A gentle starlight turned the Bruinen River to liquid silver in the deepening night. The wood elves had made a sad procession with their dead comrade up to the edge of the valley along a winding stair. Now they stood at the eastern rim of the valley and their songs came filtering down on the soft evening wind.
The dwarven party had done the same earlier in the day. There were two new graves along the cliff tops where the bodies of men and elves were already mingled. The graves of the elf and the dwarf would be joining the line of little cairns. Each of which bore signs of the sadness of this long and hopeless age. Each piled high with the stones of the valley, overgrown with wildflowers and painted with ancient lichens.
From where Arwen and Dagnir sat, the pale light shone through the assembled crowd of distant figures. They occupied a bench along with many of the household who wanted to pay their respects without making the climb. The Greenwood warrior had chosen to stay back on the long, curving veranda in order to avoid the indignity of being carried up the narrow path. Arwen had not wanted him to be alone. They watched Elrond exit the house and cross towards the procession, speaking gentle words of condolence and understanding as he made his way up the winding path lit with orbs of crystal light. Those who knew the dead best sang songs of their long lives, but husband and wife did not lie together in their graves, and to Arwen, it felt like a final insult. Her heart ached to think of the battered and fearful spirit who they had welcomed to their home only a few days before, dying in terror in the darkness below the Earth.
Hearing an emotional snort, Arwen looked at her companion. Dagnir was weeping openly as he listened to tales of Iston's courage and Lhossiel's cleverness echoing above the roar of the water. How their enemies had feared them, and their families had loved them, of the mercy of the Doomsman and the blessings of Aman and re-embodiment in eternal bliss across the sea. His face turned back so that the starlight reflected in the streaks of tears across his cheeks. He had removed the bandage from his one closed eye, and he looked older than he was.
"I'm sorry," Arwen said uselessly.
"Namo will set them free," he answered her with conviction, letting his tears fall without shame.
"Ai," she nodded, and part of her wondered if the eternal peace of Aman had given her mother freedom.
"I hear that you will leave tomorrow?" Arwen asked.
Dagnir sniffed loudly and nodded, "Yes, my lady, I will be glad to leave these shores behind." He said, and the light of Earendil reflected in his one bright eye. After a moment of silence, Arwen felt his gaze turn upon her. "And when shall you follow, my lady?"
Arwen watched her father's distant silhouette upon the cliff top as it disappeared in the obscurity of the crowd of elven bodies.
"I know not." She answered him thoughtfully.
"We all must go someday, my lady," he said with certainty, "it is our birthright."
Arwen looked upon her grandfather's star and, as she had often done, wondered if he was lonely out among the starry heavens. For a moment, she was jealous of the prescribed fate of those without mixed blood. Listening to her father's practiced voice mingled with the chorus of mourners. She wondered if his long life had brought him more grief than joy. She wondered whether the purpose of a long life was in the ending of it and what kind of noble end might come to one who did not weild a sword.
"Perhaps you would send a message to my mother?" Arwen asked, surprising even herself, for she had not planned on making any request of him.
"I would be honored to bear your message to the Princess Celebrian, my lad…" but he suddenly sat forward, peering down to where the great span of the bridge crossed the churning river, "Can you see who that is, my lady?"
Arwen followed his gaze, standing up in curiosity and shielding the starlight from her eyes as she squinted at the three figures crossing the wooden bridge. They carried a large trunk between them and were obviously attempting to be sneaky. She leaned her elbows on the stone railing and tried to make out their identities.
The two figures who were carrying the box set it down heavily at the center of the bridge.
"No, no, no." Finbaran Tentaluntë's voice, which had the giddy edge of inebriation to it, came clearly to her ears. "The BIG one! The BIG one!" Arwen's mouth fell open, the stayed, neurotic and often temperamental doctor was giggling with delight as if his foul mood had crumbled into a youthful recklessness. The wizard apparently knew how to cheer him up.
"Well, if you intend to put on a show!" Mithrandir grumbled, pulling a large, black rocket out of the box. It stood nearly to his chest and required both of his hands to hold up.
"I can't imagine what he means by all this elvish nonsense!" Fundin was watching the other two suspiciously, his fists upon his hips.
"How will we secure it?" Finbaran ignored the dwarf.
"Here," the wizard roughly jammed the stick at the base if the rocket between two planks of the bridge beneath their feet, "that should hold."
They all took a respectful step back as he bent over and set a spark to the fuse. The light flared for a moment against his stooping face and beard. For a moment, it went out, and it seemed as if nothing would happen. Then there was a sputter, a hiss, and a single spark of gold rose up at a great speed above the valley. There was a pop that left the ears ringing and a crackle of arcing electrical charge and a great burst of ultraviolet as the writhing form of Ancalagon the Black burst into life, roared with a roll of thunderous booms and dissolved in a plume of sulphurous smoke beneath the gleaming starlight.
Fundin gasped in surprise and Arwen smiled as she clearly heard the old doctor cackling like a delighted elfling as he dove into the box for more fireworks.
A few moments later, all the mourners on the clifftop and all those who remained in their houses in the valley had stepped outside to watch the show. She turned and saw Elrohir standing outside the balcony of Elladan's sick room with the window open. They watched a well-remembered history unfold in bursting blooms of fire streaked across the clear winter night. And as the dead fell so did the sparks of light fading into whisps of smoke that were caught by the western wind and disappeared forever.
FIN