“Don’t go.”  His voice is soft.  The pain it carries is for me alone.  I look at the Man whom I have loved as a son.  Agony stares back at me from behind those silver eyes.  The winged crown sits heavy upon his head.  A gem gleams at his brow.  Scarred hands grip the Sceptre of Annúminas desperately, almost angrily.  Our grand companies stand divided.  Behind, his knights wait to escort their new king back to his city.  Arwen is not among them.  I remember—I will always remember—my last glimpse of my only daughter.  She bade us farewell on the steps of the golden hall as the sunset’s fleeting splendor made all the house shine like the sun.  I refuse to imagine what will become of her when the sun disappears—when the shining kingdoms about her slowly fade into shadow.  It was her choice.  The anguish of her absence claws deep, as I know it must for many centuries to come.  

But, it is not the loss of Undomiel that tears at me now.  No, this final parting from my foster son holds a torment all its own.

The Galadhrim and the Halflings are ready to depart.  They wait ahead, giving us our privacy.  Even the normally gregarious hobbits are quiet.  Only Galadriel and Mithrandir will meet my gaze.  They alone can guess at my grief because they feel what I feel: an absence as of a limb, the weariness of an empty world pressing down.  Our time is over.  The sea calls us home.  Yet, before I can find rest, I know I must sever the bonds stronger than blood that bind me to my children.

Looking at my foster son, I realize that he knows as well.  Though we have not discussed my passing, I see that he has foreseen it, even as he saw his mother’s death.  The time of the Ringbearers is over.  I do not know how long it will be before I make that long voyage, but this I know:  I will never see this man, dearer than son, again.

The sun glints off the crown, off the gem, off the scepter.  The grand accoutrements seem alien on his familiar frame.  It is ironic that he should bear these tokens now at our final parting.  Star and wings and scepter . . . they draw me back to times long past but never forgotten.

~

“Wave goodbye to your ada.”  Nana hoisted me up onto her shoulders and I waved with all my might, flailing a farewell with chubby hands.  Elros ran up and down the dock, jumping and shouting his own goodbye until Nana reached out a hand to keep him from falling into the sea.

My father never looked back.  He stood at the prow of his great ship, one hand raised to screen his eyes from the setting sun.  His gaze was ever forward on the dancing waves, the rising foam.  The small family behind could not glitter in the sun or fly like the sea spray.  We could only shout farewells at the top of our lungs and pray to see him again soon.  The great sails filled and bore the ship away . . . away.  It diminished to a tiny, gleaming speck on the horizon and then that was gone as well.  Anor slowly sank down to rest her head beyond the edge of the sea.  As twilight fell and the first stars appeared, I walked home with my mother and brother, not knowing—for how could I have known—that I would never see my ada again.

I was but a child, barely out of infancy.  I knew nothing of the darkened world I had been born to.  It would be decades before I awakened to the despair that drove my father out to seek hope among the anonymous waves.

~

They came for my naneth in the night.  They came in the midst of a storm.  The lash of the rain drowned out the first shouts of warning.  The first cries to reach us were the screams of the dying.  I stumbled out of the house, a step behind Elros, as always.  A flash of lightning revealed a scene from nightmares.  A host advanced, their faces twisted with pain and rage.  The beauty of their Elven features only made the onslaught more terrible.

Somehow, it didn’t surprise me that Elros had his little sword at hand.  As a defender fell right in front of us, he drew the blade with a scream and charged the nearest attacker.  My brother was like Ada; always so brave, always so foolish.  For all his courage, he was still but a child among warriors.  The first parry knocked the small weapon out of his hand.  Before I can even yell his name, the flat of a sword caught my brother across the ear.  He landed sprawled in the mud and does not stir. 

I had only the little knife at my belt.  I drew it and sprinted forward, ready to follow my brother wherever he has gone.  Arms like steel closed around me from behind.  I screamed and lashed out with the tiny blade.  My cry was lost in a roll of thunder and the knife was knocked from my grasping fingers.  I struggled and fought, but the unyielding arms restrained me, bringing an abrupt halt to my first attempt at battle. 

The wind whipped and hair like blood spilled over my shoulders to mix with my own.  I twisted and looked up into the desperate, haunted eyes of Fëanor’s son.  We dropped slowly to our knees—Maglor and I.  As the battle raged around us, I could only stare in horror.  Elves I had known since birth fell dying to my left and to my right.  One attacker met my gaze then suddenly turned to the Elf beside him and sank his spear into the other’s chest.  The slain ellon’s eyes were wide and suddenly innocent as he died with his comrade’s name on his lips.  It was all around me.  If my hands had been free I would have clapped them over my ears, but try as I might I could not look away.

And Nana . . . my mother stood alone at the end of the pier while the storm raged behind her and the battle raged before.  Her drenched nightclothes whipped and snapped in the wind.  She clutched the necklace at her breast in a grip so tight blood trickled down her wrist.  She watched me—her eyes wide, her gaze frozen.  And then, the last of our defenders fell, and Maedhros’ troops gained the pier.

It happened in an instant.  As the fallen elves closed on her, my nana turned her back and launched herself into the wind.  The dark sea sputtered slightly as it swallowed her.  There was a flash of silver . . . and then many arms were dragging me away as others lifted Elros; two tiny prisoners of a senseless war.

I didn’t see a great white bird rise from the waves with a star on its breast.  I didn’t hear the voice of Ulmo promise my mother comfort.  I beheld only the wearied forms of my captors—mud-splattered, blood-soaked as they dragged me away.

This was the great voyage of Eärendil and Elwing.

~

It was decades before I heard the story as it would be passed down through the generations in histories and lays innumerable.  Sitting again in the house of Círdan, I listened with a heavy heart.

Eärendil built Vingilot, the Foam-flower, fairest of the ships of song; golden were its oars and white its timbers, hewn in the birchwoods of Nimbrethil, and its sails were as the argent moon . . .

Eärendil found not Tuor nor Idril, nor came he ever on that journey to the shores of Valinor, defeated by shadows and enchantments . . .

Ulmo bore up Elwing out of the waves, and he gave her the likeness of a great white bird, and upon her breast there shone as a star the Silmaril, as she flew over the water to seek Eärendil her beloved . . .

A white cloud exceeding swift beneath the moon, as a star over the sea moving in strange course, a pale flame on wings of storm . . .

She fell from the air upon the timbers of Vingilot, in a swoon, nigh unto death for the urgency of her speed, and Eärendil took her to his bosom; but in the morning with marveling eyes he beheld his wife in her own form beside him . . .

Yet Eärendil saw now no hope left in the lands of Middle-earth, and he turned again in despair and came not home, but sought back once more to Valinor with Elwing at his side . . .

And they came to the Enchanted Isles and escaped their enchantment; and they came into the Shadowy Seas and passed their shadows, and they looked upon Tol Eressëa the Lonely Isle, but tarried not . . .

Then Eärendil, first of living men, landed on the immortal shores . . .¹

The tale went on; a white tower, a ship of glass, a Silmaril borne on his brow, the Gil-Estel, hope and mercy returned to Middle-earth . . . I stopped listening.  For me, it was enough to know that my parents were gone and would not return.  I sat alone at the end of the pier and watched the stars swirl on the distant horizon—all that remained of Ada and Nana.

~

I looked Elros in the eye desperately, almost angrily.  “Don’t go.”

The scepter seemed so unfamiliar in his hands, so new it still smelled of sawdust.  It marked my brother as a King—a King of the Edain.²  My head still spun from the shock of Elros’ Choice—the choice of doom.  Somehow, I had harbored the illusion that though all the world might abandon me, my brother would stay by my side.  Yet, it now seemed that I was to lose Elros to Númenor just as I lost Ada and Nana to Valinor.

The ships were prepared.  My brother’s chosen kinsmen stood waiting.  He stood before me, his mortal life draining away with every second, and I knew not what else to say.  “Don’t go.”

“Gwanur-nín . . .” He stepped towards me, gray eyes brimming.  “Someday, you will understand.  But now, you must flourish and I must fade.”  He embraced me and then rested our foreheads together.  Just before we parted, he spoke softly in my ear.  His voice was a whisper against the ages.  The murmured words took me millennia to understand.

~

And now, another gray-eyed Man stares into my eyes and echoes my own words back to me. 

“Don’t go.”

Aragorn is so tall.  He is the first Man since Elros to look me in the eye.  He is the last Man who ever will.

I see his life spread before him, ever growing in splendor and peace.  I long to be part of it, but know I cannot.  Here, at the closing of my days, I begin to understand.

The star on his brow says that he is the hope of Men.  They will look to him and find an image of the glory they thought was gone.  And Eärendil will be proud.

The wings on his helm sing of commitment.  To save his people he would go to the ends of the earth.  The Paths of the Dead and the wide, empty sea are more similar than anyone suspects.  And Elwing will be proud.

The scepter in his hand tells of justice returning to a fallen world.  A good king—a just king—can lead his people into a new era of peace.  And Elros will be proud.

Yet, Aragorn’s true inheritance is not these cold symbols; his heirlooms cannot be seen.  They are the spirits of three of my kin who loved Middle-earth enough to leave it.

For, I know now that my family never truly left Eriador; they lived on in my memory just as they now live on in Aragorn—their son, my son.  If only one of my actions throughout these many ages is remembered, let it be this:  that I, for a brief time, was foster father to Elessar Evinyatar.

I rest my forehead against Estel’s, with only the clear gem between us, and whisper back my brother’s final words to me.

“While the sea foams and the stars shine, I will never leave you.”

A/N: 

¹ Taken verbatim from The Silmarillion, Chapter 24, “The Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath.”

² I am taking creative license here.  There is no passage that I know of that refers to Elros bearing a scepter as Tar-Minyatur.  But, since this seems to be a reasonably common symbol of royal authority and it fit with the theme of the story, I decided to include it.

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