Posting fic again - "The Last Flight of Elanor Gamgee"

[anna_wing]

In the antediluvian days of LiveJournal, before there was the Archive Of Our Own, all my fic was posted there. By the time LJ booted me out AO3 existed, and I'd put everything I'd written there, so I never quite got round to posting on Dreamwidth as well. I write Tolkien fic mostly, in the rather niche category of Silmarillion gen, and all more or less in the same universe, though there is also a gigantic Star Wars Sequel Trilogy ensemble fic that is in progress and almost finished.

So here is one of the recent ones. All that anyone needs to know is that in this version of the Trousers of Middle-earth Time, Mablung of the Ithilien Rangers and Elanor Gamgee, Sam's daughter, collaborated on a decades-long project to rescue and rehabilitate Sauron's fell-beasts.

"The Last Flight of Elanor Gamgee"




Chapter 1: A Long Cup of Tea

“Granny Elanor! There’s a visitor for you! An elf! He's from Rivendell!”

Elanor Fairbairn looked up from her desk, smiling a little at her secretary’s excited squeak from the door. Rose Boffin, known as ‘Young Rosie’, was one of the grand-daughters of Elanor’s daughter Firiel, and had been sent by her parents to be “polished” in the household of her great-grandmother, ‘Old Lady Elanor’ as she was known in the Shire, (‘Granny Elanor’ to her descendants). Young Rosie was a keen-witted, hardworking, cheerful tween, and Elanor had grown very fond of her.

“Rivendell!” she said, laying down her pen. “Have you told Cousin Carnation? Is he being looked after?”

“Of course, Granny! He’s in the Morning Room, and she’s given him her special gingerbread, and the tea from Minas Tirith!”

‘Cousin Carnation” was Mrs Carnation Maggot, born a Gamgee of the Tighfield branch of the family, grand-daughter of Master Samwise’s eldest brother Hamson. In her widowhood she had applied for the post of Head Housekeeper of Undertowers, and had been there for decades now, managing all household matters and famous throughout the Westmarch for her baking.

“Well then,” Elanor said, pushing herself to her feet and reaching for the handsome blackthorn walking-stick (its handle carved in the shape of a Flying-beast’s beaky head) in its stand beside the desk. “Young Fastred went down to Tower Delving this morning, didn’t he? Go and leave word at the door for when he comes in, dear, and then look for me in the Morning Room with our guest.”

Rosie trotted off, and Elanor went over to the silver-framed looking-glass on the wall; it was a favourite possession, its elegant angles Dwarf-work from Aglarond and a wedding gift from dear Uncle Pippin. She took her time before her reflection, making sure that her hair (also silver now, no longer the flower-gold of her youth) and her plain black dress were tidy, and that her silver pendant was hanging straight. She had received the jewel from the King and Queen when she was appointed Lady Steward of Arnor, and wore it always; it was formed as a pair of Flying-beast wings, outstretched on either side of a huge, bright, sky-blue aquamarine. It had been a personal gift, not a badge of office, and so she had kept it when she handed over her post at the respectable age of 95, the year of her husband Fastred’s death. That had been twenty-five years ago, and she had lived since then at Undertowers, the beautiful hole that he had designed and excavated for her before their marriage.

She was not as nimble as she had been, and Undertowers had grown over the years. Now it was dug wide and deep across the whole hill, so it took her a little time to walk with her stick from her spacious, comfortable rooms on the Western side to the Guests’ Wing on the Eastern one. She and dear Fastred had only had two children, but Elfstan and Ithildin (Brandybuck, one of darling Uncle Merry’s many grand-daughters) had produced six, and Firiel and Hildegar Boffin had had five, with the number of great-grandchildren and additional cousins still growing. In less than a hundred years Undertowers, while not (yet) rivalling the Great Smials or Brandy Hall, had expanded to become at least the peer and more of the extended Bag End (Elanor’s many siblings had been prolific parents too).

Elanor’s beloved, far-sighted husband, having read Master Bilbo’s book and observed Mayor Samwise’s wide and exotic acquaintance, had made sure to include space for visitors in his plans for Undertowers. The Guests’ Wing had a whole suite of bathrooms, ceilings tall enough for a High Elf, and comfortable enclosed verandahs with sleeping platforms sufficient for even the largest party of Dwarves. The Morning Room was the Wing’s main reception room, named for its tall windows facing the sunrise over the Far Downs, which made it bright even in the grey light of winter’s end. Its double doors were open, so as Elanor approached along the corridor, her visitor’s mellifluous voice clearly audible.

“…yes indeed, Mrs Maggot, the older recipes that your Mayoress Rosie collected from Rivendell would have been Beleriandic in origin. Most of the ingredients for the true cuisine of Eldamar were not then available at this latitude; Tirion is situated very far south, you know, on the very Girdle of Arda itself. I remember my compatriots in Beleriand complaining endlessly about the blandness in Sindarin food…you are quite right, the recipes in her book that have heavier spicing would actually be from the Second and Third Age, after trade with the Men of the East and the South began. They are undoubtedly Valinorean in origin and inspiration, but would of course have been adapted for the locally-available ingredients...”

Young Rosie was already there in her accustomed nook, wide-eyed but conscientiously taking notes while Glorfindel of Rivendell, Lord of lost Gondolin’s House of the Golden Flower, the Balrog-Slayer, the Twice-born, a great lord of the High Elves and mighty hero of the First, Second, Third, and it looked like, Fourth Age, discoursed upon Elvish cookery while absorbing Cousin Carnation’s special gingerbread with every evidence of proper enjoyment.

Cousin Carnation was looking slightly stunned by all of this golden-shining culinary enthusiasm, but as a master baker herself, with successful publications to her own name, was gamely holding up her end of the conversation.

“If you have time, my lord, it would be very helpful if you could take a closer look at the recipes and share your thoughts with us, it would be wonderful to be able to have an annotated edition with commentary by someone with first-hand knowledge …”

Elanor thought with amusement that Lord Glorfindel was certainly not going to get away this time without intensive interrogation about the cuisine of the Blessed Realm.

“Of course! I would be delighted…Lady Elanor!”

He leapt to his feet, his smile bright and sweet, and bowed. “My lady, you shine upon us like a star!”

Elanor laughed. “And you like the morning sun, my lord!” Glorfindel was a regular visitor to the Shire, on his way to and from Lindon and Rivendell, much loved by generations of Hobbits for his wisdom, and his kind and merry ways.

Cousin Carnation had risen to her feet as well, and was quickly transferring plates of gingerbread and the pot of tea to the smaller table and chairs next to the central window; the silver kettle on its spirit-burner was already there on its own stand. “There’s more hot water in the kettle, m’lady,” she said. “And plenty of gingerbread to be going on with. My lord, you’ll be staying for lunch and tea and dinner and at least overnight, I trust?”

Glorfindel glanced at Elanor with unexpected sobriety. “Yes,” he said, “For a few days, if it is not inconvenient to the Lady. We have much to speak of.”

“Of course, dear friend! You’re always welcome here for as long as you wish!”

Cousin Carnation dropped a brisk curtsy. “We’ll be off to settle things, then, ma’am. Come, Rosie.” She bustled out, spry and sturdy and wholly mistress of her realm. Rosie caught Elanor’s nod, stacked their used crockery efficiently onto the tray, and followed in haste.

Elanor went over to the table, where cups and plates had already been set.

“Thank you,” Elanor said, sitting down. “It would be a great kindness if you could add your knowledge to Mother’s books; it would make dear Carnation very happy.”

His smile was brief, but warm as always. “Mrs Maggot is a true mistress of her Art; I am honoured to be able to assist her.”

He filled her tea-cup with the Lebennin tea that Master Samwise had begun drinking in his last years in the Shire (the tea-set was also from Gondor, from Master Káno, so a tea-cosy was unnecessary), and sat down opposite her, grave once more.

Many of the children born in 1420 S.R., the year of the Return of the King and the first year of the Fourth Age, had lived unusually long lives, but Elanor had never expected to end up as the oldest person in the Shire, nor to outlive not only her husband but her own children. Elfstan had died peacefully two years ago, a year to the day after Ithildin’s death, and his eldest son Young Fastred was now Warden of the Westmarch, though Elanor of course remained the Head of the Fairbairn family. It was fortunate that she and her grand-daughter-in-law Rosemary (of the Proudfoot-Baggins line, Angelica Baggins’ descendants) got along well. Fíriel had followed her brother a year later, having lived her last years contentedly as the Boffin matriarch. Elanor had mourned them, but accepted that their lives had been full and happy.

She herself had not been idle in her retirement. She had kept up her correspondence with her network of family and friends and old colleagues across both the Shire and the rest of the High and Reunited Kingdom and visited them in Minas Tirith, and all the other realms and cities of the West (there had been no question that she would keep her privilege of flight until the day she died). She had even become a regular visitor to the Grey Havens, bringing parcels of books and letters and other things to Master Círdan, to be sent over the Sea to her father and Master Frodo and Master Bilbo (Master Círdan had assured her that they all still lived, to her joy and amazement).

But now the King was dead and the Queen had left the City and would not return. The world was grown grey and cold, and Elanor had finally admitted to herself that she was tired. Spring was coming, she knew, but she no longer had any sense of it in her heart. And as the pale winter light fell on his face, she thought that she could see a like weariness in her guest. Agelessly fair though he was, there was a weight of sorrow in his eyes, and behind the light of Valinor lay also the shadows of all his years in Middle-earth.

“Do you ride to the Havens, my friend?” she asked gently. It would not surprise her. He had loved Arwen and Aragorn too.

“Yes,” he replied, but added with a quick, reassuring smile, “But not yet over Sea. I go to fulfil a charge and speak to Cirdan, no more than that. I will pass the last of Winter there, and return here in Spring to spend a season or two at the Baggins School. There will be time for me to keep my promise to your kinswoman.”

The Bilbo Baggins School of the Shire had been jointly founded in the Green Hills by Thain Peregrin the Bold and Master Meriadoc the Magnificent and was now the acknowledged centre of Hobbit learning. Cousin Carnation’s daughter Viola was Head of Kitchen Arts there, and every decade or so Glorfindel and other Elves of Rivendell came to teach, for the sake of the long friendship between Master Bilbo and Master Elrond. Dwarves came too, both to learn and to teach, and Hobbit students had even been sent to Rivendell over the years.

“Ah.” Her shoulders, that she had not realised were stiff, eased with relief. Somehow, it would have made the grief worse, to know that Glorfindel too would be gone forever. One more farewell in a lifetime of them, a little more of light gone from the world. Though how many more final partings had he endured than she, living those long, long years in Middle-earth among mortals? From where Elanor sat, the low-silled windows gave her a splendid view of the long vale of the Westmarch below, stretching north and south between the Tower Hills and the green ramparts of the Downs. Glorfindel’s gaze followed hers, but his thoughts were taking a different flight-path. “You are well-defended,” he observed. “Your roses flourish still.”

The hillside was very steep below the window. Two years after Master Samwise retired as Mayor, Elanor’s mother Rosie had brought Fastred some roses from her garden, and he had planted them on the slopes below Undertowers. They had flourished, heavy with bloom and rambling obediently downwards like thorny, heavily scented waterfalls. Over the years the plants had grown and spread until they covered much of the lower slopes. Even now, at the tail-tip of Winter, a few red hips and tattered, stubborn flowers clung on, wherever some dram of shelter might be found among the tangled stems.

“The bloodlines of Rivendell are strong,” Elanor said. “Even those of the roses.”

Glorfindel hummed gently in acknowledgement. “And not only of Rivendell. These are no common flowers, as I said to you long ago. But I have not sensed malice in them towards you.”

“This isn’t the only place that they do well,” Elanor said, avoiding mention of the other donor of the roses in question (the Gamgee/Gardner/Fairbairn family’s long and friendly connection with Mistress Innin of Minas Tirith was something they kept discreet, Master Samwise having deeply impressed upon all of them, “Meddle not in the affairs of Witches…”). “They’ve spread all along the Western bank of the Brandywine too. But only along the border; inside the Shire they’re perfectly well-behaved.” Roses from the Queenshay, the great rose hedge that now demarcated the Shire’s northern border (“the Queen’s Roses” they were called nowadays) were popular in the Shire, and many a house or hole had its stems of hardy, free-flowering, red or white or pink flowers scenting the air over its front door.

“So I have seen,” Glorfindel said, “Long may that be so, and long may the Shire not have need of their aid in its defence!”

“We won’t need it under Lord…under King Eldarion,” Elanor said. “Nor while the Dúnedain still dwell in Annúminas. Lady Silmariën’s children are like her and their father, wise, kind, stout-hearted folk.” Arwen and Aragorn’s eldest daughter, the Princess Royal of Gondor, had succeeded Elanor as Lady Steward of Arnor, having decades earlier already met and married one of her paternal Dúnedain cousins.

Glorfindel nodded. “The peace of Arwen and Aragorn will last for a long time, as you would count it,” he said. “For many lives of Men and Hobbits, and even of Dwarves. But not forever.”

“Nothing lasts forever in Middle-earth,” Elanor said. “But it’s enough to know that the Shire will be well for a good long while. I’m glad I won’t be here to see that change. But what of you, my lord? And,” she hesitated, then went on determinedly, “the Queen?”

She had last met Queen Arwen in Minas Tirith three years ago, on what would be her last journey by Flying-beast. She had needed a fellow-rider for more than a decade by then, but had refused to give up the joy of flight until she truly had to. But it had been difficult, and she had conceded as much, and come home at leisure by the smooth, safe roads of the High and Reunited Kingdom. Aragorn had begun to feel his end drawing near, and Arwen had shared some (a very little) of her disquiet with her most loyal mortal friend, whom both of them knew was also approaching the end of her own road. Leaving Minas Tirith, Elanor had known that she would not see her King and Queen alive again.

Glorfindel said soberly, “She went to Lothlórien. I met her there at mid-Winter, and then rode here through the Gap of Rohan as she bade me. Lord Celeborn and the Sons of Elrond have gone to keep her company, until her time comes to follow Aragorn beyond the Circles of the World. It will not be long, now, I think.”

He said no more then, and their talk turned to other matters. But he stayed for more than a week, mostly to begin on his notes for Cousin Carnation’s annotated edition of Mrs Rose Gardner’s “Recipes From Rivendell”, for which he also had a fascinated audience in Young Rosie.

“So,” Young Fastred observed three days after Glorfindel’s arrival, over first breakfast with his grandmother in her rooms. “Are we going to send Young Rosie to Rivendell, then? I could take her, or she could go with Lord Glorfindel whenever Cousin Carnation releases him from her clutches. It’ll be good for her to see a bit of life outside the Shire, learn some woodcraft…”

Elanor smiled at him fondly. He was very like his namesake in looks, more than Elfstan had been. Elfstan had been his mother’s son, all height and golden hair and hunger for action, to the point that no-one had really made a fuss when he had declared that he would found a new family name, the Fairbairns, after his own youthful nickname. But Young Fastred had the dark-haired, bright-eyed look of his grandfather’s kin from Greenholm, with their connections with both the Brandybucks and the Tooks. Elfstan had wandered far in his youth, following the trade-roads with his Gardner cousins and studying his healer’s Art with Elves and Dwarves and Men, all the way past the Lonely Mountain, out to the great Dwarf Kingdom of the Iron Hills and then down to Dorwinion on the Sea of Rhun and back by way of Minas Tirith and Rivendell (where he met Ithildin Brandybuck and proposed marriage within a month). When he finally came home, he founded the Department of Medicine in the Bilbo Baggins School, and taught there for years until Old Fastred actually grew old and it was time for him to take up the duties of the Warden.

“Or, of course,” Young Fastred added thoughtfully, “She could go with both of us! It would be nice to see Rivendell again, and I’ll be going that way for the Coronation anyway.” Lord Eldarion would be formally crowned at the New Year, and the Shire would of course be represented.

Young Fastred in his turn had gone to his grandmother’s seat of Annúminas and joined the Rangers in patrolling the North, like many young Hobbits since the days of Thain Peregrin and Master Meriadoc, who had begun the tradition of sending their sons to the Rangers for education and training. He had come back lean and brown and cheerful, with a lump of amber hanging from a gold wire through one ear, fluent in four languages besides Westron, and bearing some alarming scars from an unexpected encounter with one of the last Orc-packs lingering in the Misty Mountains. Even now, in his fifties, he spent much of his time out with the Bounders, while Rosemary oversaw the daily business of the Westmarch.

“Yes,” Elanor said. “I think that would be lovely, my dear. I’ll leave you to make the arrangements, but I don’t think her parents will object too much, do you?”

He laughed. “They think that Rosie takes after you already, so they won’t be surprised at all.”

“Well, Lord Glorfindel will be going off to the Havens at the end of the week, and he won’t be back until the spring, so there’ll be plenty of time to get ready.” She

added casually, “I might go with him, just for a few days. I’d like to see Master Círdan again, myself.”

Young Fastred opened his mouth to express his objection to his 120-year old grandmother gadding about by herself in Winter, and she pre-empted him ruthlessly, “…and of course the Elves will send someone to escort me back, so there’s no need to worry that I won’t be safe and looked-after. But whatever happens, dear, I’m depending on you to make sure that Rosie gets to Rivendell.”

“Of course, Grandmother,” he said, but his face still showed worry. Young Fastred was no fool, and neither was his wife Rosemary, who to Elanor’s amusement (she was touched, too) took to turning up at Elanor’s rooms at odd hours, offering biscuits and cups of tea.

They would have worried still more had they known what exactly Elanor was so busy with in those last few days, though there was less for her to do than there might have been. Most of the provisions and arrangements had long been made, the lists drawn up and many of the gifts already given quietly over the years. Matters only needed minor adjustments, to account for Rosie and some other small changes.

She also found out from Glorfindel the nature of his errand to the Havens.

“I carry her last book to the Sea,” he said, sitting with her over more tea and gingerbread in the Morning Room, two days before his departure, and Elanor had to catch her breath.

Throughout her years as Queen, Arwen had written voluminously, setting down her millennia of wisdom in letters, histories and legal judgements. She had also brought with her to Gondor earlier writings from her centuries as Lady of Rivendell, detailed works about dyeing, weaving, embroidery and gem-cutting, horticulture and arboriculture and sericulture, musical theory, healing and the art of governance. She had also kept private journals, and in the last years of Aragorn’s life, had begun sending the volumes to Elanor in the Shire, to be sent on to the Havens and so over the Sea.

“The memories of mortals are very short,” Arwen had said, as they walked together in the garden of the King’s House that last autumn three years ago, with the leaves falling red and golden on the path behind them, the old Hobbit lady and the very much older one who was no longer half-Elven. “There are already many in Gondor who have forgotten that I was not always of Men. We will all be forgotten, soon as I would still count it, in spite of all that the Loremasters can do, and our brave Archivists, fighting so valiantly against time. Queen Arwen and King Aragorn, Elfstone and Evenstar, Faramir the Wise and Eówyn Wraithbane, Nine-fingered Frodo and Samwise the Brave, Mablung Winglord and Elanor Skyrider,” she had looked at Elanor and smiled. “…All that we have been and done will blow away as leaves on the wind. We will dwindle in memory to legends and tales for children, and then to nothing. Not even the stones of Minas Tirith will stand one upon the other, in time to come. This I know. But in the Blessed Realm, none of what we were and what we did will be forgotten. I would send at least this much of me to my father and mother, and my grandmother, and all my kindred on the other side whom I will never know, to have with them until the end.”

They had walked on in silence, and Arwen had added softly, “And all those of whom I have written in those pages, all those whom I knew and loved here, they will be remembered forever.” Then she smiled at Elanor sidelong, with something of the old, warm, mischievous amusement. “And all those of whom I complained, too!”

Elanor had sputtered, surprised into a giggle, “My father sent a copy of “There and Back Again” to the Havens! Imagine the Sackville-Bagginses being sung about forever in the Blessed Realm!”

And they had laughed together like girls.

The crates began arriving at Undertowers the next spring, brought upriver to the Shire by barge from Blackwood Port. The small, Second Age haven had once stood at the mouth of the Brandywine; it had been rebuilt under Arwen and Elessar on the Lindon bank of the river with Cirdan’s permission, avoiding the woods of the cape on the other side. The Númenóreans had felled almost all of Minhiriath to grassland but even they had been daunted by the ancient darkness of Eryn Vorn; so that in the Third Age after Arnor fell, while the woods returned here and there across all that land, in the Black Wood the ancient trees still grew thick and tall, all the way down the rocky cape to the steep cliffs above the sea. Their heavy shadows had an old, old name for unfriendliness to Men, except those few shy and secretive folk who had dwelt within them from the beginning. In the Fourth Age, Dunlending legend had it that after the battle of Helm’s Deep during the War of the Ring, many Huorns went there instead of returning to Fangorn Forest. Whatever the truth of the story, the shipyards of the Númenóreans were not reinstated by the High and Reunited Kingdom, no Men or Hobbits settled under its eaves, and ships steered well clear of that shore.

Elanor had tallied the volumes as they came, to be sure that none had miscarried along the way; one for every year of the reign of Arwen and Elessar except for the last, each wrapped in stout, waxed canvas, numbered, dated and bound in thick cord tied and sealed with the Queen’s seal. She had seen the earliest volumes long ago during her year in Minas Tirith as a Maid of Honour; the first year of a lifetime in the Queen’s service. Arwen bound the quires herself, year by year, in grey cloth of her own weaving, tough and strong and made with all her Art to endure.

“I had the book from her in Lothlórien,” Glorfindel said, looking out at the Far Downs, still white with snow under the cool Sunlight and the pale, empty sky of early afternoon; the reflected light made the Morning Room less dim than it might have been. The days were growing longer and brighter, but no warmer, for now. It had been a harsh winter, that of the Great King’s death and the Queen’s going from the City. “The last volume, but not thereby the most important , she said. And she asked me to thank you, for seeing her work sent safely to Círdan.”

Elanor was very old, and tears no longer came easily. “It was the greatest honour of my life,” she answered. “To do her that service.”

“She loved you dearly, all the years of your friendship with her, and in the end counted you closest of all in her trust, after only Estel himself. You know this, I think.”

She did weep, then.

. . . . .

Chapter Management
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Chapter 2: A Rest I Shall Have
Chapter Text
On the day of Glorfindel and Elanor’s departure from Undertowers, the Sun showed Herself at dawn though the wind was still bitingly cold (one of the drawbacks of a hillside site). The household staff had sensibly bidden them farewell in the hall, but Young Fastred, Rosemary, Rosie and Cousin Carnation were wrapped up warmly on the front porch to see them off. Young Fastred had hugged his grandmother with a searching look but no comment beyond “Safe journey, Granny, and have a lovely seaside holiday!”

Elanor waved a cheerful good-bye to her family from her perch in front of Glorfindel, high up on Asfaloth’s saddle, and the great white horse began to pick his delicate way down the winding road to Tower Delving below. More than a hundred years’ worth of curious Hobbit children had not managed to get a clear answer from Glorfindel about whether Asfaloth was one, extraordinarily long-lived horse, or a whole lineage of identical white horses (though no-one had ever observed a female version). There were rumours of a secret betting-book kept in Brandy Hall, but outside the immediate family line of the Masters of Buckland, only Elanor knew that Glorfindel had promised Uncle Merry years ago that before he finally returned over Sea, he would stop by and tell the Master and Mistress of the day, to settle the question once and for all.

She had clothes and necessaries and presents packed in her canvas saddle-bags, which Asfaloth had accepted with good grace, together with the minor additional burden of Elanor herself (“Don’t worry,” Glorfindel had said, “He won’t even notice you.”). She had left her rooms perfectly tidy, everything that needed it wrapped and labelled in her wardrobes (like Bilbo Baggins before her, she had whole rooms for her clothes) ready for their recipients, all important documents neatly organised on her desk.

They took the Great East Road through the hills at what was for an Elf-horse an extremely easy pace and stopped at Westgate, the village that had grown up at the Western edge of the Tower Hills. That was now generally acknowledged to mark the Western border of the Shire, though technically King Elessar had extended the Shire only to the Eastern edge of the Tower Hills. However, no-one made a fuss when Mayor Samwise quietly established the Bounder’s line on the Western side, or afterwards, and Elanor made sure to regularise the situation when she became Steward of Arnor, equally quietly. By then the roses had made their views clear anyway, spreading pointedly only on the Sunset side of the hills all the way down from the West End of the Queenshay (this was taken by the Dúnedain of Arnor to reflect the will of the Queen, which was enough for them). There was a Bounder station dug into the hillside at Westgate, its lintel wreathed with bare rose stems from the thickets growing on the slopes above. Its occupants were well-acquainted with both Elanor and Glorfindel, and cheerfully invited themselves to join them at the Golden Rose, the village inn, for second breakfast and to share all the gossip of the Western Bounds.

Lunch was consequently rather late, at the Crossroads of Lune, the inn (this one run by Elves) where the Great East Road met the road that ran north and south to the Dwarvish (and Hobbitish) settlements in the Blue Mountains. After that, Glorfindel gave Asfaloth his head, and they made Elvish speed all the way to the Grey Havens. The road was well-maintained, smooth and kept clear of snow, and though they only reached the Havens after Sunset, for the last hour of their journey they had the waxing Moon to light their way.

Hobbits were now frequent enough visitors to the Havens that there was accommodation for them, and a handful of families even lived there, mostly farmers and along the shore, salt-panners. Círdan himself had graciously added an entire suite of rooms to his house suitable for visiting Hobbit (and even the occasional Dwarvish) dignitaries. As her feet touched the ground, Elanor was swooped upon by his household, and hustled swiftly into a hot bath, a substantial dinner at leisure in her room, and finally an extremely comfortable bed, with an invitation for breakfast with Círdan and Glorfindel the next morning. She slept immediately, and had no dreams that she remembered.

She was awakened at first light by someone she knew, Mistress Harebell ‘Harry’ Goodchild, her second cousin once removed on her paternal grandmother’s side, bearing two cups of tea. The Goodchilds had been one of the many poorer Shire families that had risen in prominence and prosperity after the Return of the King, in their case also because of the connection with Mayor Samwise; Goodchilds now kept the Golden Rose in Westgate, and ran a popular cartage service between the Shire and the Blue Mountains. Cousin Harry and her nephews and nieces kept an inn and guesthouse at the Havens, and whenever Elanor came to visit, persistently deputed one of their number “to make sure the Lady’s properly looked after the way she should be” (over the decades Círdan’s kitchen staff had become inured to this). The cousin-in-waiting wasn’t usually Cousin Harry herself, though. Elanor sat up, received the cup and saucer with thanks, and raised an eyebrow. Cousin Harry grinned at her and plopped down in the reading chair with her own cup. She was a plump, rosy woman in her late sixties, with greying brown ringlets on both her head and her feet (though in this season she was wearing the warm, quilted, house slippers that Cirdan’s people kept in Hobbit sizes too), and an inveterately cheerful disposition.

“There now, wasn’t it nice of Cousin Fastred to let us know you were feeling a bit frowsty and in need of some nice, fresh sea air?”

There was a regular Flying-mail circuit around Tower Delving, the Havens and the Blue Mountain Dwarfholds, so of course Young Fastred would have alerted the cousins in the Havens... Elanor suppressed a sigh and blew on her tea in an un-Ladylike manner.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Cousin Harry said kindly, as if she were not half Elanor’s age, “I just popped in to say hello, we have some folk overwintering with us, so things are quite busy and we won’t be troubling you. Cousin Fastred did say that you have elfy business with Lord Círdan and Lord Glorfindel! Mind, we’ll expect you for dinner night after tomorrow! Everyone’ll be wanting to say they met the great Lady Elanor!”

Elanor laughed and said that she would be there, and directed Cousin Harry to the fat package of expensive chocolate blocks from Minas Tirith sitting ready on the dressing-table, which was received with great pleasure; spiced chocolate was popular in the Shire, drunk as an exotic treat at Yule and New Year. They drank their tea, and Cousin Harry told her of the doings of her family, and outside the glass-paned doors that led onto the Westward-facing balcony of her room, the winter sky brightened slowly towards dawn.

When Elanor emerged from the bathroom a little later, washed and brushed and wrapped in her quilted dressing-gown, Cousin Harry, the teacups and the clothes she had travelled in were gone but her bed had been straightened, the linen-cased silk-floss quilts hung to air on the stand by the window, and her clothes for the day laid out on the bed. Over the flannel smalls and knitted wool leggings that Cousin Carnation insisted upon for the whole Undertowers household, Elanor put on the divided skirt of soft, dark grey wool, the light-blue linen blouse, and the blue-green jacket with silver buttons, knitted from the delicate fleece of the goats that the Men of the North raised on the shores of Lake Evendim. When she first introduced “flying style” into the Shire as a tween, it had been considered very daring, and she had only got away with it as the Mayor’s daughter, and by claiming that it was a fashion from Minas Tirith. Now it was entirely respectable and the ordinary women’s dress in the Shire, and since her long reign as Lady Steward of Arnor, it was common among the Big Folk up in Annúminas; she had even seen it in Gondor, where Lady Eówyn had adopted it with enthusiasm decades ago and it was considered “traditional Periannath costume”, modest and practical. Elanor put on her nice, warm socks (pale blue wool, personally knitted by dear Rosemary as a going-to-the-seaside-in-Winter present), slid her feet into her quilted slippers, put on her pendant, and arrayed in the colours of the sea went out to meet her host for breakfast.

. . . . .

Sheltered by the Gulf of Lune, the weather of the Havens was usually quite temperate, even in Winter. The days were largely calm and still, and even on occasion sunny. Elanor strolled (well-wrapped up) with Círdan on the esplanade above the quays where the fishing-boats were moored and meandered along the beaches with Glorfindel. She spent a cheerful evening as promised with Cousin Harry and the extended cousinage at the Shining Starfish, their inn and guesthouse a few streets inland from the harbour. On two days of rain and strong winds, she stayed in her cosy room with its specially-installed stove (Círdan was not Elrond, and his house was only his house, rather than a refuge for sojourners of many kindreds, so it was not generally organised for the needs of less hardy folk than Elves), writing the letters to her family and her friends.

Emerging stiff-fingered and tired on the evening of the second day, she joined Círdan and Glorfindel for dinner in Círdan’s cosy, whitewashed parlour; it was as always decorated with all manner of interesting oddments, which seemed to have changed every time she visited. Since it was an informal meal for just the three of them, both clothes and food were simple. For Elanor a simple wrapped dress of plum-coloured wool, and for the Elves the plain tunics and trousers of the Havens, Glorfindel’s in shades of blue and Círdan’s in purple-grey. Glorfindel had his golden hair tied back with a simple wood and silver clasp at his nape, and silver-haired Círdan had done no more than add a scallop-shell carved from amber to the end of his single sailor’s plait.

They ate in the Falathrim manner, sitting on brightly-coloured floor-cushions at a low (for elves) round table. This was much more convenient for Elanor, whose cushion was adjusted for her (lack of) height, letting her speak to her tall companions without getting a sore neck. Chunks of wood smouldered gently in the bronze fire-bowl brought in to warm the room for her.

“All settled?” her host asked, without fuss. Círdan was among the oldest of the Eldar left in Middle-earth; very little escaped him, and for all his kindness very little moved him. “All settled, thank you,” she answered, and smiled back at him. “I’ll send everything to the Flying-Mail office tomorrow. And thank you again for letting me stay.” Glorfindel looked at her, dismayed but unsurprised.

“Elanor,” he said, and stopped. She took pity on him and explained. “Mother knew when her time was near,” she said. “Nothing to do with Númenor! It was a gift, from …a friend of my father and mother. We didn’t know until later that we children had it as well.” Her brother Tolman, “Young Tom”, youngest and last living of her siblings, had died a few years ago at the age of 94, with enough advance notice to write his own farewell letter to her. She did not know if her children had had the gift. They had not told her, and Elfstan’s last illness had been both brief and obvious to all.

The look on his face might have been amusing, in other circumstances. She said kindly, “I believe that Master Káno might have had something to do with it, too.” Both he and Innin the Witch had been friends to Sam and Rosie, and to Elanor herself, and Elanor knew of the promise made to Sam’s line, (as did her own children). But Sam and Rose Gamgee had raised no fools, and Elanor didn’t think that Mistress Innin’s ambiguous benevolence would have extended beyond her parents unprompted.

Glorfindel did not look much reassured, but their dinner-trays arrived at this point, and the platter of flat tater-cakes and the big bowls of dried-codfish, onion and turnip stew, and the pot of hot herb tea were a welcome distraction (the Elves were drinking Cousin Carnation’s superb sloe gin, a present from Elanor). Círdan chatted easily as they ate, about the ship that would sail once winter ended, and about his visit the previous summer to the ancient elvish haven of Edhellond in Gondor. It had been re-settled by Wood-elves during Arwen and Aragorn’s reign, and some of the folk from Lindon and the Havens had gone to live there too. They still built ships for any Elves East of the Misty Mountains who might want to leave Middle-earth.

“I had word by messenger gull last week,” he said, in a tone so elaborately casual that both Glorfindel and Elanor stopped eating. “Young Legolas put in at Edhellond a few weeks ago in a boat he’d built himself. Not a bad effort, he made it safely to port all the way from Ithilien, down the Anduin and along the coast, in winter. My people are helping him with repairs…”

His audience waited patiently. “I assume that Someone intervened to ensure his safe arrival, because he had the Lord of Aglarond with him, and they plan to go onwards together into the West.”

Círdan sipped his sloe gin and smirked gently at his guests’ gaffed-fish astonishment.

“Master Gimli is going over Sea? The Powers permit this?”

Elanor was glad that Glorfindel spoke first, so that she could deal with the complex mixture of envy, wonderment and gladness that was washing over her. It was rather like being hit by a sudden wave while walking on what seemed a peaceful shore. A dousing of cold seawater was not unpleasant at the height of summer; different in winter’s chill.

“They permitted Tuor and the Ringbearers,” Círdan said unanswerably. “If Men and Hobbits, why not a Dwarf, and one furthermore who was of the Fellowship of the Ring?”

“Will they come here?” Elanor asked. She did not think that she had much time left, but it would be a joy to see Uncle Gimli and Uncle Legolas again. And (she shook off the unworthy feelings) there would need to be one more letter to Young Fastred, to be published as an addendum to the next edition of the Red Book.

“No,” Círdan replied. “From Edhellond, both wind and current will take them due West, and the Straight Road will find them easily enough.”

“Well.” Glorfindel seemed lost for words. “That is…unexpected.”

Elanor said, hardly daring to hope, “Could the Queen…?” and then stopped at the ancient sorrow she saw in their young-old faces.

“She chose,” Círdan said flatly, “and that choice cannot be undone.”

He poured himself more sloe gin.

“She would not, I think,” Glorfindel said in a cautious tone, his fair face troubled, “Even if she could. They would be separated forever…”

Círdan said, his voice unusually quiet, “I never knew Beren, but Lúthien and I were friends.”

He gazed into his drink as if its garnet-red depths were a palantír, showing some memory of the unimaginably distant past. “We were friends long ago, for a long time. Before Melian raised her Girdle, before the Rising of the Moon and Sun. Before the Enemy was loosed upon us once more and war returned to Middle-earth. When Beleriand lay under the stars more fair and less perilous, she would come betimes to the Falas on Thingol’s business, and we would dance, and fish, and go pearl-diving along the shore.”

An image came to Elanor’s mind, of a long, pale beach that stretched away as far as she could see. Small, white-foaming waves lapped by her feet, forming and re-forming delicate ripples in the sand. There was no light of Sun or Moon, but in the dark and cloudless sky the stars wheeled and blazed, huge and near and almost too bright to look at. There was music around her too, the high, sweet, merry notes of flutes and pipes, and the dancing beat of fishskin drums…

She came back to herself to find the Shipwright smiling faintly, reminiscent. “We ate a lot of oyster stew, too. And at the end, before she and Beren left Doriath forever, she sent word to me to tell me of her choice, and to bid me farewell.”

. . . . .

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Chapter 3: Sky, Mirror of Our Hearts
Summary:
In which are many meetings and journey's end.

Chapter Text
On the night of the full moon, Elanor woke suddenly to silver light, flooding through the open curtains of the balcony doors. She thought that she had drawn them shut that Sunset as she usually did, but perhaps she had forgotten; it happened sometimes. The wood in the stove had burned down to a quiet glow but her room was still no more than pleasantly cool, despite the chill of late Winter still lingering outside. She rose and went to the balcony, and saw without surprise Queen Arwen standing outside, dressed in flying gear. The Queen’s pale, unlined face was lovely as it had always been and her dark hair was drawn back in its customary net of silver, but she was crowned only with a garland of niphredil, the last flower of Winter, that blossoms in the snow. The familiar, faint, ever-present shimmer of light around her was more than Moonlight. Master Elrond had had it too, Elanor had been told, for those who could see; the legacy of his father the Evening Star, and his mother, of the line of the Lady Melian.

“Your Grace!” she exclaimed, quickly unlatching the doors, and dropped her best curtsey, nightdress and all.

Arwen smiled at her, kind and bright as always. “Dear Elanor. Will you come flying with me, one more time?”

A hundred years ago, after Captain Mablung’s Flying-beast rehabilitation and breeding project had proved itself, both the Queen and the Lady Eówyn had learned to fly, their husbands’ and subordinates’ terror notwithstanding. The Princess of Ithilien had been first, of course, Rider of Rohan that she was, but the Queen had not been far behind, to the later, cheerful envy of her brothers. Looking past Arwen’s shoulder, Elanor could see the hulking form of Elwing, the eldest breeding queen of that earliest generation of Flying-beasts; the first to be hatched and raised free of Sauron’s taint. Her fur and great, leathery wings shone silver in the Moonlight too, the bright light eliding the patterns that would normally be visible in daylight, but her eyes gleamed the familiar ruby-red.

Elanor didn’t hesitate.

“A moment, Your Grace, while I change.” Quickly, she retreated to the wardrobe and pulled out her familiar flying-clothes and boots, and then the sheepskin coat and fur-lined leather hat and gloves that she wore against the cold of the high airs. Fully dressed, pendant safely around her neck, she trotted back to the balcony, where the Queen and Elwing waited patiently.

“I would have brought Peaseblossom for you,” the Queen said, “But it is far, and an unfamiliar journey, and I did not want to risk you losing your way. But we may ride together, if that is acceptable.”

“Of course, Your Grace!”

Elwing was being as amenable as she always had been for Arwen, and didn’t object when Elanor scrambled up onto the saddle in front of the Queen. She fastened the straps that would keep her safely in the saddle even if Arwen were not holding her, made sure that her ear-flaps were securely tied down too, and said, “I’m ready, Your Grace.” To her surprise, Arwen laughed quietly, and reached around her to set the reins into her hands.

“Air-Marshal-in-Chief of the High and Reunited Kingdom, Steward of Arnor, most faithful of friends, this is our last flight. Who better than Elanor of the Wings to fly us?”

It had been more than twenty years since she had taken the reins herself, but she had not forgotten how. In response to the old signals, Elwing stretched her wide wings and struck at the air once, twice, and then hopped up and launched herself with a hard kick off the balustrade. She swooped low over the quay and its moored fishing-boats before flapping hard to rise again and catch the East wind that blew chill and strong off the Ered Luin.

“Where do we fly, Your Grace?” Elanor called over the rushing of the wind, though she thought she knew. The Havens were already falling behind and the shores of Forlindon and Harlindon were passing by below and on either side, their villages sleeping dark and silent. A broad silver path stretched before them, the track of the Moon as He set over the Gulf of Lune and the western Sea beyond.

“West of the Moon and over the Sea!” Arwen cried in her ear, laughter in her voice. “We shall see the Blessed Realm, though we may not stay! Our road lies beyond!”

“Oh! Uncle Legolas and Uncle Gimli are going too! Master Círdan told me! Shall we see them along the way?”

“Perhaps!” came the reply. “They and we will both take the Straight Road, so we may indeed meet with them as we go!”

They were soon over the open ocean, heading directly Westwards, the familiar stars like a great dome all around them. It was not difficult to navigate, even had they not had the Moon-path as a guide. Elanor had seldom flown at night, except in the best and clearest summer weather, but both the Queen and the Rangers of Ithilien and Arnor had taught her wayfinding by starlight. She glanced down to the Moon-lit sea far below, the shining, corrugated expanse only interrupted by a distant spot of shadow ahead and well off to their right, with a greater dark shape beyond it, looming above the waves. She knew what those were. Not three days ago she and Círdan had been speaking of the Straight Road, and he had shown her the charts for the islands that lay north and west of Lindon, the last remnant of drowned Beleriand. Tol Himling was the smaller and nearer, all that remained of Himring the Ever-Cold, greatest fortress of the Sons of Fëanor, those doomed and mighty princes of the High Elves; West of that ruined peak rose the mass of Tol Fuin, once the great pinewood highland of Dorthonion and still forested today. Men avoided both islands, but a few Falathrim lived on Tol Fuin, answering to Círdan (more or less). In Elanor’s childhood, Uncle Merry and Uncle Pippin had sung her and her siblings songs that spoke of Dorthonion, wonderful songs naming the lost and lovely lands of the Elder Days, and she in turn had taught them to her children and they to theirs. She had even been to Tol Himling and Tol Fuin herself while Steward of Arnor, accompanying the King and Queen.

They had a strong following wind and Elwing was flying as if she were still in her prime, but still they were making much better time than they should have been, cutting through the black and silver night more swiftly than Elanor had ever flown, even in her reckless youth, in the blue and Sun-lit skies of Middle-earth.

“It’s easier without a body,” Arwen explained, her voice carrying easily to Elanor’s ears. It was quieter now, with no need to shout; Elwing rode the swift wind with effortless ease, needing only the occasional stroke of her powerful wings to keep her height.

Oh, of course; that would account for the lack of the stiffness of a long flight, too. Another thought occurred to her.

“Will Uncle Legolas and Uncle Gimli be able to see us, then, Your Grace?”

“A good question! We can try, at least. Keep a look-out for them once we’re on the Straight Road!”

Elanor wasn’t sure how one would tell while flying rather than sailing, but as it turned out the change was obvious. As they flew, insensibly the Milky Way (the Hobbit name; the Elves of Lindon called it the Scarf of Elbereth) glimmered into sight above them, a brushstroke of shining white against the depthless sky, and a strange ringing silence replaced the soft rush of the wind.

“Oh!” Elanor cried. “Is that our road?” For the white stream of stars did indeed seem to flow Westward, replacing the light of the full Moon that had faded as they left the Bent World behind.

“Yes,” Arwen answered. And then, “In a manner of speaking. It will guide us, to be sure. But see! Is that not the ship of our friends gone before us?”

Elwing was flying impossibly high, yet somehow Elanor’s eyes could see with perfect clarity the white sails of the little ship far below and in front of them, as if it were one of Uncle Pippin’s famous collection of miniature ships in bottles (they had a whole room to themselves in the Great Smials, each bottle carefully labelled and catalogued). She twitched the reins and shifted her weight just so, and Elwing arrowed downwards in instant response. Despite the hat the wind whistled in her ears with the speed of their plunge, and her mouth curved in the same fierce, irrepressible grin as on that never forgotten day when she took the reins of her first Flying-beast in hand and leapt with it skywards into the wind. She hooted with the sheer joy of speed, and then as their quarry neared, shouted,

“Uncle Legolas! Uncle Gimli!”

On the deck of the ship a tall Elf looked up, startled, and laughed in amazed delight, even as he shook awake the elderly Dwarf napping by the mast.

“Greetings, friends!” Arwen called, waving as they swooped past and circled. “Fair journey and a fairer landing!”

“To you also, Lady!” Legolas called in answer, his voice ringing sweet and bell-clear. Gimli appeared briefly too overcome for words, but made up for it with vigorous waving, and a parting bellow of “Fly carefully, Elanor!”

“I am!” she shouted back, and knew that he had heard by the sound of his laughter on the wind behind them.

The Moon did not reappear as they soared upwards again, following the starry path, but Elanor noticed one star in particular rising brighter and brighter out of the West.

“Your Grace! Is that…”

“Yes! My grandfather the Evening Star comes to greet us. If you can make for him, I believe that he would be willing to welcome us for a while.”

The stars of Middle-earth were lovely but unreachably distant; Elanor could see this one’s path actually moving to meet their own. Its light strengthened as it drew near, but somehow did not dazzle her eyes as it surely would have had she still been in the Shire; instead it rose about her like a shining mist, soothing and soft. The Ship of the Evening Star really was a ship, or at least vaguely ship-like, a wondrous thing of crystal and light and air that gleamed and flowed like water. As Elwing cupped her huge, leathery wings, unperturbed, and landed neatly on what passed for the deck, a cheerful voice called in slightly old-fashioned Elvish, “Welcome aboard!” and a tall man came striding through the light and the shimmering air to meet them. He was lean and broad-shouldered, and his hair (plaited neatly back out of the way, like Círdan’s) was as deep a gold as Elanor’s had once been. His blue eyes shone with the High-Elven light, and his face was as unlined and beardless as any Elf’s, but there was something about it that was not quite Elvish; and for all the workaday-plainness of his shirt and breeches and sturdy boots, glory was about him: Eärendil the Mariner, Bearer of the Silmaril, Captain of Vingilot, the Ship of the Evening Star.

Behind her, Elanor felt the Queen undo the saddle-straps and slide down, fast. “Grandfather?” said Arwen Evenstar, Heiress of Elrond and Lúthien, mighty Queen of Gondor and Arnor and the Western Lands, and walked into his open arms. Elanor, following more cautiously (she had been old for a long time, and the habit of care wasn’t going to be undone all at once), wondered briefly how that worked without a body. The Mariner winked at her over his grand-daughter’s shoulder, for they were of a height, and said, “Strange things happen on the Straight Road, Elanor Skyrider! You, not least! And that marvellous steed of yours!”

He let Arwen go, though he kept an arm about her shoulders and she one around his waist, as they approached Elwing together. The Flying-beast queen shifted uneasily, but did not balk, and instead squawked softly and clicked her beak at him in what passed for a friendly way among her kind. Eärendil reached up confidently with his free hand and scratched at the exact correct spot under her chin, as if he had been handling Flying-beasts all his life.

“There now, mother,” he murmured, voice a soothing hum. “We are well met, my lovely, we are very well met. My wife greets you also, her worthy namesake. You are welcome, you are welcome. I am very glad to find you here, on the Straight Road, and before we part, know that your children fly the skies of Aman, free under the Sun as they always should have been.”

Elanor felt that mad grin spreading across her face again, and saw its echo on Arwen’s face. “It worked? They hatched?” It had been her idea years ago, after the Flying-beast hatchery in Elf-Tower East (according to Círdan its proper name was actually Anororn, the Easternmost of the three towers, but Hobbit names tended towards the practical and obvious) was fully established. It had taken some time to persuade her father, but every few years after that, a ship going over Sea would carry Flying-beast eggs, each batch accompanied by fascinated and solicitous Elven chaperones and constantly updated folders of notes from both Gondor and the Towers about their care, feeding and training.

The Mariner grinned back at her. “They did indeed! My son and marriage-daughter had the raising of that first clutch, on Tol Eressëa. You and your Captain Mablung and his people have long had Yavanna’s love, friend Elanor, and Manwë’s too, for bringing these folk of Theirs out of the Darkness.”

Arwen made a small sound, no longer smiling. “My father and mother…my grandmother…”

“Ah.” Eärendil turned toward her, tender and grave. “Dear child, they are well and await your coming eagerly. And your father too, Elanor, and his friends. We shall meet them by and by, and they shall meet us.” He stepped back, offering them each a hand. “Come with me, both of you.”

Elanor looked about her as they went forward with him through the glowing air, and indeed she could see the Ship’s movement against the stars, as Vingilot continued their Westward journey for them. The light …deepened, that was the only way she could describe it to herself, and she finally saw its source: an oval, faceted jewel perhaps the size of a bantam’s egg, set in a band of mithril that held it high upon the…prow? the leading edge, anyway…of the Ship, which, she noticed, became more definitely ship-like the more she stared at it.

“ Vingilot sails in more than one world, it might be said, and its nature reflects this,” Eärendil said. She looked up and found him smiling kindly down at her. “The Straight Road has its own quirks and by-ways too, despite its name! And Arwen is my close kin, and you have the blessing of the Elder King and the Earthqueen both, Elanor of the Wings, and so you three are permitted to be here, even as you are, even if only for a space.” He drew them both onwards with him almost up to the … prow. “Now, behold, grand-daughter Arwen and friend Elanor! The Holy Mountain!”

They were still very far away, so Elanor could see it entire, shining awful and beautiful beneath the stars; a mountain so great that the mighty peaks of the Fence of Valinor on either side, themselves taller, she thought, than even the Misty Mountains, seemed only its foothills.

“We’ll meet our kinsfolk in Tirion,” the Mariner said, “Easier for them, and it will be nice for you to see it. Even in dreams, the Holy Mountain can be a bit much. Especially in dreams, maybe, where there’s no buffer of matter between you and Them.”

Elanor realised that even at their present distance, Vingilot was flying well below those heights, and indeed that she couldn’t actually see the top of Taniquetil. What she had taken for a star coincidentally poised just above the peak was the light of the peak itself, a point of brightness that made her eyes water if she stared too hard. It was glorious, but daunting too, far and fierce and quite unlike the light of the Silmaril, which she knew somehow would never hurt her, even by accident. She took off her flying-hat, which she had forgotten she was still wearing, and approached it cautiously. They were bathed in its light, the air rippling and alive as water in waves of gold and silver and the shimmer of the rainbow all at once; it hung there within arm’s reach, but beside her Arwen gazed ahead with an intensity that paid it no mind at all. Elanor understood perfectly. The Silmaril was lovely and a great wonder, sure enough, and she was glad to have this chance to see it. But to be able to meet Sam-Dad once more, know him well and happy…well, there could be no comparison, really.

The question had to be asked, though, and Elanor steeled herself for an uncomfortable answer. She had never had occasion to wonder what the Mariner might be like, and he was certainly nothing that she might have imagined if she had, but whatever the truth of the matter, somehow she felt that she would trust him to tell it her. She extended her arm in a circling motion (palm politely downwards) to indicate the…everything around them.

“Is all this a dream, sir?”

“For your… our kindred, it will be,” Eärendil said in a matter-of-fact way. “Simpler for everyone, all round, though it won’t be the common sort of dream, fading in the morning. As for you and your Elwing,” they exchanged smiles, “…I’m definitely here and as far as I am concerned so are you and she and my grand-daughter, and on Vingilot my opinion is what counts, so don’t worry about it.”

Elanor found herself liking him very much. “I’m sorry we couldn’t meet before,” she said. He nodded, and there was sorrow in his eyes, under the brightness. “Me too. I can watch, and your father and Elrond share the news but it’s not really the same. But look, we’re coming up to the Lonely Isle, isn’t it pretty?”

Vingilot had been descending slowly as it sailed Westward, until they were no higher in the air than the Royal Gondorian Aerial Corps had been accustomed to fly (low enough to see landmarks clearly, avoid hostile missiles and, their riders not being Nazgûl, breathe with reasonable ease). The Lonely Isle seemed itself very big to Elanor’s eye, far larger than she had thought from the songs and stories.

“It is,” Eärendil said, apparently able to read her thoughts in this strange, liminal state that they shared. “Three hundred miles north to south, more or less, and about one hundred and forty miles east to west.” Elanor could see woods and fields and the silver threads of rivers shining under the stars, and in the centre there rose a great table-land, with more woodlands and many lakes that reflected the stars. As they approached Elanor could see a single bright light blazing out towards them over the waves, with many smaller lights clustered below.

“There is Avallónë, the Easternmost city of the Elves,” Eärendil said fondly. “Gil-galad is its lord these days, returned to his people from Mordor and death. And their great lighthouse, built in the War of Wrath to guide the ships that came from the East for resupply and to carry the wounded back for healing. They don’t really need it anymore, for the Straight Road brings all those who travel it here, first of all; but those who dwell in the Lonely Isle loved Middle-earth dearly and would not forget it or have it forgotten.”

There were more lights up on the plateau, among the star-mirror lakes.

“Alalminórë, the land of elms,” Eärendil said. He put his arm around his grand-daughter’s shoulders again. “Your father and mother live down there, sweeting, near the city of Lalwen the Queen. Your mother built her house there years ago, while she waited for your father, after she was healed of her wounds of heart and body. The First Homely House, West of the Sea.” He glanced at Elanor. “The Ringbearers live there with them too, friend Elanor, your father, and Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. They have their own, ah, hobbit-hole that they share, all three. It is a place of great kindness. My wife and I visit them all quite often. Your father’s garden is renowned, and very fair.”

It was quite impossible for Elanor to speak, so she turned away and stared hard at the starlit land passing gently beneath them. Somewhere down there…her mother would have liked to see that garden. She wondered if the Queen’s Roses grew there too, and remembered the stacks of cuttings that had gone West with her father and was sure that they did.

Arwen said softly, “Shall we see them here?”

“Not yet,” her grandfather said, “But soon. We shall meet them in Tirion, with your grandmothers, Elwing the Elder,” he winked at Elanor, “and the High Queen.”

Elanor smiled valiantly back at him, swallowing the totally unnecessary tears in her throat (and seeing Arwen do the same), and seized on this with relief. “Lady Galadriel is the Queen of the Elves now?”

Arwen managed a shaky but real laugh. “Grandmother wanted to be a queen when she went to Middle-earth, but then refused to call herself one for all the Ages that she dwelt there!”

“As I understand matters,” the Mariner said rather drily, “After she arrived back in Aman, she was granted a few decades of rest, in consideration of her long labours in Middle-earth, and then her father and mother the High King Finarfin and the High Queen Eärwen dropped the crown of the Noldor on her head and left for an indefinite seaside holiday.”

Elanor contemplated the irony of this, and from the look on Arwen’s face she was doing the same. At least she no longer felt like bursting into tears; the Mariner obviously understood people rather well, for someone who spent most of his time up in the sky.

As they soared over the Lonely Isle, Eärendil and Arwen spoke together quietly at the bow, and Elanor stood by the rail and looked her fill of the Easternmost of the Undying Lands. From time to time as new patches of lights appeared far below, Eärendil told them the names of more places, beautiful names strange to the loremasters of Middle-earth: Luthany, where dwelt those Vanyar who had gone to the war in Beleriand long ago and never returned to their bright city on the Holy Mountain; the port town of Andunaith on the Western coast of the Lonely Isle, sister city of Falastirion on the far shore of Eldamar, that guarded the approach to the great cleft of the Calacirya. And as Vingilot left the Lonely Isle behind to cross the vast Bay of Eldamar, he pointed out another faint mist of light very far away northwards to their right, and that name Elanor knew.

“We used to live over there, near Alqualondë,” Eärendil said, “But our home is much further North now, up in Hanstovánen. A nice town, a bit chilly in winter, but peaceful.”

As they approached, Elanor realised afresh how tall the mountains were (and this close, the Holy Mountain was simply too big for her sight to encompass). She had flown the High Pass near Rivendell in summer, but she could see no easy way among these sheer walls for anything the size of a Flying-beast, except for the Calacirya itself. Birds might be able to fly among the upper crags, but mortal riders would have problems with the air long before that (the Royal Gondorian Aerial Corps had learned that the hard way, in the early days). The ship flew over heavily-forested, waterfall-threaded foothills that rose towards the great gap that opened up as they approached, and then they saw clear before them the high hill in the midst of the pass, ringed from base to summit with white-walled terraces. At its peak Elanor saw a tall tower of a fashion that she had never seen before, built in many tiers each with its own eaves, and on its highest tier under the curving roof, a single light shone, bright as the Moon. A wide, dark lake lay at the Eastern foot of the hill, and the city and the hill and the tower and the stars were all reflected perfectly in its mirror-smooth surface.

“Tirion upon Túna,” Eärendil said softly. “The first, eldest, city of the Elves, and below it the Shadowmere, and there at its peak, the Tower of Ingwë, the Tower of the High Elves, the Mindon Eldaliëva. And there they are!”

Vingilot glided smoothly down until it lay at rest on the waters of the Shadowmere, the light of the Silmaril rippling away across the water and erasing the broken reflections of the city. Elanor caught her breath, for there on the lake-shore stood five, no, six figures, three of them tall Elves robed in white and grey, and the others very short, and…yes, dressed in Shire gentlehobbits’ styles of decades ago. The tallest Elf, splendid and beautiful, was crowned with plaits of her own hair of mingled gold and silver, and shone faintly of her own light; of the other two, one was dark haired and had a look of the Mariner about him, while the lady at his side had long silver hair that drifted on the soft night breeze. As the ship nudged gently at the grassy bank, all three came swiftly forward, even as Arwen leapt onto the railing and then onto the shore, and into their fierce embrace.

“There’s a gangplank for us, friend Elanor!” Eärendil said cheerfully. “It’s a much bigger jump for you than it is for young Arwen!”

She took his offered hand and walked sedately down the gangplank beside him, because the joyful tears were blurring her sight. And then she was standing on the bank, and her father was hugging her fiercely and saying her name over and over again.

“Sam-Dad,” she said back, “Sam-Dad,” and hugged him in her turn, feeling him in her arms not the lean, elderly Hobbit to whom she had bidden farewell at the Grey Havens so long ago, but the father of her childhood, sturdy and strong.

“So that’s young Elanor! Lovely girl, she must take after Rosie.”

“Shh, don’t be rude, Bilbo!”

She let go of her father long enough to look around for the speakers, and found the other two Hobbits smiling at her, who had to be the famous/notorious Bagginses, courtesy uncle and nephew (she knew the Baggins genealogy as well as she knew her own, even now). The taller, younger-looking one had to be Master Frodo, and the shorter, stouter fellow with white hair and very sharp, bright eyes could only be the great Master Bilbo. Master Frodo dipped his head to her courteously, but Master Bilbo offered her a flourishing bow.

“Lady Steward of Arnor! Welcome to Valinor! The stars shine upon the hour of our meeting! Bilbo Baggins at your service!”

Elanor laughed, but curtseyed to both of them as was due. “Elanor Fairbairn, born Gamgee, at your service likewise, Mr Baggins, and your family’s! It’s a glad honour for me to meet you at last, sir, you and Master Frodo!”

“There now,” her father said, taking her hand, “I never thought that something so wonderful as this could happen, even in Valinor! But Lord Irmo, Him who rules dreams, well, He’s been busy and no mistake!”

“Lord Eärendil said that this would be a dream for all of you, Da,” Elanor said, “But perhaps you’ll remember it in the morning?”

“We will, I hope,” Master Frodo said, a little diffidently, but with an underlying confidence that Elanor found unexpectedly reminiscent of Prince Faramir. “All of us,” he waved a hand at the Elves gathered around Arwen, “...began receiving the same dream a few weeks ago, of Vingilot landing on the Shadowmere, - which I can say does not normally happen! At first there was just a feeling that we should be here when it came. But then we started actually dreaming of being here ourselves, and for the last several nights now we’ve all been meeting on this bank. By then, it was fairly clear what – who – we were waiting for…”. He turned his head towards Bilbo, smiling. “We practiced bringing things with us!”

And sure enough, Elanor spied a cheerful checkered picnic cloth spread on the green lawn, and several large picnic baskets ready upon it, and had to swallow hard again against both laughter and tears.

“Come on!” Master Bilbo said, leading them towards the waiting picnic. “We put a lot of work into this! You have a long way to go yet, and this is the only feast that we will share this side of the Last Door. Dream or no dream, you should have proper Hobbit food to strengthen you for the journey! Lady Arwen will appreciate it too!”

The Elves and Arwen came over as the Hobbits busied themselves with unpacking the baskets, which were almost as big as they were (Elanor noticed that Master Frodo’s missing finger did not seem to discommode him at all). They had to be the Queen’s parents, Master Elrond and the Lady Celebrían, and her grandmother, the great Lady Galadriel herself. No, she was the High Queen now, Elanor remembered, and curtseyed. “Your Majesty, Master Elrond, Lady Celebrían. I am Elanor Fairbairn of the Shire, at your service.”

All three returned her courtesy with deep bows. “At yours and your family’s!” said Master Elrond, beaming. He had dark hair and grey eyes, but close to the resemblance to his father was even stronger, and there was that same “not-wholly-Elvish” cast to his features; the Lady Celebrían was nearly as tall as her mother, but otherwise looked very much like her father Lord Celeborn, and not just because of her silver hair.

“There is no need for distance among us, dear Elanor,” said the High Queen warmly, “For we know of your long friendship and loyalty to our kinsfolk Arwen and Aragorn, and here in Aman you are counted among the Elf-friends, as much as Master Bilbo and Master Frodo and Master Samwise, who are most well-loved among us.”

“And now,” said Lady Celebrían, and it was clear whence Arwen had her smile. “Let us join them! They have had great labour to make this feast for us, worthy of Lord Irmo’s own adepts!”

“We have been the happy recipients of their practice efforts these last few nights,” Master Elrond said in an explanatory tone as they took their places at the cloth and began helping the Hobbits to set out the feast. “Everything has been quite extraordinarily true to the waking world.”

“Ha!” Master Bilbo said, as he unearthed an apparently endless stream of jars, tin boxes and lidded dishes, “As if any Hobbit worth the name would forget the taste of proper food, even in a dream! Especially in a dream!”

Eärendil came strolling up from where he had been mooring Vingilot to a convenient bush. A great bird was perched on his forearm; some sort of seabird, plainly, but much, much bigger than any gull that Elanor had ever seen, and with the eyes of a thinking creature. Arwen looked at them, hesitating, and then said carefully, “Grandmother Elwing?”

The bird hopped down onto the grass, where it raised narrow, enormously long wings the dark grey of winter storm-clouds, and stretched out its long white neck, producing an odd rattling sound like the back of a brush being dragged quickly across a washboard. A lifetime in public service meant that Elanor knew a greeting when she met one, and she curtseyed solemnly.

“She’s saying ‘hello’,” Eärendil said in a pleased tone. “This is her dream-self.” He settled down on the cloth, and began handing round plates and cups and cutlery and napkins. Everything was completely suited to a Shire picnic – beautifully turned wooden plates, spoons and forks and butter-knives carved from horn, corked jugs and bottles of tin and strong stoneware, plain-woven napkins of coarse linen. Only the teacups and teapot were different, the famously unbreakable Bag End set that had been her mother’s pride and joy. Elanor recognised it at once, the familiar set in dark green with a lovely pattern of roses in red, white and pink; Master Káno from Gondor had made it himself, and the King and Queen had presented it to Master Samwise. Rosie had kept her parlour in those colours all her days, to match.

“Anchovies!” exclaimed Master Bilbo, digging into another basket. “Where did we put the anchovies, Frodo?”

“Here,” Master Frodo said, amused and fond, producing a wide, shallow dish piled high with savoury-smelling grilled fish, which he placed on the grass beside the cloth. “Lady Elwing, if you would…”

Reminded, Elanor looked around and saw to her relief that over by the moored ship Elwing the Younger had her feast too, a huge platter piled high with scraps of raw meat.

It was indeed a feast of dreams, she thought in joyful wonder as she ate and drank in the light of the Silmaril and the stars of the Blessed Realm. For surely these were the very same ham sandwiches that Rosie Gamgee had made for her family a hundred years and more ago, when they were all in Annúminas with the King and Queen on that first great Progress to the North, and this was her steak and porter pie made specially for the Gamgee children’s birthdays, and the same raspberry jam tarts that she had taught their housekeeper Mrs Brownlock how to bake when Elanor was a tween, and yes, here was her father’s family supper specialty, sausage and herb batter pudding, and the exact fruit cup that he had served every Midsummer. There were dishes that she remembered from Rosie’s collection of Rivendell recipes too, and much laughter and interested discussion when she told the company of Lord Glorfindel’s recipe-annotation project with Cousin Carnation. She heard about her father’s very popular cooking classes for Elves interested in Hobbit food, and about Master Frodo’s great mushroom book, written and researched together with Lord Celebrimbor after his return from death; she was even served a dish of mushrooms exactly as Uncle Merry had cooked them for the Gamgee children on their visits to Brandy Hall, which Sam-Dad said came from the very same Brandybuck recipe, now recorded forever in the Undying Lands. There were dishes that she had never tasted before as well, that were clearly things that Arwen remembered. And the High Queen ceremoniously served everyone beakers of a heady, delicious, flower-scented cordial, which, she said, was the miruvor of Valinor, brewed by her own hands.

Elanor and Arwen talked about Captain Mablung and the rescue of the Flying-beasts, and the founding of the Royal Gondorian Aerial Corps, and heard in turn from Master Elrond and Lady Celebrían and the Mariner how they and Lady Elwing had helped to hatch and train the nestlings sent as eggs from the Shire. “Many of them live wild in the mountains,” Master Elrond said, “But some have joined households too, as horses and dogs and cats and birds do.”

Lady Elwing said something in Seabird, in between swallowing anchovies, and the Mariner nodded. “Not everyone likes to fly on their own wings, and they’re very good for carrying letters over shorter distances.”

Arwen spoke of her life in Gondor, and of Aragorn and her children and grandchildren, and Elanor told tales of her own family that she had not put in any letters, and of her time as Lady Steward of Arnor. There was much interest from the Elves, for the High Queen had lived by Lake Evendim with her husband long, long ago, during the Second Age, and Master Elrond and Lady Celebrían had been deep in friendship with the folk of the North Kingdom for as long as it stood, and long after. They ate and drank the food and drink of dreams, and told tales and shared memories for what seemed hours under the unmoving stars, and Lady Celebrían and Master Samwise sang songs that Master Bilbo had composed after he arrived in Valinor while Master Elrond played the harp to accompany them.

But even in dreams all feasts must end, and when the last walnut biscuit had been nibbled and the last cup of mint tea (good for the digestion, Master Bilbo insisted, even dream digestion) had been drunk, the Mariner said gently, “We need to be going, my dears, for we take the long way to the Last Door, not the shortcut through Mandos.”

Silence fell. Lady Celebrían’s arm tightened around her daughter’s shoulders and Master Elrond flinched. Elanor remembered abruptly that he had already bidden farewell to his daughter once, long ago, forever, as he thought it. To have to do it all over again, after this brief, unexpected second chance…

Master Samwise said, “Elanorellë, my girl, tell your mother that I won’t be long…”

“No!” It burst out from her without thought. “Sam-Dad, you stay as long as you want! Mum and I and everyone, we won’t be worrying about you while you’re here. You stay!” She collected herself and added more temperately, “And…and the longer you stay, the more tales you will have to share, when you come!”

“Hear, hear!” Master Bilbo said, and was echoed by Master Frodo, who said, “Dear Sam, you know that I’ll come with you whenever you want to go. But there’s no hurry yet.”

Arwen looked between him and Master Elrond. “It is true, Master Samwise,” she said, “the Gift of Men is yours by right undeniable. But my father and mother would be glad of your company for even a little longer.” She smiled suddenly. “And remember that Master Legolas and Master Gimli are on their way and you cannot miss them!”

The High Queen said in her deep, golden voice, “Indeed, we shall rejoice to meet Master Gimli again! It will be a very great occasion, the coming of one of Aulë’s Children to the Blessed Realm!”

Elanor saw Master Elrond send a very sharp look at his wife’s mother. “And you had no hand in the matter at all, I suppose?”

Lady Galadriel did not answer, but the look on her face was nothing short of a smirk.

And somehow, though there were tears on Master Elrond’s face and on Lady Celebrían’s, they were both smiling too. Master Elrond said, “Daughter, I did not think that I would ever see you again when we parted in Middle-earth. But I have been granted this space of joy unlooked for, and I will hold to it always, for all my sorrow at this second parting.”

And Lady Celebrían said, “I always hoped to see you again, my darling, and now against all despair, I have. Go safely to wherever you are going, and I shall expect to see you and young Aragorn promptly after the end of things!”

Then the three of them rose, and embraced, and then Arwen embraced the Lady Galadriel, and each of the Hobbits.

“Here, my lady,” Master Frodo said, and held out a white stone on a silver chain. “This was your token to me once, and it brought me here safely through the darkness. Would you have it back now? I will not need it, to go where I will go someday, but perhaps it may help you on your way tonight.”

“Oh,” said Arwen, in a tone of wonder. “Yes. Yes, I will. I thank you, Ringbearer,” and she put the chain over her head so that the stone lay on her breast where it had once lain in Minas Tirith, and she bowed to Master Frodo as to a peer.

Elanor thanked her hosts for the feast in proper Shire style, and was hugged vigorously by Master Bilbo, more gently by Master Frodo, and then long and fiercely by her father.

“It’s all well, Sam-Dad,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s all well, and we’ll see each other again for sure! But stay a while more and meet Master Legolas and Lord Gimli! They’ll be so happy to see you again! And Master Elrond and Lady Celebrían will be glad to have you still here, too.”

Her father’s arms tightened, and then he drew away a little and smiled at her. “You’ve become so wise, my love, great lady that you are! Say hello to your mother and your brothers and sisters for me! I will be along in a while, but yes, I’ll stop for a spell longer, while my friends can do with me here.”

The three of them walked up Vingilot’s gangplank, while both Elwings hopped onto her deck with a couple of flaps of their wings, and Arwen and Elanor took up stations at the stern, waving to those left behind. As the ship drew away from the shore and then soared starwards once more, freeing itself from the grasp of the water, those on board heard a great, star-bright song rising towards them. The Lady Galadriel was singing, as she had sung once long ago, under the boughs of golden Lothlórien, and though she sang in the high tongue of Valinor, Elanor understood every word as clearly as if they were Westron.


Ah! like silver shine the stars in the water,

bright hours fleeting like ripples in the wind!

Our time has passed like swift draughts

of the sweet mead on green shores beyond the West,

beneath the blue vaults of Varda

wherein the stars tremble in the song of her voice, holy and queenly.

We have refilled our cups in joy!

For the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars,

from Mount Everwhite uplifted her hands like clouds,

and all paths were shown in starlight;

and out of the darkness wide wings

brought you to us over the foaming waves,

and we have met for this moment among the jewels of the Calacirya!

Not lost, not lost to those from the East is Valimar!

Farewell! Thou hast indeed found Valimar.

Maybe even thou shalt find it again. Farewell!

. . . . .

White-walled Tirion diminished behind them as the ship passed slowly through the Calacirya. The pass was very wide to Elanor’s eyes, not a narrow, winding slot like the High Pass above Rivendell, but a great gap in the mountains, with fields and woods stretching out around it, and little settlements here and there, and slim, high waterfalls that plummeted in silver streaks down the steep, tree-clad cliffs to form streams that snaked away among the fields. As the ship left the pass and Tirion was lost to sight, Elanor moved to the bow, so as to look ahead rather than back. Arwen was behind with Lady Elwing, talking quietly; she seemed to have no problems understanding her grandmother, even in bird form. Elwing the Younger had settled down by the mast for a nap, her head tucked under one leathery wing; in the light of the Silmaril, her fur patterns shone glossy and smooth. Eärendil came forward and stood beside Elanor unspeaking, as the starlit loveliness of Valinor, its plains and lakes and mountains, slid gently past beneath Vingilot’s keel. Only the unmoving stars told her that they were not flying in the waking world, until at last, across the far horizon, she saw stretching a long line of something that was both dark and shining.

“There is Ekkaia,” the Mariner said softly. “The Outer Ocean. And beyond that are the Walls of the World and the Doors of Night, through which I pass from time to time, together with the people of the Valar, keeping watch against what may move in the Darkness outside.”

“Is that where we have to go?” Elanor asked, with some trepidation.

“No,” Eärendil said, though for the first time he too seemed a little uncertain. “I don’t think so. The Last Door is not the Door of Night, which remains within and a part of the Circles of the World. Mortals go altogether outside, none of us knows where, though we abide in hope.” Elanor remembered then that his son Elros, Master Elrond’s brother, had been mortal; they had been parted when Elros was a child, and he had lived and died and left the world without ever meeting his father again. The Mariner went on, “My understanding is that for most of you it’s entirely straightforward. You show up in Mandos and then at some point, leave from there. Doing it this way… I’ve been told that I can take you to its threshold, or almost, but you must cross it yourselves.”

Elanor pondered this. “It’s not usual, is it,” she said at last, and it was not a question, “for people to be able to go like this.” Together, and meeting their families in a dream of Valinor along the way, and also on and with the ghost of a Flying-beast.

“No,” the Mariner said, and unexpectedly, laughed. “But Flying-beasts are beloved of the Elder King, as I mentioned earlier. I don’t think that your Captain

Mablung and his riders were alone for their last flights either.”

The last shore ran along the whole vast edge of Western Aman, or so it appeared. For there was seemed no end to it, a long, narrow, grey-gleaming beach extending into the distance North and South farther than Elanor’s eyes could see, even from the heights where Vingilot sailed. There were waves, but they seemed small and gentle from so far above, lapping softly at the pebbly beach. Ekkaia shone too, but in a different way from Belegaer, not reflecting the skies but with a deep golden-green light of its own, welling up from far below the surface, and reflecting back from the clouds overhead. As they left Valinor behind and sailed out over the Outer Ocean, Elanor realised that the Silmaril and the sea-light were the only lights, for the stars were now wholly hidden by low clouds that blanketed the sky in serried, glowing ranks. She had no sense of threat or fear, only a sense that this was the way for her.

They were sailing for what felt like a very long time. The Outer Ocean was presumably much larger than Belegaer.

“Yes,” said Eärendil. “We are far beyond Ulmo’s bounds now, the limits of where the Children can safely go in the waking world. Even the most adventurous of sailors cannot sail these seas. Or skies.”

“Except Vingilot?”

“Except Vingilot,” he agreed. “But even this is a rather special occasion. I haven’t been this particular way before, and I doubt if I ever will again. I’ll be telling the family all about this the next time that I see them, to be sure.”

After a long time more, something changed in the unchanging view of sea and air and cloud: far ahead Elanor saw hanging two great pillars of shining cloud, descending downwards to the sea, and between them, strangely, the star-strewn night sky that they had left behind. Then as they looked, a dark dot emerged from one of them; it grew in size with remarkable swiftness, until Elanor realised that it was another Flying-beast, arrowing towards the ship with extraordinary speed. It was a male, from the shape of its beak and the patterns of its fur, lit by the strange sea-light from above and below. She had known him all of his life, from the day he emerged from the egg to his death in his sleep decades later and half of her life ago.

“Peaseblossom!”

“My goodness,” Eärendil murmured. “Who would have thought?”

There was an alarmed squawk from Lady Elwing, perched on the railing, and then a series of high-pitched yarps, as Elwing the Younger recognised her eldest hatchling, winging his way towards the ship more swiftly than ever he had flown in life. Seeing his trajectory, Elanor hurriedly removed herself to safety at Arwen’s side (Peaseblossom had never made allowances for people in his way when coming in for a landing. They moved or he hit them. Elanor wasn’t sure what might happen in their present state but preferred not to find out).

“Did you know about this?” she asked Arwen in wonder. The Queen shook her head, her gaze never wavering from the cloud pillars and what lay between them. “I hoped,” was all she said.

Peaseblossom landed on Vingilot’s deck with an un-spectral thump, and at once wisely folded his wings and crouched, as his mother stretched her wings and beak forward in the dominant’s greeting. He was fully harnessed for a Hobbit rider, so when the greeting displays were over and both Flying-beasts had retreated from each other, Elanor approached confidently (showing fear in front of a Flying-beast was dangerous) but with attention. But it appeared that Peaseblossom was in a good mood, because he allowed her to catch the halter and get control of his head with no more than a half-hearted snap of his beak, easy to dodge.

“So, my dears,” the Mariner said, “This is where you will be leaving me, then.” His gaze was steady and kind, and Elanor was grateful for his calm. He pointed at the distant, starry gap, which Vingilot was not approaching. “You shouldn’t be at too much risk of getting lost between here and there.”

“So that is where we must go,” Arwen said softly. “Through the Last Door and out of the Circles of the World.” She touched the white stone that hung at her breast. “No, we will not get lost between here and there.” She turned towards her grandfather and Elanor thought that she had never seen her so beautiful or so resolved.

“Grandfather…grandmother, this … this night has been a boon and an honour beyond anything that I ever imagined might be my lot.” Lady Elwing made a quiet, clicking sound in her throat, and Eärendil came forward and they embraced for the last time.

“Dearest child. Though we meet now this once and never again until the end of the world, it has been the greatest of boons for us too. Go well, and give my love and greeting to Elros for me.”

“I will!” There were no more tears in Arwen's eyes; they shone in that moment as bright as any High Elf's.

They parted, and Arwen went to Elwing the Younger and mounted with the ease of a young woman. Elanor curtseyed to the others, and got her own swift hug from the Mariner (one-armed, since he had kept a prudent hand firmly on Peaseblossom’s harness). “It’s been an honour to meet you, Elanor of the Wings! Fly safely!”

“Likewise, and thank you!” she said, smiling in spite of herself as he boosted her into the saddle. “I never thought that I’d have anything like this either! But I’m not going to say no to breakfast, as we say in the Shire! And I hope that we’ll meet again, someday!”

“As do I. And until then we will abide in hope,” Eärendil said again. Elanor looked past him, at the long, strange way that they had come. “Will you be all right, getting back?” she asked. Under the starless sky she could no longer tell what direction “back” might be, and she didn’t think that Vingilot and her crew (bird or not, surely Lady Elwing counted as crew) should be out here indefinitely.

“Don’t worry!” the Mariner said, looking more cheerful. “The Silmaril will guide us home, never fear.” He cocked his head at Lady Elwing, still perched on the rail. “We might stop for a bit of fishing on the way…”

Elanor was still laughing as Peaseblossom leapt for the air, and Elwing the Younger followed a wingbeat later. They flew onwards steadily, side by side without haste; their goal was in sight, and there was no longer fear or worry in them. Though it was farther than it seemed, for Elanor looked back once, while the cloud-pillars were still far away, and could see the Silmaril’s light, but no longer Vingilot itself.

“Arwen,” she called, for there were no titles, and no rank between them any more; they were only Arwen and Elanor, friends and companions all unlooked for on a road that by a miraculous blessing they did not have to take alone. “Thank you for letting me come with you! This has been wonderful!”

Arwen laughed back at her. “There was no ‘let’, dear Elanor, and no thanks needed! I hoped and wished that we might fly together at the last and by your choice that wish was granted. I am glad and grateful to have your company! And see, the end of our journey approaches!”

The cloud-pillars loomed before them, as huge as worlds, and Elanor knew that what she was seeing between them was not stars.

“Forward!” shouted Arwen, crouching low on her mount’s back, and Elwing the Younger stretched her neck and her wings and flew faster than any wind. Elanor let out an exultant whoop, and loosed the reins and gave Peaseblossom his head until they were matching Elwing’s speed, wingtip to wingtip.

The Last Door opened for them, into something brighter than starlight, and they flew through.

. . . . .

Círdan’s people found her at dawn, fully dressed and seated in her comfortable chair facing the open doors of the balcony. Her eyes were closed and her hands lay folded at ease in her lap, fingers wrapped around her pendant. Both Círdan and Glorfindel, and a contingent of Goodchilds escorted her body back to Tower Delving, laid in a coffin on a covered Goodchild wagon, both draped with fine Elf-woven cloths. Glorfindel sang a song of Valinor for her as she was laid to rest with great honour beside her husband, in the stone tomb that she had had the Dwarves build years before. It stood on the hilltop beside the Elven tower, weathering all storms and looking East and West towards both the Shire and the Sea; and in the end it endured for longer than the Shire itself.