Into the West (A Lord of the Rings Fan Fic)

Chapter Thirty Eight

Amaruil was painfully aware of the limit placed on their friendship and so she moved to live with Arwen in Minas Tirith; Legolas too had wanted to move but he was also loath to leave the elves in Ithilien behind by themselves - not only that but, when Amaruil had told him what Arwen had asked, he had agreed to start building the ship which was to take them to Valinor and so he had to oversee that. Every time he was free, however, he was to be found in the halls of his old friend, talking to Amaruil, Arwen and Eldarion and struggling to remain cheerful.

It is always the way that when only a certain amount of time is allotted to you it races away like grains of sand in an hourglass and when the time allowed is infinite every day lasts far longer than it ought and this final year was no exception. Between Eldarion's coronation, the other events which they were obliged to take part in and the old friends and visitors that they welcomed their lives were constantly full and in too short a time the long halcyon days which had stretched out before them were compressed into a tiny time which seemed to have rushed past.

One bright summer morning Amaruil woke slowly, blinking groggily in the sunlight which streamed in through her window before slipping into a dress and shoes. Once she had brushed her hair she headed down to the breakfast hall where she met Eldarion tearing through the corridors. "Oh," he cried, "I have been looking everywhere for you. I cannot find my mother and she is supposed to be welcoming some of the Elves from East Lórien soon. Have you seen her recently?"

Amaruil frowned and said, "No, no I haven't. I only just woke up. I can look for her though."

"Please," Eldarion said, sounding incredibly relieved, "I'm certain she will appear but I'm worried about her. I wish I too could look for her but I have to meet Orthoron now and I know not how long the meeting will be."

"Don't worry Eldarion," she replied, "I understand. Go and I will look for Arwen; I'm sure she will just be out in the gardens."

"That is the problem though Amaruil," he interjected as he prepared to sprint away, "she isn't in the gardens, her rooms - or anywhere else in the palace as far as I can tell - or the Houses of Healing. I've scoured every inch of the castle and gardens and had Nestaril look everywhere in the Houses..."

As he left her on her own Amaruil prepared to search the city, heading out from the top and searching the Seventh Level first. As she searched she became more and more worried - Minas Tirith was enormous and, with no way of contacting Eldarion, she likely wouldn't know whether Arwen had returned until she had spent the whole day searching for her. Nobody she spoke to had seen her and so she moved down the Sixth Level. It was already noon and the sun sat high in the sky, infusing the city with the spirit of summer; however, as Amaruil reached the Sixth Level, a horrible thought occurred to her and before she had the chance to talk herself out of it she was heading towards the Closed Door.

As soon as it shut behind her the heat of the summer vanished and she shivered, much as she had the first time. Rath Dínen wasn't actually frightening, but it possessed a heavy air of wretchedness, as if the grief of the kings' loved ones was woven into the stones with which the Silent Street had been built. No sound passed the door from beyond and no noise left the closed mouths of the kings, their ageless eyes staring upwards into nothing as they lay over the earthly vessel of their soul. In the months which separated her last visit with her current one she already found herself seeing Aragorn as a long distant king and it unnerved her. The preserved men that she tiptoed past had once had their own lives, their own loves, worries, hopes and fears, had once been as alive as she and yet it was nigh impossible for her to conceive; the men that she could see had lain there for years, for centuries, even for millennia, had built Gondor up and seen it fall and now they, like so many before them and so many after them, were nothing more than dust and long forgotten stories.