List:
Elvish Translations:
“Dreams?”
“Yes”
“Do not fear! I love you.”
“I know.”
“Father.”
“Father, I love you!”
“I love you, Eldarion. May Elbereth protect you, may her stars shine on the path of your life. Farewell.”

My Story:
Title: Arwen's Fate
Author: Me! Turwaithiel Swann
Story:
The sun was shining through the tainted glass-stained windows of the White City of Gondor, or better known as Minas Tirith. It is a city that had been kingless for many ages, under stewardship, and to many people’s horror, was almost destroyed. But, that was before Lord Aragorn came and helped draw Sauron’s armies so that Frodo could have a chance to destroy the ring.

It has been 10 years since that day.

King Aragorn awoke with a start as he thought about the past…about Frodo the Ringbearer, and the Council of Elrond in Rivendell, which eventually lead to the forming of the Fellowship, who went all over Middle-earth, losing Gandalf in the mines, and then losing Boromir near the Anduin and at the same time Merry and Pippin were caught by Uruk’s and that caused Legolas, Gimli and himself to go and search for them, while Frodo and Sam continued to make there way to Mount Doom. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli then fought at Helm’s Deep, Merry and Pippin at Isengaurd, and Frodo was being corrupted by his and Sam’s new guide, Sméagol, better known as Gollum. Then, when Helm’s Deep’s doom was near it’s hand, Gandalf the White came with the King of Rohan’s son, Eomer, and the Rohirrum, and drove out the last of the Uruk-hai to Fangorn Forest. That was as far as Aragorn’s dream got to before he awoke sweat dripping down his back. Unfortunately, him awaking caused his wife, Queen Arwen, to also awake. She was looking at him worriedly and then she said,

“Reniannen?” She asked quietly, in Elvish.
“Mae.” Aragorn replied, also in Elvish.
“Hain ú-'rogon.” She replied once more, and kissed him on the forehead. “Le melon.” Aragorn smiled at his wife as he looked into her eyes and he whispered, in English this time.
“I know.”

Then, a knock came to the door. Arwen looked up and Aragorn sat up from his bed and said,
“Who knocks?”
“It’s me!” A sweet and excited voice cried. “Please, Ada, hurry and open the door before my maids catch me!” Aragorn let out a full-hearted laugh and Arwen called sweetly,
“Come in, my child!” Then, the door swung open quickly and a small little boy came bursting in and he quickly shut the door behind him, gasping. He was tall for his age of 10, with curly brown hair and light blue eyes like his mother’s. He also had fair skin like his mothers, but he had normal ears like his father. Eldarion, Aragorn’s and Arwen’s first son, ran up and jumped onto there bed just as the maid caught up to the door, pushing it open slightly and with barely any breath at all, she gasped,
“My Lord! My Lady! Please forgive me, I did not mean to let him disturb your slumber, please –” But Arwen raised a small hand and smiled as Eldarion tried to scramble behind his father to hide from his maid.
“Worry not, young Bella. Eldarion did not disturb us. We were just getting up.” With a sideways glance to her husband, she looked back at the Eldarion’s maid, Bella, and added, “You are free for the day, Bella. Eldarion will accompany me for today. Thank you.” Bella smiled and curtsied and said,
“As you wish, Lady Arwen. Thank you.” She quickly stood and left the room, shutting the door behind her. After the door shut, Eldarion peeked his head out from behind Aragorn.
“Is she gone?” He asked quietly.
“Yes, little Eldarion, she is gone.” Aragorn said. Arwen slipped out of bed and looked at her son, holding out her hand. “Come, Eldarion, you will come with me today. I am going to meet Eowyn, and maybe Elboron will be there for you to play with!” Eldarion jumped out of the bed and grabbed his mother’s hand as Arwen bend down and kissed Aragorn on the lips softly. “Do not let your past haunt you, melon. It is over and now there is someone more important you need to worry about.” She whispered in his ear and then glancing at Eldarion, she turned gracefully and left. Sighing, Aragorn stood and dressed and walked out of room, going to the main throne room, where Faramir, Eomer, and Legolas awaited him, sitting at a small circular table. They were his most trusted advisors and they felt like brothers to him and were always loyal to Aragorn after his crowning. Legolas was even before then, completely loyal to him. Aragorn walked in and he smiled at them, but they did not smile back.
“What troubles you, Milord?” Faramir questioned.
“How can you tell what is troubling me?”
“I see it in your eyes.” He said confidently. Aragorn sighed as he sat down and a serving boy brought them wine and food. He thanked the boy and gave him a small silver coin before answering,
“It’s the past…nothing more.”
“Well, not to add to your burden or anything…” Eomer started.
“But Uruk’s have been found on the outskirts in the ashes of Mordor. They are marching towards Rohan as we speak.” Legolas finished. Aragorn’s mouth went agape. Uruk’s! In Middle-Earth! It had only been ten years of peace…10 short years…and now, already, the time of war has come again. Aragorn stood and said simply,
“Prepare for battle then. Get a small army. I will be at the gate in a moment.” Aragorn said.
~~~~~~~
Aragorn is at the gate in only a few moments time, in full armor, and he is preparing his horse as Arwen and Eldarion come down the steps, Arwen very gracefully but Eldarion is jumping around like a bag of Mexican jumping beans. Arwen, trying to stay calm as the Queen, walks up to Aragorn, who turns to her solemnly. Eldarion looked up at his father and asked,
“Ada, why can I not go with you? I have a sword! I can fight!” Aragorn looked down at his son and he knelt down to look him in the eye.
“I hoped you would never have to go to war, Eldarion. But, I fear that my wish will not hold. But this fight…” He said, gripping his son’s shoulders “is not yours. Your time will come. Please do not argue with me, my son. I love you, Eldarion, and I am proud of you. Never forget that, ever, you understand me?” Eldarion, confused at his father’s words, nodded. Aragorn pulled his son into a hug and Eldarion hugged back and he whispered into Aragorn’s ear,
“Ada, le melon!” Aragorn smiled at his son as he let go and stood to greet his wife. Arwen went to Aragorn and hugged him, tears slipping down her face.
“Aragorn–” She began, but Aragorn stopped her.
“Arwen, my love, please do not try and persuade me out of going to war. I hoped that evil would not come back to the world so soon, but I have lived a good life! I watched my son grow to become an amazing young boy who I can tell is going to become a great warrior, as well as a great man. I married the love of my life, and she loved me back. I regret nothing, only that I could not have seen my son grow old. But I know you will take care of him…Arwen, I love you. I love you more than you know…if I do not come back always remember that. Always!” Aragorn said to his wife, and only she could hear him. Arwen, more tears dripping down her face, muffled back a sob as she looked into her husband’s eyes.
“I love you, Aragorn. I have always loved you. Be careful…and please, please, try to come home.” She asked him. Aragorn simply smiled.
“You know I will.” He said and he kissed his wife passionately. He bid her farewell and bid his son farewell once more, and then, with Legolas to his right and Faramir and Eomer to his left, they took a small army out of Gondor that morning, in the direction of Rohan.

Not all of them returned.

Arwen gasped, and sat up with a start. She grasped her chest, were her heart was, which was beating terribly fast. She looked around the room. It was just a dream…a dream of the past. A terrible dream that has been entering her slumber for 5 years time now. She looked down at the bed she lay in; no one lay beside her. Aragorn’s body was found three days after the battle. Faramir came back with it, telling Arwen the news. Legolas had been captured by orcs and Eomer stayed in Rohan to help clean up the destruction. Aragorn had fought valiantly, but an Uruk the size of a troll, the leader, came upon Aragorn from behind, and took his life away from him in a second. Aragorn’s funeral was three days later, and it looks exactly like what Arwen’s fathers, Lord Elrond, had predicted. But, Arwen knew now, that her time had now come. Her fate finally revealed itself.

Arwen got out of her bed and dressed on her own, without a maid. She took out her cloak and went out the back way out of the Royal Chambers and into the Throne Room. Her son, Eldarion, now King of Minas Tirith and Middle-Earth, was sitting at the same circular table that his father did five years ago, looking at a map. When Arwen entered, Eldarion looked up, startled. He stood. He was only 15, but he was the size of a full-grown man and his hair had fallen down to his shoulders, in the same style his father wore it. His eyes were still like his mother’s but his skin had lost the Elvish fairness that it had as he was a boy. It was ruff and rugged, again, just like his father.

“Mother!” He called to her but she held up her hand.
“Le melon, Eldarion. Ná Elbereth veria le, ná elenath dín síla erin rád o chuil lín. Namárië.” And then, without waiting for Eldarion to answer, Arwen fled. She fled Minas Tirith, going to the stables to get her horse, Asfaloth, and together they rode out of Minas Tirith, into the west; into the forest was where she sought. She knew he fate now. She would linger in the forest, her home, until her final days on this earth were too past. It was her fate…the fate she, Arwen Undomiel, had chosen…a fate now she embraced with open arms.

From The Ashes

Black, charred ground stretched in every direction. The sky was tinged blood-red, with roiling clouds low on the horizon that no more deserved the name than did the smoke rising from the broken – but still towering - Mount Doom.

The party, mounted on horses, stopped in silence to survey the ruined waste before them, and the forbidding finger of bare rock jutting up into the sky. There was a subdued silence about them. Barad-dur was crumbled, its very foundations shattered beyond repair, and there was no aura of evil lingering over its bleak stretches of jagged, fire-charred stone. Not any more. But Mordor, after so many years of being twisted to the will of the Dark Lord Sauron, was akin to the orcs it spawned even now. Perhaps it had once been beautiful, perhaps once green things had grown and thrived. But like the Elves, tortured and mutated beyond recognition by Morgoth, long ago, into the hideous orcs and goblins, Mordor would never again be aught but a barren waste.

There was another moment of grave silence, and then the new-crowned King of Gondor shifted in his saddle, absently patting his mount. Brego, too, was quiet, but Aragorn Elessar spoke. His voice carried the proper solemnity but there was no fear in it. There never had been. “You see Mordor as I fear it shall ever be, friends,” he said, wheeling Brego half around to survey those behind him, all mounted. “Sauron lingers here no longer. Think you that we must ride further, Faramir?”

The Prince of Ithilien, newly crowned in his own right, was already shaking his head. He had been the one who insisted they journey into Mordor – to make certain, once and for all, that this was no reoccurrence of the Dark Lord’s first retreat. “Nay, nothing remains here. Nothing but the remembrance of death, and the regret of it.”

Aragorn nodded once even before Faramir had finished speaking. “We ride, then,” he said, and as one the party wheeled their mounts about to make for the Black Gate. That name held still only by dint of long use. There was no gate about the crumbled rock and fragments of shattered stone wall strewn there.

King and Prince, either by intention or no, found themselves side by side in the retreat. They were silent with the rest, silent until, upon cresting a ridge in the treacherously rocky fields, a glimpse could be caught through the mountains of green Ithilien. Faramir exhaled audibly, evincing a glance from Aragorn next to him.

“Are you troubled?” he inquired, eyes forward towards the Black Gate still.

Faramir shook his head. “Ithilien only thrives increasingly since Sauron’s defeat,” he said. “Twenty-six stewards since the last King of Gondor, Aragorn. And none who reigned without a black threat from Mordor. It hardly seems real.”

Aragorn did not immediately reply. How dearly, it seemed, the race of men had paid for their folly. The repercussions of Isildur’s first entrapment by the ring had been unimaginably far-reaching. But their sacrifice did not begin to match that of the Elves. Aye, he carried some measure of regret that Middle-Earth could not be the same as it had.

Faramir’s words struck a chord. Aragorn could not remember being without the fear, buried however deep, that his ancestor’s folly would come to be his own, that Middle-Earth would fall because he could not resist the lure of the Ring of Power. Now Ithilien thrived, Mordor had fallen, and Gondor could rise from the ashes – Denethor, son of Ecthelion’s ashes – to become greater than it had ever been.

Yes, it seemed hardly real. To be sure, the new world would have its perils, its times where hope seemed scarce, but now the sun’s rays that filtered through the clouds above spoke of a hope none had known before.

“Take care you do not begin to think you stray into a dream,” he replied at long last, the hint of a smile lighting a rugged, worn face – the phrase was reminiscent of a dark-haired figure he knew to be waiting on her balcony, delicately pointed ears straining for the sound of his arrival. “It is real. We will carry Gondor into the Fourth Age, and it will be an age none has known before.”

White towers lit by the sun beckoned to him, and the long-awaited embrace of the one who still held his heart in her hands. Aragorn Elessar spurred the faithful Brego into a gallop.

Mordor was behind – and a new world ahead.

“Grandfather Sam’s almost here, Mother!” Firiel ran into the house, a grin spread across her face.

“Alright, I’m coming.” I wiped my flour-sprinkled hands on my apron, then took it off and slung it over a chair back. In his last letter, my father had written that he was coming for a visit. All of us- my husband, my children and I, were glad to see him again.

I could see Fastred and Elfstan striding out from the fields behind our house, and I hurried to join them, running up to greet Father as he walked up to the house. “Father.” I hugged him, smiling. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Elanor.” He returned the hug, then stepped back. “You’re lookin’ well.”

“So are you.” I stretched the truth a little. In truth, I thought Father looked tired- his face was deeply lined, and his shoulders were hunched a bit. “Come on inside.” I went back up the brick path to our house. I could hear Elfstan and Firiel chattering behind me, but Father only made brief replies.
----------------------
During dinner, I noticed Father didn’t eat very much, and he went to bed shortly after the children did, saying he was tired from his trip. As he walked down the hall, I watched him with worry. Fastred must have seen my frown, because he sat down in the chair next to mine. “What’s wrong, Elanor?”

Shaking my head a little, I turned to look at him. “Probably nothing. It’s just… Father seems so different- worn out somehow. He’s hardly said anything since he got here.”

“He’s tired, like he said.”

I shook my head. “No, I think it’s more than that.” I stared at my hands for a long moment, then looked up at Fastred again. “Well, I can’t do anything about it tonight. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
----------------------
The next day, I asked Father to come out and look at my gardens. He agreed. Like usual, he had praise and advice, and I welcomed both. He still seemed weary, though. We went to the stream behind our house and sat down along the bank.

“Father,” I turned to look at him, biting my lip. “Are you alright?”

He looked faintly puzzled. “What do you mean?”

I swallowed, unsure of how to continue. “I’ve been worried about you- ever since Mother died.”

“Oh. Yes, I’m alright.” He stared out at the gently flowing water. “It’s hard sometimes, though. I… I still find myself thinkin’ about her. Some mornings, I wake up and forget, and wonder why she isn’t in bed beside me. The house is so empty now…” He trailed off.

Moving closer to him, I took his hand in mine. I could see dirt ingrained under his fingernails and in his knuckles- evidence for his love of the soil and growing things. “You could live here with us, Father. We would all love to have you stay.”

He shook his head. “No, Elanor. I couldn’t. You have your life ‘ere, with your husband and children. I couldn’t… intrude on that.”

“It wouldn’t be an intrusion! Please, Father. We have plenty of rooms, and you could take care of the gardens if you wanted to. Like I said, I’m worried about you. You look tired, and it’s not good for you to be all alone.”

“I am tired.” He said softly. I had to strain to hear his words. “I can’t ever seem to find the rest I’m lookin’ for.” After a long pause, he turned to look at me, his eyes filled with sadness and decision. “Elanor, I’m goin’ to the Havens.”

“What?” I scrambled to my feet and stared down at him. “The Grey Havens? Why?”

He stood too and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve done what I can for the Shire, Elanor, and it’s time for me to move on.”

“But- I need you here.” Tears started in my eyes.

Smiling gently, he said, “Now, don’t you start cryin’. You’ve got your husband and children to look after you, and they need you to look after them.“

I didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to beg him to stay in the Shire, but part knew that he deserved, even needed, what he would find past the Grey Havens. He would see his Master Frodo again, and be able to finally, truly rest. Closing my eyes against the tears, I nodded. “You should go, Papa.” I hadn’t called him that in years.

I opened my eyes, and he drew me into a hug. I returned it, holding him tightly. Despite myself, I felt tears trickling down my cheeks. After a moment, we pulled back from each other.

“Well,” I said briskly, wiping my eyes. “You’ll need food for the journey. When did you plan on leaving?”

“Wait just a minute, Elanor-lass. I’ve got something to give you.” He pulled a large book from his ever-present pack and handed it to me.

Feeling its heaviness in my hands, I opened the cover. The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King. My eyes widened as I turned the pages, realizing what I held. “This is-?” I looked up at Father.

He nodded. “It’s all the tales I’ve told you, and many more. Keep it safe, Elanor. Remember what’s inside it, and share the stories.”

“I will, Papa.” I held the book to my chest, feeling the cool leather cover under my fingers. “I promise.”
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A few days later, I stood outside with my family, holding Father’s gift to me. Father had his pack fixed over his shoulders and a walking stick in his hand. Standing back, I watched as he hugged Fastred, Elfstan, and Firiel in turn, with a few quiet words and smile for each of them. As he turned to me, I tried to smile.

“I’ll miss you, Papa.” He stepped forward and embraced me. I clung tightly to him for a moment, as if I would stop him from leaving, then stepped back. “Well, they must have gardens across the Sea. Make sure they let you have one of your own.”

“I’ll do that.” A smile creased his face, even as tears glistened in his eyes. “Goodbye, Elanor. Remember, I always love you.”

Keeping back my own tears, I said, “I love you too, Papa.” I smiled sadly. “Goodbye.”

With a last smile for all of us, he turned and walked down the road. At the top of the hill, he turned and looked back for a moment, then waved and stepped forward, vanishing from our sight. Fastred moved close to me and put an arm around my shoulders. “What’s that?”

I realized I still held the Red Book in my hands. “Stories, tales… memories.” I looked down at it, stroking the faded leather gently. These stories won’t be forgotten, Father. I promise.