Henneth Annûn Story Archive

Even on the clearest days, he could no longer see Avallone.


His eyes were failing him, as was his body. He moved more slowly,
thought more slowly, spoke more slowly. His children and grandchildren
grew impatient with him. He did not blame them; he had once been the
least patient of young men.


Elrond's voice echoed in his mind down the centuries, "Stop looking
out the window and think!" And his own childish voice replying, "But history
is so dull! I care not what has happened; I care what will happen!"


He had recognized early that he would never be a scholar. Far more
fun to practice his skills as a swordsman outdoors than to sit in a dusty
library poring over irrelevant stories. Far more interesting to look
ahead to future possibilities than to look back at what could not be
changed.


Far less painful, too.


Now his joints ached, and he could no longer outrun his limitations,
or his memories.


He studied the paper in front of him, not knowing how to begin.
For the first time in his long life, he was trying to commit something of
himself to paper. He was not a man of words but a man of action. But
now action was lost to him; his time was over and his children's begun.
He received all honor, yet he knew they considered him to be irrelevant;
they smiled indulgently at his stories. He had taught them to look to
the future, but now he was left behind in the past.


He looked at his hands, old and wrinkled and no longer steady. How
strange, on Elrond's last visit, to see his brother still young. --I
always wanted to catch up with him, and now I am old while he is just at
the beginning of his life. I always looked forward, and laughed at him
for looking back, but now I have nowhere to look but back.


He knew now that he would never see Elrond again; he had meant to
summon his brother for one last visit, but he knew he would not last that
long. And so he would borrow his brother's gift, and write.


But he knew not what to say.


Thoughts flowed through his mind, but would coalesce into naught but
disparate threads.


You dwelt in memory even when we were children, yet you will continue
in the present long after I have become a memory.


You wanted me to remember Earendil - father - but it is you who studied
father's - Maglor's - past, and I who learned to sail and spent my life
exploring new shores, guided ever by the stars.


I wished to seek and do and make, never to dwell on unpleasant
thought, but now in age I have lost all but the memory I scorned. And
yet would I have it any different? I sought adventure, the stirring of
the blood and the excitement of the moment. And now I have another
adventure ahead, a journey beyond the confines of the world. Again my
heart quickens at the thought of something new.


Have you ever felt the stillness at the heart of action? Have you
ever been at sea in a storm, the wind roaring about you, knowing your life
might end at any second, but that does not matter, because the world is
only water and boat? Have you ever been in a battle feeling that you
have all eternity for the next sword-thrust?


What knowledge is there in books that cannot be found in the bitter
teaching of experience? To hold your newborn children, and wonder at the
world they will see, that you will never know. To know that you can give
them your love, but that they belong to the future, not to you. To watch
them grow into manhood while you decline into age. To know that you will
pass away as the leaves on a tree, but the tree will remain. To know that
the future is yours to shape, and yet you will not see its fruit.


Strange that you will see what I have wrought when I will not. What
will the deeds of my descendents be? I have tried to teach my children
to seek out all possibilities, to never say that something good cannot be
done, to always strive beyond themselves. Those were the lessons I
learned in youth, from Father Maglor, from my own unquenchable thirst for
motion and change, passion and excitement, new life and new worlds.


The lessons of age are not ones my children wish to hear. But that
is all right. They will learn when their time comes.


We are so limited, we mortals. Though it seems to me that you are
more so, you who are bound to Arda. For what is the value of a moment
when you know there are so many more ahead? How much more precious is
life as I see its end so near. I held my great-grandson in my arms
today, and saw the past and the future as one in this child. There is
wisdom and peace in knowing I must soon move on.


And yet, and yet. It goes by so quickly. There is so much I will
never see, so much I will never know.


But you also will not know everything, even with all the ages of Arda
to learn. Will you ever have to accept your limitations as I have?
Perhaps it is you who never cease to strive, while I must finally accept
that my striving is done.


All things end in time. Do Elves truly see that? Will you not try to keep
things as they are, even when you should accept that what you loved is lost?


I do not regret my mortal choice. I have lived richly. And perhaps it is
better that I do not know what my legacy will be. I have built a great kingdom;
I do not have to watch as it crumbles beneath the waves,
as all great kingdoms eventually must.


And when it does? My children will re-build. For that is the strength of men:
not in memory, but in hope. We can see all that we care for lost,
and yet find the strength to begin anew, not for ourselves, but for
our children and their children.


I look upon the earth itself and all that is in it, and see my own
mortality. We are all dust. As are you, my brother, though you may not
yet be forced to see it. All that you build is dust, too. Strive not
to keep what you build from falling. Rather, strive to keep Hope alive
in the darkness.


Remind my children, when they forget, that even in their darkest hour,
there is always the possibility of new beginnings.


There is so much more to say, and yet I find I do not have the strength
to say it. My body fails me, I who always gloried in my physical
power. So I will simply say this:


I love you, my brother.


Please forgive me.


Know that only when you have lost both the past and the future will you be
truly wise.


I hope we may meet again, beyond Arda, where memory and hope are one.



Elros





It was the first time since childhood that he had signed his name without
title or lineage.


He got up from his desk and went out onto the balcony. He collapsed into
a chair. He felt exhausted; he had put his last strength into the writing.


He looked up at the stars. The night air smelled fresh. He breathed
it in, suddenly knowing with a sense of profound peace that it was his last
breath.


Spring was coming.


In the eastern sky Earendil rose. In a few hours it would be dawn.






*

Author's Note: This is a fan-fiction of a fan-fiction; it is inspired by/based on
“As Little Might Be Thought” and “When I Am Wise” by Deborah.

(Elros seeks Elrond’s forgiveness because of his attachment and loyalty to
Maglor, their captor/foster-father.
Elros does not remember his real parents; he thinks of Maglor as his father.
Elrond does remember his parents; from Elrond’s point of view,
Elros’ affiliation with Maglor and the House of Feanor is a betrayal.)

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