In My End Is My Beginning by Lilith

All Goes Onward

Amandil and the King’s Prisoner sail for Numenor, and he finds her looking back at the coastline of Middle Earth and contemplating life and death.

Written in response to this prompt: All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
-Walt Whitman, excerpt from "Song of Myself"

Amandil walked towards the stern of the vessel. The prisoner, housed upon his ship and not the king’s flagship, stood quietly and looked back towards the direction where the coastline of Middle Earth might have been seen, had one had the sight of the Eldar or, perhaps, of the Maiar. 

“The winds are fair and the seas seem calm. The journey should not take above a month,” he said to her.

“Only a month?” she answered. 

“Not long for a voyage,” he answered. “but long enough to make a difference in Men’s lives.”

“I suppose,” she replied. “In the lives of Men, a month might make a difference. It might also make a difference in the lives of the Firstborn, depending upon the events of the month.”

“But they and, indeed, you are less likely to notice its passage in the way Men would.”

“Because we are immortal?” she asked. “I suppose that the passage of individual days is of less consequence to us. Seasons and years are more the marker of our days. Even those lose meaning with so many moments to remember.” She moved closer to the railing as if — and, perhaps, he thought her gaze was keen enough — to see the land long vanished from his view, pausing for a moment and then continuing in voice he had to strain to hear. “Love. Hate. Battles won. Wars lost. Cities aflame. But all lose their meaning in time. All of those moments become lost in time, like so many tears in the rain. In the end, what do they signify?”

“Surely love and hate and loss signify something, my lady,” he answered. “Even to you.”

“Perhaps,” she answered. “Perhaps. So little has meaning after a certain point. If you lose enough or if you know you aren’t allowed that which you desire, what does it matter when or how you lose it?”

“I should think that mattered greatly, if not to you then to the others involved,” he said, leaning on the rail and watching the wake cut by the ship ripple outward. “Wouldn’t you? Or is the meaning clearer to me due to my mortality?” 

“One might think it does, and perhaps it does to you,” she said. “But, in the end, there is only loss, some more and some less, but always loss. Mountains rise and then fall. Cities are built and collapse into ruin. Farmland becomes desert. Loved ones are lost to us, and we begin to diminish. Sometimes I wondered if we all will not end so — growing weaker with each passing year, until we have such little influence on the world around us, weary, weak and without connection to anyone and anything.”

“That sounds ... “

“Your king and your people are afraid of death? It is a strange fear from the perspective of the deathless.”

“How so?”

“For us, all goes onward and nothing collapses. Others die. But I remain. Despite the losses and the griefs and regardless of the pain and the anger, I do not die. I cannot. I must remain, so much of my very being tied to the lands I have loved and have claimed. I fade. I diminish, even as the Eldar do, but I do not die. Instead, I remain, a haggard ghost, a witch, who is never truly allowed to rest. I remain while everyone else has gone; they may move on but I must stay.”

“That seems less ideal than some might think.”

“Indeed, to die is different from what anyone supposes and luckier. There’s little need to linger in the past but much hope to be found moving forward. Sometimes I think being deathless is the curse of the Fay; you move on. We remain.”