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…and to Elros and Elrond was given the choice of their own destiny. Elsewhere is it told of the manner of that choosing. At the last Elrond chose the gift of Ilúvatar, for, he said, there was time enough for weariness in the ages of man. And those of the Edain who had fought with the Valar followed him to the land of the Valar’s gift, and there he became ruler in it, and his people called him Tar-Palantír, the Far-Seeing King. But Elros who loved Arda would not leave it, and chose to remain with the Firstborn, and to him the life of a great lord of the Firstborn was granted.

Elros first dwelt in Lindor with Gil-galad, and their friendship was great. In him Gil-galad reposed much trust, who was swift to act but slow to anger, and he gave him a command at the mouth of the Lhûn, which Elros kept in battle-readiness; for fell things were in the land in those days, and it was whispered that the Aftercomers over the mountains were given over to evil. So it was that Elros grew out of his childhood, with a spear in his hand, and his eyes to the East. And over the sea in Elenna his brother still watched the West.

It was thirty years until men at last came out of the mountains, and Elros met them. There were three boats, made for swift travel, and the men in them had darkness on their hearts. Then Elros signaled his company to take aim; but he yet stayed the order for attack, “for after all,” he thought, “we have slain orcs and driven back wargs, and will I say that my brother, who became a Man, was so much braver than I, that will not speak to one?” And he went down among them, and spoke to them, and they saw a bright young lord who yet had the marks of care on his face, and lowered their own bows. And Elros saw that the men of the cities of the plain were under a shadow indeed, but only the same shadow as was on his own heart, that the world of their growing had been remade and was now gone, that the land was still choked with ash and would hardly bear, that great matters had happened before their lives began and they knew nothing of them except whispers and songs.

So Elros spoke kindly to them, and the men of the cities of plain called him Werewine, which is Atandil, Man-friend, which name he ever after bore.

Now Elros had reached his first yen when Nellas of Doriath came to the Gulf of Lhûn. She had come first to Harlindon, following Galadriel’s household, but she could not stay still long. For it was said of her by the dwarves in after years, that she was like a vein of hematite before the shaping, not to be bound to a straight path, and even before Doriath’s fall she ever wearied of the sober councils of the wise and the cold halls of the great. And after Doriath she thought that at any rate, neither wall nor wit had saved them. So from Harlindon she slipped away to wander the new forests, and to see Middle-earth remade. There she fell in with Nimrodel, who would afterward be a tale of her own; but of that more anon. When Nellas came to Lhûn she came alone and barefooted, and with a wary eye.

Coming to the banks of the Lhûn she saw an encampment in the trees, and she hung back, hearing voices speaking Sindarin roughly as the Noldor spoke it, and another tongue, too, which she did not know. Almost she returned to the woods and their shadows, but that she was thirsty and the banks for a long way were steep. So she went forward, and saw under a spreading willow a Man, and an Elf who spoke to him, but of what kindred she knew not. They were disputing on some trivial point, though as they slipped from tongue to tongue she could not follow it, except to know that they were arguing as equals, one to the other, and as she watched the Elf laughed and clapped the other on the shoulder, and said to him, “Now have we beaten the steel into a circle.”

“You have said that wrong,” said Nellas, from her hiding-place.

And Elros turned and saw her in the shadows, and it seemed to him that he was young again and lost to wisdom, and he spoke her fair. And Nellas answered fairly, and returned not to the trees, but stayed with his company and with the Men their guests, and by morning Elros knew his own heart, and by evening Nellas hers.

So Elros and Nellas were wed. After another yen and more Nellas consented to bear one son, whom Elros called Elessar, Star-stone, and Nellas Estel, that is hope. Elros purposed to raise him in the Grey Havens, and to teach him all manner of arms, and how to build and sail a ship, and how to speak the tongues of all the Quendi. And other things he taught him too, all unknowing; for it was Elros’ habit never to set aside command, but to bring his councils with him when showing his son how to take a gull on the wing. Often he would take Elessar down to the sea’s edge at dawn, when Eärendil’s ship was clearest, and tell him of Eärendil and of Elwing, and also of Maglor, sea-wanderer, who had been his guardian. And for Eärendil and Elwing they lit torches by the water where Sirion had been; and for Maglor they left flowers. But of Maedhros Elros did not speak.

When Elessar was twenty, Nellas spoke to her husband, saying, “You have taught him the hasty ways of the Noldor and the straight ways of the Lindorin, and of Men he has learnt more than enough quaint habits. Now let me teach him something of the Doriathrin, of whose kindred he is most truly.”

“I honor you,” said Elros, “and would not gainsay you. But you have erred, you know, for truly the boy is of all kindreds.” For it was their way to make game of what was dearest to them.

But Nellas looked grave, and said, “Then with no kindred will he have a home.” And her words proved after to be true.

Nellas called the boy only by his mother-name, and while he lived with her he lived everywhere. In that time the gates of Lhûn had opened to the East, and Elves lived in the plains of Eriador, and some would even visit the far kingdoms of men, and so too did they. Nellas showed Estel woodcraft and such music as he could master, and how to shoot a longbow, and how to speak Sindarin in the Doriathrin tongue, and the paths of the stars, and the lays of Beleriand as Daeron wrote them, though, she said, there was much nonsense in them. In such wise he grew to his fiftieth year, with still tongue and light heart and fleet foot, his mother’s translator and his father’s frequent guest. Then in his heart the sea-longing began, which never lifts from the heart of the Eldar, and he parted from his mother at last.

Of Elrond Tar-Palantir we will now speak, who attained at the last four hundred and forty-eight years of men before he died, and yet was not the longest-lived of Men’s kings in that Age, but is still called the wisest. He sailed with the Edain over the sea to the land that Men call Anâdunê, that is Númenorë. But in the days of Tar-Palantir it was called Elenna, Starwards.

His wife’s Mannish name is forgot, but in the Chronicles of Elenna she is called Telperianna, gift of the silver crown. She was the daughter of the chieftain of the House of Beor, who died in the sea-crossing, and it is she who brought kingship to Elenna, for Elrond was in that time still dazed, with his Doom new on him, and the memories of the war had not yet begun to fade. But when they had arrived and begun to settle, among the men there were always two disputants and three positions, and she went to Elrond, who was working to build walls, and said, “One must be judge among them.“

“I cannot judge between man and man,” he said. “I am an aftercomer to the Aftercomers.”

“No, you alone may do it,” said she. “For we are all bound by old grievances, and cannot find our way clear.”

Then Elrond looked at her, and it seemed to her that he saw her for the first time, without seeing through her to Tirion, and his sober brow bent. “Bound, perhaps, but you would bind yourself more,” he said. “Others might not find me fit to the task, though I am the son of Eärendil, for also I am a worker on these docks and a wanderer on these hills. But it would be otherwise if I were allied to the chieftains of the House of Beor. Is this not so?”

“It is so, lord,” she said.

“And yet you do not love me, nor look to love me,” he said. “Is that how it is among the Edain?”

“Sometimes, when the need is great,” she said, and she spoke mildly, although her heart quickened in anger at his cold words, who had chosen them and then would understand them only as one who watched a flight of birds.

“Find another councilor, lady,” Elrond said. “I will not wed an unwilling maid.”

“Not unwilling, lord,” said Telperianna. “I would choose you. If I cannot make of that choice what you will, then that is a matter for myself alone.”

What Elrond thought of this Telperianna never after knew; but the next day, at Eärendil’s rising, he came to her and said, “Let us be wed.” Thus it was that Elrond took the leadership of the Edain, though always in the decisions of weight he turned to his councilors, and Telperianna not least among them.

She bore him twin sons, Laurion and Calasso. Laurion was the father of Tinwë, the Shining Maid, who bore in the one hundred and twenty-eighth year of Elrond’s reign Undómiel, the Evenstar. Undómiel grew in Elenna at its height, and spoke its three tongues: Quenya for its lore, and Sindarin for its affairs of state, and Adunaic for its daily bread. She and Elrond her great-grandfather were much alike, dark in countenance and with long dark hair, but grey-eyed and set apart. She could ride before she could speak, and like the star of her naming she would fly from the streets of fair Armenelos to the havens of Rómenna, up Meneltarma or to the Bay of Eldanna under the Fragrant Trees, and wherever she went she was loved, for children to the Men of Elenna were few. She grew without fear.

In that time the Elves of Tol Eressëa began to send their envoys to Elenna, in their swanboats which seemed to ride the spray and not the water. Tol Eressëa was peopled by those of the Elves of Valinor who looked still to the affairs of Middle-earth, and those who loved the sea. These counted among them many who rejoiced to hear of Men their near neighbors, as it was reckoned, and though no Man could set foot in their harbor of Avallónë they at last set sail out to Westernesse themselves. And when the first of these envoys came they brought with them a white sapling as a friend-gift, that was a cutting of Galathilion, the tree that Yavanna made from Telperion’s last fruit. Nimloth she was called, and she and Undómiel were of an age.

It was in the two hundred and fortieth of the years of Men that Death entered Elenna, and none knew whither. There was a high wind, and a long storm, and the streets of Armenelos were flooded, and afterward plague came. The Gift of the Valar was meant to guard Men against sickness in the days of their youth, but against this it did not guard, but rather hastened it, so that in those most touched with the light of Valinor it seemed that the light itself devoured. So it was that Laurion sickened and then died in two days, and after Calasso, and shining Tinwë was consumed as it seemed in a moment, that rose healthy in the morning and did not live till sunset. And many more it took, of whom memory does not tell, and whose names are first recorded in the manner of their dying. Elrond alone it did not touch, who was yet half-Elven, and Undómiel sickened with it, but lived. Telperianna was taken at the last, and neither Elrond nor Undómiel would leave her, save that Elenna must not think that all the wise were gone, so that sometimes one and sometimes the other sat in the half-empty councils and chose the next place to build pyres. When Telperianna was near her end, Elrond sat with her, and they spoke of many things of which they had not before; and it is said by the wise that at the last Telperianna said, "Now I would be Eldar, not to lose this parting, for in truth I am weary, but to see as you have seen what will be. For it seems to me that Númenor will fade, and the Gift of the Valar will come to nothing.”

Then Elrond said, “I see no further than this, that you are dying, and I am afraid.”

And Telperianna laughed, and said, “Aftercomer indeed, to come so late to that.”

And she spoke no more. The people of that time would have made her a great tomb, for she was accounted great, but that Elrond gainsaid them, and ordered a pyre for her on Meneltarma. So it was that the kings of Númenor were laid to rest, with a light that the Valar must see; though afterwards it was said that it was done to remember Maedhros Feanorion, who chose against the slow poisoning of years.

Thus Undómiel learnt of death.

Now in the three hundred and twenty-third of the years of Men a great storm arose off the Eastern coast of Elenna, and many in the land feared that the plague would come again; and Elrond sent Undómiel to the shores of Rómenna to see if any sign of illness was to be found. Undómiel was his herald and his regent, and the only heir to the House of Beor, and she was called Arwen, Noble Maid, as token that she was accounted his heir. And this name she used more often than the name of her childhood. Proud she was, and distant, but not cold; and she and Elrond traded each for each their thought and their tasks.

When Arwen came to the water she found that the harbor town was empty, the people of Rómenna having fled to healthier airs, and a fog was on the ground. Arwen’s heart at first misgave her, but through the town she went, searching for any mark of evil, and last she came to the shore, which was still covered in wrack. One great sea-beast she saw, or seemed to see, humped half in the water; and she went to it to see what its nature should be, and stumbled over the body of a man.

She saw at once that he lived, but she knew not what he was, one of the fishermen of Rómenna, or some lost voyager from Tol Eressëa, or else a token of some great evil to come; and she hesitated long over him, unsure whether to aid him or put him back out to sea. Till at last he half-woke, and saw above him a tall woman in a rich gown of blue and silver, and her long dark hair was bound with the same silver and shot through with it, and all about her the silver fog was winding. And he took her for an unhoused shade, and cried, “Have I come to Aman at last?”

“No, to Elenna only,” she said.

“Then is Elenna among the stars, and out of the circles of the world, and Tinúviel’s ghost walks there,” he said, still half-dreaming, and at these words she smiled, and knew him for one of the Children of Ilúvatar indeed, and a young one. And she knelt in the sand beside him and used on him the healing arts of Númenor, where it was truly said, “the hands of the king are the hands of a healer.” So he soon revived, and knew himself again, and she asked him his name. He colored, and said, “I know not how to answer you. Estel Elessar I am called, son of Elros and Nellas, and other names have I had in other lands; Ulzabad-zaraku with the Dwarves, and Khoroddin in the cities of the plain. But here I have no name.”

“You are well-traveled,” she said, gravely, and smiled again; and Estel wondered at that smile. “Then will I call you Ara-i-coron, for you come outside the round.”

“In my mother’s tongue that is Aragorn,” said he, and so between them they shaped his name.

She lifted him from the sand, and helped him to the horse, and gave him to eat and drink from her provisions. She saw then that he was well-made, fair as any of the Eldar, with bright grey eyes; tall he was, and a youth in his first strength. She told him her name, and of the manner of the country and her errand; and in return he told her of his voyaging, that he had been sea-called, and had gone to Círdan Shipwright, thinking to sail along the coast of Middle-earth and therefore hold it at bay. But he had sailed farther and farther, following Eärendil, and a great storm had taken him and cast him where it would. “And now I may not return, unless it be on splinters,” said he, and cast a rueful eye to the beach. “So I am perforce your guest.”

“I will take you to the king my forefather,” Arwen said to him, “and he will say what may be done.” And they rode to Armenelos together.

In Armenelos they were a great spectacle, and the people followed them, for Aragorn was still clothed as the sea had left him, in rags and seaweed, and he rode behind the lady of the land with salt drying in his hair. And in this fashion he came before Elrond Tar-Palantir. Both were long silent at this meeting. Aragorn saw his father, but marked with grief, his hair all white, and yet also different in spirit, for Elros’ spirit was bright and quick and his laugh easy, and the spirit of Elrond in his lined eyes was unruffled and deep; and Aragorn Nellas’ son thought that no bad thing.

And Elrond too was silent, because the world had changed.

At last he stirred, and welcomed his guest; and they spoke at first of Aragorn’s journey, and of whether it could be made back again, and whether the people of Elenna could send embassy with it, and of what manner the ship might be made to bear them thither, and what time it might take them to do so. Then the doors were open and they called in the council, and all was spoken over again, and taken apart like a fashioning of the Dwarves, gear from gear, and then neatly fitted back together, better suited for its purpose. And all the while Aragorn wondered, that they asked no word of his father nor of absent friends in Middle-earth, save of how it stood in harbors and in war. Until Elrond at last spoke their decision; and wine was brought. And then it seemed that some spirit passed from the room, and one laughed, and said, “Say you truly, that the kingdoms of the East have been found?”

And then Aragorn saw what the Edain had made of time, that had so little of it; to bind it strictly to one purpose or another, and thus to make it good. And his heart warmed to half-peopled Elenna, even as to Arwen, who did not laugh, but smiled.

So began Aragorn’s first sojourn in Númenor, which lasted ten years. He traveled in it often, and to places unpeopled or to villages Arwen had little cause to visit, and came always back to Armenelos with new tales; and Arwen learnt of him what could be done with a keen eye and an open ear, to know the needs of her people. On many nights they would go to some high place, and he would teach her what Nellas had told him of the stars, and what he had seen while sailing. She came to think him a dear friend, and to him she told what she had told no other, that she had begun to fear that Elrond’s health would not for long last him, and that the plague which had spared him had shortened his days. And after longer friendship she told him what she had not known until she said it: that she feared that day, not just for her forefather’s sake, but because she must wed, or let the line of the Peredhil pass from the world of Men.

“And like the Eldar I am in this,” she said, “that I would not lose myself in the doing. But among Men it is too often accounted thus, and I know no Man who would wed me and not bind me.”

Then Aragorn said, “No Man, perhaps. But if thou wouldst have me, I would have thee on no other terms.”

“But thou canst not,” she said, and put her hand over his. “For thou art of a different kindred; and thy home is otherwhere.”

Neither of them spoke then of love; and Aragorn did not ask her again.

At the end of the ten years, Aragorn was given the great ship Sinderámar, Greywing, laden with gifts and bearing embassy; and Arwen parted with her friend on the steps of the palace. Aragorn was checking the sails when Elrond came, in advance of the ceremony of parting; and they met on the deck.

“So I dreamed Vingilot,” Elrond said. “Though I do not know if it is a dream or a memory.”

“This ship will I sail back to you, Tar-Palantir,” said Aragorn, for his heart was light. But he saw that Elrond’s brow was dark, and he said, “But not if you would have me not. For you know that I honor you, and am grateful for your friendship, even as for a second father; but at times it seems to me that you have wished me thither, and I know not if I am unwelcome in your country.”

Then Elrond said to him in earnest, “You see truly. At times it pains me to look on you, Elessar son of Elros. For in you I see your father, and I see you unwithering; and also I see your love for my daughter, Arwen Undómiel. Do you think I had not known? Though no great insight would it have taken me, had I wished to see it, for you look often and long at her, and forget the manner of your speech. Rightly she has named you, Ar-Agan, lord of death, for she will die before you have reached the flower of your wisdom, and all her years and mine will be like a dream in your youth, that passes and is forgot.”

Then Aragorn’s heart was kindled, and he cried, “I have not brought this Doom to her!”

“Nay, you have not,” said Elrond, and he spoke in bitterness and not in anger. “It is I that have brought it to her. You have brought only truth. For myself I have chosen, but you have shown me what Arwen might have had, if I had chosen otherwise; a long life with no swift death thereafter.”

And Aragorn was silent. But Elrond sighed, and spoke again, saying, “Still I would have your friendship, for your own sake. And what Man can say what may be?”

Then Aragorn parted from him lovingly, and sailed home, and the wind was with him, and the sea-longing sang in him till he reached the Grey Havens. And Elros saw his son come in among the torches of the quay, and was joyful. But in Númenor Arwen greeted her forefather in the streets of Armenelos; and as always after their parting, she thought, “His back is still straight, his voice is still strong; there is yet time.”

Elessar spoke with his father, and told him of the manner of Elenna and of the illness which yet lived there. Hard tidings they were, but not unknown, as Elessar had thought; for Elros told him that the cities of the plain had begun to fight. It was the thought of Galadriel and of Gil-galad that this was the way of things in Middle-earth since their coming hither, that Arda was warsick, and this Elros could not gainsay. But the rumors spoke at random, that Ghameyr disputed with Marajen over a little lake that could water neither, and Mûmak-adh with Ezekhêdrim over which should learn mithril of the Dwarves, and the Dwarves with Marajen over the passage through the Ered Hithui. These were the tales Elros told Elessar, “though,” he said, “if any are true it is outside my knowledge. Our embassies grow few.”

“In Elenna the king or the lady Arwen would send a silent embassy, if none would go openly,” Elessar said.

“Would they so?” Elros said. “I would, if I had any to send. But your mother is abroad. Stay—I have one other great walker, have I not? Will you go thither?”

Elessar was nothing loth, having thought himself constrained to Mithlond until such time as Elros might consider it best to return the ship with messages for Elenna; and also perhaps he thought that Arwen might think more of his return, if he came laden with new stories. So he went to Marajen of the Dim Hills, and came back with strange tidings, that he had been shadowed in the streets by the city guard and greeted with false smiles in the marketplace. There had been beasts by the southern shores of Nenuial, feigning to be wolves.

“And yet I know not what to think on it,” said Elros, to his son. “It may be as the other lords counsel, that we look not on a new shadow but only on a dark hour. They have known Arda far longer. Will you go forth again?”

So Elessar went to Khazad-dûm, and spoke with the Dwarves, who almost barred their new-built gates against him; and then south, to Ezekhêdrim, where the children in the streets played at being carrion and crow. Still he found no open sign of evil, only a harvest failing when needed most, or a king’s thought of greed in a time of peace. Yet it seemed to him that to every door he came, someone had come before him.

He met his mother in Minhiriath, returning to Lhûn, and fell in with her. To her he spoke his thought, and she told him that she had shared it, and furthermore that she had seen his feigning wolves before, come ravenous to Doriath; but then they had been one great wolf, and his name had been Carcaroth.

At Mithlond they parted, for, she said lovingly, he had become bad company, speaking either of Doom or Elenna, Elenna or Doom, till none could hear the nightingales. Elessar went to his father, and asked if he could return his stolen ship; and Elros granted it, wishing for the counsel of Men in their matters. And Aragorn landed in Rómenna, to find it a fine harbor, with a young city by it; and Arwen heard all his tidings.

So passed a handful of years, with Aragorn ever on the wing. He could stay in Elenna no longer than to wash the road’s dust from his feet, and then some other errand would call him back to Middle-earth, to map the coast south of Harlindon, or to take tidings of Aman back to the Lords of the Eldar, or to ride with the Gwaithuirim along the low hills. Neither did he stay in Middle-earth longer than his errand called him, and to his other names was added Telcontar, Strider. The Eldar do not grow weary as the sons of Men do, and Aragorn was hale; yet in his restlessness in her city Arwen saw that the sea-longing had not stilled in him, but instead was growing. Often she thought, “When he comes again I will tell him to save his journeys against his strength.” But she never said it, in part because when he made harbor he would vault over the rail to reach the shore; and in part because she could not do without him.

The people of Elenna were become shipwrights, and had started their own voyages across the eastern waters, over Beleriand-that-was, the Lands Under Wave. Of all the great mountains and mighty towers of that land only the Stone of the Hapless still stood as a marker above the water, and the mariners called it Tol Morwen, and made anchor there, and did honor to those bound by Morgoth’s hate. On one such voyage, the sailors anchored there saw a great sea beast just cresting the water, and they put down their skiff and lifted harpoons and gave chase. Fair and hard they struck the beast, and as it died it dragged them far into the north, with the ship all sails lifted behind them, and they came into a vast deep, where the water was glassy and dark, bounded by a pale blue line of shallows; and there they were becalmed in Osse’s Maw. The sailors made to cut open the beast, to see if provisions could be made of it. But inside it was black, as though it had been eaten up by what it had consumed, and in the center of the rot was the head of a dragon. Thus the mariners of Númenor found the ruins of Thangorodrim.

Then was Elenna divided. For some said that they should seek to find all that was buried, and restore from the heights of Beleriand the treasures of the First Age; and some said that the dead should be left with their bones. But those who knew the counsel of Aragorn and of Elros bethought themselves of a war that might come; and it was a ship of that company that returned to Osse’s Maw, and brought back to the King and the Lady in secret the strange things they found there.

If they had found only Morgoth’s workings, then even the foolish and the rash would have cast them back into the waves; for in that time the Men of Elenna were still faithful to the Valar, and would have seen in that their will. But the treasures under water were not all fell things. Weapons of the host of the Valar were there, and arms of Elves and Men; the bodies of strange creatures which yet did not reek of the dark, and workings of power which sang of an easy death.

To the mariners of Tol Eressëa Arwen went, and asked of them if any could tell the clean from the corrupt. But most would not answer. At last Lalwen, sister of Fingolfin, said to her, “You ask what can only be asked by those who have learnt of arms by book. Morgoth could turn any gift to his purpose. These things the sea has washed clean; but in war they will not long remain so.”

“That is no answer,” said Arwen, pressed beyond measure.

Then Lalwen smiled; and she said, “I took up arms as well, in Aman as well as in Beleriand. No one of us may stop you.”

And with that answer Arwen had to be content.

To Aragorn she took this trouble when she could, though he could give her no better guidance, and other things, too, which were lesser burdens. He at least would listen to her not as a citizen but as a friend, and at the end speak her truthfully or be silent. But as the years passed Aragorn’s visits became few, for his journeys grew longer, first one year, and then two, and at last there came a time when his ship no longer came to shore. Arwen put aside this fear as she put aside the others, and went to her forefather, saying, “We may know no more from Middle-earth till war comes; let us make ready.” And Tar-Palantir agreed, for, he said, against some ills there can be no too-great preparing. So Númenor went garbed for war, in greatships and in terrible arms.

It was ten years before Sinderámar came again to shore. At first Arwen knew nothing of it, having spent long hours in study the night before; but Aragorn came himself to the palace, and the guards parted before him. So there came a knock at Arwen’s chamber door, and she lifted her head and saw him come by candlelight as if to relieve her watch, in blue and silver, tall and straight, his hair braided away from his grey eyes, and he was laden with holly. And Arwen could deny her heart no longer.

There in Armenelos they knew each other for the first time; and the silent children of the Second Age traded kisses and stories, the one tumbling over the other until both were lost. Till Arwen half-surfacing from the tide knew to ask him how it came that he had been so long away, and Aragorn must answer truthfully, saying, “I have been in the south, following the Ered Nimrais, the White Mountains, till they reached their root; and there I found the evil we have been seeking. It is Morgoth’s hand, who is called Sauron, new-come again to Middle-earth, and he does not sleep.”

“Then it is to be war,” Arwen said.

“War before the year is out,” said Aragorn. “Lady, I bring hard tidings.”

“We have not slept in Elenna, nor have you neither,” said Arwen, and she took his hand. “I know that we shall not falter.”

“I have not your foresight,” Aragorn said to her. “We are not the hosts of the Valar, and the Men and the Dwarves and the Elves are all near sundered, one from the other. Sauron has done his work well. But I will take my hope from you. I know that yours is hard-won.”

Arwen kissed him her answer, and for the night they gave over their councils. But in the morning they rose; and Elrond met Arwen and Aragorn in the hall of the king, and soberly they gave word of what they knew. And one by one all the wise of Elenna agreed to war.

Great was the host of Númenor in its first assembly, gleaming and fair, bearing each the White Tree on their breast. It was a fortnight and more in its muster, and Aragorn and Arwen were each other’s shadows the while. They had spoken no words of betrothal. Until at last the ships were ready to sail, and in Nísimaldar Arwen went walking, to cut branches from the mallorn-trees to be a sign before the fleet, as the ships of Tol Eressëa had brought them thither. To Aragorn she gave a bough, laden with golden flowers; and Aragorn took it from her, saying, “These we have not in Lindon or Eregion.”

“After the war we will give them you,” Arwen said. “Middle-earth will grow mellyrn from the mountains to the sea.”

“And will I be there to see them flower?” Aragorn asked her, but Arwen stayed him, saying, “Ask me not yet, until thou art all returned. It is bitter to love the brave, and see them go.”

“As bitter as to love the wise, and leave them to their burden,” Aragorn said to her. “For if I chose, we should both be in Middle-earth, and thou shouldst do such deeds with me as would unsing the Noldolantë. But I say truly to thee, Arwen, I do not leave thee now forever. If I come to thee not by Middle-earth, I will come by Tol Eressëa.”

There in the woods of Nísimildar they parted; and Arwen went back pale and straight to Armenelos, and Aragorn to the ships. To Middle-earth they sailed, Aragorn first among the fleet; and at Elros’ side Aragorn joined the host of Gil-galad.

Of the War against Sauron the Lay of the Mountain-Breaking tells, Tolenedhil’s song—of the sack of Eregion, of the rising of Khazad-dûm, of Ghameyr burning, and of the sea’s fire. Six years were all the war’s span; and those who lived through it never learned to call it brief. Sauron had loosed evil things into the land. In the east the dragon Smaug arose, and in the north the wargs, but Elros’ company was set against Sauron’s host, a host of all kindred, for among the Children there were many who believed the Shadow had never truly lifted, and who in despair would fight for any power. Not least among Elros’ men was Aragorn Elessar, and ever was he sent when there was need of a silent death. No surcease was there from war for him; for in the quiet hours between campaign, he was their swiftest messenger, and when the battle was joined, he stood at his father’s hand like a statue of a prince of old.

He was on the heights when Gil-galad was slain before the Gates of Mordor, and Aragorn saw his father leap into the fray, the bright blade of Caladcrist at his hand, and Elros hewed down the king of Marajen in one fell stroke; and his bow Aragorn drew, and killed the Orc-chief whose axe was at Elros’ neck. And when Sauron himself at last issued forth, intemperate in rage and fair as lightning, Aragorn it was who was first unblinded, and who blew the horn to battle.

For the Maia had thought his design too subtle, and the Shadow too distant, for Elves in their havens to learn of, and so the armies of Middle-earth took him when he was unready, and at the last he was driven out of Mordor and its dark rot destroyed. Out of the mountains he fled; but the host of Númenor awaited. He had reached Eryn Vorn when Númenor’s ships raised their bright weapons against the woods, and Eryn Vorn was consumed at an instant. His own power they raised against him, and in his own fell leavings Sauron was bound, and there the sea swept over him, and Osse dragged him down in chains. And in the land’s new channel the sea poured in, and Minhiriath of the Tall Trees went at a stroke to ruin.

Aragorn went in his father’s wake to Mithlond, and then to Harlindon. He bore no outward mark of war, and smiled; but when Elros spoke proudly of his deeds, he stayed him, saying that he had done no more than kill spiders in fell places. When Elros went back again, Aragorn did not go with him. For his mother he waited, in Galadriel’s kingdom, but his mother came not, and at last he set out after her. So that when the Queen’s Embassy of Númenor came to Middle-earth, Aragorn was not at hand, but was far in the South.

The Lords of the Eldar Arwen met: Círdan Shipwright, oldest of the Quendi in Middle-earth, and Celebrimbor whose eye had grown distant and whose thought no one knew; Amdir of Lórinand, and Galadriel and Celeborn who ruled yet in Harlindon. Last of all came Elros Atandil, limping still with the wound he had of Sauron, for now he was accounted king of the Elves in Middle-earth. And seeing him Arwen lifted her chin, as one who receives a blow; and to him she brought the news that his brother was dead.

In her ships Arwen had brought messengers from Tol Eressëa, wanderers of strange wise, and long was the wondering and sorrowing and debating and tale-telling among the company. Till at the last Arwen came to Galadriel in a still hour, and gave her the mallorn seeds she had promised, and word of her kindred on Tol Eressëa; and they spoke of kingdoms and of power. And after they had done, when the Stars were setting, Galadriel told her where Elessar Elros’ son had gone. And in the morning Arwen left her embassy to her ambassadors, and journeyed south alone.

Aragorn was on the heights of the new cape where Eryn Vorn had been, when she found him. Along the line of the cliff came Arwen, dressed for traveling, and Aragorn rose to meet her as though she were the moon. He was stained with travel, and the sea-mist pooled at his feet; and in his hands he carried a garland. He said, “Nellas has sailed into the West, and left me with this, that I might offer it to what spirit might protect her.”

“And Elrond has gone, beyond the borders of the world,” she said to him.

“Ah!” he said, and could not speak; and after a great while, he smiled. “Then I am standing with the Queen of Elenna! Will she grant me a petition?”

“Any petition, within my granting,” she said. “What would you have of me?”

“Lady, will you come with me another way?” he said. “You know I am a great voyager; and I see no ill in us to weigh against Tuor and Idril. Will you sail with me to Valinor, and see if we might gain your passage?”

“That choice is not given me,” said Arwen; but first she hesitated.

“That may be so,” Aragorn said. “But I think there is no one who can deny Arwen Tar-Undómiel any choice she would make.”

Then Arwen said, “But I shall not break the Ban of the Valar, and their trust.”

“Nay, why so?” Aragorn said to her. “I will go first as your envoy.”

Now Arwen turned away, and she cried, “Ah, Estel! You know not what you ask of me. For all of my people walk with Death at our heels, and you tell me you might drive it away with a stick like a yelping cur and leave me free, alone of all Númenor free. Since the days of my youth I have contended with my fate; not to let it turn my deeds to vanity, or my heart to water, though I know in the end I will be lost. And shall I take this choice?”

Then was she long silent. At last she raised her head again to Aragorn; and he saw she had wept. She said, “I have refused none of the gifts of men; not our pride, nor our strength, nor even our darkling love. Neither shall I refuse the last. Adaneth I am, and can be no other.”

Then Aragorn bowed his head; and to him she said, “And you are weary; and you too shall pass. Shall I keep you like a ghost in my halls, longing to be gone and forgetful of the road?”

“No, Arwen,” he said to her, and he gave her the garland of his mother’s making. “No home have I among the kindreds of the world! In Aman I should have rest, and the relief of care; but what would I do with those? I am what I was made. I will come with thee.”

“That I would not have either,” she said gently. “Thou art a stranger to grief, and grief would choose for thee; and he is not welcome as my husband.”

“Wilt thou command me?” he asked of her.

“One last to pay for all,” she said. “For I love thee, and would not bind thee.”

“Well!” he said. “What is one more tarrying?” And it seemed to her that a light passed from him, so that he no longer seemed a beloved memory, but a friend met on an unfamiliar road; and he said, “Then I will amend my petition, Lady. Let me sojourn with thee until the hour of thy parting, if not for my sake, then for pity on a traveler.”

Then with his mother’s offering she crowned him, and they went together by the waters of Belegaer; and the sea’s calling was only an echo in Aragorn’s heart.

*

Arwen Tar-Tirissindë the Vigilant was queen in Númenor for two hundred years, and she bore two daughters and a son, and her husband Aragorn Telcontar was ever her herald and her eyes in distant lands. In her reign Númenor first made its own harbor in Middle-earth, though it did not yet send its people to dwell there, and voyagers of Númenor mapped the Bay of Belfalas and followed the Ered Nimrais on its new path. With the Dwarves Tar-Tirissindë traded, and the Elves of Eregion, who took to themselves the treasures of Osse’s Maw for study; but of that more anon. In her time Men said that Elenna had her grace and her strength; and by her people she was dearly loved. And sometimes she would startle herself into laughter.

And when at last she chose the hour of her death, she said to Aragorn at her side, “Do not go swiftly to Aman after I have gone; for thou must see that Eldarion is ready.”

“Then thou must appoint a steward,” Aragorn said to her. “For I have another journey to make, and Aman is not at the end of it.”

Then Arwen stretched out her hand to his face, and traced on it the marks of care; and she said, “When didst thou choose the Doom of Men?”

“At Belegaer, by the water,” he said, and took her hand. “Not all things canst thou command, Queen of Elenna.”

After her dying, Aragorn left swiftly, a boat being ready in the harbor; and he made a course for the far North, and lay him down in it, and over the horizon he went; and never more was seen in Middle-earth Aragorn Telcontar, the farthest sailor.