Chapter 429: Departures
On the quay at Alqualondë, Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Legolas, and the others were already waiting.
They were all smiling, with a warmth and settled ease that Middle-earth, for all its beauty, had rarely permitted them.
"Welcome, my friends." Gandalf stood at the front of the group in robes of white, light seeming to gather around him rather than simply falling upon him, his eyes bright with genuine delight. "Welcome."
Kael looked at him and felt something hard to name. Familiar, and not quite. The power he sensed from Gandalf now was immense, but it lacked the contained, pressurised quality it had carried in Middle-earth. It was simply there, full and unhurried, like deep water rather than a river confined to its banks.
"Gandalf." Kael stepped forward and embraced the old Wizard with genuine warmth. Pulling back, he looked him over. "I almost didn't recognise you. You're quite something." Then, with curiosity, "How did you know we were coming today?"
Gandalf's eyes crinkled. "I'm on good terms with Ossë, the Maia of the seas. He let me know your ship had set out. I worked out when you were likely to arrive and came from Valimar to meet you." He gave a small, pleased nod. "And the Lady Galadriel foresaw it as well, so we came together."
Kael turned to Elrond with a respectful inclination of his head. "Lord Elrond. It's very good to see you again, here of all places."
Elrond's smile was as composed and warm as it had always been. "And you, Kael. Was the crossing uneventful?"
"Largely, yes. There was a month of heavy rain somewhere in the middle — but nothing beyond that."
Then Kael's attention settled on the woman standing beside Elrond. She had long golden hair and something in the line of her face that was quietly familiar.
He had already guessed.
"And this is—?"
"My wife, Celebrían," Elrond said, with a gentleness in his voice that was unmistakable.
Kael bowed his head with genuine respect. "Lady Celebrían. I am Kael — Arwen's husband. It is an honour to meet you at last."
Celebrían's story was not a happy one, or had not been. In Middle-earth she had been ambushed while travelling between Rivendell and Lothlórien, taken by Orcs, and subjected to torments that Elrond's healing had been unable to fully reach. Her sons Elladan and Elrohir had rescued her, but what had been done to her went too deep. She had eventually sailed West, and left Middle-earth behind.
The woman before Kael now bore no visible trace of any of that. Her expression was peaceful, and when she looked at him her eyes were warm and approving in the way of someone who has already heard much about a person and is pleased to find the reality matches well.
"You are welcome here, Kael."
Then she turned, and her attention went entirely to Arwen — her gaze softening to something almost unbearably tender. She opened her arms.
"Arwen. My dearest girl. Have you been well, all this time?"
Arwen, who had held herself together with a great deal of composure through the departure and the long crossing, did not hold together at that. She went into her mother's embrace like a child coming home after an absence too long to be put into words.
No one disturbed them. The group stood around the two of them and waited, with the kind of quiet that comes from genuinely not minding.
When at last Arwen stepped back, a little self-conscious, she reached out and drew Elthir forward.
"Nana— this is our son. Elthir."
Elthir offered a slightly uncertain smile. "Daernaneth. I'm very glad to meet you."
Celebrían looked at him with open affection. "What a fine young man. You and Kael have done well by him, Arwen."
Then her gaze moved around the quay, searching. "But isn't there a granddaughter as well? Elríen? I don't see her."
The lightness of the moment shifted.
Arwen's smile held, but with effort. "Elríen didn't come with us this time."
The implications of that settled over Elrond and Galadriel at once.
Elrond's brow creased slightly. "Kael — what's happened? Why has Elríen not come? Has she chosen a mortal fate and remained in Middle-earth?"
He had loved Elríen deeply. He had noticed her absence from the moment they arrived, and already felt something was wrong. And now, hearing that she had chosen to stay — it reached somewhere old and particular in him. His twin brother, long ago, had chosen the fate of Men. He had never entirely put that grief away. He had not expected to encounter it again through his own grandchild.
Kael shook his head. "She hasn't chosen to become mortal. But she wouldn't leave the Silvan Elves of Lothlórien — she felt she couldn't abandon those who had pledged themselves to her. She chose to stay in Middle-earth and continue protecting them. She is Queen of Lothlórien now."
Some of the weight lifted from Elrond's expression, and from Galadriel's.
As long as Elríen still lived — as long as she had not surrendered her Elven immortality — there was some comfort in that, even across a distance that admitted no easy crossing. She was alive, and well, and purposeful. That was something.
They understood that it was her choice. And like all the choices made by those they loved, they found a way to respect it, even when it cost them something to do so.
By unspoken agreement, the topic was gently set aside, and conversation found easier ground.
The group that had come to meet Kael was not only family. Legolas was there, and Gandalf. Each of them had settled in different parts of Aman since arriving. Gandalf made his home in Valimar, the great city at the heart of Valinor, where the Valar themselves dwelt along with the Vanyar Elves. Elrond and Galadriel lived in Tirion, the city of the Noldor. Legolas had made his home on the Isle of Tol Eressëa, off the coast near Alqualondë, where Sindarin Elves and others of many kindreds had settled.
They had all come from their respective corners of Aman to the Telerin harbour at the news of the ship's arrival.
Kael looked around the group, a question forming in his mind.
"Where are Bilbo and Frodo? I would have expected them to be here after hearing we were coming. Did they not receive word?"
The answer came not in words but in the brief silence that followed.
It was Legolas who finally spoke, quietly, with something sad in his face. "Bilbo, Frodo—and Gimli as well. They're all gone."
Kael was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Gone? But I gave Bilbo enough of the Elixir of Life—more than enough for both of them to last until we arrived. And when you and Gimli left Middle-earth, I sent a supply with you for Gimli as well. How did this happen?"
Gandalf exhaled slowly. "Kael, Bilbo and Frodo were Hobbits. Easily contented. They lived here for several hundred years and knew all the peace and comfort that Valinor could offer. After a time, they decided they had rested long enough. They wanted to keep going—to find out what lay further along. So they set the Elixir aside and stepped into whatever comes next."
"And Gimli?"
"He refused the Elixir as well. Valinor is beautiful, but it was never home to him. There were no Dwarves here, none of his own people. He had friends, yes, but he was lonely in a way that friendship couldn't reach. He chose to go to the Halls of Mandos, to be among his own kind at last."