Day 28 - The Last Visit
Title: The Last Visit
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: How do you go on when there is no going back?
Word Count: 985
Note: Sorry this one's short, but I'm a bit rushed today. Travel for work again this week. This trip involves a long haul plane ride and a twelve hour time difference. I should be able to post something tomorrow before I get on the plane, but not sure yet about Tuesday or Wednesday. Crossing my fingers and hoping for the best!
Anariel drew a deep breath as they approached the city walls.
She had not been to Minas Tirith in some years, and she had known for several seasons now that she would visit but once more - and why. But she had not expected it to be this hard.
Courage, little one, Elladan whispered in her head.
Her brothers have been supporting her - and each other, and she them - the entire journey. For though they have all known since Arwen first announced her intent to wed Estel the way it would end, it was no longer in the future tense of a hazy theoretical someday. They have come to bid their sister and law-brother farewell before they both lay down their lives, a parting of the ways that will last as long as Arda itself.
They do not say these things out loud.
Eldarion may have heard their words in Imladris about how difficult and painful this is for them, but they knew he did not truly understand. For mortals, death was a part of life, a gate which all must pass. Children know that they will someday lose their parents, men their wives or women their husbands. It is all her nephew has ever known, for he never had the choice the children of Elrond faced.
Anariel can still remember that life, and the expectations that went with it. In Sunnydale, she had been surrounded by death. Indeed, Spike had been more than a little right when he said it was her art, something she made with her hands. In that, at least, she is a consummate enough craftswoman to satisfy the Noldor. But here in Arda, she had been retrained over the years to understand death as the elves experienced it.
For elves, death was not natural to their being. The bonds between family were much stronger, tangible connections whose severance was felt as physical pain. Even the sundering of kin sailing West was difficult to endure. Losing a sibling to death as the elves knew it - their feä called to Mandos, beyond the reach of their kin, waiting until they might rejoin the world - was traumatic enough.
Losing a sibling to mortal death, a parting of such finality with no hope of reunion so long as the world lasted, is something only one other elf has ever experienced. Their father rarely if ever spoke of it, his grief beyond mere words.
Anariel has lost siblings before. She had faced the loss and the silence four times already as Tara, Willow, Anya, and Xander fell in turn. But the Scoobies were family by bond, not blood, and had not been bound to her the way Arwen was, a presence she felt in her fëa even now despite the choice that sundered their fates.
This loss would be not only her beloved older sister, but the dissolution of the last remaining link to her past. Minas Tirith was the last place she had lived as a ‘mortal’, a place she dwelled with the Scoobies for several very happy years. She had kept the memory of the Scoobies and of Sunnydale alive in the tales she told Arwen’s children. But they are grown now, and she rarely tells the tales these days. No one has called her Buffy in decades, and once she leaves the White City, and her nieces and nephews, she does not expect that any ever will again. Buffy’s brother and sisters were all mortal, and they have gone where she cannot follow.
She was not sure how she would get through the next few days. This idea of choosing one’s time to die, even to the point of holding a farewell state dinner, was completely alien to her, harder to grasp than the concept of immortality had once been. Will she and her brothers be expected to smile and laugh as they have on other visits, at other formal dinners in the King’s House?
This was different than Xander’s passing, for it is a time of peace, and so far as she knows neither Estel nor Arwen have any illness or injury that shortens their days. And yet… she feels every moment now as acutely as she did in that mercifully brief handful of days seared indelibly into her elven memory, never to be forgotten, as fresh as though it had passed only yesterday.
She cannot look beyond losing Arwen, not when she would give anything to freeze time, to avoid the loss and the silence yet again. And yet… there is a part of her that will admit that Kili had been right as well, that being able to finally sail will be a relief.
She missed her younger sister. She missed her mother, and her father, and her grandmother. Her cousins, older and younger. The Imladrim, the Galadhrim, the Tawarwaith and the Falathrim. Above all, she missed knowing where home is, because now that they have left Imladris behind, it was home no longer, yet the West is nearly as unknown to her as Arda once was.
She will not be alone on this journey into the unknown any more than she was for the first - her brothers will be with her, and her grandfather. She could already feel the reassuring warmth of his concern, for Celeborn awaited them at the city gate.
“My brave ones,” he murmured, quietly enough that Eldarion would not catch which words he used.
Anariel melted into her grandfather’s comforting embrace, grateful once again that Celeborn had taken it upon himself to stay despite the yearning he had known every moment of every day to follow Galadriel and Celebrian, and to rejoin his people.
“Come, Arwen is waiting,” he told them.
She squared her shoulders and prepared to follow. She has over the years faced orcs, dragonfire, balrogs, and Sauron, to say nothing of the demons of Sunnydale and the First Evil itself. She can survive this. She will see it through, to whatever end.
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: How do you go on when there is no going back?
Word Count: 985
Note: Sorry this one's short, but I'm a bit rushed today. Travel for work again this week. This trip involves a long haul plane ride and a twelve hour time difference. I should be able to post something tomorrow before I get on the plane, but not sure yet about Tuesday or Wednesday. Crossing my fingers and hoping for the best!
Anariel drew a deep breath as they approached the city walls.
She had not been to Minas Tirith in some years, and she had known for several seasons now that she would visit but once more - and why. But she had not expected it to be this hard.
Courage, little one, Elladan whispered in her head.
Her brothers have been supporting her - and each other, and she them - the entire journey. For though they have all known since Arwen first announced her intent to wed Estel the way it would end, it was no longer in the future tense of a hazy theoretical someday. They have come to bid their sister and law-brother farewell before they both lay down their lives, a parting of the ways that will last as long as Arda itself.
They do not say these things out loud.
Eldarion may have heard their words in Imladris about how difficult and painful this is for them, but they knew he did not truly understand. For mortals, death was a part of life, a gate which all must pass. Children know that they will someday lose their parents, men their wives or women their husbands. It is all her nephew has ever known, for he never had the choice the children of Elrond faced.
Anariel can still remember that life, and the expectations that went with it. In Sunnydale, she had been surrounded by death. Indeed, Spike had been more than a little right when he said it was her art, something she made with her hands. In that, at least, she is a consummate enough craftswoman to satisfy the Noldor. But here in Arda, she had been retrained over the years to understand death as the elves experienced it.
For elves, death was not natural to their being. The bonds between family were much stronger, tangible connections whose severance was felt as physical pain. Even the sundering of kin sailing West was difficult to endure. Losing a sibling to death as the elves knew it - their feä called to Mandos, beyond the reach of their kin, waiting until they might rejoin the world - was traumatic enough.
Losing a sibling to mortal death, a parting of such finality with no hope of reunion so long as the world lasted, is something only one other elf has ever experienced. Their father rarely if ever spoke of it, his grief beyond mere words.
Anariel has lost siblings before. She had faced the loss and the silence four times already as Tara, Willow, Anya, and Xander fell in turn. But the Scoobies were family by bond, not blood, and had not been bound to her the way Arwen was, a presence she felt in her fëa even now despite the choice that sundered their fates.
This loss would be not only her beloved older sister, but the dissolution of the last remaining link to her past. Minas Tirith was the last place she had lived as a ‘mortal’, a place she dwelled with the Scoobies for several very happy years. She had kept the memory of the Scoobies and of Sunnydale alive in the tales she told Arwen’s children. But they are grown now, and she rarely tells the tales these days. No one has called her Buffy in decades, and once she leaves the White City, and her nieces and nephews, she does not expect that any ever will again. Buffy’s brother and sisters were all mortal, and they have gone where she cannot follow.
She was not sure how she would get through the next few days. This idea of choosing one’s time to die, even to the point of holding a farewell state dinner, was completely alien to her, harder to grasp than the concept of immortality had once been. Will she and her brothers be expected to smile and laugh as they have on other visits, at other formal dinners in the King’s House?
This was different than Xander’s passing, for it is a time of peace, and so far as she knows neither Estel nor Arwen have any illness or injury that shortens their days. And yet… she feels every moment now as acutely as she did in that mercifully brief handful of days seared indelibly into her elven memory, never to be forgotten, as fresh as though it had passed only yesterday.
She cannot look beyond losing Arwen, not when she would give anything to freeze time, to avoid the loss and the silence yet again. And yet… there is a part of her that will admit that Kili had been right as well, that being able to finally sail will be a relief.
She missed her younger sister. She missed her mother, and her father, and her grandmother. Her cousins, older and younger. The Imladrim, the Galadhrim, the Tawarwaith and the Falathrim. Above all, she missed knowing where home is, because now that they have left Imladris behind, it was home no longer, yet the West is nearly as unknown to her as Arda once was.
She will not be alone on this journey into the unknown any more than she was for the first - her brothers will be with her, and her grandfather. She could already feel the reassuring warmth of his concern, for Celeborn awaited them at the city gate.
“My brave ones,” he murmured, quietly enough that Eldarion would not catch which words he used.
Anariel melted into her grandfather’s comforting embrace, grateful once again that Celeborn had taken it upon himself to stay despite the yearning he had known every moment of every day to follow Galadriel and Celebrian, and to rejoin his people.
“Come, Arwen is waiting,” he told them.
She squared her shoulders and prepared to follow. She has over the years faced orcs, dragonfire, balrogs, and Sauron, to say nothing of the demons of Sunnydale and the First Evil itself. She can survive this. She will see it through, to whatever end.