Week 3: A journey from Weathertop to the Lonely Mountain. I'll post the challenge for week 2 later, because this story is a companion piece to The Tree of Love from week 1

Challenge (Lonely Mountain): Have you ever felt totally lost? In a big city? In a foreign country? Because somebody has left you alone? Write a story, poem or create an artwork where the character has to deal with loss--either physical or spiritual.

Summary: After Aragorn's death, Arwen returns to Cerin Amroth one last time.

The Price of Love

The mallorns rustle in the gentle wind. The leaves flutter on the silver branches, gleams of gold against the cloudy sky. They whisper an echo of a song, an echo of something that was and is no more. A leaf falls to the ground, carried in slow, wide circles by the sighing wind, like trying to get one more look at the land where it grew out, whispering a gentle farewell to the mourning tree. The branches stay bare, almost like statues with smooth skin, carved of cold stone. No new leaves sprout in this time. The winter comes to Lórien...

Where are you, my love? I wander here alone, and only the wind dries my tears as your hand would do once, strong but gentle, with a healing touch. I look at the sky, and I see your eyes in its deep greyness. I listen to the wind, and it brings to me the memory of your voice, whispering my name like a prayer and assurance in the same time.

You are with me here, in my memories. I see you on the hill of Cerin Amroth, clad in white like an elven prince, the look in your eyes so amazed, and then so joyful, the sorrows in their depths forgotten as you open your arms to embrace me, to feel my body against yours and get lost in the shadows of my hair, shielded from the worries of the world just for a while. The sweetness of your lips... You part your hand from mine reluctantly. Arwen vanimelda, namárië!

No! Oh no, do not go! Stay, just for a while. For a little while longer... We were together for so short! How quickly did the time pass, the years just ripples washing a white shore. What seemed like a lifetime of happiness, ended so soon...

You would not stay. For you, there was a gift of the One. Oh, how bitter it is to receive it! And yet you embraced it, choosing the day and hour of your passing, the King of the Númenoreans in glory undimmed. You would not stay. At first I did not ask you to, I did not beg, although my heart begged you thousand times. I did not want to make it even harder for you... But at the end, something broke in me. I pleaded just for one more day, just for a little while, a moment... You tried to comfort me, but did not head my pleas. You were strong. You have always been. You passed the final test, and now it is set before me. Give me your strength, my lord. Give me the will when my steps falter, like you did so many times.

The uttermost choice is before you, you said: to repent and go to the Havens and bear away into the West the memory of our days together that shall there be evergreen but never more than a memory; or else to abide the Doom of Men. Oh my love, that choice is long over... There is no ship for me, for my Blessed Realm is wherever you are...

We were like two trees, growing entwined in a sun-warmed soil. Our love blossomed, and bore fruits - sweet, ah so sweet they were... Our children, the fruits of our love. To hold them in my hands, to caress their hair, and think that our fëar and bodies touched to create a new being, but carrying something from both you and me, sealing us together in one perfect creation... I am thankful now, for something of you stays in them. Eldarion has your eyes, the gentle silver of kindness and stormy-grey of anger. And Gilraen, my little princess, has your smile... She is a woman now, not the little girl that you carried on your hands. They miss you, my love, just like I do. But they can go further. Life can go further. Not I. Without you, there is a piece of me missing...

Here, on this place, we forsook both the Shadow and the Twilight. That was my choice, and I would not choose differently. I regret nothing, my lord. Every moment with you was worth it, even those when we quarrelled, stubborn as we both were...

When we first met, I was a tall birch, and you a young sapling. But you grew to strength quickly, like the White Tree that waited on your touch among the cold stones of Mindolluin. When you found it, you knew that I was coming, and that your line will continue, you told me. And for a moment, I wanted to be that tree, planted and caressed by your hands. Now you are no more, and I am a mallorn with bare branches, watching my leaves flutter to the ground. Winter comes to Lórien...

But the White Tree stands still on the square of Minas Tirith, and its trunk is strong and steady. There is more than memory behind the circles of the world... Here, on this place, I can feel your touch on my skin when I close my eyes. I can hear your voice, calling me. I smile. I'm coming, my love...

I slip my hand into yours. We are young again, and we walk among the birches of Rivendell. It is spring...