Anneth has long clung to her dreams, though sorrow has threatened to murder them again and again. There was a time when sorrow made her hopes only sweeter, but as Sauron grows yet stronger in the East, she feels everything she has ever held dear fal...
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
- 1 Corinthians 15:55-57
Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
- Isaiah 48:10
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For Men, the Secondborn of Iluvatar, death is inescapable. Not a single man has lived without knowing that his life shall end and that his days are numbered. Each day brings them nearer to their last, every moment closer to the end. Their lives are as a grain of sand in the grand scale of eternity, for it is brief and fleeting, here and gone in a blink of an eye. As a flower that blooms in morning and fades by the evening, so are the Men, for they begin life weak and helpless and end in the very same manner.
It matters not that a young soldier slain in battle was strong, for in his last moments, he was helpless, without strength to carry on, without a hold on his fate, succumbing to death.
There are some who spend their entire lives fleeing their eventual end, running from anything that may cause their death, and thus live unfulfilled and empty lives. Others do not flee it, neither do they accept it openly, instead living their lives and men set on doing only what is right, worrying not that it might endanger them. Those are the Men whose lives are remembered honourably, who look upon their life as they die with satisfaction, knowing they did nobly as they lived.
And to the Elves, the Firstborn of Iluvatar, death is unfamiliar and jarring. Those who die are either slain in battle or fade of grief and a broken heart. Many have lived their long lives without ever witnessing an elf fade or die, and many wish to keep it so. Yet in times of unrest and war, it is nearly inescapable. To those who are healers, the passing of an elf distresses them greatly, for often times their skill is enough to save one from death. But the times of war do not only bring about increased warfare, but increased methods of killing also. The orcs devise their own sickening poisons, made solely to torture those who are unlucky enough to be given it.
And to those whose spouses are slain, their own fading often follows soon afterwards, and gladly they welcome it, having no desire to face the world without their beloved to whom they are eternally bound.
The sight of an elf slain in warfare is sickening to all who look upon the fallen body, for the Elves were not meant to die as Men do. Their lives were destined to continue until the end of time, and instead it was taken from them before they thought it might. And even their corpses speak of elven grace, the only ungraceful thing their closed eyes, as if they slept as the Men do in both senses of the word. For this very reason are so many of the Fair Folk exceedingly troubled by wars, for the prospect of one they love dying haunts them all.
For Lindeth, seeing her husband, her beloved, take his last breath upon this earth and close his eyes tore her heart and it was as all she had ever known was crushed. She had watched as her daughter begged Voronwe to stay, saw as he smiled at her once before the life left him. The words he spoke to her last were of love and promise, and the moments, days, months, and even years following his death were a trial, every moment expecting his presence, only to recall that he was gone.
