What Is Right And What Is Easy by LadySternchen  

Elwë

Stars. Light. Diamonds in the sky. Or pearls on endless shores, shimmering in the light of the Trees. What was right? What wrong?

His head swam as if he had received a heavy blow, making him incapable of even a single straight thought, confused, and lost. Entirely lost.

Trees? Or stars? Lady Yavanna? Or Queen Varda?

It does not work like that, young lord.

Varda’s laughter, so clear, so warm, so pure.

You need not decide. My stars remain where they are, regardless whether your people do so as well.

He stumbled, branches piercing the palms of his hands as he fell on them.

Yavanna and Varda had exchanged mirthful glances at his words. He had not understood, but then, there had been so much he had not understood.

It would have been so easy, to give into the will of many of his people, to stay on starlit shores, the journey so difficult, Aman so bright, the sea so wide.

Do I choose what is easy? Or do I choose what is right?

He had never doubted Oromë, nor the Valar in general. And Finwë…

Finwë. Thoughts of his dearest friend stirred his mind out of its exhausted stupor. He had gone to visit Finwë, but then…

Mist seemed to fog his mind again. He would surly die here, and soon. His throat was dry, and his limbs shook with the effort of scrambling to his feet again. Tired. He was so tired.

And yet he blinked, and after a little while his vision cleared enough for him to see what was in front of him- bushes, too thick and thorny to penetrate. To his left the trees stood closely together, to his right, the terrain fell a little, the ground rocky and treacherous, and yet… it sloped downhill, and going downhill would be so much less exhausting, at least for a little while. And did not all this land fall towards the sea? The sea… he had a feeling that he needed to be there. Nowë’s little toy ships on the mirror-clear surface of Cuiviénen. Home. The easy way.

Do I choose what is easy, or what my heart tells me is right?

The song pulled him towards the trees, so beautiful, and there was something familiar about it, something that made him think of Oromë. Had the Vala come again? Would he save him?

But was this all real? Was anything real? Who was he? Where was he? What was he doing there?

Song. Light. The way to go.

His last thought, before he forced himself to walk on, his mind then so set on putting one foot in front of the other that there was no room for anything else, was of the song, and of how, when his strength would finally be spent, the music would be the last thing he heard, and that was a very comforting thought.