The Emperor's Goodbye by Himring

The Emperor's Goodbye

Returned from Eldalonde, where he had said farewell to Voronwe for the last time, Elros sat down and picked up a horse chestnut and passed his thumb over the smooth surface that shone as if with polish. He had heard it was a good mast year, with plenty of acorns and beechnuts, as well as chestnuts, for the pigs. But mast and harvests would be Amandil’s concerns now, not his—if the rest of Numenor needed any royal interference at all.

He looked up at the canopy of the chestnut tree above him. Elros was older than the oldest trees of Numenor. That did not strike him so much, when they were Eressean trees introduced by the Elves, but this was a tree that had come from Middle-earth, or at least one that could also have grown in Beleriand, and it had by now reached a great height and girth.

As he sat musing, a faint sound reached his ear and he got up and followed it among the trees. There were more oaks, beeches and chestnuts, growing more densely than he remembered them doing in the palace gardens, and soon he was definitely on a path winding its way through an unfamiliar wood. He was not alarmed, however, but followed the sound of music which gradually became more distinct, although he still could not quite make out the tune or the instrument.

He came out into a glade and the first thing he saw was great dark moving shapes. They were tall black bears, he realized, and they were dancing, very solemnly, in circles and rows, advancing and receding in a statelier fashion than he had seen even dancers doing at his own court in Armenelos. When they caught sight of him, they all made a polite bow, incorporating it into the dance, before they went on as before.

He finally spotted the musician, sitting on the ground, half hidden in shadows. It was Maglor, of course, and he was playing an unusual set of pipes, using only one of his hands. Elros slowly walked along the edge of the glade, circling the dancing bears, towards Maglor.

‘You are not here,’ he said to him, when he had reached him and there was a small pause between dances. It was important, he felt, to make clear to begin with that he understood this.

‘I am not here,’ Maglor agreed. ‘I am standing in for Tinfang. He did me a favour, as a fellow musician.’

Elros thought of all the things he had once wanted to say to Maglor, some of them very loudly. They seemed oddly unimportant just now. Thus, he just sat down beside Maglor and, as Maglor resumed playing, they watched the bears dance on, until the evening star appeared in the sky and shone down brightly on the proceedings. And with its soft rays shimmering in his eyes, Elros leaned on Maglor’s shoulder and drifted off with the plaintive warble of reed pipes in his ears.

When his family came looking for him, they found him under the chestnut tree in the palace garden, as if he had peacefully fallen asleep, but he was not breathing.

Chapter End Notes

The title is meant to suggest the title of an old dance tune (besides alluding to the prompt, of course).

The solemn dancing bears are from Nature of Middle-earth, but I can't quite fit them into my previous ideas about Numenor, so they have become Numenorean dream bears.

Also incorporating the tolkienshortfanworks prompt "harvest".

(Tinfang is another fairly obscure canon reference. There is a new bio of this character by Dawn here.)