Note: OK, I can't seem to stop today.
Athrana (Wandering Shadow)
Chapter 22- Visions and Revelations
TA3019, February
Arwen slowed her horse as they reached a clearing. They hadn't been travelling very long, two days, and they were going incredibly slowly. Arwen insisted they stop often. She dismounted as the horse stopped looking over her shoulder. Ever since they had left the valley she kept looking for a shadow behind them. She knew that Athriel hadn't kept her promise, at least about telling the twins. Maybe by now Erestor knew but she could see that Elladan and Elrohir didn't. Eventually she would have to tell them herself. Eventually.
"We are stopping again" They dismounted together. "We have been stopping a lot." They watched as Arwen looked around the clearing. "She has been looking for something ever since we left" Arwen had stopped looking around now and was sitting looking off into the distance. "Anyone would think she didn't really want to leave." They grinned at each other. The entire time they had been travelling they had both been convinced that at any second she would change her mind and demand they head back home.
Arwen looked off into the distance. Every step she took away from Rivendell it became harder to continue. Something deep inside her, didn't want her to leave. Every time they stopped Aragorn's face would appear in her mind. Was she abandoning him? Despite what he had said before he left, she doubted it was really what he wanted. But could she do it? Could she stay and watch him die, watch him age.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. She looked up to see, not the clearing in the trees she had expected, but a white stone hall. Aragorn stood by the window. He turned to look at her and smiled. Suddenly a small boy ran into view. Aragorn knelt down and picked the boy up as he ran into his arms. They both faced her now and she could see the jewel around the boy's neck. The Evenstar pendant, symbol of her immortality. She had to go back. She had to. If she didn't he would never be born, her son would never be born.
Arwen stood and ran to her horse. She had to get back; she had to get back now. As she mounted and made ready to leave she heard laughter from across the clearing. She stopped and looked at them, her brothers. "We are going back to Rivendell." Two eyebrows rose in unison. ""Is that so?"" Slowly they stood and walked over to their own horses. She knew that they were only doing it to annoy her, moving so slowly. Alright, maybe it wasn't so urgent that she get home right this second. She calmed slightly.
Then another thought struck her. Athriel. Athriel would be in Rivendell when they got back. She slid off of the horse again. They stood there confused for a couple of seconds before they said anything. "What's wrong Arwen?" "Have you changed your mind again?" She shook her head and sat down on the ground. "I just need to talk to you for a minute."
They humoured her sitting down on the ground as if they were elflings. Arwen took a deep breath. "I'm not sure how to... I mean, I don't know." She stopped closing her eyes. "I had a visitor before we left. She came to see me, to say goodbye I think. She wanted me to know the truth I think. She..." She opened her eyes again to see them looking at her concerned. They were always worrying about her. ""Who was it?"" She could do this. She could do what Athriel could not. It was better for all of them. Anything had to be better than the pain that had been living in their eyes all these years. "Athriel came to see me. She's alive and she's in Rivendell."
Within moments they were on their way again, not slowly as they had been before but thundering along at such a pace that by the time they stopped for the night their horses were exhausted.