Aman had many faces, and finding their way around their new home wasn't easy from the start for every Firstborn. Many long days would often pass before arrivals could find rest after leaving the grey ships, and before the final comprehension slowly started to set in that the darkness was now behind them forever.
People not being welcomed by family members who had already made their journey into the Undying Lands some time ago or had never left them in the first place, or people who weren't ready to deal with the residents of their new home yet, often sought remoteness at the white beaches of the harbor of Tol Eressëa for periods of time that would only have felt like half an eternity for short-lived beings like Men. There were times when you could see hundreds of them, lost in stagnation, flimsy garments blowing in the gentle wind, skin that enjoyed the sun in vague curiosity or growing memory. And the only companion, the wind, the waves, the gulls, all that would soon only be the subject of legends in Middle-earth.
There were no words for these elves who managed only slowly to turn away from their old life and what they'd left behind. Few of them were sleeping here, in the first few days at most, pillowed on the fine sand, to recover from the strains of the journey. Afterward, the mind quickly turned to all the thoughts and memories that the unblinking stare – brightened by a faint smile every now and then – at the ocean and the sky produced.
It was only when new ships were arriving or when one of the people waiting finished their period of resting and turned to whatever was waiting for them either in the wide areas behind them or after another short boat trip to the mainland, that there was a movement among the casually scattered silhouettes of beings who were never talking to each other, even if they knew each other, who weren't even looking at each other but who were processing, each by themselves, the realization that they were now dwelling in the light of the Valar.
There were many who had left their home behind in this Age. Now, the time of the Elves on Middle-earth was almost over. Part of the arrivals had even already left the island behind for good to face the new challenges on the mainland. Beaches were emptying, so slowly that short-lived watchers would probably hardly even have noticed because time, especially in these realms, had no meaning for elves.
Those who had already arrived some time ago and who were still dwelling here, either alone or in one of the settlements on the hills and in the mountains, in the wide valleys and the endless woods, agreed on one thing, no matter how rarely they addressed the pain of leaving their old world behind: It wouldn't take long now. The last of Círdan's ships would soon leave the harbor of Mithlond. The few elves whose hearts were still connected too deeply with Middle-earth to leave it would either fade with time or would have to find their own way to get here when the call of the sea would someday get too loud for them to fight it too.
A few of the Firstborn would wait for these stragglers for a long time … or maybe even till the day when the world would break and be remade. The worst thing about that was probably the uncertainty.
It had been long since Tegiend had left his days of resting in the harbor behind.
Under his father's guidance, he had quickly been taken to the others, because Vandrin just hadn't been able to wait for taking him in his arms any longer. He had had to wait for his son for too long – and contrary to their hope, he'd had to do it alone –, and he'd also worried too much about his daughter who had not accompanied Tegiend on his last journey against all expectations, to grant him more rest than strictly necessary. And Tegiend had never resented him for that.
Still, unlike most of the arrivals, he was being drawn to the harbor again and again. By now, he was in fact sitting almost every morning on an unpopulated, barren hill high above the beach that offered a clear view of the pier. Silently; in his huddled position and thanks to having been trained as a fighter for centuries, mostly undetected. He might no longer wear armor but simple green robes instead, and the traditional warrior braids had been replaced by his hair worn down, but his shoulders and his back were still always tense as if they were carrying the weight of the Lórien chest plate. His steps were short and swift as if he was making his way through the undergrowth; his eyes were fixed on the unmoving elves far from his lookout as if he'd still have to protect his people from danger.
And yet he wasn't guarding anyone. He was just watching.
When the morning fog wrapped its whitish fabric around the beach that not even a Firstborn's sharp eyesight was able to pierce, he turned his eyes to the sky, to the rising sun. The descending moon only ever managed to catch his sight for a few seconds before he closed his eyes that were darkened by bitterness, and lay back on the soft ground to listen to the sounds of the new day. Sometimes, that made him forget the time. And sometimes, it became the doom for his yearning for loneliness.
Enhanced senses wasn't something you could just turn off so easily, even when there was no reason for carefulness left. Therefore, not even the wet grass could muffle the light steps that approached him in a hurry this morning. A morning with particularly miserable weather, as if Aman tried to welcome its newest residents by showing its least friendly side, in spite of their noble blood. But a marchwarden could never be attacked from behind, not even in the twilight, especially not in a place accessible only by a single steep, narrow serpentine.
And if one had awaited that certain visitor anyway, the surprise was limited, too. Awaited and, admittedly, had looked forward to it, too, just not expecting it immediately. Tegiend would actually have bet anyone half of his possessions that this warrior, in particular, would stay on Middle-earth until even the last Firstborn there willing to go would finally pack their things. This elf had just been married to his duty for far too long. Sometimes it was nice to be wrong; however, he would have preferred to have at least some time to prepare for this meeting that would inevitably bring many fruitless debates.
"You're so much in a hurry to get on my nerves that you couldn't even leave the insignia of war behind?" He heard the visitor pause and smiled weakly, without sitting up or even opening his eyes. "You've drawn your dagger too often to teach me a lesson, to not know how it sounds when it clanks against your belt. A noise that I would honestly rather forget."
"Unlike my fellow travelers, I didn't waste any time with stopping in childish amazement. Instead, I saw it as my duty as your friend not to make you wait, Vandrinion. But my efforts don't seem to be appreciated." It was hard to offend a captain. You couldn't defend Lórien with weak nerves. But by the sound of it, Tegiend had just managed exactly that.
He laughed quietly and blinked up at his visitor, nodded sluggishly at the spot next to him. "It passes."
"What?" His old teacher followed the invitation in disconcertment. Heeding Tegiend's hidden criticism, too, he discarded his weapons before he sat down.
"The slavery of time. Every scream of the gulls, every morning under the light of the Valar loosens its chains around your soul further. In the end, it happened so fast that I can't even remember when I stopped counting the days. You think it would have made a difference?"
Tegiend quickly stopped the quiet admonishment. It wasn't proper, trying to teach your former trainer anything, even when you had long stopped being his pupil. Even though the two of them had been connected by such a deep friendship for centuries that the goodbye to this elf had been almost as hard for him back then as the one to his father before that, or the one to Tarisilya then.
"I'm not like the audience in the harbor who waits for even every smallest bit of news with wide eyes."
"Small bit of news, huh? How big must the rift between you and your sister be when you're denying your yearning for her so much? Not to mention that Lady Galadriel, Lord Celeborn, and Lord Elrond would have been very happy if you'd at least greeted them from afar. They missed you and your father very much, you know."
His friend shook his head in disbelief but was nice enough to drop the subject for the moment that he had put all other things in his new home in the background for.
Tegiend wouldn't have given him an answer anyway.
Tegiend's stubborn silence in the following minutes gave Haldir a least a chance to finally shed the restrictive parts of his armor until all that was left were camouflaging, green and brown breeches, and a thin, wide tunic which was a better choice for the sticky weather anyway. Until now, the part of him that had fought for Lórien's safety for so long, hadn't managed to bring himself to do this simple act. There were scary stories – legends, of course, but who would want to challenge their luck? – of elves who had still been exposed to the dangers of Middle-earth even on their way to Aman. His brothers and he had been the only ones unable to really relax on the trip.
Now there was no longer a reason to worry, in exaggeration or for real. Except for a close friend.
It hadn't been a secret in Lórien what had happened between Vandrin's children, at the latest since the end of the war. Even the love of elves could be shaken if it was stronger than it was good for the people in question.
Lady Galadriel had always foreseen this and warned Vandrin, but what should their father have done? Part the twins? Do exactly what had shaken this once so strong bond between them so deeply now?
Haldir had always doubted that anything about this situation could have been changed. He'd seen this almost unhealthily emotional bond restrict the siblings in their freedom, each in their own way, up close for far too long. Something not unusual for twins, as Lady Galadriel had once explained to him. It was the reason why Haldir himself had already put his own yearning in the background many centuries ago, that wouldn't have been of importance anyway as long as they had all dwelled on Middle-earth.
The Prince of Eryn Lasgalen had not had that restraint, and Tarisilya had been too young when she had met that hothead for the first time, to use more caution on her part. At some point, it had to happen that this path by another person's side would inevitably lead her away from her brother's. That had been in the making for almost a millennium.
And now Tegiend was sitting here next to him, staring at a beach that the one person he was missing would still not show up for a long time to come, so lost in his anger that he even denied himself the wish to learn how she was doing, so far away from her father and her brother.
"What do you think it is that you can tell me that I don't know?" Tegiend asked without taking his eyes off the gradually thinning fog. "My father was never able to let Middle-earth go. He welcomes almost every newcomer personally, just to hear about life there. It's not like has anything else to do, seeing as my mother apparently still prefers sitting around in the Halls of Mandos and letting him suffer. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't have ignored it that the dying have reared up one last time."
"Can you stop talking about that so disparagingly?" Haldir sounded harsher than intended, more tired than he would admit, after a journey burdensome for his condition that was not yet completely stable.
"Men, Elves, Dwarves, Ents, even Hobbits have achieved this victory together. They have finally defeated the shadow that lay upon Middle-earth for so long. And they did it without the help of an alliance like the one in the last big war. You think we would have been safe here forever if Sauron had won, Tegiend? You think darkness would never have found us again, one way or another? Only now it is over for everyone, including the people here. Men have made up for their mistake, and with their open support for the Fellowship of the Ring, the Elves made up for theirs. There's no reason to hold a grudge anymore. Our ways are parting in peace."
"The issues of Men were never the same as the Galadhrim's. Firstborn have enough problems of their own, and not all of them are solved just because there's one insane Maia less."
Tegiend didn't seem to be ready to deal with this matter any longer. He wrapped a long cloak around his shoulders and got up. "You'll see the first of them once you have lost your last excitement about a lost realm that will plunge itself into misery, again and again, no matter for how long treacherous peace might last. Until then, mellon, I can learn all I'm interested in from my father, as I told you already. And there are only a few things falling into that category right now."
"I have not dismissed you yet, Vandrinion." Haldir hadn't been gone from Lórien long enough yet to be able to forget the bossy tone of a leader already.
Tegiend laughed again, cynically this time. "Did you look around you even once since you jumped from your boat? We're no longer in your small, pretty world under the mellyrn. This is the reality of elves that it should always have been, and I will never raise my sword for anything again. So in case, I forgot before my departure: I hereby officially quit my duty, Captain."
"I still remember quite well how to incapacitate you with a single hit, my brash friend. It wouldn't be the first time for me to use my sword to keep you from running."
"Don't be ridiculous." Tegiend turned away – and paused when Haldir let his fingertips wander over his right shoulder blade, over an old scar, hardly visible anymore. The spot that had once been littered with deep wounds from a warg's claws.
This was probably a really stupid idea … But maybe this first approach that Haldir had denied himself for almost a millennium was exactly what it took to get through to this stubborn elf.
It wasn't a supportive touch, but also not the merciless grip of a training partner meant to paralyze Tegiend, at least not to achieve a stale win in a playful sparring lesson. It was a slow, thoughtful, very light gesture, bordering on a kind of tenderness that Haldir had only rarely been able to feel in his life. But what little far-off memory was still flickering inside him said that sometimes, even the smallest flame of warmth could burn first cracks into the ice of a frozen heart.
"Was it two or three nerves that they couldn't save? I saw you collapse more than once when someone's blade hit your armor here. Don't make me. I'd like to avoid having to inflict pain on you ever again."
"What exactly do you think you're doing right now? And it's been three nerves. Back then, Ilya's healing abilities weren't as legendary as the elves say they're nowadays," Tegiend replied with clenched teeth. "Are you happy now that you've heard her name from my lips? Do you enjoy torturing me with the memory of her? I hated no one more than you for this tenacity, Captain of the marchwardens, and you were by my side like no other when my burden threatened to choke me. If I'd still had any doubts that no one but Haldir ó Lórien would have the audacity to even think about raising their weapon in Aman, I now know that it is indeed you. And I didn't forget what your blades can achieve. So stop threatening me, because I will never go to battle ever again."
For long seconds, you could have cut the air between them with a dagger indeed.
"At least not to one that is fought with a sword and a bow." When Haldir lowered his hand abruptly, Tegiend realized with quite a bit of confusion that he was missing this closeness immediately that had completely overwhelmed him just a few seconds ago because his former captain was the last person he'd ever expected it from.
"It's not me torturing you, mellon. It was you who chose to feel this hate for a world that robbed you of what you loved most in your life. And yet it is this very world with its many miracles that is keeping alive what you always fought for the hardest – Tarisilya's happiness."
"This happiness cannot depend on a place that was never anything more for her than a huge playground."
Tegiend clenched his fists when a face appeared in his mind that he had long managed to forget about. "She's given her heart to the only elf of all people who makes her a slave of her own love. He didn't even have the guts to stand by her on the night of our greatest grief for Mithrandir. Even back then, he lured her to a dark clearing so that no one would learn anything about it, as if this love was something wrong. That was when she finally realized that she had to sail if she didn't want to be destroyed. I thought I could bring her to safety. And then she turns back on the middle of the road because he's seduced her with pretty words once more. Forgive me that I don't have much love for His Highness of Mirkwood."
Since he didn't get an answer for a long time, since all he could hear was the howling of the wind growing louder and the nagging protest of a few young gulls in the distance, he finally turned around again after all, though he'd actually just decided to lock himself in his talan until none of the recent arrivals would try to bother him with some kind of news anymore.
Everything else that the two of them should apparently long have straightened out, would have to wait for now, probably for another few centuries. At least they were used to that already …
Tegiend gasped in terror when Haldir silently pulled up his tunic and turned around to reveal a broad, ugly scar covering his whole back, one that you would usually only expect to see on a very dead elf. A scar that had not yet been there when Tegiend had left Middle-earth. Yes, they had told him that his former superior had been injured in one of these last battles – but no one had said anything about this.
Only now, an iron fist around Tegiend's heart shattered a wall of rationality, distance, and shyness that he hadn't even known existed when he realized how close he'd come to losing this elf that he felt so deeply connected to, for probably far longer than a few years of living in different places. For the first time, he consciously felt the fear of having to let someone incredibly important to him go who was not his father or his sister.
He felt just as floored as overwhelmed by this sudden realization but he would have to deal with the chaos in his emotions once he no longer had to fight the urge to snap said elf's neck. For Haldir getting himself into this situation alone, that he'd come out of with a wound like this. A wound that looked as if his former captain was only standing here right now because his lousy mood had got so much on Mandos' nerves at the entrance gate already that the Vala had changed his mind.
"What happened? This didn't happen in Lórien, did it? Did they breach the borders?" The question escaped from him before he remembered that he had stopped caring about Middle-earth after his departure, that he had fought for it long enough and that only foolish elves were still living there. He realized with a pout that he didn't manage to be as indifferent as he'd tried to be after all. If you'd given a realm your all for a thousand years, you couldn't just forget its untouched beauty.
"No. There's hardly anything left in Lórien that needs protection," Haldir answered, calmly as if that was the most natural thing in the world.
"It was only the love of Galadriel that has kept the last magic in our home alive, and now that she, too, is finding well-deserved peace in these realms, the Golden Wood will soon be no more. Soon, it will be only legends that will tell about magic in treetops. But it was not doing my duty for our last remaining friends that almost ended my first life, but for the Men of Rohan. And once they'd patched me up well enough to stand on my feet again, Lady Galadriel, my brothers and I rode out with the last of us to tear down the walls of Dol Guldur and restore the woods that are now called 'Eryn Lasgalen' to their former beauty. Afterward, the healers had to start over and the Lady locked me up in my talan until the day we left for the Havens, but it's been worth it. The two realms are no longer at war."
Only now, Tegiend realized Haldir hadn't changed the subject at all. With a single sentence, he'd just rendered all of his reasons for prejudice against Tarisilya's betrothed and Tegiend's worry for her irrelevant. So the last elves of Middle-earth were indeed at peace now as well.
He only realized that he'd said it out loud when Haldir nodded, briefly as was his way but with a glistening in his bright eyes hard to ignore. In the course of the last few centuries, more and more elves had become tired of the quarrels between Galadriel and King Thranduil. It wasn't just Tarisilya who had been hoping for such a message about reconciliation for a long time.
"I hope that soon, even the last disputes prevailing even here will be settled and that nothing can disturb the elves living together in this realm anymore then. Accept this happiness in your heart, Tegiend, or it will shatter like crisp ice. And you're far too good for that." Only at these last few words, the same affection, still quite cautious, that was shaking Tegiend, shone through Haldir's rare smile. Their hands didn't touch for more than a second before they backed away almost at the same moment, sensing that this conversation would become even harder if they gave in to this now.
"It's too late for that." Vandrin had often tried to talk to Tegiend about the same subject, but now someone got to see more than a distorted smile, got to hear more than monotone phrases for an answer for the first time.
Haldir and he had long been connected by a relationship that had you ignore tears in the other's eyes and made you offer them a shoulder to lean on anytime for any reason. Whatever more there was between them, Tegiend didn't want to start it with a lie in any case. So he allowed it that arms that were still very muscular in spite of laying around for so long, were being wrapped around his upper body. He let the weight that had just been lifted from his heart melt into a deep sigh that elvish ears could hear a quiet sob in, too, against this unnaturally broad shoulder.
"I guarded her all my life, ever until she forced me to leave her alone in the middle of the worst danger. She asked me not to hate her, and I smiled at her to not break her heart, but what am I supposed to tell her, should she ever find her way here, given she won't stay there forever anyway? She would immediately know that I lied. This hill is the place where I need to wait for her arrival because the moment she leaves her ship, I will leave for someplace far from here in this realms, so that my own weakness will not plunge her into darkness."
"Who of us can't forget the burden of time right now?" Haldir asked leniently, with a slow caress over Tegiend's suspiciously trembling back. "Love is neither shrinking if you're around the other person for a while, Tegiend, nor if it focuses on more than one person. It just grows bigger, stronger, more mature. If you can't understand that, not even Ilya's return will be able to revive the life in you. And the pain when you depart from hers for good will make all the waiting and all the efforts meaningless because she wouldn't be able to deal with that either. You're lucky there's still time before that happens. Until then, you will learn. How to forgive, among other things. Let this help you a little."
He took a thick roll of parchments from his cloak and gave it to Tegiend. "What they gave me in Imladris to pass on to you may show you that you're not the only one with the heart and the will to take care of the Princess of Eryn Lasgalen."
"Of the …?" The question got stuck in Tegiend's throat.
Tarisilya, a Princess. An elfling's dream that had taken a depressingly real shape in the course of the centuries and had yet still been just as unreachable – until Tarisilya had come back from a trip to Rohan wearing Galadriel's Blessing on her finger, a very special betrothal ring.
A second, identical version of that ring, on a silver chain tied to the yarn wrapped around the rolls, fell into Tegiend's hand when he opened an additional dark green seal on the roll that he'd never seen before. A long, gold blond strand of hair had been wrapped around the jewel, the last few inches of it thinly, firmly braided. Tarisilya was very good with such things. But what had glued Tegiend's eyes was the drawing he held in his hands.
With glowing, bright colors, one of the very talented, artistic she-elves of Imladris had created a detailed illustration of Tarisilya that showed her in a red and silver dress, standing in front of the very elf that Tegiend had been projecting his hate onto for centuries because he hadn't known how else to handle it that Tarisilya had grown distant to him more and more. Wearing a festive robe from his realm, Legolas Thranduilion was putting a narrow golden ring on Tarisilya's right forefinger in this picture, standing in a protective circle that Galadriel and His Majesty Thranduil were giving the couple their blessing with.
"They said, she cried a lot over you not being able to be there." Again, Haldir put a hand on Tegiend's back, when a storm had him tremble that blew away all negativity bit by bit so that the realization could hit him, finally, that Tarisilya was exactly where she had wanted to be.
"But time was short. The reconciliation of the two realms demanded an official gesture. Now, this testimony of the bond between two of their children shall bring the tidings to these lands as well. Keep the pictures, I have another copy."
Haldir seemed to sense that Tegiend would need a little time to process this news and said goodbye with a quick pat on his shoulder.
"Wait." Tegiend had tried to get rid of his friend just a few minutes ago, but suddenly, his heart was longing to learn more about this miracle that no one had thought possible … And it was also longing for other, at least as personal matters that had already been unspoken between his former captain and him for far too long. While he was glad that Haldir gave him a chance to put himself together again, Aman was a big area if you wanted to talk to someone who'd just only arrived and didn't have a real home yet. "How will I find you?"
"I will find you. Very soon. I promise." Haldir turned away and ran down the hill, cheerful, impatient as usual, towards old friends and his new life.
Tegiend dropped onto the grass heavily. The longer he stared at the drawing, the more details he noticed.
The little garden of the guesthouse in Lord Elrond's realm where Tegiend had once watched Tarisilya's and Legolas' relationship begin. Elrond himself, in the background, radiating silent sadness and yearning, the knowledge that his own daughter would soon get married too and that he would lose her forever then. And Tarisilya's beaming smile in particular.
There were a few other images of the wedding, but this smile remained the same, mirrored on every face. Every now and then even, Tegiend could even see it on Elrond and on the only man in the crowd that the caption called "Elessar, the resurrected King".
Arwen's picture captured Tegiend's gaze for a long moment, too. The way she was holding Tarisilya's hand revealed that the newfound Princess of Eryn Lasgalen did still have a lot of support in her old world.
Tegiend lowered the roll with a sigh whereupon two last, smaller pictures fell towards him that had been stuck to the one of Elessar and Arwen thanks to the long journey and being in a rolled state for so long.
One of them was showing the bridal couple again. They were no longer at their wedding though but on a forest clearing entirely unknown to Tegiend. No matter how little time might have passed between these two dates, the changes were impossible to ignore. Wearing a high-necked, precious dress and a few jewels in her hair, Tarisilya was visibly very aware of her role by a Prince's side and didn't need an extravagant circlet like Legolas to radiate serenity, sobriety, and care.
Child of the moon – Breath of Men
for Ithilien, the garden of Gondor
But Tegiend only saw all these details from the corners of his eyes. What really captivated him was the swelling under Tarisilya's dress and her chubby face. She was pregnant.
With this discovery, the last illustration couldn't surprise him anymore. It was showing his sister and her husband standing in that certain garden of the guesthouses of Imladris again. The gold blond elfling on Tarisilya's arm was cheerfully pulling her hair while Tarisilya had put her head on her husband's shoulder in a moment of silent happiness.
A bright drop of salt fell on the parchment, leaving a small stain right next to the lovers' faces before Tegiend remembered to put the parchments away. Tarisilya couldn't have given him any bigger gift. He would honor them, just like the memories of his sister that were now no longer marred by aggression. His eyes had been opened and when you looked into blazing light, it usually left you in tears.
After a last look at the beach, he turned away, taking a deep breath. There was no more reason to keep watch here. If Tarisilya and her husband would leave Middle-earth at some point, he would know. The time that the two of them would need to recover from their journey then, the time until the message of their arrival would reach Tegiend's and Vandrin's settlement, wouldn't make a difference anymore. Time had no meaning for elves.
He hadn't heard his second visitor today coming. Apparently, you could even overwhelm a marchwarden if you just waited for the right moment. Tegiend had had no idea that his father had known where he had been spending his mornings, but he was happy about the support, the long embrace that he had had to do without for so long.
There was no doubt that by now, Vandrin had learned what had happened as well. His eyes were shining more than they had on any day since Tegiend's arrival. "Time to go home."
He had always accepted it silently that Tegiend hadn't wanted to talk about what had been so heavy on his heart but his relieved expression revealed that he had long contemplated it. Unlike Tegiend, he had never resented his daughter for her decision though that decision was probably one of the reasons why the two of them had been waiting for another family member in vain so far. His wife had promised to watch over Tegiend and Tarisilya from the Halls back then, until their paths might bring all of them back together here one day. Maybe Tegiend could at least try and share Vandrin's opinion from now on that his mother's lack of presence was reassuring, not disappointing.
Vandrin was also radiating a little amusement though. "Was that Haldir I just saw giving you a piece of mind by any chance? Well, about time." There was something in his father's very deep voice that Tegiend had never heard before – simply because he had had no idea what to look out for. Curiosity, silent happiness, a hint of natural caution. "I hope I'll see your captain for dinner in the foreseeable future."
"If you're seriously going to tell me now that you knew the whole time …" Tegiend started.
Vandrin laughed quietly, a rare and therefore all the more beloved noise, even when it was at Tegiend's expense. "Everyone who wasn't blind, deaf, and completely dull knew that, ion. There was just no one with the guts to tell two of the most legendary warriors of Lórien that they were acting like pining younglings."
Tegiend rolled his eyes a little but remained silent, simply too upset still by everything else that he had just learned to wonder now about that, too.
"Don't pick a date for a wedding ceremony yet, will you? There's no hurry."
Without another look back at the place that had kept him prisoner for so long, Tegiend accompanied his father down towards their village, holding the parchments firmly in his hand. It would be a long, busy day. Excitement – hopefully only of the positive kind – would shake Aman for a while before life among the individual groups of their people would go back to normal.
From now on, he would be a part of it.
No matter how long it had been since he'd left Middle-earth behind, it felt like he'd just come home for a second time.
