April 25, T.A. 3019 - The great Host of the West prepares to leave the green lands of Ithilien. The boats are made ready to depart Cair Andros. The people of Minas Tirith, as well as the reunited Fellowship, look forward to the King's coronation.

My heart speaks out in sorrow and pain for I have finally returned. I had not meant to ever leave Ithilien, but duty called. Even before… Continuously, father ordered me to and fro; and most times the order was to leave her, especially after Boromir… During the years before the War, he ordered me to war councils and such. And now… Now I wish even less to leave, now that I stand once more upon her beloved soil.

I was summoned by my King once before - from the darkness of the Black Breath and another's breath. He held me in his arms and waited for death to take us both. But I was ripped from those arms that would take me through fire into another world – a world free from the horrors that he thought awaited us. Even now, when darkness falls, I wonder why I was spared.

Today I wait upon him who is my King, here in the field of Cormallen. The red-golden culumalda trees wave gently in the breeze and my breath is stolen from me. I want to stay here. Dwell and live and breathe in the peace and the joy of this land, this land that I have loved so deeply for so many years.

Soon, I will return to Boromir's city, for that is how I think upon it. He was in love with it, infatuated, nay, enraptured by it. Ithilien was my love. Now, my King has indicated it will be mine. My beloved land of the moon will be mine and I am most grateful. As Steward, I will be summoned to the city many times. My very being shivers at the thought. Undeserved, unearned, unwanted. Yet, I am Steward now. And I will return to Boromir's city, but always, I will leave it for him, and return to my own, my Ithilien.

She will come with me. I feel her touch upon my heart even here, away from her, knowing she stands on the parapet and waits for me. Knowing her heart flies from that high lofty peak down to this field, this green land. She waits for me with her whole heart. And I would give her mine.

I cannot. Not yet, it is still scorched in the twisted mass that once was the Steward's House. I am not quite healed. Not yet, though my King wills it so.