A/N I know I say this like every chapter lately, but shit fuck that was a crazy couple of months.

anyway

Here's a chapter.

It'll probably hurt.

I'm sorry.

We'll get some action soon, they've only got a couple more days in Rivendell and we'll get back to dwarf shenanigans. The tone is gonna lighten up a bit...except for all the dangerous bad shit that happens...but like, it won't be quite as morose I guess. Maybe.

But sometimes you just have to break emotionally, especially when your wife is running off to fight a dragon and her text messages take eighty years to go through because of time and space.

Anyway

Anybody know how to troubleshoot a portable washer's spin cycle side not spinning?

People with dripping wet towels wish to know.

I'm kidding, I'll log a ticket with the seller and get it taken care of...hopefully. If not, that's how to repurpose salad spinners.

*cough* ANYWAY


No one had announced it, as far as Josephine had heard, but somehow when she woke up that morning she already knew, she could feel it in the air. The elves of Lorien had arrived, which meant so had Galadriel.

She didn't have hopes for scraps of information about Seers anymore. The wisdom of a Seer in Middle-Earth's past was, clearly, nothing more than the fearful cautionary preparations of her own doing. There were no messages of encouragement left for the future because she'd live it all, regardless. With that in mind, Galadriel's words that had echoed in her mind so many years ago still rang true.

I have met your kind before.

Or as it apparently should've been…I have met you before.

For this reason, Josephine didn't search her out. She would either be summoned when Galadriel willed it, or she'd be found by the Lady herself. No doubt Elrond would tell her about Josephine after she'd given the veiled permission to him that she could know.

Besides, Josephine still felt, despite her station as either Seer or Queen, it wasn't her place to interrupt the Lady Galadriel for what would at best be begging for information she probably didn't have.

But two days before Midsummer's Eve she was summoned, just as she'd anticipated.

With the light of dusk dimming, one of Galadriel's ladies led her to a place by the river, surrounded by trees filled with thick, bright green leaves that turned dark as the moon slipped up over the hills.

The other elf was gone before Josephine had barely stepped into the glade, feeling small and so very, very young in Galadriel's presence. The unchanging vision of the elves was still so hard to get used to and in just a few years, Josephine was sure she'd start to look older than Galadriel and yet, still feel childlike when her shining eyes met Josephine's.

Was the light in the Lady's eyes stronger now than it would be in the future? Or had Josephine merely seen enough of both the light and the dark now to better understand the palpable brilliance that Boromir and Gimli and the others had been so taken by?

"You should not be here." Galadriel spoke, but gently and without accusation. "But at the same moment, you are perhaps more meant to than some."

Josephine was so tired of riddles and elven musings, but she didn't dare cast aside anything Galadriel told her, or interrupt her without a clear inference that she should speak, at least not yet.

"And it seems you and I have met before?" She took Josephine's expression as affirmation and continued. "How very strange the tides of time may seem, and yet…you move amongst them. Pushed like a sail by the will of those whose vision is clearer than any we of Middle-Earth may possess."

"That's a very gentle way of putting it."

"Your anger at the price you pay for such a task is not misguided. But I fear you will cling to it and in that you will fall to its power."

"How can I not be angry?" Josephine snapped, more at the Valar than Galadriel herself, a nuance she was certain the Lady already knew. "They let me rest and put my guard down for two fucking years!"

"Would you have been ready to bear this task sooner?"

Would she? For all the happiness and peace that she'd felt during those two years they were hardly easy. The aftermath of the War was still being soothed, even up to that day in Ithilien, and not only in the hearts of the people of Gondor. If the Quest for Erebor felt arduous and frightening now, what would she have felt two years ago? Or even one?

"Their actions may appear cold, but they are not without reason, nor are they cruel in their intentions."

"If they're not cruel then you think they'll send me back to Gondor…My Gondor, when I've done what they sent me here for?" Galadriel didn't know for sure, Josephine knew that, but she'd take the best guess of the woman older than the moon any day.

Josephine watched as Galadriel's lips turned up into the sort of smile that made her question seem so simple to answer it was a wonder she'd asked at all. She wasn't sure whether to be annoyed at the benevolence or hopeful for reassurance that she didn't do all of this just to lose him forever.

Noiselessly, Galadriel moved over the grass to stand right in front of her. "The Valar's will is known only to them. Your fate is tied to it and for that I cannot foresee where it will lie."

"I can live with your opinion. You didn't answer my question."

"For there is no answer I can give you."

Josephine pursed her lips and took a tight breath. Every goddamn time she went to the wisest in Middle-Earth for counsel she came out with fuck all at best, and more riddles at worst. Granted she should know better, the old idiom of they'll say both yes and no wasn't around for no reason. But if she couldn't get advice from them, then where did that leave her?

"Then why am I even here? Why did you summon me?"

"You needed to ask your questions of me, even if I could not give you what you desired." She framed Josephine's face gently in her hands and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then held her gaze. "His thoughts follow your path, and his heart is with you."

"So he does know where I am?" Technically she hadn't disappeared yet because technically none of that had happened…except…time travel theories were convoluted and confusing and no amount of scifi watching had prepared her for this. Was time passing for him just like it was passing for her? The day she'd been taken from Ithilien was the same date as the day she'd appeared in the Shire. Was it possible time was passing congruently for the both of them? Day for day, hour for hour? If that was true it gave her more hope for going home again. Or was it merely time that would pass for him where he would hope, counting the days till the end of the story and finding in the end she never came home?

"Will those who meet you again let him bear such pain in ignorance?" She answered simply, then stepped back. "I will await when next we meet, Seer Josephine.

Josephine's mind was whirling and she barely cared about the summary dismissal as she went back to her room where she began to pace. There had to be a safe way to do it. Something that would mean nothing to anyone who accidentally found it. If she couldn't muster more than a shred of hope for herself, then maybe she could give him some.

Her eyes landed on the small basket set absentmindedly on her chair, left for her to use by Gilraen, the project folded carefully inside only partially completed.

When she finally looked up from her task, cutting the last thread, the sun was rising. Words were dangerous, playing with fire if they fell into anyone else's hands before their time. But she needed to reassure him, find a way to reach across the decades and tell him she was still there, at least for now.

The blue fabric in her hands was almost two feet long, harkening to the tokens the women of Gondor tied around the arms of their lovers when they left for battle. If they had the time to decorate them they did, but a ragged cut from the hem of a dress had been as much as many had been able to muster during the war.

It may have been Josephine who was going off to battle, but she would leave him with something to keep her close, just like the token he'd had with him when he walked the Paths of the Dead. A token of the same color, but her time went into countless stitches of silver and white. The tree was crooked and the leaves were uneven, but it would be his and she hoped it would take with it even a shadow of her love.

She left her room, haggard and exhausted, heading for Elrond's study with the gift in her hand. Was she starting to treat him like her personal postal service through time and space? Possibly. She was too determined to pass her message along to care.

But Elrond wasn't in his study, which she figured out when she turned a corner and slammed right into him. His hands held her arms to steady her and he looked down at her with thinly veiled concern.

"Lady Josephine, is something wrong?"

She pressed her package towards him. "Eighty years to the day. Can you get this to him?"

His eyebrow rose and he let go of her to carefully take the folded cloth in his hand.

"June 29th, 3021. Can you do that?"

He nodded and he slipped it into the folds of his robes. "I see more hope in your eyes than you have held since we met. Was your counsel with Lady Galadriel enlightening?"

"It was…something at least."


June 29th, 3021

A month had passed since Aragorn had sent messengers to beg answers from Rivendell and Erebor, but for the distance they'd have to travel he expected to get nothing in return for another month at the least. That made the arrival of his guest all the stranger and more troubling. The near thousand mile journey from Rivendell was taken of their own accord, perhaps to bring him tidies, a thought that sent fear into his heart so strong it nearly weakened him at the knees. For that reason he wasn't received in the hall, nor the courtyard. Instead, Aragorn slipped nervously through the door of the King's House, to their personal sitting room to greet his oldest counsel. In those walls, he would need not hide the pain that might await him.

Aragorn's anxiety was clear when he came inside to where Lord Elrond waited, his traveling cloak taken by Ciril who quickly retreated from the room. His expression was serious, but not grieved as Aragorn feared. Hope still stirred in his heart, and he looked upon Elrond feeling as vulnerable and lost as a son begging strength from his father because he had lost all of his own.

"Is she-" He swallowed the lump in his throat that choked his words and tried again. "Did she-"

"I know no more of her fate than Gandalf. My coming is only meant to bring you comfort, not despair."

Tears of relief filled his eyes and a breath left his lips with a shudder. "She was in Rivendell. You knew her then."

Elrond nodded. "I daresay she found more rest in the valley before the War than she did in those times. Her fear of losing you seemed to sink far deeper than her fears of following Frodo."

"Was she well?" He took a step. "She was not ill? Or wounded?"

"She was whole and hale when she left the valley. I dare not say more, for I too have been sworn to silence and her tale is hers to tell, except in the event she does not return."

"Then why have you come? You are here too soon for word to have reached you."

"I too, have been bidden to a task, Aragorn." He reached into his robes and withdrew a small package, wrapped in oilskin that laid comfortable in the palm of his hand. "I bring this to you as she asked, eighty years from the day she left it to me."

Aragorn took it warily, as hungry to see its contents as he was nervous for what message could be held within. Undoing the tie the oilskin opened stiffly, held in the same position for decades. A wide blue ribbon of fabric lay folded in front of him, stitched with silver. Blue like the token he still carried with him. As he opened it in front of him a small fold of parchment fell to the floor which he quickly retrieved.

I walk this path with the hope I'll return to you. Your strength goes with me, and I've sent my heart to you.

-Hiril lîn

Aragorn shook, tears rolling down his cheeks. He held the token in his hand lightly, for it was more precious to him now than anything else he possessed. With closed eyes he pressed it to his lips, knowing that no trace of her touch was left in the threads, no hint of her scent despite what he would give for even that. But it was from her. Words from his love meant to bring him hope. It was more than he could bear.

Elrond's hand grasped his shoulder as Aragorn stumbled forward, drawn into an embrace he'd not known since his youth.

"Estel, sîdh." Elrond said. "Sîdh."