Epilogue

The New World

Eighteen months after the fall of Sauron, Miranda Miller stood on wooden dock that overlooked the Bay of Eldamar and Tol Eressëa.

With the veil between Valinor and Arda in place, the harsh North Sea winds had replaced with the warm breeze and sunny weather of the Blessed Realm. She took a deep of the salty air and let her gaze settle over the magnificently crafted Grey ship that was moored next to the dock. When they sailed, Miranda thought they looked like swans coming in for landing and it took her breath away every time. With a sigh, she knew that soon, her opportunity to see the Grey ships sail would be limited and she took in the sight of the vessel with the affection of one who knew their time in Valinor was reaching an end.

A slow smile stole across her face, when she saw Aaron and Legolas on deck, supervising the transport of supplies and equipment from the Anemone into the ship's cargo hold. Apparently both had their own ideas on how this was to be done and the cargo master who was actually doing the loading was starting to shoot daggers at the two in frustration. Sometimes those two could tax even an elves' good nature it seemed.

Turning back to Eve, Miranda saw the new mother fussing over baby Bryan who had objection to the cap she was trying to secure on his brow. The infant frowned, wriggling in her arms in an effort to escape. He was walking and with his new found mobility, wanted to get into everything. Much like his namesake, Miranda thought with a smile.

"Are you sure this is the thing to do?" Miranda asked Eve.

"Absolutely," Eve answered, giving up and stuffing the knit cap into her baby bag before facing Miranda, Bryan held securely in her arms. "The world's getting too crazy for our liking. I mean you're safe here but out there," she cast her gaze at the horizon as if she could see the modern world beyond Valinor. "We're not so sure."

Miranda could understand that. The last eighteen months had seen the world going through a kind of social and spiritual upheaval. With religious groups now in constant argument about accepting Eru as God, scientific circles coming to grips with the reality that were forces beyond their understanding and the fabric of society being rewritten to include of elves and dwarves, Eve and Aaron weren't alone in wanting to abandon Earth for something simpler.

She just wasn't sure taking a Grey Ship to another planet was the answer. Of course, Miranda's objections were purely selfish ones because it was really about missing them when they left.

"It seems like such a long way," Miranda sighed with disappointment as she looked over her shoulder to see where the children were at. Sam, Pip and Fred were currently playing in the sand, running across the dunes and laughing like loons. Despite the farewells being made today, she couldn't help but smile seeing them play. Almost two years after Sauron's defeat, Fred was finally coming out of her shell and Miranda was glad for it. With two boys already, she rather liked having a little girl to fuss over.

"I know," Eve took a step forward and squeezed Miranda's shoulder with affection. "But I think it's the right decision for us. We'll never be able to live in the world again and there's only so much sight seeing you can do in Valinor before boredom sets in. Going to a new world, it's a chance to build something special. Besides, we won't be the only humans there. The Grey Ships have been taking people to Europa for two months now. We'll be like the pilgrims."

"Yeah because that worked out so well for the Indians," Eric called out as he and Lori Hill approached them after stepping onto the deck.

It was Lori's first trip to Valinor and Eric had made it a point to join her because he wanted to say goodbye to Aaron, Eve, Legolas and Ariel before they left for the new land. Since the day of Sauron's fall, they'd been dating regularly and although neither admitted how deeply they were committed to each other, it seemed like it would be only a matter of time before the words were exchanged. As it was, Eric was talking about relocating to America permanently. As one of the few humans who had lived with the elves before they were known to the world, Eric was finally able to tell the stories he'd accumulated about the place.

"Very funny," Eve retorted making a face at him. "Like the Aboriginals had such a great time after you convicts showed up."

"Yeah you tell 'em," Lori laughed, her American pride demanding solidarity with Eve.

"Bloody Yanks," Eric grinned, putting an arm around Lori.

"I'm glad you guys are here," Eve smiled at them both. "We'll be heading off soon. I didn't want to miss the chance to say goodbye."

"Likewise," Lori said sharing the sentiment. After Romania, they'd all gotten to know each other very well and Lori was glad that after everything he'd gone through, Aaron had managed to retrieve his wife. "Being here has been amazing. My dad talks about the place all the time."

It seemed almost serendipitous that Lori was related to Captain Isaiah Hill, the naval commander who had first sighted Valinor when it was cut off from the Blessed Realm. Lori's service in the defeat of Sauron had earned Lori passage to Valinor even if she still needed an elf to ferry her to the island.

"Where is he anyway?" Miranda asked. She hadn't seen they had parted company in England. While Miranda had accompanied Aaron and the others in pursuit of Eve, the Captain had taken his submarine and lent his assistance to the English ships fighting the Watchers in the Channel. Later on he and Cirdan led the Teleri fleets against the creatures while everyone else was at the fortress.

"Fishing with Cirdan," Lori said with a smile, recalling the morning when the master shipwright had come to collect her father for the trip. Since their first meeting, her father and Cirdan had become fast friends and it was Cirdan who had brought them both to Valinor for this visit. "You know how it goes when two old sea dogs get together. Its like watching highlights from Grumpy Old Men."

The visual of Cirdan and Captain Hill in a small dingy arguing about fish and Sophia Loren made Miranda laugh out loud. "That's a sight worth seeing."

"Speaking of movies," Eve turned her eye at Eric, "I hear Hollywood is calling." Miranda had told her of Eric's sudden celebrity thanks to his connection to Valinor.

Eric burst into a grin, "well thanks to the history of Middle Earth, Hollywood has some new material to mine other than the latest Justice League and the Avengers team up on the big screen. I'm being asked to write scripts about the War of the Ring. Some furry Kiwi thinks it will make a good movie but who wants to film in New Zealand?"

The idea did seem somewhat far fetched.

Lori's attention shifted to the ship docked along side of them. It was a beautifully built vessel that moved as if it was gliding across the water instead of sailing through it. As she studied the ship from stern to stern, she still tried to wrap her mind around the fact that this craft was going to take Eve and the others to another planet. "So this thing is really going to get you across space?" She asked, her voice still reflecting the incredulity of it all.

"Well I don't understand all of it," Eve explained as best she could. Gandalf had explained it to her and Eve found it difficult to believe herself. "It's like any sea voyage except sometime during the night and before morning, the ship crosses over and at dawn, you're still on the sea but you're on the sea in the new world."

"If you're going to travel to another planet, that's the way to do it, Eric remarked having shed his doubt after transmissions had been received from the first settlers on Mars. "So you're joining Elladan and Elrohir?" He asked further, aware that the twins had been one of the first to travel to Europa.

"Yep," Eve nodded as she handed baby Bryan to Miranda while she did a check of her belongings yet to be loaded onto the ship. "You know those two. They couldn't wait to take off and explore a whole new moon."

"And Elrond?" Eric asked, unable to imagine the patriarch bearing the thought of his children so far away from them.

"He and Celebrían will be coming later," Eve explained, aware that her elvish parents had not wanted to be separated from their children for too long. He just wants to do a proper handover to Galadriel before he leaves." Since he was departing, Elrond was turning over his duties as a member of the United Nations Council to Galadriel, since he felt that she was more appropriate to speak for elvendom than he.

"Bout time you guys got here!" Aaron called out from the gangplank as he and Legolas stepped unto the dock from the boat. The two had spent most of the morning loading up all the supplies needed for their journey, including solar generators, camping gear and their belongings on the Anemone. Travelling to another planet was all well and good but Eve was not going anywhere if she couldn't watch her DVDs or power up her laptop to say nothing about everything they'd need for the baby. Aaron had more practical concerns since as a human doctor, his skills would be in demand and he wanted to have a good quantity of medical supplies as was necessary.

"Are we almost ready to set sail?" Eve asked Aaron as he joined them.

"Yes," Legolas replied as he caught a glimpse of Ariel who was emerging from the lower decks after securing the horses for the voyage. "The winds are good and the sea is calm."

"I hope so," Ariel declared, her excellent elven hearing picking up the thread of the conversation. when she joined "The horses do not travel well beneath the decks and it will not aid the situation if the journey is turbulent." Of course there was nothing about this trip that was a normal sea voyage. "If not you and I will be spending the voyage trying to settle them down." She said to Legolas.

"I hope it is calm," Eve added, "the last thing we need is rough seas for the baby. It wasn't too bad when we came back a year ago. He was too little to notice but choppy weather is not good for his stomach." She pointed out.

"He'll be fine," Aaron said confidently as he took the little Bryan from her. "How you doing Tyke?" he asked as he hoisted his son child above his head and then blew bubbles on the infant's tummy that produced a burst of happy chortles.

"That just sounds wrong coming from an American," Frank Miller grimaced as he approached them, having rounded up Fred, Sam and Pip to say their goodbyes to the travellers. "He's not even English, let alone from Yorkshire. I blame you." Frank gave Miranda an accusing stare.

Miranda gave him a playful wink in turn and smirked, "well if he's going to be named after Bryan, he should have the nickname too."

Despite his complaints however, Miranda knew that Frank was thrilled that Aaron and Eve had chosen to name their child after Bryan.

"He'll know what I mean," Aaron smiled affectionately at his son. "So you sure we can't convince you guys to come with us?" He was going to miss these people greatly. After two years, they had become his extended family and leaving them was going to be hard.

"No," Frank shook his head. "Miranda and I are staying put in England. The kids will be starting school in a few months. I've got a teaching position in Oxford and truth be told, we want to give the kids a little bit of normal after everything we've been through the last few years."

"School," Pip made a face. "Why can't we stay here. The elves can teach us everything we need to know." For Pip, going back to England and school was like waking up after having a wonderful dream about a fairy tale land.

"Spoken like your son," Frank stated.

"Oh it will be fun," Eric nudged the little boy. "Cartoons, McDonalds and EuroDisney. Not to mention I have a girlfriend who flies jets. She can take all three of you for rides..."

"Hey!" Lori declared, swatting him on the shoulder, drawing laughter from the children and adults alike.

Suddenly, Fred came forward and tugged at Eve's blouse. She looked at Eve with that sad, haunted expression that Miranda hadn't seen since the first weeks after Bryan's death.

"Yes honey?" Eve dropped her gaze to the little girl who was looking at her shyly.

Fred reached into her coat and pulled out a stuffed teddy bear that looked as if it had seen better days. Bryan had bought it for her the day after he'd rescued her from Cardiff, when the Nazgul had murdered his parents. She remembered how he'd taken her to the shops to buy clothes and had given her the bear because that's what he thought little girls ought to have. Fred had kept it with her since that day.

"This is for the baby," she said softly. "Bryan bought it for me. I use to sleep with it but I don't need it anymore." Fred glanced at Miranda and almost brought the woman to tears. However she managed to maintain her composure.

Eve felt her heart ache at the gesture and dropped to her knees so that she could look Fred in the eye. Leaning forward, she planted a soft kiss on Fred's forehead and took the toy, holding it to her chest to show Fred how deeply the gift touched her. "Thank you Fred. I'll make sure the baby knows where it came from and who he's named after."

Fred smiled, pleased at that.

Sam came up along side of her and took her hand in his. "See Fred? We'll always remember Uncle Bryan and Uncle Jason." All the talk about Uncle Bryan dying and Sam wanted to remind everyone that Jason Merrick had also died trying to save him and Pip.

"Amen to that," Eric replied, ruffling the boy's hair in gratitude. "He'd been bloody stoked about going to Hollywood and meeting all those movie stars." He still felt the loss of his best friend profoundly and appreciated it when he felt Lori's fingers intertwining between his.

"It seems I have arrived at the right moment," the familiar voice of Gandalf declared behind them.

"Moses!" Aaron exclaimed, grateful to see the arrival of the old man because the mood was getting way too somber for his liking. It was going to be hard enough when they left without reminding themselves of the people who weren't around to say goodbye.

"We thought that you might have decided to remain here," Legolas smiled, his arm coiling around his wife's waist.

"A wizard arrives when he means to but never before," Gandalf retorted with great dignity as he joined them. "I see that you have begun without me."

"We certainly have not," Ariel declared. "Your things are on board including your barrel of leaf."

"Barrel?" Aaron looked at her. "You got him a whole barrel?"

"Ennerdale Flake," Eric replied. "I picked it up for him on the way here."

"Did you bring the nicotine patches too?" Aaron asked aghast.

"You do not change Gandalf," Legolas laughed and then swept his gaze over his friends and his lovely wife. In truth, they had all changed in some shape or form no matter how much time changed had them. However, their friendship remained as strong as it had been when the Fellowship had been formed in Rivendell.

They were going their separate ways now as they had done in the Fourth Age, embarking upon new adventures and new destinies. However, Legolas was no longer saddened at the loss because if the last few years had proven anything to him, they would find always find each other again.

Like Eve's cosmic turntable whatever that was.

Somewhere in the distant future...

The boy ran along the beach, the blond hair that in bad need of a haircut bounced around his ears as he ran along the shore. Above him, the faint outline of the ringed planet could be seen in the afternoon sky. The white foam of surf swirled around his ankles as the splashing water of his steps soaked the rolled up legs of his pants. He was a lanky at the age of eleven, with hazel eyes and a rogue's smile on his lips that the girl behind him found irresistible. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure she was still behind him, he slowed his pace to let her catch up to him.

She was a pretty thing, with strawberry coloured hair and eyes so green he sometimes thought looking into them was like staring into the sea. She was wearing a plain cotton dress of yellow, with tiny pink flowers and when she ran, it swirled around her like a wave. She'd come up to him at school one day and told him that she liked him. The boy wasn't sure what to do with that at first even though he couldn't lie that it wasn't the first time he'd noticed her.

Although that very night after she said she liked him, he had a dream about her.

In the dream, he wasn't young like he was now but a grown man. A knight in fact, like in those stories he'd read about in books. He carried a sword and a great horn of white. He didn't know how he knew the man in the dream was him but he knew her. She was there too. He recognised her eyes. Like him, she was grown up and she looked like a fairy tale princess and when she smiled at him in that dream, he knew instantly, she was his princess.

"Benjamin Meers!" She called out after him. "Wait for me!"

He feigned impatience as he waited for her to reach him and then complained, "You're such a girl Tara. I thought you said you could keep up?"

"I'm not as tall as you," she grumbled. "I can't run as fast. I don't want to fall behind and get lost."

He stared at her for a moment, looking at her long and hard before her reached for her hand and held it in his. Her cheeks bloomed with colour and he found himself smiling that rogue's smile she liked so much before saying, "don't worry. I'll always find you."

THE END