The Price of Pride

Elvish translations

Gwathel – sister
Gwedeir – brothers
Melethron – lover
Mellon - friend

Chapter 53


I spent the next two days in a haze of joyous anticipation. I believed, I truly believed that what we had shared the night of Aragorn’s birthday had repaired things between us. Although we still had not spoken of our feelings, Aragorn seemed easier around me, our interactions more like they had been before our sojourn in Rohan. He stopped avoiding me, even seeking my company, showing me the ring of Barahir and the shards of Narsil, symbols of his heritage. I knew that we still needed to talk, but I was sure that as soon as we could, Aragorn would be mine. All I needed was for Arwen to return to Rivendell so that I could fulfill that promise. Then, I would make a lifetime full of new promises. Concerns lan han heir for Aragorn seemed unimportant. We avoided talking about them like we avoided talking about the rest of our future. We would have to address all of it eventually, but nothing marred my joy in the moment.

Two days after Aragorn’s birthday, I was sitting in my room after lunch when a servant brought me a note. As soon as he left, I opened the missive, glancing over the inscription.

“I am home, melethron. Meet me when you can at our place.” The letter was not signed, but I recognized Arwen’s handwriting. Besides, no one else called me melethron. Not even Aragorn. He called me other things, but he had never called me that.

I dropped the note in the fire, not wanting anyone to see it and ask me about it. Until everything was settled between Arwen, Aragorn, and myself, I would worry about more misunderstandings. Keeping the note private would hopefully avoid at least one. I glanced at my bow and quiver, wondering if I should take them with me, but I decided against it. I was only going as far as the little waterfall behind the house. Surely, there would be no danger.

I walked slowly up the hill, trying to frame what I was going to say to Arwen. In her note, she had called me melethron. That meant she still had not found the love that Elrond had foreseen for her. Which meant, in turn, that she still claimed the right to be my lover. I had always expected her to be the one to change our relationship. The next hour would be difficult, but I hoped that all would go well and that she would accept my love for Aragorn. We had never made any promise other than to be lovers until one of us found a mate. Despite my long-held belief that I would not find anyone else, I had. I just had to explain that to her. I knew how I would begin. I would call her mellon, as we had agreed. She would understand immediately that I had found a new love. I would have to explain to her how it had happened, to promise her that she would always have a place in my life. I called the twins gwedeir, my sworn-brothers, and that is what Arwen would become to me: my gwathel, my sworn-sister. I had promised Celebrian that I would watch out for Arwen, and I would, just as I watched out for the twins. I hoped she would be happy for me. I longed to share with her my feelings for Aragorn, to have someone understand the depths of my love. I could tell Arwen. I had only ever kept one secret from her, in twenty-five hundred years. She did not know that I loved her, but she knew every other secret I had ever had. Maybe she would even be able to help me explain to Aragorn why I had felt so strongly about my promise to Celebrian. The Valar knew that I had not succeeded.

I was nearing the waterfall when I heard her voice. It was, as it had always been to me, an enthralling sound. I paused, just to listen to the song, not wanting to interrupt yet. From the tone of her note, she was probably hoping for a tryst, there at the waterfall where we had loved so many times. My news would make that impossible and undoubtedly ruin her happy mood. There was no way around that, but I dreaded it nonetheless. I still loved her and truly did not want to hurt her, despite what I was about to do.

Then, her singing stopped. I went forward to meet her when I heard voices: her light alto, and another, deeper voice that I recognized as well.

“Tinúviel! Tinúviel!” I heard Aragorn say. I started to join them, but I stopped myself before I came into the clearing where Arwen waited for me. I had not told Aragorn which Elf I needed to talk to before he and I could make our own plans. I would tell him after I had spoken with Arwen, but I did not want him to find out this way. I did not want him to think that I was meeting my lover behind his back. We had enough problems without infidelity entering the picture.

“Who are you? And why do you call me by that name?” Her voice drifted across the clearing. I took a few more steps forward until I could see them, Aragorn taking Arwen’s hand in hers as he approached her.

“Because I believed you to be indeed Lúthien Tinúviel, of whom I was singing. But if you are not she, then you walk in her likeness,” Aragorn answered her. They were courtly words he spoke, the words of one seeking approval. My heart sank as I watched them.

“So many have said,” she replied with a smile, the same enchanting smile that had captivated me so many, many years ago. “Yet her name is not mine. Though maybe my doom will be not unlike hers. But who are you?” I felt my world crumbling about me as I heard her words. Lúthien had died for the love of a mortal man. Though Aragorn was dressed as an Elf, he was obviously a Man. If Arwen foresaw herself sharing the fate of Lúthien, that meant… That meant that Arwen loved Aragorn. Or, if she did not already, she believed that she would. My mind screamed in protest, but no sound came from my mouth. I heard Aragorn’s answer as I struggled to breathe, to accept what was happening to my dreams before my very eyes. I almost stepped forward to stop it, to interrupt them before they passed the point of no return, but Elrond’s vision stopped me. He said that Arwen’s choice of whom to love would determine the fate of Middle Earth. If, in fact, Aragorn was the one foreseen in Arwen’s life, then interfering with them would doom us all. Avoiding that fate had stopped me from telling Arwen of my feelings for more than two thousand years. It kept me from interrupting their meeting as well.

“Estel I was called, but I am Aragorn, Arathorn’s son, Isildur’s heir, Lord of the Dúnedain.”

Her delicate laughter sounded in my ears. Usually, I found her laughter contagious, the very sound of it making me smile, even laugh, but I felt no joy in it that day. That beautiful laughter was visibly having the same effect on Aragorn that it had on me. I was losing him. Losing him to the only other person I had ever loved.

“Then we are kin from afar,” she said with a smile. “For I am Arwen, Elrond’s daughter, and am also called Undómiel.’

I waited with bated breath to hear his reply. He knew Arwen and I had been lovers. Would that change his reaction to her? Would that knowledge stop what was unfolding in front of me, before it killed all my dreams?

“Often it is seen that in dangerous days men hide their chief treasure. Yet I marvel at Elrond and your brothers, for though I have dwelt in this house since childhood, I have heard no words of you from them. How comes it that we have not met before? Surely your father has not kept you locked in his hoard?”

No, the knowledge of who Arwen had been to me did not stop him. I could hardly believe my ears. He was flirting with her. Aragorn, the man who, even a few days ago, had wanted to talk about a future with me, who two days ago had made love to me until I screamed, was flirting with Arwen as if nothing in the world bound him to another. In point of fact, nothing did bind him to me, but in my anguish at the time, I could not see that. I saw only what I perceived as his betrayal. His betrayal and the death of my dreams.

“No,” she answered, glancing toward the Mountains in the east, “I have dwelt in the land of my mother’s kin, in far Lothlórien. I have but lately returned to visit my father a. I. It is many years since I walked in Imladris.”

I could not bear to hear anymore. I turned from the scene before me, a scene any other woulve fve found beautiful, for what could be more beautiful than two wondrous creatures falling in love? Any other would have found it beautiful, but to me, there was nothing in that clearing except for pain. Terrible, heart-wrenching, soul-rending pain. In my more than three thousand years of life, I had loved only two beings: Arwen and Aragorn. No one else had ever come close to touching my heart, much less to possessing it so fully that I wondered what beat still in my chest. How could my heart still beat in me when I had given it so completely to the two who stood now, in the first blush of love, in the clearing behind me? I had known when I met Aragorn that I was being given an incredible gift with the opportunity to love a second time. When I had finally understood the role that the Valar had cast for me in Arwen’s life, I had resigned myself to being alone once she met the one Elrond had foreseen for her. Meeting Aragorn had seemed a recompense for my willingness to sacrifice myself for Arwen’s happiness. How many Elves were granted the privilege of loving fully twice in their lifetimes? Yet I had been granted it, and I had dared to dream of a time at least when I would not be alone. Those dreams were gone, all the more bitter for having been destroyed not once, but twice. I did not think I would be granted a third such love, and to bind myself to one whom I loved less than fully would be cruel to us both.

I turned down the hill to return to Imladris. I would pack my bag and return to Mirkwood. Neither of my lovers needed me anymore. They had each other. I could picture them, heads together, laughing at poor, lovelorn Legolas. I refused to let that happen. I might not have had a heart anymore, for even then, I could not reclaim it from them, but I still had my pride. I stumbled as I ran blindly through the woods, my legs giving out from under me. I landed hard on my knees, adding insult to injury. Suddenly, I could not contain my grief and my rage any longer. I threw back my head and shrieked my anger, my despair, tears streaming down my cheeks as I vented my frustration at the Valar.

“Why?” I screamed, though there was no one to hear. “Why has this happened? What did I do to deserve this fate? Why me? Sweet Nienna, why me?” Sobs tore from my throat as I knelt there, helpless in the storm of emotion unleashed by seeing them in the woods.

How long I remained there, prisoner of my torment, I do not know. I had left Imladris to meet Arwen soon after lunch. When I finally collected myself enough to rise and continue my journey back to the Last Homely House, Arien was low in the sky, indicating that some hours had passed while I wallowed in grief. It was too late now to leave for home. I would have to stay the night before I could leave. And, however much I was dreading it, I would have to speak to both Arwen and Aragorn. It would be self-inflicted torture, at best, but I had to know, had to hear from their lips, that things between us were over. They owed me that much. And however angry I was with them, I owed them the courtesy of saying good-bye.