Day 18 - Closing Time
Title: Closing Time
Author: Grundy (jerseyfabulous)
Rating: FR13
Crossover: LotR
Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss and Tolkien. No money is being made here, it's all in good fun.
Summary: Buffy and her brothers prepare to leave Imladris for the last time.
Word Count: 2305
By the time the messenger arrived at Imladris, the summons had long been expected.
It was mid-winter - the winter as cold as the summer had been glorious, a summer in which Anariel had spent several weeks in the Shire, bidding farewell to her hobbit acquaintances.
She had returned home laden with gifts, mainly of seeds and cuttings the hobbits thought might be of interest or enjoyment to their friends in the Undying Lands but also a few barrels of Longbottom Leaf to be dispatched to Gandalf, remembered fondly still despite his deplorable habit of dragging young hobbits off on adventures.
The time since had been spent mainly in packing and cleaning, shutting the main house up wing by wing. Even the library was sealed now, the last of the books they meant to keep crated to be dispatched to the Havens, the rest shrouded with dust cloths. Only the kitchen, small hall, and the few family rooms still in use remained.
Sad as it might be, after nearly five thousand years of elven inhabitants, the fires of the Homely House would not be relit once the children of Elrond departed unless it was by Men. Though they hoped Arwen’s children would wish to keep the house alive, it was not her decision or her brothers’ to make.
Anariel and the twins had decided that once Arwen laid down her life, they would have no heart to return to the now empty house - not when all others who had made it a Homely House over the years had departed. All they wished to take with them had been packed, either to send to the Havens with Lindir - the last of the Imladrim - or to carry with them if it might be necessary for these last few months.
Celeborn had spent much of the past few years in Gondor, as if to hoard every memory he could to carry to Galadriel and Celebrian. He had not reproached them for choosing to do otherwise, for he could see that visits to Minas Tirith had become painful to his elven grandchildren as they noted the increasing signs of age on Estel. Though Arwen retained the outward appearance of elvish agelessness, her husband was now silver haired and had lines etched deep into his face.
It had been difficult, the last time Anariel had visited, to reconcile the venerable King of Men with the boy who had been her little sister’s playmate when they first came to Imladris from Sunnydale, much less the youth to whom Arwen had pledged her troth. Even the man who had accompanied the Ringbearer had been visible only to those who looked carefully. She had been relieved he had not caught her looking…
And of course, there had been other farewells to say. Kili had gone last year, Faramir and Eowyn’s oldest son Elboron the year before that. Anariel Dagnis might be famous for her strength, but she had found she was not strong enough to live surrounded by mortals when the ones she knew and loved were falling like leaves in an autumn storm. She had retreated to the fading sanctuary of Imladris, waiting for the end.
It was Eldarion himself who came to bring them his father’s last invitation, his face cheerful despite the solemn errand that brought him. He had visited several times over the years, though less often since his marriage, for even now that the King had come again it was still not the easiest of journeys.
“Aunt, Uncles,” he smiled, though the cheer slid from his face as he beheld how quiet the previously busy main house was now.
“Little one,” Anariel replied mischievously, pulling him down to kiss his cheeks, ignoring the grooves from the edges of his nose to the corners of his mouth that had not been there when last she saw him.
All Arwen’s children were taller than her, and each had in turn protested her continued use of the customary elvish ‘little one’ once they passed her height. It had done none of them any good. Young Alassë wore it as a badge of pride, but her older brothers both claimed to find it ridiculous.
Yet Eldarion did not contest it today - a fleeting smile showed that the childhood endearment was suddenly more precious now that he knew it too would soon pass away.
Eldarion looked around, as though expecting to find others coming out to greet him. They could read the surprise on his face when it was only faithful (and stubborn, it must be admitted) Lindir who joined them.
“Has everyone else gone?” Eldarion asked, startled.
Elladan nodded as Lindir bowed politely to the Crown Prince of Gondor before turning to lead his horse off to the stables.
“Your coming is not unexpected, nephew,” he explained. “Nearly all the household have already departed.”
“The few who remain,” Elrohir continued, “are finishing the packing and closing of the smaller houses in the valley before they make their way west. What will become of Imladris after we depart will fall to you and your brother and sisters to decide.”
“But surely…” Eldarion began, but seemed to rethink his words even as he said them. “I thought perhaps some of the folk of the Greenwood or East Lorien would come here when you left. It is an elvish place, after all.”
They led him inside, to the main kitchen. Where once a large staff were busy nearly all hours of the day and night, it was now only the three who still made their home here who worked to prepare the evening meal.
Anariel returned to the task she had been working on before they had heard their nephew’s arrival - finishing the herb rub on the chicken so she could set it to roast. If Eldarion was surprised to see his formidable aunt cooking - not only was cookery usually the province of the ellyn, but he had ever known her to be banned from the kitchens of Imladris for some crime in her long ago youth - he wisely said nothing.
“There are too few elves left in Middle Earth to take over such a large settlement such as this valley,” Elrohir told him simply.
“The folk of the Greenwood and Ithilien have been sailing of late,” Elladan added. “East Lorien is emptied, for the Galadhrim have all either passed into the West or gone to join their kin in Legolas’ settlement.”
“Those who remain will not choose to tarry much longer, I think,” Anariel said thoughtfully, sprinkling a last dusting of ground herbs over the bird before carrying it to the oven. “The time of the elves is truly over. This past winter, Thranduil himself at long last admitted that it is time to go. The only question is whether he will sail with us or with Legolas. Even many of the wood elves who thought to stay discovered that when it came to it, no matter how deeply they love the land, they would rather not fade. There has been a steady exodus to the Havens these last decades.”
“But we will still need your wisdom!” Eldarion protested. “My brother and sisters will need you. I will need you! You know what Father intends, and we do not expect Mother will linger without him!”
Anariel sighed.
It was long as Eldarion reckoned it since he was a boy she could cuddle and reassure that all would be well, but it did not seem so to her or to her brothers. She gave her hands a quick wash in the basin before she took his.
“You are a man grown now, my little one,” she said gently. “You have always known that someday you would be King, that it would fall to you to stand in your father’s place. I know Arwen has told you that we stay for her - we cannot defer our sailing forever, for we would fade as surely as any others.”
“And it is not only we ourselves who are affected by our remaining on the Hither Shores,” Elrohir continued, his face distant as though he sought to see to the Uttermost West. “Our parents, our grandparents, our sister Tindomiel who you will not remember, though she held you the day you were born - there are many who look for our coming. They feel the pain of this sundering as we do, and long for it to be at an end.”
“What of our pain?” Eldarion asked sadly. “Is that nothing to you?”
“Eldarion,” Elladan replied, “we would not cause you any pain if we could help it. You are our nephew, and we love you dearly, as we do your brother and sisters. But you are mortal. Someday you too will pass beyond the circles of the world, and if we were to stay for you, we would have this conversation again with your son, or perhaps with his. There would always be mortal kin asking us not to go, to put it off just a little while longer. This will never become easier, for any of us.”
“And you have not seen what it is to us, young one, to lose those so beloved, knowing we will not see them again, for we are bound to the world until its breaking,” Anariel said softly. “I already wonder at my father, that he could endure for so long, watching his brother’s descendants grow old and die, one after another through the generations. Bid me fight dragons or balrogs in your defense, and I would do it without fear or hesitation. But please, my little one, do not ask this of me.”
Eldarion looked from his aunt to his uncles.
“You have long prepared your answers, have you not?” he laughed sadly. “You will not be convinced.”
“Prepared, no,” Elladan said heavily. “But foreseen that we would be asked. It is a new thing that you are asked to do, to go forward as the first of your line not to have your elven kin standing at your back to guard and guide you at need. Always before this, our father has been here when one of the line of kings closed his eyes.”
“Do not think we do not feel the weight of it, or believe that the moment will be without pain to those we leave here,” Elrohir continued. “But we cannot stay. It is best that we depart, and swiftly after your parents lay down their lives.”
“We thought you might send one of your sisters with her husband and children to hold Imladris,” Anariel added, deciding it was best to move on in the conversation as well. “This valley has long been a refuge for your line, and if it is our wisdom you desire, we believe it would be wise to maintain it thus - a hidden stronghold that may long be defended against enemies and sickness alike. My thought would be Aranis, for she is trained as a healer in addition to being a capable administrator.”
“What of Nolondil?” Eldarion asked, on surer ground now that they were advising him on politics and strategy as they so often did.
“Him you will want as your steward in the North Kingdom,” Elrohir answered. “Name him the Prince of Annuminas and let him set the northern reaches in order, for much remains to be done there, particularly in what was once Cardolan and Rhudaur, and it ought not be deferred until your younger son comes of age. Take counsel with your father on that while there is yet time - I would be surprised indeed if Elessar did not suggest a similar plan.”
Eldarion took up a knife to begin peeling potatoes. The hands of the king might be the hands of a healer, but in the House of Elrond the hands of a healer and the hands of a cook were not so very different. He knew that if they kept to the kitchens, he was expected to make himself useful, prince or not.
“But you will come to Minas Tirith with me?” he sighed.
Anariel laughed.
“Tonight?” she replied playfully. “No, tonight we shall eat, drink, and be merry, for our nephew has come to visit us! Tomorrow will be time enough to consider the journey.”
“The first day of the new week will be soon enough to set out, I think,” Elladan mused. “If your father’s wish to go were so pressing that we needed to travel in haste, Arwen would have spoken to us directly.”
“Indeed,” Elrohir agreed. “Which gives us just enough time to use up what is still in the kitchen and cold rooms before we depart. And perhaps Anariel will favor you with a few more tales of California- she still has not told them all, you know.”
"Once upon a time, her name was Buffy," Eldarion said with another slight smile, recalling hours spent listening to her stories as a child.
“If you ask nicely, little one, we might even make pizza,” Elladan offered.
“Tomorrow,” Anariel said firmly. “So long as the weather holds. The brick oven outside is better for that, but we did not like to fire it until we were sure of your arrival. Besides, the chicken needed roasting. No sense wasting food, and Lindir would never do a whole bird for only himself.”
She shook her head, for Lindir’s thrift had been a virtue until now. But they had no more reason to save provisions, for by the time anyone arrived from Gondor, anything in the cold rooms would certainly have gone bad. The preserved foods, jams and jellies, and carefully stored dry staples could be left, but for the rest, they would feast their nephew and their loyal retainer alike until they departed rather than let food go to waste. Lindir could distribute anything perishable that was left to the nearest edain settlements on his way to the Havens.
It was, she thought privately, a fitting way for the last elves to leave Imladris.
Author: Grundy (jerseyfabulous)
Rating: FR13
Crossover: LotR
Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss and Tolkien. No money is being made here, it's all in good fun.
Summary: Buffy and her brothers prepare to leave Imladris for the last time.
Word Count: 2305
By the time the messenger arrived at Imladris, the summons had long been expected.
It was mid-winter - the winter as cold as the summer had been glorious, a summer in which Anariel had spent several weeks in the Shire, bidding farewell to her hobbit acquaintances.
She had returned home laden with gifts, mainly of seeds and cuttings the hobbits thought might be of interest or enjoyment to their friends in the Undying Lands but also a few barrels of Longbottom Leaf to be dispatched to Gandalf, remembered fondly still despite his deplorable habit of dragging young hobbits off on adventures.
The time since had been spent mainly in packing and cleaning, shutting the main house up wing by wing. Even the library was sealed now, the last of the books they meant to keep crated to be dispatched to the Havens, the rest shrouded with dust cloths. Only the kitchen, small hall, and the few family rooms still in use remained.
Sad as it might be, after nearly five thousand years of elven inhabitants, the fires of the Homely House would not be relit once the children of Elrond departed unless it was by Men. Though they hoped Arwen’s children would wish to keep the house alive, it was not her decision or her brothers’ to make.
Anariel and the twins had decided that once Arwen laid down her life, they would have no heart to return to the now empty house - not when all others who had made it a Homely House over the years had departed. All they wished to take with them had been packed, either to send to the Havens with Lindir - the last of the Imladrim - or to carry with them if it might be necessary for these last few months.
Celeborn had spent much of the past few years in Gondor, as if to hoard every memory he could to carry to Galadriel and Celebrian. He had not reproached them for choosing to do otherwise, for he could see that visits to Minas Tirith had become painful to his elven grandchildren as they noted the increasing signs of age on Estel. Though Arwen retained the outward appearance of elvish agelessness, her husband was now silver haired and had lines etched deep into his face.
It had been difficult, the last time Anariel had visited, to reconcile the venerable King of Men with the boy who had been her little sister’s playmate when they first came to Imladris from Sunnydale, much less the youth to whom Arwen had pledged her troth. Even the man who had accompanied the Ringbearer had been visible only to those who looked carefully. She had been relieved he had not caught her looking…
And of course, there had been other farewells to say. Kili had gone last year, Faramir and Eowyn’s oldest son Elboron the year before that. Anariel Dagnis might be famous for her strength, but she had found she was not strong enough to live surrounded by mortals when the ones she knew and loved were falling like leaves in an autumn storm. She had retreated to the fading sanctuary of Imladris, waiting for the end.
It was Eldarion himself who came to bring them his father’s last invitation, his face cheerful despite the solemn errand that brought him. He had visited several times over the years, though less often since his marriage, for even now that the King had come again it was still not the easiest of journeys.
“Aunt, Uncles,” he smiled, though the cheer slid from his face as he beheld how quiet the previously busy main house was now.
“Little one,” Anariel replied mischievously, pulling him down to kiss his cheeks, ignoring the grooves from the edges of his nose to the corners of his mouth that had not been there when last she saw him.
All Arwen’s children were taller than her, and each had in turn protested her continued use of the customary elvish ‘little one’ once they passed her height. It had done none of them any good. Young Alassë wore it as a badge of pride, but her older brothers both claimed to find it ridiculous.
Yet Eldarion did not contest it today - a fleeting smile showed that the childhood endearment was suddenly more precious now that he knew it too would soon pass away.
Eldarion looked around, as though expecting to find others coming out to greet him. They could read the surprise on his face when it was only faithful (and stubborn, it must be admitted) Lindir who joined them.
“Has everyone else gone?” Eldarion asked, startled.
Elladan nodded as Lindir bowed politely to the Crown Prince of Gondor before turning to lead his horse off to the stables.
“Your coming is not unexpected, nephew,” he explained. “Nearly all the household have already departed.”
“The few who remain,” Elrohir continued, “are finishing the packing and closing of the smaller houses in the valley before they make their way west. What will become of Imladris after we depart will fall to you and your brother and sisters to decide.”
“But surely…” Eldarion began, but seemed to rethink his words even as he said them. “I thought perhaps some of the folk of the Greenwood or East Lorien would come here when you left. It is an elvish place, after all.”
They led him inside, to the main kitchen. Where once a large staff were busy nearly all hours of the day and night, it was now only the three who still made their home here who worked to prepare the evening meal.
Anariel returned to the task she had been working on before they had heard their nephew’s arrival - finishing the herb rub on the chicken so she could set it to roast. If Eldarion was surprised to see his formidable aunt cooking - not only was cookery usually the province of the ellyn, but he had ever known her to be banned from the kitchens of Imladris for some crime in her long ago youth - he wisely said nothing.
“There are too few elves left in Middle Earth to take over such a large settlement such as this valley,” Elrohir told him simply.
“The folk of the Greenwood and Ithilien have been sailing of late,” Elladan added. “East Lorien is emptied, for the Galadhrim have all either passed into the West or gone to join their kin in Legolas’ settlement.”
“Those who remain will not choose to tarry much longer, I think,” Anariel said thoughtfully, sprinkling a last dusting of ground herbs over the bird before carrying it to the oven. “The time of the elves is truly over. This past winter, Thranduil himself at long last admitted that it is time to go. The only question is whether he will sail with us or with Legolas. Even many of the wood elves who thought to stay discovered that when it came to it, no matter how deeply they love the land, they would rather not fade. There has been a steady exodus to the Havens these last decades.”
“But we will still need your wisdom!” Eldarion protested. “My brother and sisters will need you. I will need you! You know what Father intends, and we do not expect Mother will linger without him!”
Anariel sighed.
It was long as Eldarion reckoned it since he was a boy she could cuddle and reassure that all would be well, but it did not seem so to her or to her brothers. She gave her hands a quick wash in the basin before she took his.
“You are a man grown now, my little one,” she said gently. “You have always known that someday you would be King, that it would fall to you to stand in your father’s place. I know Arwen has told you that we stay for her - we cannot defer our sailing forever, for we would fade as surely as any others.”
“And it is not only we ourselves who are affected by our remaining on the Hither Shores,” Elrohir continued, his face distant as though he sought to see to the Uttermost West. “Our parents, our grandparents, our sister Tindomiel who you will not remember, though she held you the day you were born - there are many who look for our coming. They feel the pain of this sundering as we do, and long for it to be at an end.”
“What of our pain?” Eldarion asked sadly. “Is that nothing to you?”
“Eldarion,” Elladan replied, “we would not cause you any pain if we could help it. You are our nephew, and we love you dearly, as we do your brother and sisters. But you are mortal. Someday you too will pass beyond the circles of the world, and if we were to stay for you, we would have this conversation again with your son, or perhaps with his. There would always be mortal kin asking us not to go, to put it off just a little while longer. This will never become easier, for any of us.”
“And you have not seen what it is to us, young one, to lose those so beloved, knowing we will not see them again, for we are bound to the world until its breaking,” Anariel said softly. “I already wonder at my father, that he could endure for so long, watching his brother’s descendants grow old and die, one after another through the generations. Bid me fight dragons or balrogs in your defense, and I would do it without fear or hesitation. But please, my little one, do not ask this of me.”
Eldarion looked from his aunt to his uncles.
“You have long prepared your answers, have you not?” he laughed sadly. “You will not be convinced.”
“Prepared, no,” Elladan said heavily. “But foreseen that we would be asked. It is a new thing that you are asked to do, to go forward as the first of your line not to have your elven kin standing at your back to guard and guide you at need. Always before this, our father has been here when one of the line of kings closed his eyes.”
“Do not think we do not feel the weight of it, or believe that the moment will be without pain to those we leave here,” Elrohir continued. “But we cannot stay. It is best that we depart, and swiftly after your parents lay down their lives.”
“We thought you might send one of your sisters with her husband and children to hold Imladris,” Anariel added, deciding it was best to move on in the conversation as well. “This valley has long been a refuge for your line, and if it is our wisdom you desire, we believe it would be wise to maintain it thus - a hidden stronghold that may long be defended against enemies and sickness alike. My thought would be Aranis, for she is trained as a healer in addition to being a capable administrator.”
“What of Nolondil?” Eldarion asked, on surer ground now that they were advising him on politics and strategy as they so often did.
“Him you will want as your steward in the North Kingdom,” Elrohir answered. “Name him the Prince of Annuminas and let him set the northern reaches in order, for much remains to be done there, particularly in what was once Cardolan and Rhudaur, and it ought not be deferred until your younger son comes of age. Take counsel with your father on that while there is yet time - I would be surprised indeed if Elessar did not suggest a similar plan.”
Eldarion took up a knife to begin peeling potatoes. The hands of the king might be the hands of a healer, but in the House of Elrond the hands of a healer and the hands of a cook were not so very different. He knew that if they kept to the kitchens, he was expected to make himself useful, prince or not.
“But you will come to Minas Tirith with me?” he sighed.
Anariel laughed.
“Tonight?” she replied playfully. “No, tonight we shall eat, drink, and be merry, for our nephew has come to visit us! Tomorrow will be time enough to consider the journey.”
“The first day of the new week will be soon enough to set out, I think,” Elladan mused. “If your father’s wish to go were so pressing that we needed to travel in haste, Arwen would have spoken to us directly.”
“Indeed,” Elrohir agreed. “Which gives us just enough time to use up what is still in the kitchen and cold rooms before we depart. And perhaps Anariel will favor you with a few more tales of California- she still has not told them all, you know.”
"Once upon a time, her name was Buffy," Eldarion said with another slight smile, recalling hours spent listening to her stories as a child.
“If you ask nicely, little one, we might even make pizza,” Elladan offered.
“Tomorrow,” Anariel said firmly. “So long as the weather holds. The brick oven outside is better for that, but we did not like to fire it until we were sure of your arrival. Besides, the chicken needed roasting. No sense wasting food, and Lindir would never do a whole bird for only himself.”
She shook her head, for Lindir’s thrift had been a virtue until now. But they had no more reason to save provisions, for by the time anyone arrived from Gondor, anything in the cold rooms would certainly have gone bad. The preserved foods, jams and jellies, and carefully stored dry staples could be left, but for the rest, they would feast their nephew and their loyal retainer alike until they departed rather than let food go to waste. Lindir could distribute anything perishable that was left to the nearest edain settlements on his way to the Havens.
It was, she thought privately, a fitting way for the last elves to leave Imladris.