silwritersguild | FIC: THE LEAVETAKING OF ARWEN

TITLE: The Leavetaking of Arwen
AUTHOR:Anna_Wing
RATING: Gen
WARNINGS: None
SUMMARY: In which the Queen of Gondor and Arnor makes a decision

There was silence in Minas Tirith, but for the sound of mourning.

The King lay in state and his people came to him for the last time, in weeping, unspeaking throngs; through the chill rains of autumn, trampling underfoot the last blowing shreds of the leaves of summer. The Lord Eldarion and the Princesses and their children kept vigil with the guards of the White Tower, turn and turn about, day and night. The people bowed to the old King but did the new the courtesy of ignoring him. The time for acknowledgement and fealty was not yet.

In the Queen’s quarters, silence reigned also. By her order her rooms had been stripped bare of all but necessities, ready for Eldarion’s Lady to furnish as she pleased. Arwen’s own possessions were gone to her daughters and her friends and those who had served her, saving only her tapestries, that she had brought with her when first she came to the City. Those remained, clothing the walls of her study as they had for the last six-score years, holding back the coming cold.

Her visitor studied them with interest, for this was the first time that he had been invited into this room. They were four - a lake beneath a starry sky, a white city on a hill, rising in the midst of a green and secret valley; swans on a stream in a forest of tall golden-leaved trees, a mountain rising from a shining sea. There was great power in them, for Arwen had been mighty in her Art, but the last prince of the Noldor in Middle-earth was not among those who could be captured by it.

The Queen of Gondor stood at the open doors to the swiftly darkening garden, disregarding the damp and the chill breeze that came with evening. She was unattended. Her long hair was unbound, streaming in a dark fall down her back, and her dress was grey and belted with silver. When she turned away from the coming night he saw her face; she looked like an old woman and nothing at all like a mortal one.

“Arwen Undomiel,” said Maglor son of Fëanor, “Daughter of Elrond, kinswoman, greetings.”

“Kinsman. I thank you for your kindness in coming to me. Be seated, if it please you.”

The music of her voice was muted and untuned, though well-controlled as befitted a Queen. But the voices of Elves and Men can hide little from the Singer, and behind the still-lovely timbre her mood was deadly dark. He noted it, with recognition and cool pity, and waited for the unfolding of her theme.

The room was large and seemed larger for being almost empty. Apart from the tapestries, the only furniture left within its echoing walls was a square camp table and two of its chairs. They had been fine once but were now worn and scarred from long use, though still strong and well cared-for; the Tree and Stars and Crown inlaid in silver upon the shining red-black wood of the table-top was polished bright. The table itself bore only a silver jug and two cups of fine Near Harad glass.

The Queen took one of Aragorn’s old campaign chairs and waved her guest to the other. He came to her, on feet that made no sound upon the intricate parquetry of the floor, took off his grey cloak and folded it over the back of the chair and sat down without further ceremony.

The cool air filled with the sudden scent of summer, as she poured mead into the cups. Maglor sniffed appreciatively and drank. It was very good, for a thing of mortals. Not the miruvorë of Valinor nor even the lesser brew of Rivendell, but more than well enough. The Queen left her cup untouched.

She said, “Of all those who dwelt in this City when first I entered its Gate, not one lives now.”

He considered a moment before replying. “It is the normal consequence of dwelling among mortals.”

“And yet you have endured it,” the Queen said. “How have you endured it? My father told me of the tale of your days, since the Fall of Beleriand and I have read the letters that he exchanged with the Lady you served, the Grandmother of the East. You have lived far longer among Men than I.”

Maglor looked faintly amused. “It is simple enough. I live among Men. They are not my friends. The Grandmother of the East does not die, and her I count a friend, of sorts. She and I have been here in this City for, what, the last nine-dozen years? And the King’s Household has been buying confectionery from her shop for most of that time. You might have summoned either of us at any time to know the details of our past dealings. Indeed, she was herself a Queen among Men once, and would better be able to answer what you have asked.”

The Queen shook her head. “Mistress Innin was a Servant of the Dark once. Though my father had his own dealings with her...neither he nor I have ever known her true purposes in the world. I thought it better to have her in my City, under my eye, rather than at large in the Kingdom, but I do not trust her. You at least, my lord, are of the Eldar, and my kin.”

“And Kinslayer,” he said. “And Exile unrepentant. You have kept me under your eye also, all these years in your City. Dare you trust me either, now that you have come to the end of your road?”

Grey eyes met grey. Maglor did not look away.

“We Noldor thought that Mandos had laid an especial Doom upon us,” he said. “But He merely told us the common way of things in Middle-earth, where all deeds, all works go to dust, sooner or later. Yet from the dust the green things grow again and new works may be made. As for Men, they come and go, and also new Men come to take their place. Love them if you wish, but never try to hold them, for they are ephemeral things. Death is their Doom and their nature. As well try to catch the morning mist in your fingers.”

“I was taught that death is the Gift of the One to Men, their road to freedom from the pain of the world. Freedom,” the Queen said, as if she had bitten into rotten fruit. “Freedom to wither and fail, freedom to blunder into darkness, ignorant and alone. Freedom.”

The word echoed between them, its bitter weight unhidden. In his library Elrond had kept a copy of the Noldolantë, including the last canto that only he and his children had ever read, that Maglor had sent him, to tell his foster-son what had become of him. Before the tale of Númenor had it moved her, in those distant days when the Dunédain were merely her passing guests in Rivendell, ephemeral indeed as butterflies and as little regarded. The Noldor too had sought freedom.

“The One is an artist, “ Maglor said at last.

“Does a singer seek to hold a note beyond its place in the melody?”

He waved a graceful hand at the wall. His palm was unmarred, the crippling scars left by the Silmaril’s rejection gone as if they had never been.

“When you shaped those to your will, did you care for the fate of each thread, save as it served your design?”

The Queen’s own hand clenched upon the table-top. The Ring of Barahir shone against her fingers, that were slender and fine and still strong.

“Is this the teaching of your Lady? This ... blasphemy? Then are you still rebel indeed.”

“Ask of your husband’s people, Queen of Gondor,” Maglor’s voice was as remote as the Sunset. “It was not any Power of the Dark that murdered Númenor at the last. And the songs that came from that ending...are very fine.”

Arwen closed her eyes. The sky was altogether dark now, and the wind was cold. The lamps guttered in their sconces on the walls. Maglor rose and went to the doors; he shut and latched them, cutting off the draught. He glanced at the lamps: the flames steadied, and then strengthened. When he returned to the table, the Queen was sitting with her hands clasped before her, head bowed.

He touched her shoulder lightly and she looked up at him.

“Child, what would you have of me?”

Her gaze was lightless and tearless.

“My wisdom fails me,” she said. “I have lost all for which I exchanged the life of the Eldar,,,and I am not yet weary of the world, though leaving it is the price that is due for the years of my joy.”

He returned to his chair and drank some more mead. The Queen looked at her full cup and lifted it to her lips.

He said after a moment, frowning a little,

“You do not have to die.”

Arwen said bitterly, “I cannot un-make my choice.”

“You do not have to die,” Maglor said again. “Innin Adili, Grandmother of the East, who was once my Queen and is still my friend, said this when I told her of your summons: ‘You may say to the Queen of Gondor that if she desires it, for your sake, because she is the daughter of your heart’s son, I will give continuance to her flesh, for as long as it pleases her to dwell within Arda’.”

The Queen set her cup upon the table with some force. “So is her name also ‘Annatari’? What price will she demand in exchange for this...gift? And you, kinsman, what did she offer you?”

Maglor said tranquilly, “She was of the Earthqueen’s folk once and is still one of the masters of the life of Arda; it is a true offer, so far as I know. It is likely that there are still several undying cats running about in the Uttermost East, and certainly there are at least two undying horses here in the City.”

Into the astounded silence he added, “We stable them outside the walls, of course, as the law requires. And they are gelded.”

Arwen said with open wonder, “Is this power so little to her then, that she gives it so lightly? Are the Children of the One no more than the beasts to her?”

Maglor said, “The kindred of Yavanna, in my experience, make few distinctions among living things, whether they are the One’s Children or Hers, or even the poor creatures of Morgoth’s devising.”

He added into the Queen’s silence, “In the age of her Queenship in the East the Lady Innin by her power granted the gift of unending bodily life to three men of Men, whose names and fates are still recalled among the Easterlings. One was before my time, and I think her intention then was kind, by which I mean that it was an essay in her Art that she thought might not be harmful to its subject. That was Ikru the Sorrowful. The other two I knew thereafter, and to those most assuredly she meant ill. Nenushin the Accursed and Wechar the Mad were their names. All are dead, by their own hands or others’. The spirits of Men do not well endure the weight of continuing Time.”

He smiled faintly. “We were no friends of the black ships that came to seize our lands and make slaves of our people. Had she known that escape from death was their true desire...she might well have given it to them, and saved both Sauron and the One their trouble.”

Arwen stirred in her chair and then was still again.

“Why then, if she does not mean me ill, would she offer this gift to me?”

“You were born Peredhel, not Man, and so might escape the fate of a Man,” Maglor said. “Having passed the greater part of your life as one of the Eldar, the habit of unending days might be resumed. Or it might be too late and your spirit too much a mortal’s now, unable to bear the weight of Time, and you would end in madness as they did, and the Crown of Gondor be lost with you. She judges the chances equal, and therefore worth the offering.”

Arwen’s eyes narrowed. “Think you that it is the Crown that I truly desire to keep?”

“Not yet,” he answered. “But if you choose to live, why then should it sit upon your son’s head, rather than yours? Yours is the greater right, for your line is the elder.”

The silence was broken only by the sound of the wicks steadily burning down in the lamps. Arwen slipped the Ring of Barahir from her finger and turned it slowly in her hands.

“No longer to fear the withering of my strength or the unknown fate that lies beyond death,” she said at last. “ To take your Lady’s gift and usurp my own son and be the Ruling Queen of Gondor for all the Ages of Time to come. To betray my word and my husband and all my kin. Do I this deed, even your infamy would be eclipsed, my kinsman. Sauron himself could devise no finer revenge upon the West.”

Maglor shrugged. “Why so? Would you be a worse Queen to these Men than any of those who have worn that Crown before? You might instead be the greatest blessing that they will ever receive. Wise as the Eldar, yet understanding of the minds of Men as we can never be, and uncorrupted by the fear that twists their hearts.”

“Perhaps,” said Arwen. “Perhaps not. ”

She set down the Ring and rose in her turn, pacing. Maglor stayed where he was. Her footsteps were as soundless as his. The floor itself was new, the wood having been laid in Steward Ecthelion’s time, but the design was of lost Beleriand, and ancient. Maglor considered idly the divers ways by which a pattern of wooden pieces might have passed from High King Fingolfin’s hall in Dor-lómin to the King’s House in Gondor, and poured himself more mead. After a while, the soundless footsteps stopped and he looked up. The Queen had come to the walls, and the tapestries that hung there. She stretched out her hand and touched the image of Cuiviénen gently with one finger.

“It is very fine, your Work,” Maglor said. The wind was rising as night fell, but inside, within the thick walls of the King’s House, it was quiet enough that he did not have to raise his voice to be heard. “I have not seen any such made more fair than these, even in the Blessed Realm, even in the years of our bliss.”

“I have made none since I came to Gondor,” she said in the same tone, not looking at him, “The least of them was more than a Great Year in the weaving. Did I say “Yes” to your Lady, I might have time to make others.”

And yet, in the years to come, under the Dominion of Men, what would become of them? They too would fade. And who would there be left to see them truly? The line of Númenor has been restored for now, but in the end, whether I live or die its children will dwindle and be lost among the common run of Men. Gondor and the Men of Gondor are nothing to you, cousin. But I have learned care for them; I fear to live to unlearn it.”

Maglor raised a hand in a gesture that might have conveyed either indifference or resignation. “The Elder Days are done. I chose to live as I may, nonetheless. What road do you take, cousin?”

She went back to the table and sat down again. Outside he could hear the leaves, falling like years as the wind tore them from the trees. Strong though they were, the doors creaked in their frame. Her cup was empty and he re-filled it for her.

She said, “I shall leave the City when his tomb is closed, and go to the Golden Wood.”

He nodded. “Would you have me send word to your brothers and Lord Celeborn?”

She smiled for the first time, and it was clear how weary she was, despite her words earlier. “I thank you, but there is no need. They will know.”

There might have been the slightest measure of kindness in his cold, bright eyes.

“As will I. Farewell then, daughter of my son. Greet Elros for me, if you should meet him where you go. And take that mead to Lorien with you, it is excellent.”

He stood, gathering up his cloak, and turned away.

“There is one matter more,” the Queen said. He looked back, brows raised. She lifted the Ring of Barahir in one hand.

“I will leave this behind for my son’s wife,” she said. “It is the Ring of the Queen of Gondor, now. I do not grudge it. My son is not a fool and his wife is worthy of him, worthy of Gondor, worthy of the Ring.”

She came forward and they stood face to face. She was almost as tall as he, taller than any man of the Dunedain. They might have been brother and sister in that moment, dark-haired and grey-eyed, and their beauty as if carved in stone.

Arwen said, stone-cold, stone-strong, “But it will not always be so, now that I have chosen my road, for that too is the nature of Men. Late or soon they will be unworthy, our descendants. Foolish, corrupt, cowardly, they will come to that as time wears on and our names are forgotten. And to them I do grudge it. When their day dawns I would not have our Ring defiled by their hands.”

Maglor asked, amused and interested, “What would you have me do?”

“Live,” said the Queen, “And when the time comes, take the Ring from them. I appoint you the agent of my will in this. The Ring of Barahir was given to the Elf-friends and it should not fall to lesser Men.”

He said, “Why not lay this charge upon your grandfather, Lord Celeborn? I doubt that he will be crossing the Sea at any time in the near future, and surely he would not deny you.”

Arwen answered, “He is Celeborn of Doriath still, and cares nothing for the heirlooms of the Noldor. Least of all this one, for the part that it played in the fate of Lúthien my foremother, and has played in mine. Nor will he live among Men or pay heed to their affairs. You are the last of the House of Finwë in Middle-earth, my lord. Take it when the time comes, keep it safe, and some day, take it back with you from whence it came.”

His look was suddenly daunting, all kindliness fled: shining and dreadful as at Alqualondë and Doriath and Sirion; as at the end of the War of Wrath, when he had taken a Silmaril, and thrown it away.

“I shall never go back,” he said, and the weight of Doom was in his words. "Do not think that there will ever be a ship for me.”

Arwen met that cold fire unmoved and immoveable.

“Say not ‘never’, kinsman, for Time is long, and choices will come unlooked for, for you and your Lady both.”

It struck him silent then, that sudden echo of a change in the world’s music. In the freedom and power of her chosen mortality, she laid her will upon the Song as even he could not, mighty though he was, and he was shaken.

She said, implacable, “Will you do as I ask?”

“You are Queen yet among Elves and Men,’ he said, and bowed without irony. “I shall do your will, when the time comes.”

She returned the courtesy, gravely. He bent his head a little and kissed her brow.

“We all go into the unknown, kinswoman. My friend and I into Time and you...away from it. Are you still unwilling to leave the world?”

Her smile was fierce, a thing as wild and chill as the night beyond the doors. “It is no matter, for you have shown me that there are worse things. I am the Queen. Shall I fear the road that the least of my subjects must take, will they, nill they? I shall go where they go, and if there be aught besides darkness beyond the Circles of the World then I will seek an answer there for my sorrow and theirs, and all the sorrow of my kin, aye, even to the very One if I must!”

She paused, drawing a deep breath. “ So will you make a song for me, kinsman, for my passing from the world? A fine song?”

Maglor laughed and stepped back from her, wrapping his grey cloak about himself. The lamplight was pitilessly bright in the empty room, but the cloak caught the shadows and sheltered them.

“Oh yes. I swear it. You shall have such songs as no Queen of Men or Elves has ever had nor ever shall again, Arwen my cousin, most mighty and royal. Elves and Men will hear them, and they will not dare to weep. Farewell!”