[TAURIEL]
The room was at the half-light of the second bell of the afternoon.
She had set it at the half-light at the noon hour, by the small careful steady inner pattern of preparing a room for a long careful inward setting-out. She had set the long inner shutters at the half-close. She had set the fire in the corner grate at the small steady careful winter draught Halbarad had taught her at the third year of the founding to set when a chamber needed to hold one steady warmth through a long afternoon. She had brought up, at the noon hour, the small kettle of the winter herbal Arethil had been sending her since the autumn, with two cups on the small inner table. She had set the long bench under the window with the two small cushions the keep women had cut for her at the small careful steady spring fitting.
She had set the room.
She had not, in the setting, named to Aldric what the room was for.
He had registered the setting at the noon hour when he came back from the council session. He had inclined his head once at the door. He had not, on inclining, asked. He had been at the inner chamber for the long afternoon's first hour at the small careful steady work of the council's customs returns. He had come up at the second bell, in the small careful steady way she had asked him to at the eighth bell of the morning.
She sat on the long bench.
He sat beside her.
He did not, at first, speak.
She did not, at first, speak.
The chamber was — by her small careful steady inward reading — at the small careful steady set she had been preparing it for since she had ridden back through the south gate at the third week of the summer, with the two children at the second wagon and Arethil at the small careful steady saddle of her own horse and the long count of the road behind her.
She had been preparing the setting-out for nine weeks.
She had not, in the nine weeks, set it.
She set it now.
She said, in the small low voice she had been holding the words at for the nine weeks: "Aldric. Elrond did not advise me to choose mortality."
He inclined his head a fraction.
He did not, on inclining, register surprise. She read in the small careful steady set of his hand on his knee that he had not — by the small careful steady inner reading of nine weeks of her face at the family table and at the upper rooms and at the small inner corridors — expected Elrond to have advised her.
He waited.
She said: "He did not advise me toward mortality. He did not advise me toward immortality. He set out, for me, what each of the two would cost. He set them out — Aldric — at the long table at his study at the third bell of the third evening I was at the hall. The chamber was small. Arwen was not at the chamber. Arethil was at the chamber for the first part of the evening and went out at her own quiet judgment at the half-hour. Lindir was at the chamber for the first quarter-hour and went out. The chamber, by Elrond's own setting, was Elrond's and mine."
A pause.
"He set out — for me — what choosing immortality would cost me. He set it in the form he set it for Galadriel some thousand years ago when Galadriel — by his own quiet account at the long table — asked him the same question after the long-going of Celeborn's first wife. He set it as he had set it for himself when he had set the choice down beside Elros at the end of the First Age. He set it as he was, in the long careful steady inner work of the third year of his Arwen's coming choice — by his own quiet account at the long table — setting it for himself again, in the small careful steady inward preparation of a father whose daughter would, by her own walk, take up the choice within the count of his own remaining years at Imladris."
She drew a breath.
"He said — Aldric — that choosing immortality means watching everyone die. That the watching is the price. That for the first hundred years it is the death of the husband. For the second hundred years it is the death of the children. For the third hundred years it is the death of the grandchildren. For the next several centuries it is the death of every person in this country who has, by the small careful steady inner choice of the eleven civilian council members at the long table, set themselves under your hand. For the next several centuries after that, it is the small careful steady inner registering that the country itself — by the long count of countries — is not a thing that holds at any one shape for as long as one person of an Elven line will hold. The country will become — by the small slow careful inner change of long centuries — not the country it is at this hour. The orchard will not be the orchard. The wall will not be the wall. The Dunlending streets at the eastern wall will not be the Dunlending streets. The country, Aldric, will become — in the small careful steady inner working of long centuries — a country I will walk in alone."
She did not, on saying this, look at him.
She set her hand against the line of the long bench, in the small flat inward gesture of committing.
She said: "And he said — Aldric — what choosing mortality would cost you."
"Tauriel."
"Aldric — let me. The setting-out is the work I came up the south road carrying. Let me set it out."
He inclined his head.
She set it out.
She set it out — in the small low voice she had been holding the words at for nine weeks — in the form Elrond had set it at the long table of his study at the third bell of the third evening: that choosing mortality would not be a thing she did for herself but a thing she did at his expense; that he would, by the small careful steady inner work of a man who had been preparing to lose his wife for centuries, now have to prepare to lose her in the small short count of a Mannish marriage; that the years he had asked Arethil for, at the corridor on the morning some seasons ago when Arethil had said considerably, would no longer be the considerably of a man whose wife would be at his side for those years and the centuries after; they would be the considerably of a man whose wife had set the centuries down and would, in the small short count of those considerably years, leave him by the same door he was going through; that the grief of choosing mortality was not, by Elrond's quiet account at the long table, the grief of dying — Elrond was an Elf and could not, in fairness, speak to the small careful steady inner texture of a Mannish death from inside it — but the grief of choosing, in the small careful steady inward way of an Elven mind that had been working at the centuries for seven hundred years, to set the centuries down and to accept, in their place, the small short count.
"He said — Aldric — that the grief is not less. The grief is — different. The grief of immortality is a grief that goes on. The grief of mortality is the grief of choosing the going on to be short. Both griefs — by his own account — are real. Both are large. Both are the kinds of grief that, by the count of all of his thousand long years at Imladris, do not — Elrond's word — recover from being chosen."
She paused.
She said: "And he set out, last — for me — the grief of Arwen."
She did not, then, immediately go on.
She closed her eyes — the deliberate close, not asleep — and she opened them again, at the small careful steady inner pace of an Elven woman who had been at the small inward room of the choice for nine weeks.
She said: "Arwen has — Elrond did not name when, but soon — by the small inward count of his own reading, set the choice down on her own side. She has chosen, in the small careful steady inner privacy of her own mind, mortality. The choosing is — by Elrond's quiet account at the long table — not yet on the formal record of the house. The choosing is on her hand, alone, in the inward way the choice is always at first on the hand of the person making it. She has not yet — at the count of my visit — told her father in form. She will, by Elrond's reading, tell him within the count of the next few years. By the count of any of us at this country, that is — soon. Elrond has known — by the small careful steady inner registering of a father who has been reading his daughter's face at the long evenings at Imladris for two thousand seven hundred years — that she has chosen since the autumn before last. He has carried — Aldric — the inward fact of her choosing, alone, for the longer part of two years. He has not, in those two years, said the inward fact to her. He will not say it to her until she sets the choice in form. He is — by his own quiet account at the long table — carrying the grief of her choosing, ahead of her telling, for the years it will take her to tell him."
She turned her head a small fraction toward Aldric.
"He set the carrying of her grief, in his own form, in front of me — Aldric — so that I would have, by the small careful steady inner gift of an Elven father who has been at it before, the small careful steady inner shape of the grief I will be choosing, on whichever side I choose it. He set it out as a thing he was doing on his own account. He set it out for the small flat private practical reason that he had been at the work for two years and that he could, by the small careful steady inner work of a father who had been there, set out for me the small careful steady shape of the work I had not yet been at."
She stopped.
The chamber was quiet for a long count of breaths.
Aldric did not, at first, speak.
She read him.
She read him in the small careful steady inner way she had been reading him for fifteen years. She read, in the small careful steady set of his hand on his knee, that he was not — at the small careful steady inner work of the moment — reaching for any small careful steady reassuring sentence; he was not, by the small careful steady inner work of his own, going to set out for her any of the small careful steady reassurances that other men in this country might, by the small flat practical reflex of love, have set out for her. He was not going to tell her that either choice would be all right. He was not going to tell her that he understood. He was — by her small careful steady reading at the long bench — going to sit with the small full weight of the setting-out for the count of breaths it asked of him.
He sat with it.
He sat with it for the count of perhaps thirty breaths.
He took her hand.
He set it in his — the small careful steady inner palm-to-palm rest he had set under her hand at every long inner setting-out for fifteen years.
He said, in the small low voice he had been preparing for: "Tauriel. I do not need you to choose now. I need you to know I understand what you are choosing. Either way. I understand. Not in the way another Mannish man might say understand, who has heard one side of it. In the way I am hearing it from you at this long bench at the second bell of this afternoon. Both sides. Both griefs. Both — recoveries. I understand. I have, by my own small careful steady reading at the long table in the inner chamber for nine weeks, been preparing to understand whichever side you chose. I will, from this hour at this long bench, prepare in the same way for both. Whichever way you go — Tauriel — I will not, by my own work, have you carry the choosing alone. You went up the south road alone because you had to. You came back. From this hour, the choosing is — at this long bench — between us. The choice is yours. The carrying is — ours."
She did not, on this, immediately answer.
She set her other hand against the side of his face.
She let it sit there for a long count of breaths.
She said, very quietly: "All right."
"All right."
"I do not know yet."
"You do not have to know yet. The choice has — Tauriel — by Elrond's setting and by Arwen's coming setting and by the small careful steady inner setting of our own years here, no fixed hour. The choice is not the moment when Lúthien is set the choice on her own side. The choice is — by the small careful steady inner reading of an Elven house — at your hand for the years of her growing up. You have her years to take. You have Cael's years to take. You have — Tauriel — my years to take with whichever side you set yourself on. The choice is not the small careful steady inner urgency of a thing that must be done by next spring. The choice is the small careful steady inner long work of your own years, and of mine, and of the children's."
"And of Halbarad's."
"And of Halbarad's."
She closed her eyes, the deliberate close.
She opened them.
She said, in the small low voice: "I will sit with it. For some seasons. I will not — Aldric — by any of the small careful steady inner reading of nine weeks, set it before some seasons. I will sit. I will be at the long bench with you in some evenings. I will be at the practice yard at some mornings. I will be at the wing with Celwyn at some afternoons. I will be with Cael and Lúthien at the long fur at the dusk hours. I will, at the end of some seasons — I will know."
"All right."
A pause.
"Aldric."
"Tauriel."
"I am — at this long bench — glad you said the carrying is ours."
"I am at the long bench."
She closed her eyes.
She set her head against his shoulder, in the small careful steady set she had been setting her head against his shoulder at the long bench under the window for fifteen years; the head rested. He did not, on the rest, move. The kettle at the small inner table was at the warm setting it had been holding since the noon hour. The fire in the corner grate was at the half-line. The long inner shutters were at the half-close.
The afternoon's second bell had passed.
The third would come in its own time.
She sat at the long bench against his shoulder, and the choice — for the first hour since Lúthien's small first sound in the chamber two and a half years ago — was a thing that was, at this long bench, sitting between two people and not at the long inward room of one.
She held.
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