, in his opinion, best left to the few servants who'd taken it upon themselves to worry about such nonsense. While it was a point of pride to appear put together and grand for the public at large he only cared that Aragorn thought him to be beautiful – and the Man had a way of seeing past physical appearances to behold the true beauty that came from within. As it was, it was only happenstance that anyone knew how striking the prince consort was in black. Legolas only owned one outfit that had black as its primary color: his funeral attire.

With slow, deliberate strokes that were only steady because all of his emotions were overwhelming him too much for any of them to truly take hold Legolas finished brushing his hair into place. After deftly weaving in the warrior braid in the back and placing his circlet upon his brow the elf rose to look at himself in the full-length mirror in the dressing area of his bedchamber. A stranger was looking back at him, or rather a strange version of himself did. Legolas stared, dazed; he wasn't used to seeing himself like this – completely formal and totally miserable.

The problem wasn't with the clothes themselves: they were of Mannish style; but he wore other garments like that often enough for it not to be odd to be wearing them now. The main piece of the outfit – the long black robe – was indeed exquisite, with careful thought put into the smallest details. A subtle pattern that gave the garment texture was embroidered all over it and polished but not shiny black gems served as the buttons. The tailor that had created it had been very proud of his work and rightly so, even though he knew that his prince would never take joy in wearing it.

He could not see under it but he knew what he wore there too; and that more than anything he saw in the mirror really drove home the solemnity of the occasion. Usually when he was forced to get dressed up in robes that were so formal they were long enough to hide his boots Legolas rebelled a little – he was, after all, the person who'd worn travel-stained leggings and worn-out boots under a robe made of the finest elven silks when he got married. That day, however, he wouldn't have been able to force himself to do that if he wanted to and instead opted to wear the black boots that were specially made for the outfit and the black leggings he was supposed to. Black, black, black, black, black; no real color, no light, just black – just like how he was feeling at the moment.

Legolas had been wearing funeral attire far too often as of late (well, technically this was the second time in what anyone would consider lately; but once was too often as far as he was concerned). Only a week before he'd donned the black outfit for Lord Eärnil's funeral. The occasion had been delayed longer than what most of the people of Gondor generally preferred until the prince and princesses were found and settled safely back into the city. Only then could everyone focus on their mourning and they did so wholeheartedly; the number of people present far exceeded the number of chairs available and the line to give condolences to the lord's terribly bereaved wife – widow now – seemed endless.

The elf painfully remembered how he struggled for words when he came face-to-face with Lord Eärnil's wife; and with his daughter and her husband, who were struggling to be strong for the old woman and the good number of weeping children around them. He would have given almost anything to say the correct thing that would have eased their suffering; but what words were there, really? Lord Eärnil had been an old Man who'd lived a good and full life and deserved to pass from the confines of the world peacefully in his bed surrounded by the people he loved and nothing he could think of could make the unfairness of the way he died any less potent.

Eventually he managed to get out, "The lord was a brave and true Man and I will never forget his courage. I am forever grateful for the sacrifice he made', but he knew that was the wrong thing to say. Legolas was certain that Lord Eärnil's family cared very little that he appreciated the fact that their husband/father/grandfather had been willing to risk his life and ultimately die for their king and prince's children. As they bore away his body to the family mausoleum they probably had wished that the old Man had been less brave and still alive. Legolas couldn't blame them.

In the end the elf prince had remained silent and still for the most part, holding Eldarion's hand and comforting the boy as best he could. He could feel the guilt radiating off of his son as they listened to testimonials given by many people; and Legolas was torn between wishing that his child had never asked to come and being proud of him for being grown-up enough to publicly pay his respects. He knew that Eldarion felt at least partially responsible for the Man's death; it only served to prove what a brave and mature king he would make that he was able to handle it with so much dignity.

Aragorn had been the last to give a testimonial, sharing a rather amusing and moving tale about the time when the deceased lord had yelled at him for acting like a spoiled brat and ended up thawing the stalled relations between the king and the Advisors' Council. The admiration and fondness he had for Lord Eärnil had been evident and Legolas had observed how those sentiments from the king had given the family a tiny bit of comfort.

'They needed all the comfort they could get, especially at that point,' recalled Legolas dismally.

The worst part of any funeral had happened once Aragorn had returned to his place at Legolas' side. Lord Eärnil's relatives had gathered around the Man's casket and carried it into their family's mausoleum and laid it reverently in the stone crypt that was to be the deceased Man's final resting place. Once it was settled in there the lid had slammed into place, never to be lifted and opened again. The sound had been harsh in Legolas' ears, echoing all around and oppressing the air with the heaviness and finality of it all.

And then like that it was over with. The guests had exited the mausoleum, leaving the family behind so that they could say their last goodbyes in private. But then what? How were they supposed to go back to their lives as they were before when there was a gaping hole left behind by the lord's passing? Somehow Lord Eärnil's family had to find a way to carry on as normally when nothing could ever be normal again. It was unfair, but it was also life and simply the way things had to be in the end.

Now…now it was Legolas' turn, his and his family's: the funeral for the baby he'd miscarried was staring in only a few short minutes. Thank Elbereth it was going to be a small, private service, restricted to include only to the members of the extended royal family. The Council had tried to tactfully insist that the citizenry of Gondor should also be allowed to attend or, if that seemed like too many people, at least the nobility but Aragorn had been unmoving in his resolve. The king who could be subtly convinced to go along with the sway of his advisors was gone; so was the prince who always considered the politics of a situation before his own private needs; and once the Council had seen that they had respectfully backed off.

Legolas was grateful for that. If things had gone otherwise he might have been compelled to lose his temper and then control over all of his emotions, causing his fellow advisors to treat him with even more care than they were already displaying. No, he and Aragorn needed to endure this privately; the elf couldn't imagine having to play the part of the prince consort as he stood beside his child's casket, and he could not and would not force Eldarion and Laurelin to be on their most stately behavior when they were already dealing with their grief in a remarkably mature, yet still childlike, manner. Gondor may have lost a member of its monarchy but the royal family had lost so much more than that.

Aragorn found Legolas like that, staring pensively into the mirror while too lost in thought to really see his own reflection, when he returned to their bedchamber already dressed for the day's somber events. The Man had to pause for a moment and make himself swallow his deepest emotions, just like he always did when he saw his husband in his funeral attire. This reaction wasn't brought on only because a tragedy had to occur before Legolas wore those clothes but also because of the first time he'd ever seen his husband dressed in them. It had been not in waking life but in a dream he'd had before they were married.

The Man still felt cold and frightened whenever he thought about it. In the dream he was dead and laid out for his own funeral while the beautiful elf stood mourning over his body. He'd seen Legolas linger beside him long after everyone else had gone until at last he left too, retreating to Mirkwood where, in that same black attire, he succumbed to his grief. Aragorn had never told Legolas or anyone else about that dream, which had made the surprise even more hideous when he'd found that the same outfit his husband had worn in it, down to the smallest detail, was among the official clothing that was made for the new prince consort soon after their wedding.

Yet the events of the dream were still (hopefully) several years off – if they came at all – and Aragorn couldn't let himself be distracted by his fear of them. The present was full of enough grief to make digging for it in a future that might not even happen unnecessarily cruel. What he had to focus on now was getting through the funeral and somehow living life afterwards.

Aragorn cleared his throat and was comforted to see that Legolas wasn't too far gone in his grief to not hear him. "I've spoken to the guards, my love," the Man said, finding his voice. Legolas turned his head heavily to look at him. "They've set up bassinettes in the Common Chamber for Meren, Gilraen, and for Ruby Gamgee too. I told them not to expect the babies to sleep much with all of the older children playing in there too but I think they're hoping that confining all of them to one room will make it easier to keep an eye on them.

"It was good of them to volunteer so readily to mind the twins and the hobbit children," said Legolas faintly.

"And Theomir too," Aragorn told him with a little smile. "That boy's going to be a handful too; he wants so badly to be there for Laurelin but Faramir and Eowyn don't think he's ready to attend a – funeral yet. We have excellent guards watching over the people we care about."

"I know," responded Legolas, his heart breaking a bit as he recalled how they forgot about that fact when they needed to remember it most. "I would have allowed them to…to attend if they'd have asked me to."

"They knew that they would be needed elsewhere," said Aragorn gently. "Please sit down for a moment, melanin," he added, taking Legolas by the hand and guiding him to the edge of the bed. "It's just the two of us now. The twins are in the capable hands of the guards, your father and Gimli have taken it upon themselves to make sure that Eldarion and Laurelin are dressed and tended to, and there's nothing that we have to be doing right now. Let's just…I don't know…"

Legolas let out a weighted breath and put his arms around his husband, smiling with painful understanding when he felt Aragorn's face crumple and his hot tears against the flesh of his throat. "I'm right here for you, always," he murmured comfortingly into the Man's ear.

"I know," replied Aragorn tearfully as he pulled away just enough to be able to wipe his eyes. "It's just that…that after I spoke to the guards I had to have a conversation with an errand boy working for the keeper of our family's mausoleum. It seems his master had many questions about our baby's marker: what it should say, what the dates should be. I was wholly unprepared for it…"

"What did you tell him?" asked Legolas.

"Nothing," burst out Aragorn in a self-loathing tone. "I couldn't think; I could barely speak coherently enough to tell him that I'd see his master later. Dear Valar, Legolas…"

Legolas silently cursed the audacity of the mausoleum keeper. While yes, he did abhor the idea of their baby's crypt being left unmarked for any period of time, that Man should have known better than to choose the day of the burial to approach the king about it. He'd had several days to give the matter thought; but then again, so had Aragorn and Legolas. "I'm sorry," the elf said sincerely. "We should have discussed those things earlier."

"All I can see is this barren plaque," lamented Aragorn miserably. "In that cold, dark place our child will lay with nothing more to commemorate her but two words: Princess Telcontar. She'll become a ghost story for future generation, a thrilling little mystery for when her true story is forgotten."

"Then we will put more than two words on her marker," vowed Legolas powerfully. "I don't like the idea of it just saying 'Princess Telcontar' – there are three Princess Telcontars besides her and I cannot bear to have a name that could refer to all of them on a crypt. Besides, she deserves to have a name at least, so that we may remember as a person instead of only a grief in our hearts."

"Do you have anything in mind?" wondered Aragorn.

"I think I'd like to call her Aredhel," replied Legolas softly.

"A lot of grief came to a woman who once bore that name," Aragorn reminded him gently.

The elf looked him in the eye, silently showing him the depths of his pain. "I know that grief comes with that name," he concurred. "Yet now it's her family that feels it. Perhaps if we take all of it upon ourselves there will be none left for her; that way wherever she is all she will know is joy."

"I hadn't thought about it like that," admitted Aragorn. He actually smiled a little, though it was full of mourning. "That's lovely, Legolas, and it fits perfectly. Princess Aredhel Telcontar – I will gladly bear whatever I have to if it means that she can exist free of pain."

"See: there's three words right there," said Legolas encouragingly, resting his chin on Aragorn's shoulder. The Man nuzzled one side of his face. "The dates will come next; she does have them, my love. We know what day she was conceived and what day she…died. Let those mark the beginning and end of her life."

"I can agree to that," said Aragorn. Legolas reached up and touched his bearded cheek. "Well, you have provided the name and dates; the epithet has been left for me." He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "I think it should be: She was a gift from the Valar. I can't claim to fully understand what they meant when they gifted her to us but we love her and all love is a gift, even when it comes to grief in the end."

"Is it any wonder that I fell in love with your poetic abilities before I fell in love with you?" asked Legolas. A strange feeling welled up inside of him: he could barely see for all the tears in his eyes and yet at the same time he felt better than he had in the past several days. He sighed and embraced the Man. "We will carry her in our hearts and be glad for it. As long as I have you and our children kept safe in mine I will be able to carry on."

The vision of Legolas turning gray and cold as he gave up his life in that abandoned meadow in Mirkwood came unbidden to Aragorn's mind once again. "And we do not know what lies beyond this world," continued the elf, unaware of the nature of his husband's turmoil. "I have faith that we will see her again."

Suddenly the sorrowful image of the dead elf was replaced with something almost entirely different; Aragorn could now see white shores and a wide green country – as Valinor was described, only more – beyond the confines of the world. There stood himself and Legolas – strong, ageless, and free of grief – in a beautiful field, smiles of pure joy coming to their faces as a little girl who looked very much like him while possessing the prince's elven poise ran to them with her arms open and inviting. "That's very promising," said Aragorn.

A soft, respectful knock sounded on the door. Legolas and Aragorn reluctantly withdrew their arms, although their hands sought each other out and clasped. Rising together and righting themselves the couple prepared for what was to come. "You may enter," called Legolas.

It was Thranduil on the other side of the door. The very fact that he, for one of the only times in his life, had knocked on his son's bedchamber door instead of just barging in was a sobering reminder of how no one quite knew how to carry on properly on the day of a child's funeral. "Ada," said Legolas, going up to him at once.

"My Little Greenleaf," breathed Thranduil tearfully, pulling him into a fierce embrace and fisting the back of his robe. While Legolas was but an elfling all that he needed was to be in his ada's arms and whatever had been troubling him would fall away. The elven king wished with all he was that the same thing would work now. He would have done anything, even taken on his son's grief himself, if it meant that he could spare Legolas from so much pain.

"Thranduil," greeted Aragorn as he came up tentatively from behind Legolas.

"Oh, Aragorn," said Thranduil understandingly as he hugged his son-in-law in his turn. It was only fate that he still dwelt in Middle-earth while Elrond did not; and were their places switched he'd hope – he'd know – that the elf lord would not let Legolas go through such an ordeal without the comfort of a father's love. While he knew it was a pale substitute for the bond between a parent and his child Thranduil had come to love the Man who'd married his son years ago and hopefully Aragorn could make do with that.

In fact Aragorn was more than just making do; if he couldn't have his father there his father-in-law was a worthy substitute in his eyes. "Thank you," he whispered before he stood up straight again. "Where is everyone else?"

"Outside in the corridor," answered Thranduil, nodding toward the open door. "Everything and everyone is ready to begin. We just need you two."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Outside the sun was shining brilliantly in a remarkably blue and cloudless sky. In the waning months of summer the horrible humidity had finally broke and the day was warm without being sticky, accompanied with a pleasantly cool breeze. It was the sort of day that practically required children to play outside until sunset and for adults to forsake their responsibilities for a time to join them. It was not a day made for mourning; and yet throughout all of Minas Tirith that's exactly what people were doing. They respected the reasons why they were not permitted to attend the funeral for their unborn princess but that did not keep the unseen cloud of bereavement from lingering all over the city.

Nowhere was the contrast between the beauty of the day and the heavy grief in the air more evident than on the small green patch of land right outside the mausoleum for the kings and their families. Gathered there were Merry and Estella; Pippin and Diamond; and Sam, Rosie, and Elanor (who had insisted that she was old enough to be there for her extended family). The young hobbit lass had her arm linked with that of Findowyn, who was standing next to the cluster of hobbits with Faramir and Eowyn. On the other end of group were Elladan, struggling to maintain his composure, Gimli with his head bowed, and Thranduil, whose tall brave countenance was betrayed by the look of sheer devastation in his eyes. Between Thranduil and the hobbits were Legolas, Aragorn, Eldarion, and Laurelin, all of whose eyes were riveted on the sight before them: the small casket set upon a stone platform.

Next to the casket stood Elrohir, who was feeling very helpless at the moment. During the planning stages of the funeral for the child he'd just found out was named Aredhel it had become clear that Aragorn and Legolas should not be asked to shoulder the responsibility of presiding over the service. The elf lord had considered himself fortunate when he'd gotten the task of conducting the funeral outside of the mausoleum while his twin and Faramir had ended up taking care of the part that would happen within; but now as the family looked to him to say the right words he found that none he could think of came close to being sufficient. Maybe there were no right words, for he could not imagine even his eloquent and wise father, Elrond, finding any.

"What can I say here today?" asked Elrohir rhetorically. He willed himself to look out into the pained faces of the crowd before him and had to marvel. It was a wonder how one little life could move those who were the greatest of all of the races so deeply. Well, perhaps marvel was the wrong term; that implied that he couldn't make sense of it when in fact he understood that feeling all to well. "What can any of us say here today that would help us begin to make sense of this tragedy?"

With a trembling hand Elrohir fingered the delicate design carved into the top of the casket and blinked rapidly. He was not as quick to cry as his more emotional twin brother but in this he could practically feel his stony and calm exterior crumbling. "People enter our lives and they also have to leave them," he continued. "This does not change no matter how much we love them and will miss them when they go, though it does make the parting pain us beyond all measure. Yet it is not the amount of time between the coming and the going that is important in the end, but the impact that they had – and will always have – on our lives. Aredhel will never truly be gone as long as we do not forget her, and our physical separation from her, I believe, is naught but temporary. There is more than just memory beyond this world and whether we have to wait until we've left it or until the ending of the world we will see her again. Sleep well, my dear niece, until our next meeting."

Bowing his head Elrohir stepped away, letting his hand linger on the casket until he'd walked to far away from it to reach. Before taking his place next to Elladan he stopped briefly to embrace Aragorn, Legolas, and their two eldest children. The grief had temporarily aged Aragorn decades and it was frightening to for the elf lord to see his younger brother looking so old. The depths of pain in Legolas' eyes were unfathomable and it was all that Elrohir could do to look at him straight on for even a second without weeping. However, the royal couple was doing a remarkable job of maintaining their composure; inside they were hunched over with grief but outwardly they were strong, for Eldarion and Laurelin's sakes if nothing else.

The children were a marvel as well. Little Laurelin was the only one of her immediate family who was crying openly, wearing the only pretty dress that she was loath to put on; but she did so quietly as she tried to let her parents deal with their grief without having to worry about hers. She clung to Legolas' hand and he held on tight. As for Eldarion, his jaw quaked and his eyelashes were wet but he stood as tall and strong as his fathers. Elrohir couldn't help looking at him and being reminded of a sapling of the line of the White Tree of Gondor that had become a young adult tree before anyone realized it. Both were a credit to Legolas and Aragorn, and together the four were a family that was meant to endure no matter what storms they were forced to weather.

Legolas waited until his brother-in-law had settled into place beside Elladan before he whispered a few soothing words to Laurelin and gently placed her hand in Eldarion's. Then, with steps that should have been too heavy to belong to an elf, he took Elrohir's former spot beside the casket. He'd planned to say something profound but found that he couldn't speak when he laid his hand upon it. Not even the knowledge that inside the dreadful box was only the garments he'd been wearing when he miscarried could help him distance himself from the pain even slightly.

"My," he began at last before he had to stop. Legolas needed to say something – he owed Aredhel that much at least and could not let her go without a proper goodbye – but his strength was failing him.

He cast a vulnerable gaze upon Eldarion and Laurelin before it settled on Aragorn. The Man had a supportive gleam in his eyes, willing his husband to recall something they'd agreed upon a long time ago. 'I don't have to be strong for myself,' Legolas remembered. 'I will be strong for him and he will be strong for me.'

Upon this realization it felt to Legolas as if Aragorn was transferring all of the strength the Man had to him and the elf knew that he could speak, if only to do the same. "Our children are made of light," he finally stated. "Eldarion is the light of surprise and first steps, the miracle whose spirit shines so brightly that even at his birth he was able to find me when I was lost between life and death to bring me back home. Laurelin is the light of experience and change; she lit the way to show me and Aragorn that we didn't have to be in constant fear that something terrible would happen as long as we had faith in ourselves, our children, and others. Meren and Gilraen are the lights of joy and strength, for now we have taken the lessons of the first two and have confidence in our ability to guide them in their journey of life; and we can now relax and enjoy doing so. And Aredhel…"

He paused and bowed his head until it was resting on the casket, feeling everyone's eyes boring into him until he raised it up once more. "Aredhel is the light out of dark places," he went on. "Aragorn and I – all of us, really – had lost ourselves as of late; to routine, to aging, to fear, to grief, and to more than I can mention now. It was Aredhel who helped us confront what we did not see, and did not want to see, about ourselves and led us back to the people that we should have been all along – and to the people that we love. I only wish that such a heavy burden hadn't been laid upon such a fragile light."

His voice broke but he refused to let that stop him. "My darling daughter," said Legolas in a labored tone as he turned away from the crowd to the casket. "Everyone here will carry the time you spent in this world with them to their dying days. I'm sorry – I'm sorry that it had to be you to guide me instead of the other way around, as it should have been. I love you."

Aragorn sucked in a deep breath when he saw a violent shudder run through his husband's bent body. He gave Eldarion's shoulder a reassuring squeeze and touched Laurelin's tear-streaked cheeks as both of them silently urged him to go before he hastened to Legolas' side. The elf didn't hesitate to embrace him; and they held each other for several moments before letting go just enough for Aragorn to rest his hand on top of the casket. "How we should measure the length of someone's stay in Middle-earth is a difficult thing to determine," he said, his voice shaking more than he would have liked it to.

Legolas' hand found its way to his shoulder and the Man felt bolstered by his love. "Five hundred years ago is ancient history to mortal Men and but a blink of an eye for an elf. The firstborn consider the waking of the elves to be a long time ago in their history and yet to the Valar it must seem to be just yesterday. But time in the Undying Lands is said to mean very little and I know in my heart that the same is true in what lies beyond Middle-earth. Perhaps where Aredhel now dwells it is only one breath that she will have to wait until she sees her family again. Wait for us, precious, precious child; and in the way you count time we will see you soon."

A hush fell over the family for a moment before Thranduil, mourning in the way of his kind, began to sing. The sad song was in Sindarin; what it said exactly about half the people present there did not know and yet soon they all chimed in as best they could. Legolas and Aragorn knew that it told the story of a child who was lost before her time, and together they whispered it as they lifted the casket and bore it into the mausoleum, leading the rest in the funeral procession. The others had all offered to do this heart-wrenching task but as agonizing as it was to do it, it would have been even more unbearable for the couple not to.

Weaving solemnly through the tombs belonging to the ancient kings and their loved ones they did not stop until they reached a smaller, open crypt that was still unadorned. Although both of their lives had been filled with difficult choices and tasks it was one of the hardest things that Legolas and Aragorn would ever have to do, lowering that casket into the crypt and then letting it go and stepping back. The small box and the clothing within were the only physical links they had to Aredhel and soon they would never look upon either again.

At this point Faramir and Elladan came forward. As the steward positioned himself by the crypt's heavy stone lid the bereaved uncle rested a flower plucked from the White Tree onto the casket. "Hiro hyn hidh ab 'wannath – may she find peace after death," Elladan translated for those who did not understand his words. He muffled his sorrowful cry and moved back. "And may that peace be everlasting."

"The blessings of love and fealty shall accompany her to wherever she may be released," added Faramir, swallowing hard as his eyes inadvertently drifted to his beloved wife and children. He honestly didn't know how Aragorn and Legolas were surviving this – if he ever lost one of his children he was certain that he himself would end up in a crypt soon after. In that moment he had a new understanding of his own father and the madness he had succumbed to when he'd believed that he'd lost his youngest son so soon after the death of his eldest. "Safe journeys, Princess Aredhel Telcontar of Gondor; you take a piece of each of us with you."

The crypt fell shut with a cold, shattering echo. Legolas suddenly remembered another funeral he'd attended long ago, after which King Theoden of Rohan stood before the mound of his son Theodred as he asked the elf if he had any words of comfort to say. None had come to the prince back then and words still failed him now. Nothing came to mind except the sentence that had brought King Theoden to his knees that day: no parent should have to bury their child.

The rest of the family, seeing that Legolas and Aragorn needed some time alone, started filtering out. Thranduil and Gimli gently rounded up their grandchildren, embraced the couple once more, and left; Faramir, Eowyn, and their children went too after saying their goodbyes. The hobbits followed suit, until Elanor stopped abruptly before stepping out of the mausoleum and hurrying back. "Strider, Legolas," she said nervously.

"Yes, Elanor?" asked Legolas kindly.

"I have – I don't know if this is the time – but," she reached into her pocket, pulled out a neatly folded piece of parchment, and handed it to Aragorn, who was closest to her. "I had a dream last night about…about Aredhel. I like to draw, you know, and this is what she looked like…"

Aragorn unfolded it reverently and could not hide his surprise when he saw the little girl from his vision earlier that day looking back at him. The light in her eyes was unmistakable and the smile spread across her face would have brought joy to even the most hardened heart. "Thank you," he said in a choked voice. "You don't know how much this means to me – to us."

"It's beautiful," nodded Legolas, mesmerized. He somehow knew in his heart that Eru had bestowed upon them the comfort of knowing what Aredhel would have looked like. "Thank you."

The hobbit lass offered them a small smile and departed, leaving Aragorn and Legolas alone with the picture and the crypt. "She looks so happy," observed Legolas as he gazed at the drawing.

"She is," replied Aragorn simply but certainly.

For the first time since they'd joined their family the pair finally gave in to their tears, weeping for their loss, their despair, for the strange bittersweet blessings that their unborn daughter had given them, and for the small comfort they'd received now. Aredhel was at peace but it would take a considerable amount of time before the same could be said of her parents.

To be continued…