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Hope of a Star  by Mirach

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my love <3

(Any many thanks to Cairistiona for the beta!)


9. And night shall be loved

Midsummer, 3019 T.A.

“At last I understand why we have waited! This is the ending. Now not day only shall be beloved, but night too shall be beautiful and blessed and all its fear pass away!”

Frodo in the Return of the King, Book VI, Chapter V: The Steward and the King

A procession nears the White City. The horses have ribbons and little bells in their manes, and walk with a light step, their heads lifted proudly. They are elven horses, and the riders are elves. For a long time these lands have not seen such aprocession, and the very stones of the road sing under the hooves of the horses, and the flowers open in the evening to welcome them. The elves ride – kings and queens and princes, like from the pages of some old, noble tale. The land welcomes them, their arrival like a sign of healing after the long war.

High and proud are the first two riders, their raven hair adored with simple circlets. Elladan and Elrohir ride first, bearing a banner of silver. They have been here already, fighting in the battles of the war at the side of their mortal brother. They have been here, and so they lead the others, to many meetings and reunions... and to many partings, at the end, but nobody thinks of the partings now. The hooves clatter on the white road, and the wind spreads the silver banner under the silver stars of a sapphire sky, while the flame of Arien still lightens the western horizon like a golden crown.

The people stand on the walls of the White City, looking in awe and astonished silence. Before them, tales of legends unfold. The tales of a mighty Balrog-Slayer who returned from death, tales of a powerful queen of a secret forest, where the leaves do not fall, but turn to gold, and her king... They ride there, and with them many of their folk, fair elves from Rivendell and Lothlórien. And at the end of the procession, a lordly figure rides, bearing the sceptre of Annúminas. It is Elrond, the Master of Rivendell, and beside him upon a grey palfrey rides Arwen his daughter, Evenstar of her people.

The stars shine brightly on the sky, the silver blossoms sewn by Varda’s shining hand... and me – a wandering Mariner-star. But the King of Gondor does not look at them, because before the gates of Minas Tirith, Evenstar is rising.... No more shall the night be feared for its darkness. It would seem that my purpose is finished, for I am no more a single ray of hope in the night. No more shall it cover the creatures lurking in the shadows, for the lines of my two sons shall unite today, and from that union, hope shines like a star – the hand of the Evenstar her father will put into Estel’s....

Two kings meet before the gates of the White City, even if only one bears the crown, winged like the swan-prow of Vingilot, and I am proud on them both.... Elrond walks like the king of Noldor in Middle-earth, although he refused the title, a wise and kind ruler... and proud, also. I see the fatherly pride as he stands before his equal – the king of Men, his son...

He smiles as he puts the sceptre of Annúminas into Aragorn’s hands. Arnor has a king again, and the two kingdoms of Elendil’s sons are united under one crown today. The two kingdoms of Men have a king... and a queen. A smile is still on Elrond’s face as he takes a treasure greater than the ancient sceptre – his daughter’s hand.

With one gesture, he unites the hands of his children – the one strong and weather-beaten, calloused by sword and yet gentle and healing, and the delicate one, with slender fingers and alabaster skin, like the opening petals of white roses. They connect in perfect harmony, as if they would be incomplete without each other....

-oOo-

“Ouch!” Eärendil put the bleeding finger into his mouth. He blushed as the girl chuckled, not knowing that she was the reason for his clumsiness, as he had been looking at her instead of the ship he had been repairing.

She had grown up, and it was only now, upon his return from his first long sea voyage, that he realised it. No more was she the little girl with big, frightened eyes, playing with the blue-eyed boy from a city that was no more. She reminded him of a little bird, lost from its nest, and he was the only one she told about her fears, about the bad men with bloody swords that haunted her dreams. To her, he could tell about his nightmares of dragons and a burning city, even when he wanted to look like a brave boy before the others. He knew she would understand....

But she was not that girl any longer, and he felt his heartbeat quicken as she approached him with a graceful step, revealing a budding womanhood. 

“Show me your finger...” she said, and he found himself unable to do anything than obey. Their hands touched, and in that moment he knew they belong together....


And yet he had left her.... The happiness of one man was less important than the fate of Middle-earth, however uncertain the success. He stood at the rail of his ship and looked back, at the thin white lace of waves breaking on the shore that washed the feet of his wife and two little sons, the blue water like the last connection between them, holding long after the three figures disappeared on the horizon. 

-oOo-

 I saw your face, when you were leaving Rivendell a few month ago, Aragorn, so many trials and fights behind you, and even more ahead.... I knew that expression of forced calm, when the heart wants to scream and stop time, freeze it in one moment where she is forever near.... I knew the desperate attempts to catch one more glimpse of the beloved face without anyone else noticing, to catch a glimpse of the life that will never be the same again, I knew them, because they were my own....

-oOo-

He opened his eyes onto a new day. The sky was bright, and the sea calm. The light was still there, its reflections dancing on the waves like diamonds on blue silk. The light of hope, the Silmaril carried by a white bird out of the grey clouds. But it was not a bird any more.... With bated breath he traced the features of her face with his eyes. The tender mouth, the big, almond-shaped eyes, covered with dark eyelashes in the rest of an exhausted sleep.... The eyes opened, and met his. 

“Elwing...” he whispered.

-oOo-

“Arwen...”

They are alone. The people of Gondor welcomed their queen, and the street winding its way through the seven gates of the city was lined with flowers. Still the songs sound there and the sound of music and dancing feet. But on the balcony of the King’s House, turned to the square where the sapling of the White Tree grows, it is quiet.

“Arwen...”

He touches her face with his fingertips, as if not believing that this moment is true.

She smiles, and as the light of the Silmaril falls on her face, she resembles her grandmother Elwing so much....

In my light, their lips connect. Like a dream came true, like two parts of one whole uniting after a painful separation, two voices singing one song that is sad and longing when sounding alone....

Your fate is decided, my granddaughter. It is a good fate, and a good decision – believe the one who has made his own decision out of love. I too have chosen to stay with my beloved one, bound to the fate of Arda for all her Ages. But I don’t regret. You will know what’s hidden from me, know what’s beyond the circles of the world, and know it hand in hand with the man you love. You will not regret either.

Maybe it will look like a short time to you, a mere wink of an eye compared to the ages given to the Firstborn. But those ages... they would be infinite and empty without love. I faced them once, in the moment when the shore of Middle-earth disappeared in the blue waters of the sea. Maybe they were just mortal years, maybe just days if the wrath of Valar falls on the fragile ship and severs the line between life and death in the cold depths, and yet they seemed infinite when my wife and sons remained on the distant shore.

Yours is the choice of Lúthien. Did the Valar know it when they had given that choice to me and Elwing? Blood both mortal and immortal circled in our veins, and we entered a realm where mortals were forbidden to walk, and the Noldor forbidden to return. We contravened both, and yet we were given the choice, we and all descendants from our body.

That choice has given Elrond the long and patient years of a Firstborn, and to Elros a short but full mortal life, and a line of heirs leading to the one who stands in my light now. And to you, it has given a union that willlast beyond death....

You both bear the reminder of me in your name, Estel and Evenstar, and once again I am glad I decided to sail against the winds of the wrath, for the choice given to me made that union possible to you.

The kiss lasts, and hands are searching... no, I will not look anymore. I will leave you to your privacy, my children. Instead, my sight stops on a lonely figure in another window. Elrond needs my light tonight....

You are losing your child, my son, and I know how it hurts. It would seem that this choice has brought you only pain. It separated you from your brother, and now you have to take leave of your daughter, to not see her until the end of time when the last age of Arda comes to fulfilment like the final chord of a magnificent song.

And yet a slight smile plays on your lips. Sometimes I watched you in the long evenings in the fresh air in Rivendell, carrying the sound of waterfalls with the gusts of wind. I saw the pain in your face when you were looking in the direction where the travels have led your son, sometimes not even sure what the correct direction was. I could almost hear the inner voice accusing you that you have been too cruel to him, that it will be your fault if the line of kings remains heirless. I know you always wanted them to be happy, even for the price of your own happiness.

It was not just the hand of your daughter, worthy only of a king. He was a king long before the crown was put on his head, and we both know it, my son. But he was a mortal. You knew you will lose him like Elros, and it hurt. The thought of losing two of your children hurt even more, but it was not only the pain that made you stand in the way of their union. It was also a debt to the brother you have lost...

Elros wanted to lead Men to greatness and nobility, and great was the glory of Númenor. Maybe even too great, and it became too proud. But always there have been those who remained faithful to his message and to the old honour. Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth they came. Great were the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor in their times, but now, only a despised handful of the Dúnedain remained from the noble kingdom of Elros.

And you, you could not see the memory of your brother forgotten and obliterated. You gave their chieftains shelter, taught them the old lore, and maybe you have seen the face of your brother in their faces, and a hope for renewing the greatness that has been once. That hope came after many centuries, and you named him Estel....

But he became more to you. He found his place in your heart, and became dear to you like your own son. For Elros, and for himself, you hoped for that, what you have seen fulfilled today, for the sight the greeted you at the gates of the White City: Elros’ heir bearing the crown of the Sea-kings again, the White Tree blowing from the top of Ecthelion’s tower, and the one flowering on the Fountain square, from the line of the fair Nimloth growing in the gardens of Númenor. That was your hope, your Estel. You would not set such a hard condition if you did not believe that it was in his power to fulfil it. And he did! Gondor and Arnor have a king again, and your children found their happiness together. But you are losing them....

-oOo-

“Our sons?” he asked after he overcame the astonishment of having his wife in his arms again, the miracle of feeling her skin under his finger, and tasting her sweetness with his lips. But that moment passed, and the question came, grave and uncertain.

She disentangled herself from his embrace, and leaned on the rail at the stern, looking to the east. For a long while, she stood there unmoving, a statue of a mother mourning her children. Then she sighed, and turned to him.

“I don’t know...” she said quietly.

Then she told him about the kinslaying in the Havens of Sirion, and he joined her at the rail, mourning the uncertain fate of their sons that they will never see again. Long they stood there, and the Silmaril enlightened their journey to the West, while their hearts remained in the East....

-oOo-

Now I know that you both survived, thanks to the kindness of Maglor son of Fëanor. I could even watch you grow and mature, and have your own children. A watcher I could be, but nothing more. A watcher, not a father.... Yet now that the war is ended, and the calling of the Sea is strong in all elven souls, I hope that finally, finally I will be able to embrace you and soothe the pain of your loss. I await you, my son....





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