The Very Secret Diary of Circe

STORY (Lotr): The Grace of the Valar

"May the grace of the Valar protect you…"


Aragorn opened his eyes and stared up at the night sky. Never had he felt as alone as he did now. All the people he had ever cared about were gone from him now.

Sometimes on nights like this, when all the world was dark and cold, he would hear her voice whispering to him on the breeze. Sometimes it was snatches of things she had once said. Other times she spoke in cryptic riddles. But every time her voice was like a shard of glass through his heart.

"Arwen," he whispered almost voicelessly. There was no reply. He did not expect one.

She was not the only one he missed of course. Sometimes he would turn to share his thought with Legolas only to remember he wasn't there. That he would never be there again.

He closed his eyes, trying not to focus on the people he missed. But that was difficult even in the daylight hours when there were things to be done. At night, when he lay under the stars, it was nearly impossible not to surround himself in pity and blame for what had happened.

So many battles he and Legolas had fought together. Never believing that the other would not survive this time. If ever they had assumed, they would have though it to be Aragorn who would fall. He was, after all, the mortal. Legolas the Elven archer should not have been the one to fall.

Now in the coldness of dark he could again hear the elf's final words. The words he had whispered painfully as Aragorn held him in his arms.


"We will meet again, my love."


Aragorn closed his eyes. Too many deaths. Too many losses. He could take no more pain. He and Legolas would not meet again in some distant land. Never again would Arwen's voice be more than an echo in his mind from a time long ago.

Pulling his Elvish cloak tightly around him he closed his eyes and waited for the dawn.