Mine. Mine; mine -- the word tolls like a heavy, ominous bell in my mind. It is not for her to love him, to take his hand, to give him counsel in confusing times. She has not walked with him, as I have, over dark roads, through terrifying cold; she has not held him when his strong heart could not go another step without some renewal of hope, she has not given softly of herself to make him see that his own power does not desert him.

They will be wed today.

They will be joined, as one forever; therefore what he and I were, while we walked together, will necessarily be dissolved. One cannot serve two masters, it is said; even more truly, one cannot hold two loves.

We will be friends. I will be his closest confidant, his trusted adviser, his companion during nights of fire-lit nostalgia. I remember when I would have given anything, anything my long life had brought me, just for that.

Friend -- somehow the word has acquired an aura of failure, an undertone of defeat. After everything that has passed, I have failed to give him something, some understanding or comfort or spark of laughter, which she was able to offer even from remote Rivendell.

Mine no longer, and he takes with him (to his wedding bed, no less!) my love, my strength, indeed all I began this journey with. All, I mean, except the one thing I would willingly part with now, if only to escape what I will witness today. That, he would not take, would not let me offer him. He does not understand it, but he has saved Arwen from an immortality of terrible freedom, of feeling one's life drifting, never bound up with another. Everything belongs to him: but my eternity of days, passing in solitude through what remains of Middle Earth into the Grey Havens -- those will be mine.