The Carriage held but just Ourselves by StarSpray

Tindómiel

The tradition was to find somewhere quiet, somewhere peaceful, often secluded, when one's time came. It had not begun with Tindómiel's father, but he had embraced it, for it came from the tales of Beren and Lúthien, who had disappeared into the wood one day, and whose graves had never been discovered, except perhaps by Ulmo or his servants after the sinking of Beleriand.

Tindómiel had been thinking of her great-grandparents often lately, as she put her affairs in order. Now as afternoon drifted into evening, and the starts started to appear one by one in the darkening sky, she thought of her grandparents. She was glad, she thought, that she had been spared the Choice of the Halfelven. It was better to know what awaited you from the start, than to have that hanging over your head.

She rose from her seat by the window and went out into the small garden that had been her mother's pride and joy; upon her death Tindómiel had taken up its care. There were roses climbing the walls, red and white and pink, niphredil growing wild and unchecked along the pathways, and purple lilacs (her mother's favorite) perfuming the air around the small fountain where a statue of Nessa danced—there had been a rumor once that it was a gift from Nerdanel herself, but Tindómiel remembered watching her father carve it with his own hands, while her mother posed as his model.

Tindómiel took a turn around the garden in the starlight, and remained there, sitting and thinking and simply being, until the eastern sky began to lighten with the coming dawn. Her grandfather and namesake glimmered on the horizon, as he had the morning she was born. Then she went back up to her bed, and lay down, and with a sigh, closed her eyes one last time.