When I Am Wise by Deborah Judge

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Fanwork Notes

First published June 17, 2002

Fanwork Information

Summary:

At the end of the First Age, Elrond and Elros must choose between mortality and immortality.

Major Characters: Elrond, Elros

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre: General

Challenges:

Rating: General

Warnings:

This fanwork belongs to the series

The Library of Tirion
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1, 685
Posted on 16 April 2011 Updated on 16 April 2011

This fanwork is complete.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Comments

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I enjoyed your take on this fateful moment, especially the opening vision of Elrond running sand through his finger and then that image returns again when Elros explains about the cube of sand and the grains like notes in the song of Arda and his desire to multiply the notes in his descendants.  Lovely.

Wow. This is so poignant. It really is a horrible choice, and I love how conflicted Elrond is over it. He's so young (well, relatively speaking...) and he seems so weary already.

"He was sure he did not want to be separated from his brother, sure he did not want to be bound to Arda forever, and equally sure that the wisdom he craved would take far more than a mortal lifetime to master, and longer than that to transmit."

It almost sounds like Elrond loses either way. But I love that learning, and teaching, is so important to him. It makes sense for him. The background, about how he took it upon himself to make sure Elros knew their history, was a great addition to that.

The conversation between Elrond and Elros shows how well they know each other, which just makes their parting so much more tragic.

There were so many gorgeous lines in this story, but I think this is my favorite, because it's so hopeful and a little haunting:

"Elros Tar-Minyatur led the first of the ships of men to the realm of Numenor, where they established a kingdom to last an age and a people to last beyond it."

Great story!