"Awakening"

        Luthien's eyes open. She feels as though she has been asleep, save that she has never slept so heavily or with her eyes closed. A strange weariness weights upon her.

        She hears Beren stir and realization washes over her. She is mortal now and all will be different. She is different, fundamentally altered by her choice.

        "Tinuviel?" Beren's hand reaches for hers. He is her anchor to Middle Earth even though she has chosen to someday follow him beyond the circles of the world. He is sunrise to her twilight, opposites that cannot exist without each other.

        "I'm here, beloved."

"Westward Leaning"

        Through the window, Luthien could see the stars coming out.

        "Aren't they beautiful?" she asked her husband.

        Beren pressed her hand to his worn cheek. "You're fairer, my Tinuviel."

        "Flatterer," she waggled a finger at him. "I'm an old woman now."

        "There as never been a lady to compare to you," Beren insisted. He too was old now. He studied her hand. "Do you ever regret...?"

        Though he had never asked the question, Luthien already knew her answer. "No, I would have been alone. Our son would have been born. Now I await the start of our next great adventure."

"Choice & Consequence"

        "I waited for you, brother," Elros rasped. Secretly, he was surprised Elrond answered his summons. His brother had never approved of his decision to follow their great-grandmother's path, but Elros always felt greater affinity for mortals than ageless elves. They were alive.

        Elrond knelt beside the frail creature and took the claw-like hand into his own. As a healer, he had seen death numerous times, but had never lost a family member to the ravages of time. This was the moment he had dreaded for five hundred years, the parting that would endure until the world was reformed.

        "I am here."

        "My time comes swiftly." It was a statement of fact, the king accepted his impending death, even welcomed it. Elrond never knew the woman his brother wed, but he had heard that since her passing the king's love of life lessened. Now Elrond saw for himself that it was true; Elros wearied of the world.

        "I know."

        "I wish to..." Elros felt uncharacteristic tears collect in his eyes. "I apologize for the pain I've caused you."

        "You would not be my brother if you chose otherwise." A slight smile crossed Elrond's stern features and the ancient king saw again the brother he'd played with as a child. "You were always one for change. I knew your choice in my heart, but I feared to hear it or give it voice."

        "I hope you never have cause to fear your own heart again." They both knew that Elrond's descendants would face the same choice set before them. Elros wondered if any others would follow Luthien and Elros and if his brother could endure another such loss.

        "Sleep now," Elrond whispered, gently brushing Elros' snowy hair away from his face, not wanting to walk down that path even in conversation or thought. Something whispered to him that Elros was not the last of his blood he would lose to mortality.

"That Time Cannot Erase"

        There was a bust of High-King Elros collecting dust a corner of the library at Minas Tirith. Three days after the royal wedding, the ancient librarian watched in amazement as Lord Elrond paused amid his perusal of the manuscript collections to study the figure, even brushing away some of the dust with his own fingers.

        "An excellent likeness," the new Queen's father whispered as he laid a gentle hand on the marble forehead. A veil of sadness covered his proud features.

        When the elf lord departed, the librarian hobbled over to the bust. As he studied the face, he saw similarities to Lord Elrond and Queen Arwen. Threads of history wove together in his mind and the man realized a brother yet mourned the ancient ruler. He felt ashamed of his neglect of the bust.

        Ever after, the librarian saw to it that the bust and its niche were dust-free.

"Cold Starlight"

        Stars suit the elves for their light shines cold and remote. Mortals, Arwen discovers, burn blue and hot as the inner core of flame. To mortal observers her Estel is composed and cool, but to ageless eyes, he smolders.

        Perhaps she is a moth straying too close to fire, but Arwen is unable to turn away. Even the appeals of friends and kin cannot alter her course. From their first meeting Arwen takes away understanding of how her ancestress could accept mortality to be with her beloved. After knowing the close warmth of a mortal, distant starlight can never suffice.