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

Chapter Four

Caras Galadhon was as beautiful as Amaruil remembered, with gleaming green trees which were tinged with hints of pink, purple and orange as the autumn sun set on the horizon; amidst it all sat the slight hill upon which the city was built, the many talan invisible from Amaruil’s position at the edge of the forest.

The elves accompanying Amaruil chattered away happily as they rode through the forest, weaving between the trees until they reached the centre of Lórien and left Amaruil to go her own way. She headed towards the mallorn in which she had lived with Arwen years before and was rewarded by the sight of the flickering green flames which had been lit in preparation for the night, showing her that she was correct in assuming Arwen had returned to that house.

“Amaruil!” cried Arwen as her friend ascended the steps of her home in the city. “I did not know you came today! How I have missed you!” she babbled away. “What has happened to you while you remained in Imladris?” she asked, her questions coming faster than Amaruil could ever hope to answer.

Arwen would not be parted from Amaruil during the first few years of her stay in Lórien, and time passed like a grain of sand which takes an age to fall in the hourglass, quickly to others outside the realms yet constantly and inexorably to all who remained the in the City of the Trees; as it trickled past Amaruil came to realise that Arwen would stay there for much longer than before and, though she would not be parted from her friend, she began to feel restless.

“I have no purpose Arwen,” she lamented one day as they sat beneath the golden trees. “I feel loose but not free, as if before I was tethered but now the rope has been cut and I float away, not happily but slowly and randomly, drifting from place to place.”

“Do not worry yourself Amaruil, you have plenty purpose and many skills and pursuits which you might practise.”

“Perhaps my purpose would be clearer to me in Valinor,” mused Amaruil quietly as Arwen rejected the thought vehemently.

“Do not sink to those thoughts Amaruil. You would not leave me behind surely? Your family? Everything? Did you make your promise to me so lightly that you would forget it in an instant?” she questioned.

“Of course not mellonen; I just feel like Ennorath has offered to me all that it may.” Amaruil paused before another train of thought presented itself to her. “I wonder what it is like to be mortal; to live such a short life that it is gone in the blink of an eye instead of living to see oaks grow from acorn to sapling and on until they are twisted about themselves and their boughs groan under the strain.”

“It is not pleasant, I would imagine,” Arwen replied, “but you cannot surely be considering giving up the life of the Eldar?”

“Of course not; though you well know that I could not do it anyway. I merely wonder what it is like to know that, in the future, you will become but dust in the earth.”

“I do not know but no sweet words would entice me into that fate; do not let the fear of living on do the same to you my friend,” Arwen begged. “It is a beautiful gift to witness so much of the world and have so much time to devote to unravelling the secrets of life.”

“Of course I will not,” Amaruil answered with a beautiful smile, assuaging Arwen’s doubts and fears, as well as her own. She had not rid herself of her worries in their entirety though, and a couple loitered at the back of her mind.

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Amaruil spent her days much like she had in Imladris, reading, talking with friends and walking the forest of Lothlórien, her fears mostly forgotten. She came to love Caras Galadhon again - refusing to think of the future allowed herself to enjoy her time there.