Golden Hour by StarSpray

One

Read One

The fleet set sail late in the afternoon, when the sun sinking westward cast a golden glow upon the whole world. The tide was good and the winds were strong and fair, and the ships themselves were a sight to behold, a forest of masts set with billowing sails, and all a-flutter with colorful banners. At their head was Elros' flagship. His banners were the brightest of all, depicting the white niphredil of Lúthien and the white wings of Tuor's house and the Star of Eärendil—the largest flag, waving from the highest mast and catching the rays of the sun and gleaming nearly as bright as their father's star itself, which was just visible against the bright sun in the western sky.

As the ships passed out of the harbor and to the end of the gulf, Elrond left Gil-galad and Círdan and ran out of Mithlond, along a path leading up and out onto one of the promontories that bordered the Gulf of Lhûn. Someone called his name, but he scarcely heard them over his own breathing and his heart pounding against his ribs and in his ears.

He had known this day was coming, of course—he had helped to plan for it, helped to organize supplies for the ships, helped Elros make plans and listened to him wax poetic about all of the things he and the Edain would build and do and learn, now that there was peace. But it was one thing to talk about Elros sailing away, never to return, and quite another to watch him do it. Their whole lives they had never been far from one another, and when they had separated they had always come back, two pieces of a whole. Even when Eönwë had presented them with the Choice of the Peredhil, and they had each chosen a different path, the consequences had not felt real—or at least they had felt hazy and far away, never something to worry about.

Yet this final separation had come all too swiftly. Elrond reached the end of the promontory and stopped, breathing hard. When he looked down he could see Elros' ship just coming out from between this promontory and the other that stood as a gateway between Lhûn and the open Sea. At the helm he saw Elros himself, his dark hair blowing about his face beneath the silver circlet set with star-shaped diamonds that Gil-galad had gifted to him. He did not look up, and Elrond did not call down to him.

The ships passed on by below him, leaving Middle-earth forever as so many Elvish ships had before them. Somewhere far beyond even elven sight there was an island waiting for them, green and lush and beautiful, the Land of Gift that the Valar had raised so the Edain may dwell in peace and answering to no lords but themselves.

Elrond remained at the edge of the cliff, alone, watching the ships shrink until they disappeared, one by one, into the distance, and the sun sank, setting the clouds over the horizon aflame, to fade slowly to the soft cool blues and purples of twilight. The Valacirca burned in the north, and the other stars appeared one by one. Eärendil's star, brightest of all, remained in place, hovering low in the western sky.

.

So many centuries later, after Númenor foundered and the Faithful came washing up onto the shores, Elrond looked into their faces and saw traces of his own face—of Elros' face. But it was only ever an echo. Some of them sounded like him, or laughed like him. Those echoes continued like ripples in a pond through the generations of Valandil's line in Arnor. And Elrond loved them, his long-distant nephews and nieces, and he aided and counseled them in all the ways that he could, and he wept when Arnor split and when Cardolan and Rhudaur and Arthedain fell, each in turn.

Then at last young Gilraen came to Rivendell, windswept and weeping and clutching her child in her arms. Little Aragorn did not understand what had happened, and when Elrond saw him after he had been bathed and fed and dressed in clean soft clothes, he was greeted by Elros' bright grey eyes above a dimpled smile and beneath unruly dark curls. Elrond remembered Elros' bright dreams and plans and hopes the day he set sail away from Middle-earth, and when it came time to name Aragorn anew, so he could grow up unburdened by fear or danger, it was easy to know what that name should be.