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“When did he die?” King Durin III asked.
“Sometime in the night, my lord,” the guard said. “We found him like this when we came to bring food this morning.”
“Like this” meant lying on his back, with blank, unblinking eyes staring up at the ceiling of the cell. The elf’s chest did not appear to be rising and falling with breath, and his lips had a cold bluish tinge.
“What killed him?” the king asked. His voice was calm and steady, as it must always be when he addressed his subjects, but behind the mask of royal dignity he found himself disquieted. His judgment on the elf had not been intended as a death sentence. He’d thought only to prove to his son that his treason had consequences, and to make certain that the elf could make no further trouble. He would have been set free eventually: elves were immortal, after all, and the king was not young. When King Durin IV was crowned, he could do with the prisoner whatever he willed, and the elf might go on living for uncounted centuries after Durin III was dead and buried. At least, that had been the king’s intent.
“I don’t know, my lord,” the guard answered him. “He seemed to be ill before this, but not near death.”
“Why was no healer sent for?”
“The prisoner refused it, my lord,” the guard said. “He said they couldn’t help him.”
Durin frowned, the disquiet in him growing, and looked back down at the corpse in the cell. The sight was a strange one, almost to the point of disbelief. A dead elf. Durin hadn’t thought such a thing was possible. He’d heard tales, of course, of long-ago wars in which many elven soldiers had been killed, but that was different. Those heroes of old had fallen to a great evil. This was no hero – just one lone elf, his beardless face almost startlingly young to dwarven eyes – and he’d fought no greater evil than the darkness of a prison cell. No greater evil than King Durin himself.
“Make burial arrangements,” the king heard himself saying. “And… inform my son.”
The guard bowed and started back up the steps. After one last, lingering look, the king followed.
Prince Durin came to his father’s chambers that night, as he had not done since the last time he tried and failed to convince the king to release the elf in his dungeons. Words had been exchanged that night that could not be taken back, and they hadn’t spoken since.
“I’m taking the body back to Lindon,” Prince Durin said without preamble. There was no need to ask what body he meant.
“Are you indeed.”
“Yes.” His son’s face was cold and hard as stone, and something in the king’s heart cried out to see the thinly veiled contempt with which his own son looked at him. But fatherhood had always come second to kingship, and this matter could not be an exception. “I couldn’t do anything for him when he was alive, but I can do this. I owe it to him.”
“You owe him nothing,” the king said. This had always been at the heart of his anger: that Prince Durin felt so bound to an elf that he would prioritize his friend’s well being over that of his own people. That was dangerous, for a future king, who must put his people first in all things. Still, the impossible sight of that elf lying dead and cold in his cell was not one that would soon leave the king’s mind, and he supposed that there was no harm in this. “But you have my leave.”
It was the nearest to an apology that the king would ever offer, and Prince Durin did not thank him for it. He simply bowed, turned on his heel, and left. The king could only hope that this foolishness would end with the dead elf, and that perhaps some day his son might forgive him.
Durin left the western gates of Khazad-dûm in the front seat of a wagon, pulled along by one of the sturdy and good-natured ponies that the dwarves usually put to work hauling cartloads of stone out of the mines. This one seemed pleased to be bearing nothing heavier than Durin and the long pinewood box sitting in the back of the wagon, and carried him along the road at a good pace.
Durin very determinedly did not look back as they left the gates behind. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, despite the crawling feeling at the back of his neck urging him to glance behind. The thought of the box in the wagon bed itched at him, and he could practically feel the weight of the eyes still watching him from the gates.
The feeling did not fade until Durin rounded a long curve in the road that brought him around a low spur of the mountain and, at long last, beneath the cover of the trees. He reigned in the pony there and brought the wagon to a halt, finally alone. He’d had a few offers of accompaniment when word of his intentions had spread, but he’d turned them all down, saying that this was a journey he would prefer to make alone. The other dwarves had accepted this answer readily enough: the prince’s peculiar fondness for his elven friend was an old and well known bit of gossip beneath the mountain. And it wasn’t as though the journey was a particularly dangerous one. The road from Khazad-dûm to Eregion was well kept, and even if someone had been interested in robbing a dwarf traveling alone, Durin had nothing of true value to steal. All he carried was a dead elf in a box.
Durin finally allowed himself a glance over his shoulder. The gates of Khazad-dûm were well out of sight. Satisfied that he was now hidden from all watching eyes, Durin hopped out of the seat and climbed back into the wagon bed. There was a crowbar tucked away at the back, which he picked up and unceremoniously began to pry the lid off the coffin. The wood splintered after only a few moment’s work, and Durin pulled the lid away.
Elrond lay inside, cold and pale and very still, dead eyes staring blankly up at the sky.
“Wake up,” said Durin.
The corpse made no reply.
“Come on, elf, the coast is clear. Up you get.” There was no response, so Durin reached down and poked him. “Wake up.”
The dead elf blinked.
“Still with me?” Durin asked with poorly concealed relief.
“Mm,” Elrond said eloquently, face scrunching up against the bright sunlight.
“Come on, let’s get you out of there,” Durin said, and offered him a hand. Elrond took it in an icy cold grip and let Durin pull him upright, then help him clamber awkwardly out of the coffin and into the wagon seat. Then he just sat there for a moment, catching his breath. In a rare moment of tact, Durin chose not to comment on the fact that this little exertion had left Elrond winded, even though Durin had previously known him to run for hours on end and still have breath enough left to tease his shorter-legged companion for needing a break.
Slowly, Elrond’s breathing evened out, and his eyes fell closed. He tilted his head back towards the sky, all the tension melting out of him as he took in a long, slow breath like he was trying to pull the sunlight itself into his lungs. The look on his face was pure relief, and it eased something knotted in Durin’s chest to see it.
“You’re alright?” Durin still felt the need to ask. Elrond opened his eyes and turned to him, offering a tired smile.
“Better now,” he said. “I take it that the change of scenery means your plan worked?”
“It worked,” Durin confirmed. He turned his back firmly on the empty coffin, pushing away all thoughts of how close they had come to that being their reality, and urged the pony onward again. The shaggy beast shook out its mane and continued on down the road. “Well done playing dead. I knew you looked terrible enough to pull it off.”
“Thank you very much,” Elrond said lightly. “Your father was convinced?”
“Swallowed it hook, line and sinker,” Durin confirmed with a bitter twist to his mouth. “The bastard.”
Elrond gave him a sidelong look. “It is not his fault, Durin. I would have been in no less danger in Lindon than I was in Khazad-dûm.”
“If you’d been in Lindon you’d already be on a boat halfway across the ocean by now,” Durin said. “And I’m sure sitting alone in the dark for a few months didn’t do you any good.”
“No, I suppose it didn’t.” Elrond’s gaze drifted back up towards the sky as though drawn there by a lodestone, and for a while Durin was content just to watch Elrond watching the forest go by. Sunlight streamed down through the first pale green spring leaves, turning the dark strands of Elrond’s hair into burnished copper and bringing some life back into his colorless face. The breeze was in the south today and almost warm as it whispered through the treetops, the sound mingling with the songs of birds newly returned after the long winter. It was a perfect spring day, the kind that made Durin almost understand that peculiar elven reverence for things that grow.
“How far will you travel with me?” Elrond asked eventually.
“As far west as I can get.”
“You would take me all the way to Mithlond?” he asked in surprise.
“I’d take you all the way to Elvenhome if I thought this wagon could sail,” Durin said, and Elrond laughed aloud.
“That would be a sight to see,” he said. “Perhaps Aulë would grant you favor and let you stay, and then we would not have to be parted.”
Durin swallowed back the lump in his throat, the joy of hearing Elrond laugh again fading at the reminder of this journey’s inevitable end.
“What’s it like there?” Durin asked, because the smile was gone from Elrond’s face now too and he did not want to see grief replace it.
“Valinor?”
“Yes.”
“I do not know,” Elrond said, with something very much like longing and a little like dread. “I have never seen it.”
“But you must have some idea,” Durin pressed. “You can’t expect me to believe that no elf has ever written a song about it.”
“No indeed,” Elrond agreed. “There are more songs and tales of Valinor than can be counted.”
“And what do they say?”
“They call it a land of winterless spring. The world as it was before the coming of darkness.”
Durin waited, but Elrond did not go on. “Aulë’s beard,” he said with unfeigned surprise. “If I didn’t know you were ill before, this would be a sure sign of it.”
Elrond gave him a puzzled look.
“I’ve never known an elf to pass by anything that looks like an invitation to sing,” he explained, and Elrond smiled at the teasing, which of course was the hoped-for outcome.
“It is a weakness of my kind, I am afraid,” he admitted. “We find it hard to resist an opportunity for music.”
“Then quit resisting and sing one of your songs about Valinor.”
“It is long,” Elrond warned. “And I fear it would hold little interest for you.”
“I’d like to know where you’re off to,” Durin said, “and we have the time.” We still have time, he repeated to himself, though he was terribly aware of how the miles passed away beneath the steady rhythm of the pony’s hooves, bearing them ever closer to their last parting.
“Very well,” Elrond agreed, and sang, and Durin at last understood how this music had so disquieted the dwarves who had guarded Elrond’s cell beneath the mountain. It put him in mind of a cold salt-wind from the West, carrying with it the songs of seabirds and a white mist from off the sea. He saw it in his mind’s eye: the dark green waves catching the last rays of the setting sun as above them the stars began to come out, one by one in the high clear vault of the sky, so close he thought he could touch them if he only reached out a hand. There was a fair land out there, he felt certain, just out of sight over the horizon, and he was filled all at once with a very un-dwarvish urge to cross that cold dark sea and find it. Durin ached for it, the need so strong that it was almost painful, and yet he did not want this song to ever reach its end.
He got his wish, though not in the way he would have liked. Elrond’s voice failed him before the song finished, and the spell was broken as he fell to coughing. He accepted the water Durin offered him, though he would take no food no matter how Durin pressed. After that they rode in silence for a while, and eventually Elrond fell asleep, slumped beside Durin in the wagon seat. It was true sleep again, not the elvish kind, which Durin supposed was probably not a good sign but which he was ashamedly grateful for anyway. He was still struggling to banish the image from his mind of Elrond lying still and open-eyed in a coffin.
The wagon jolted over a particularly large bump in the road and Elrond stirred, mumbling something unintelligible in his sleep before going quiet again. Durin winced. He would have stopped and let the elf rest somewhere more comfortable than the rattling wagon seat, but the longer he looked at Elrond the more urgency he felt in their journey. The sun and the open sky had clearly done Elrond good, but he was still far from himself, and the sound of that clear elven voice breaking down into ragged coughs had frightened Durin. As much as he dreaded reaching the end of their journey, he knew that there could be no delay. He would far rather have Elrond alive and far away than dying close at hand.
They reached Ost-in-Edhil before the sun set that afternoon. They found the gates open and unguarded, and the city itself was quiet. No smoke rose from the high forges, and beneath the ever-present roar of the waterfall there wasn’t an elvish voice or a ringing hammer to be heard. Nothing moved: Durin didn’t see so much as a stray cat wandering down those deserted streets. There was nothing to suggest they were anything but alone.
“It is empty,” Elrond said. “They have all gone west.”
“Are you certain?” Durin asked. “You don’t think we should look around to be sure?”
“I am certain.”
“Alright.” Durin clicked his tongue to urge the pony into motion, only too happy to turn the wagon around and leave the city behind. He was inclined to trust the sharpness of elven ears or whatever other sense Elrond had of the presence or absence of his own people, and besides that, Durin had no true desire to enter Ost-in-Edhil now. It was far too quiet, and he had an uneasy feeling that walking through that vast empty city would be much like walking through a tomb.
As the last of the white towers faded from sight down the road behind them, Durin found the courage to give voice to a new-found fear.
“What if they’ve all gone already?” he asked. There were visions coming to his mind now of riding into Mithlond only to find that it, too, was abandoned; of climbing down the steep pathways to the beach and finding the ships all long since sailed away.
Elrond was quiet for a moment. “Then at the very least I will end my journey with a friend by my side, in a place I have called home,” he finally replied.
At least I will die someplace pleasant, Durin heard him say, and scowled, opening his mouth to tell Elrond that this was not a satisfactory answer.
“I will cross the sea and find my people again, one way or another,” Elrond gently forestalled him. “Do not fear for me, Durin.”
“Well, it’s too late for that,” Durin said.
Elrond gave him a questioning look.
“I already fear for you.”
Elrond’s expression softened, and he reached out a hand to rest it on Durin’s shoulder. The touch was feather-light and not nearly enough, so Durin reached up and gripped Elrond’s hand in his.
“Your hands are cold,” Durin said, frowning.
“Mother hen,” Elrond accused fondly.
“Fool elf,” he shot back. “Here.” He let go of Elrond’s hand and reached around behind him into the back of the wagon, where he found a spare cloak tucked away with the supplies he’d packed for the journey. He handed it to Elrond, who obligingly wrapped it around his shoulders, tucking his cold fingers away beneath the thick fabric.
“You know, this reminds me of our journey through Ered Luin,” Elrond said thoughtfully.
Durin gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Which part?”
Elrond smiled, a familiar spark of mischief in his eyes. “The part where your toes nearly froze off and I had to walk alone in a blizzard for hours to fetch you back something warmer to wear before you could go on.”
“That is not how it happened,” Durin said, outraged.
“No indeed? I seem to recall a pair of boots with holes nearly worn clear through the heels, which you insisted would serve you just fine-“
“Elvish lies! If either of us came unprepared for a journey in winter it was you. Let me remind you-“
They fell to cheerful bickering, which wandered eventually into fond reminiscences of the memories they shared. The time drifted by as they spoke of many things of no consequence, just enjoying one another’s company with a quiet desperation that came from knowing their time ran short. And if Elrond’s happiness was a little harder won than it had once been, if his laughter was a little less bright and all his smiles now tinged with sadness, there was no need to speak of it. When the sun began to set and the elf went quiet, Durin let him be. But when he looked over at Elrond and found him grown hazy in the gray twilight, his edges going soft and ill-defined in the light of the first stars, he couldn’t help but reach out and take Elrond’s hand in his, just for the small comfort of finding it still solid in his grasp.
“You will have to let me go, soon enough,” Elrond said, so quietly that Durin nearly missed it beneath the rumble of the wagon wheels. The elf wasn’t looking at him: his face was turned up to the stars, and their reflection turned his eyes glassy and strange, nearly luminous in the fading dusk.
“Not yet,” Durin said. He meant it firmly, as a statement of fact, but when he heard his own voice it sounded more like a plea. “Not just yet.”
They passed the border into Lindon a few days later. The crossing between one stretch of forest and another usually went unnoticed by Durin, but on that day it was terribly obvious. It seemed that the moment they entered the realm of the High King, they left springtime behind. The trees they passed were bare of new growth, and the bright gold leaves that once adorned them now lay dull and crumpled across the forest floor. They skittered and scraped against the ground in the chill breeze from off the sea, the unnerving sound joining with the rattle of the few dry brown leaves still clinging to the pale branches overhead.
The city gates, when Durin and Elrond reached them, were open and unguarded. The forest-city beyond seemed terribly quiet, without even birdsongs to break the stillness. It was much like what they had found in Ost-in-Edhil, and Durin’s fear began to rise. He glanced over at Elrond, hoping for some reassurance that the city was not yet abandoned, but the elf just looked sadly at the dead brown trees and said nothing. So Durin guided the pony onwards through the gates, and they passed unchallenged into the city.
Durin hoped that they might still find some sign of life further into the city, but that hope grew fainter and fainter the deeper they went into the forest. He was near to despair by the time he started to hear the faint rush of waves on the shore, knowing that the nearness of the sea meant that they had almost reached the city’s western edge. It was then, finally, that they met the first of the elves. Durin had never been so happy to have an arrow pointed at his face before.
“Halt, and name your business,” the first elf called, as he and a second guard emerged like gray shadows from the side of the road.
“Nan Elrond Peredhel, tercáno ana i Ingaran,” Elrond replied from his place beside Durin in the wagon seat. “I have come seeking passage west.”
“Elrond Peredhel?” the elf repeated, sounding startled. He and his companion both lowered their bows. “We have had orders to watch for your coming, but I admit that I did not have much hope.”
“Orders from who?” Elrond asked, frowning. “Who governs here, now the city is empty?”
“The High King, of course.”
“He has not yet sailed?” Elrond asked in astonishment.
“Not yet,” the guard replied. “Almost all the Eldar have already gone west, but the High King was determined that his would be the last ship to leave Middle Earth. He would not sail until he was certain that none of his people had been left behind, or until he could delay no longer. You have only just reached us in time: had you come tomorrow, you would have found yourself alone on these shores.”
Durin suppressed a shiver. Tomorrow, the guard had said. If they had been but one day slower, Elrond would have been doomed to a slow and lonely death. But the reason for the elves’ urgent departure was laid out clear before Durin’s eyes: neither of these guards looked as unwell as Elrond had in his cell, having had the benefit of starlight and open skies, but their faces were drawn and tired, and they moved slowly by elven standards, as if exhaustion weighed down their limbs. That indefinable elvish light was nearly gone from them, leaving them almost as faded and lifeless as the trees around them.
“The High King will wish to see you,” the elf guard said, pulling Durin from his thoughts. “You will find him beside the Great Tree.”
“Hantanyel,” Elrond said, and he and Durin both climbed down out of the wagon seat. The path from here would be too narrow for the wagon, so they left the pony behind with the guards, who promised to find it food and water, and continued on foot.
It was only a short way up to the clifftop platform where the Great Tree grew, but they crossed the distance slowly, Durin measuring out his steps to match Elrond’s careful pace. When they came into view of the tree itself, Elrond stopped in his tracks, breath catching in his throat.
The tree was dead. The bark was blackened by some kind of rot, and the once-golden leaves lay scattered on the ground around it, brown and dry and dead. Durin had only ever seen it once in its grandeur, but it was painful to see something that had once been so beautiful now falling to ruin. Elrond had called the tree a symbol of his people’s life and light, many years ago when he had pressed one of its tiny yellow seeds into Durin’s hand. Now the elves were all but gone, and it seemed that the tree had gone with them.
Beneath the bare dead branches of the tree stood High King Gil-galad, though he, too, looked decidedly less grand than Durin remembered him. He wore a loose-fitting gray robe that shimmered faintly like a river in the moonlight, which Durin supposed would count as dressing down for an elvenking. He was otherwise unadorned: there was no crown on his head, and his hair fell loose and unbound around his shoulders. Like the guards outside, there was a definite air of exhaustion around him, and he did not seem to shine as he did in Durin’s memory.
Still, when Gil-Galad saw Elrond his normally guarded expression opened up into something like genuine relief and joy. He crossed the space between them swiftly and laid a hand on Elrond’s shoulder, saying something quiet and wondering in elvish that made Elrond smile. For this, Durin was almost willing to forgive the High King all his earlier grievances.
“Long have I looked for your return, Elrond,” Gil-galad said. “Where have you been? The messenger I sent to seek you in Khazad-dûm was turned away.”
“I was there,” Elrond said. “I was a prisoner of the dwarven king, for a time.”
Gil-galad’s expression darkened, gaze turning to Durin as though truly noticing his presence for the first time. “At any other time, imprisoning my herald would be tantamount to a declaration of war,” he said. “I doubt the dwarves would have been bold enough for such an act, were they not certain of my people’s powerlessness. Perhaps I ought to remind them that there is some strength left in elvenkind.”
“Durin saved me,” Elrond said quickly, stepping between Gil-galad and Durin before he could reply. “He disobeyed his father’s orders and brought me secretly out of Khazad-dûm at great risk to himself. I owe my life to him.”
Gil-galad paused, giving Elrond a long, searching look. Finally, he turned back to Durin and inclined his head in the shallowest hint of a bow. “It seems I was too swift in judgment,” he said. “You have my apologies, Prince Durin, and my thanks for Elrond’s safe return.”
“Keep them,” Durin said flatly. “I didn’t do it for you.”
Elrond sighed and rubbed his forehead, so close an echo of his exasperation when he found out about Durin’s mischief concerning the High King’s table that Durin nearly laughed out loud. Instead, he kept a straight face and folded his arms across his chest, waiting for Gil-galad’s reply.
To his surprise, the king only nodded again. “Whatever your reasons, you acted in good time,” he said. “We have delayed as long as we safely can – longer, perhaps, than was wise. The last ship will sail before sundown, and all those left in Mithlond must be on it.”
“I will be there,” Elrond said, “but may I have your leave for a while, ere we depart? I would like to see the forest one more time.”
Gil-galad frowned, his eyes lingering on Elrond in his terribly obvious illness. “You should not go alone.”
Elrond looked at Durin, an unspoken question in his eyes.
“I will walk with you, my friend,” Durin answered. “Fear not, Elvenking. We will come to the harbor before sundown.”
“Very well,” Gil-galad said with some reluctance. “You have my leave, Elrond. Do not be late.”
Elrond bowed, and he and Durin left the king. They descended from the platform beneath the Great Tree and went down to a path that wound its way along the edge of the cliffs above the beach. The rush of the waves was louder here, and the scent of salt in the air was strong. Every now and then a breeze came up from the shore and carried with it a hint of cold sea spray that made Durin shiver. He did not ask where they were going, and Elrond seemed content to keep his silence.
Though they walked side by side and near enough to touch, the elf felt already very far away. He went slowly and stopped often, pausing to look upward to the high thin clouds moving swiftly across the sky or to reach out and touch the smooth bark of a nearby tree. Sometimes he spoke quiet words in his own tongue, too soft for dwarvish ears to hear, and Durin thought sometimes that the trees spoke back: their dry dead leaves reached out to Elrond like long brown fingers, rustling and whispering their strange replies into the salty sea air. They seemed almost to bend in towards Elrond as he passed, like cold and weary travelers leaning close to the last warmth of a dying fire.
It was in this way that Elrond spent his final hours on Middle Earth, and to Durin the time seemed to slip away like sand between his fingers. He felt he had only blinked and suddenly the sun was already creeping towards the western horizon; blinked again and found that at some point in their wanderings Elrond had turned their path towards the harbor. Perhaps that had been his destination all along, and Durin had simply been too preoccupied to notice. Whatever the case, all too soon they found themselves standing on the beach beneath the setting sun, watching a small procession of elves making their way onto the last ship left in Mithlond. Or at least, Elrond watched them. There was only one elf to draw Durin’s eyes.
“Will you really be alright?” he asked suddenly. His voice sounded oddly out of place in his own ears, strange and discordant among the sounds of the wind and the sea and the gulls.
“Among my people it is said that in Valinor all wounds are healed,” Elrond replied. There was no such dissonance when he spoke: his words seemed almost as one with the voice of the sea.
“People say all sorts of things,” Durin said, not certain why he pressed this point. It wasn’t as though Elrond’s answer could make any difference now. “Is it true?
Elrond turned his gaze away from the ship to give Durin a slight smile. “I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.”
“I suppose,” Durin said, dissatisfied, and they were both quiet for a moment. The sound of the waves seemed suddenly louder, a persistent reminder that this story had reached its inevitable end. Finally, Durin could stand it no longer.
“Damn it, elf,” he burst out. “How many times must I say goodbye to you?”
“Just once more,” Elrond said.
Durin felt tears again prickling at his eyes, and wondered wildly what strange paths he had turned down in his life that had brought him to so often weep for the sake of an elf.
“You’re a brother to me,” he said. “You know that, don’t you, Elrond?”
“I know it,” Elrond said quietly. “I had another brother, once. A twin. He used to say to me sometimes that the Valar made us as one soul in two bodies. When he died I never thought I would again feel as whole as I do when I stand by your side.”
“I need to tell you something,” Durin said through the tightness in his throat.
Elrond nodded, waiting, and Durin leaned close to whisper in his ear. There on the beach at the edge of the world, Durin told Elrond his true name, the one that only a handful of living beings upon this Middle Earth had ever known. There were many among his people who would call this a betrayal of dwarvenkind, but as pulled away and met Elrond’s eyes he could not find in himself any shred of regret.
“I will carry it with me always in my heart, and never speak it aloud so long as I live,” Elrond said solemnly. “You have my oath.”
“I don’t need it,” Durin said. “I trust you.”
They were very close still, standing there upon the sand, and at these words Elrond smiled, then leaned forward to rest his forehead against Durin’s. He closed his eyes and went still, their breaths mingling in the air between them as they forgot, just for a moment, that there was any world outside the space they shared.
But the illusion could not last, and finally Durin pulled away. Behind them, the ship rocked gently in its moorings, sails raised and ready to depart. Elrond wasn’t looking at it anymore. He wasn’t looking at Durin, either, just staring down at the ground.
“You must go,” Durin said gently, and at this Elrond raised his head. There were tears falling freely down his face, and such grief in his eyes that Durin nearly lost his resolve then and there and begged him to stay. Instead he conjured up a smile. “Namárië,” he said, one last time.
Elrond just shook his head, and for a moment Durin despaired, thinking that in his weeping Elrond’s voice had at last failed him and Durin would not hear him speak again. But then his throat worked in a hard swallow, and he again met Durin’s eyes.
“Goodbye,” he said.
Then he turned and walked away down the beach to where the ship awaited him. He hesitated, just for a moment, there at the end of the dock, and Durin held his breath. Then, at long last, he took that final step, crossing from the shore onto the deck of the ship: the last elf to leave Middle Earth.
With all its passengers safely aboard, the ship pulled away from the dock, sliding smoothly through the water and out towards the sunset. Elrond stood at the back, hand raised in one last farewell. Durin mirrored the gesture, and held it even as the ship slowly receded into the distance. He thought perhaps Elrond with his sharp elven eyes could still see him, and stayed there at the water’s edge long after the ship had vanished beyond his sight.
Finally, as the sun dipped below the western horizon and darkness came, Durin lowered his hand. He was, abruptly, weary beyond measure. The rush of waves on the sand and the whisper of wind through the dead trees struck him then as terribly lonely sounds, and the emerging stars seemed cold and far away. His eyes were dry and burning in the salt air, and he longed suddenly and fiercely for the mountain. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to be there again, with Disa beside him and their children warm and safe in his arms. So, turning his back at last on the sea, Durin started for home.