Thanks to Fiondil for the beta.

Disclaimer: Playing in Tolkien's tidepool of emotion and making no money from it.

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I cannot believe that you are gone.

The city, the palace, my arms lie empty. Where life once teemed and milled about in pride and great purpose, now little remains. Pride in self and the works of mere elven hands has killed the joy we once knew here in Tirion. The great purpose to make and create is now perverted by the greatest maker our race has known into the need for vengeance in a distant land. Streets are silent. Homes and tools lie abandoned. Families struggle bereft and torn apart. And who is left to lead them? Lonely wives, mothers with empty arms, princesses without their princes, remnants of the royal family with no blood of the royal line in them.

My husband, why did you allow yourself to be swayed by someone who you never loved, who was never capable of loving you?

You were always the quiet one blessed with wisdom and graced with a noble, loving fëa. You always managed to avoid the edges of the strife and not be cut as your brother and half-brother were. You stopped seeking your atar’s love and approval long before he abandoned his family and folk for one so undeserving of his devotion. Your wisdom guided you as did your faith in the Valar. But where are your wisdom and faith now? Where are you?

Fëanáro swayed our children with his words of fair far away lands, stealing them from my arms as so many others stole away from their homes for this foolish quest. Why did any of them listen? Why did any of them go? Why did my cherished babes have to go?

Long have I wept for our children. Long have I wept for you. Will laughter ever ring again in these silent halls? Will those I love ever return to my arms? I swear they will never leave my heart.

 As I mop my tears from the desk before me, a breathless messenger arrives, proclaiming the return of many of the citizens of this fair city, led by a single prince. Dispatching two of the precious few servants who remain, I send word to Anairë and Indis asking them to meet me at the gates. Oh my precious Arafinwë, at least some of my prayers will be answered if you have returned to my arms.

I cannot believe that you are gone.

You despise the one who led you away, who kept your atar’s love from you. Yet you followed. Why could you not let wisdom guide you this one time? It pleased the Valar that you swore an oath in reconciliation with one who saw nothing to reconcile with you. Yet you also swore an oath as regent of your people to guide, serve, and protect them.

In your folly, you believed that following Fëanáro to Endorë would allow you to fulfill both claims on you, for you would lead those who wished to depart but would not take Fëanáro as their liege. In your folly, you left the very city which desperately needs you as king. In your folly, you took our ambitious children to fight a war against the mightiest and deadliest of the Valar, to face an uncertain doom. In your folly, you abandoned wisdom and left me behind.

My devotions to my friends, my people, and the Valar would not let me go with you. Why could your devotion to me not allow you to remain behind?

It is so very difficult to face the continuing darkness with empty arms and only an empty bed to escape to. Silence permeates the very walls while loneliness walks the halls.

Will my little granddaughter remember me in the time to come until my family returns? Will my other children wed? Who will claim their hearts? Who will hold them close? Who will comfort you, my Nolofinwë, while we are apart?

I never realized how much the roles of wife and mother defined me until I was bereft of it all. Please come home soon, my precious ones. Please come home soon. I miss you.

Eärwen and I try our best to guide and rule what is left of our people in this large forsaken city. So many skilled hands have left, it is difficult to accomplish anything, but we try with what few resources we still have. But I have hope. We will carry on and we will prevail. And one day our reasons for doing so will be returned to our awaiting arms.

Why even now, Eärwen sends joyous word that many of our people are returning. I rush to join her in welcoming them back. I cannot wait to hold you all in my arms again.

I cannot believe that you are gone.

So much has happened, so much darkness…so much sorrow…

You could have helped, could have rectified so many of the situations which led to this bitter ending of all you had worked for for so many yéni. But you choose not to. You chose your firstborn son over all others of your family, over all of your people – the family and people who so desperately loved you, who called you atar, who called you king.

If only you had opened you eyes to the slow decline of peace all around you. If only you had consulted with the Valar on the troubles Melkor’s honeyed words and outright lies were causing within your city, within your family. If only you had just once given thought to the children I gave you instead of doting on the child of yours who claimed the life of your first wife.  Atar and amillë you were to him, yet king only were you to the rest of your family. The bitter cup you so frequently stirred has spilled and spread over all of the Noldor staining the calm and destroying right reason. Now the mighty city you worked so hard to build lies nearly empty, devoid of makers and crafters and builders, devoid of the Noldor, devoid of life.

I am devoid of life as well.

All my children are gone – all of those whom I bore and those they made as well – gone to follow your beloved son in his insanity to return to Endorë and seek vengeance. In the end, my husband, you have deprived me of everything I have known and loved. And the first was my loss of you.

What I would not give for you to look at me with your shining eyes, to hold me close and let me hold you the way you did when first we wed. But I fear in my heart, I will never see you again. You left me long before you ever departed Tirion, before you ever died.

Yet, I still love you. In spite of all you have done and not done, I still love you.

A messenger has come saying some of our people – of your people – are returning to the city, led by a prince. I do not think you would care that any member of this family has regained his sense. I know it is not your all too precious son Fëanáro, for reason will never trouble his selfish corrupted mind again – if it ever did. As I rise to join Eärwen and Anairë at the gates, I rejoice that one of my sons has returned.