October 5th, 2986 T. A.

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The night is like ink. Wind and rain dance together passionately, like two lovers in an argument. For a few heartbeats they sound in harmony, and then they quarrel again. They beat into the high windows of Rivendell. But behind those windows, it is calm. Golden light, and warmth, and the tapping of the rain on the glass – like an island of peace in the wild night.

I see you, Elrond. You sit in a high chair near his bed, holding his hand. The fire in the hearth is burning high. He is covered by warm sheets. It is a peaceful picture, almost serene. Yet the hand you are holding is so thin and pale, and you hold it gently, to not press on the bandages that cover the fingers. Sharp are the stones of the Misty Mountaines…

There is a fight going on. I see it clearly in your face. You have done everything that was in your might, everything that could be done. Now you can only wait. That is the hardest fight: just wait and watch; the helplessness… I, the Endless Wanderer, know how hard it is. We share this fate tonight, my son. How peaceful it looks from outside… and yet, the storm is in us.

Its clouds are visible in your weary eyes, in the lines of worry in your face, in the movements of your hands when you wash the pearls of cold sweat from his forehead, in the anxiety in your features when he moans in pain. You speak to him, although he can’t hear you. You sit at his side for long hours, and I watch you, and suddenly a lump forms in my throat. I know what your eyes tell to the silence of the night, to the closed grey ones. You wish you could take his pain, and bear it yourself…

There is a bond; deeper then it seems on the first look. You have fostered many of your brother’s line, sheltered them and taught them. You have treated their wounds, sat with them when illness befell them. Yet I didn’t see this look in your face before. It is that look which sends shivers down mine spine. You look at him like a father looks at his son…

How many times did I look at you with this look? I wished you could see it, and understand… Yet you have never seen it – I am too far away… And now, you are close to him, you hold his hand, and yet you are as far away as me: he cannot see the look in your face. You call his name, and he does not hear. My poor son… you taste the bitterness of my fate in this long night.

Sometimes I wondered if you have seen your brother in the scions of his house that have grown in the soil of Rivendell. They were all different, yet I have seen one face behind all those faces. When you have taken them to your house, did you think of your brother? Did you miss him? I did... When I saw Aragorn fall into the abyss, I thought of Elros, and his line. He is so similar… But he is not Elros, and you know it as well as I now. Your brother will never return, but the last son of his house has grown up in yours, and he became your son – not because of the face of your brother that you saw in him, but because of himself. He thought you the same lesson as he thought me: see beneath the surface, and discover the hope there…

Elros will not return. That is the fate that he chose and accepted, and nothing in this world can change it. Here lays the man that is from the line of Elros. But he is himself – the mortal boy that won your heart. The one that almost died alone, far from you… You stroke his tangled hair, and for a moment I see the deep sadness in your eyes, like the bottomless sea. Oh Elrond, you are losing him! You have almost lost him to the mountains, and now it is the illness that he has no strength to fight anymore… And if you can save him from the clutches of death now, then you lose him with every passing year while you watch, standing in the stream of time unchanged. The sadness of a father watching his child die… I know it. I have lived it…

But I know the other side, too, and I do not regret. He reminded me on it with every look at my light. It is the shortness of each moment that makes is unique, and it is the uniqueness that makes every day a gift. When I saw Elros with the crown of Númenor on his head, I was proud, so very proud… and I feel that you will know such pride, too, and the memory of it will live long after you leave the shores of Middle-earth, long after the world will change. You will not regret.

“Ion nîn… Wake up…” you whisper, over and over. “I am here… You are home…” He does not hear, but you do not cease. You fight for the life of your son this night, and you have only one weapon in this fight left: being there. When nothing is left, and you can only watch and wait, there is only one thing you can do. You are there. You call him, because you are his father…

You are tired, and the darkness of the night overwhelms you. You need someone at your side, someone that you can lean on to find your own strength to fight. You turn your sight outside, into the night. To me….

“Adar…”

Yes, my son. I am here…