"The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that."
Fairies are one of the oldest race of beings in Arda -once they called Numenór home- but Arethusa watched as the sea claimed the island from the helm of a ship as the survivors fled to...
I defy the stars; I defy Heaven and Hell. The laws of the universe say that the man I love is lost to me. I say: watch me save him.
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ARETHUSA ached all over, her bones were stiff her head throbbing. She stood from the marble floor, still clothed in blood-soaked garments, yet it was not battle garb she wore but a dress. The fairy stood in the midst of crumbled remains of a long-lost palace, she was left to wander. Great tapestries hung in places where the wall still stood high enough, the colored threads in some had faded, others were left in tatters. One displayed a great island that she recognized as her home with the great white sails on ship masts that had come to trade. The next displayed the Akallabêth, the downfall, great waves were weaved into the fabric.
Arethusa reached out, her fingers dancing over the tapestries with reverence. She continued down the winding hall looking at the detailed portraits of history. She passed onto the War of the Last Alliance, one of the last events to occur in the Second Age, where it depicted Isildur cutting the One Ring from Sauron's finger and the shards of the broken blade Narsil, that prophecy said would be renewed. The arrases only reminded her of her age as she had seen the events with her own eyes. The last great tapestry was incomplete, the fairy fell to her knees while looking up at it. It showed Thorin and a company of dwarves with Bilbo marching across the plains before the Misty Mountains, the fall of Smaug and the gathering storm before the clouds had burst and then it stopped, incomplete as the day had not reached an end.
"Hello, child." It was a hooded figure who spoke but the voice was soft and feminine. Fear etched its way onto the fairy's features, Arethusa stood cautiously. "There is no reason to be frightened, I am Vairë, weaver of the great stories and wife of Námo, the Doomsman of the Dead." The dark hood was drawn back to reveal a face she had not looked upon in many years, with hair of spun gold and amber eyes. Arethusa was looking upon her mother though now she stood at the height of elves. The fairy could not choose which emotion would overrule the other, so she stood resolutely, eyes stained red with the tears she had shed.
"This is the end is it not?" A year ago she would have welcomed the end to be reunited with her family, to see the faces she had known since childhood yet her heart was still bound of Middle Earth, to a dwarf of all races. Vairë stepped forward, her delicate hand coming to moves the frayed wisps of hair from her daughter's face.
The Valar Queen shook her head, "No, it is only the beginning, my niphredil." She could see the troublesome past Arethusa had experienced in her eyes alone, the pain and grief but hidden beneath millennia of death and sickness was happiness founded in love. The very love she had seen in dreams for Arethusa while under the name of Rhyannon. The story of Beren and Lúthien had come again to repeat itself. "The promise you gave your life for was pure and strong, yet it has not been fulfilled in whole," Vairë smiled at her daughter's flummoxed expression, she had expected nothing less. "Arethusa, you shall be sent back to keep watch over Durin's sons. Your time in Middle Earth has not come to an end yet; like the tale you loved so much as a child, you will live and love again, it is as Ilúvatar wishes." The young fairy wished to cry, to cling to her mother, to look upon her beloved's face again, she had never felt so many dissonant things at once. Her heart was with Thorin in Middle Earth, her soul longed for peace with her mother, her body felt as if it were being torn apart.
