Thalion Faer, Doltha Hún

It was over a year after the Fellowship departed from Gondor that Frodo explained through use of the palantír that he would be leaving middle earth. We had been asked to join him at the westernmost port of Mithlond, the Grey Havens. He accompanied his aged uncle Bilbo, Lord Elrond, Lord Celeborn, Lady Galadriel, and Gandalf in one of the last ships destined to leave middle earth. They would set out for Arda, the land beyond, where all things turn to silver glass. It was the transition of life from the present on middle earth to the past and history of Arda.

By this time a third palantír, that of Osgiliath, had been recovered. Long ago, it had a place in the once glimmering city on the river. It was given the name Osgiliath for the dome which housed the palantír, its ceiling having been painted to mirror the nights sky, thus os, dome¸ and giliath, of stars. It was during the siege of the city when much of it was destroyed that the palantír was lost, fallen into the depths of the Anduin River. It had been found during its reconstruction, and it was decided that it would be kept in Minas Tirith while the palantír of Orthanc would go to Edoras to serve King Éomer and his line.

Faramir and Eowyn married, and as steward of the king he was granted lordship over the lands of Ithilien, of which he was made Prince. They lived in these lands, in Emyn Arnen, where a line of Númenórean nobles—the original line of stewards—first lived.

The vision of a child that Lord Elrond had shown me came two years after the war of the ring ended. Eldarion, our son, would grow to rule Gondor with the honesty, goodness, and selflessness as his father. There was to be another great war in the fourth age of middle earth, and without Eldarion there would have been no victory.

It was destiny. Everything, all moments were necessary for the future. I was meant to run away, to meet the hobbits outside of Bree so I would join the Fellowship, to lose Boromir so that I might find solace in Aragorn, to die in order for Frodo to have the distraction he needed to destroy the ring; Aragorn and I were meant to have a child so the fourth age would not be the world’s last. I was meant to meet Aragorn at the end of his Dunedain life, so that when I grew old he did as well.

Legolas was among the last of his race to leave middle earth, and did so after the passing of Aragorn. He took Gimli with him to the grey havens and they would sail to Arda. Eventually all the elves would leave, and the dwarfs would begin to venture out of their mines. The creatures of middle earth would devolve: wargs to wolves, olliephaunts to elephants, dragons would be but a myth. Man would live on, though, expanding and evolving and creating new things. They would rename middle earth and forsake all elven heritage, naming the realms France and Greece and Italy and Norway.

But one day, one of their kin would remember. And if the veelathan are correct—which they always are—the people will remember by the millions.