QUESTIONS AND INFORMATION
QUESTION: Did any of your Elven characters travel west following the War of the Ring? And why did they choose what they did?
ANSWER:
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For Astoeth it was a very hard choice. If she sails to Valinor, her whole life’s purpose becomes futile. There are no mortals to heal in Aman. So she lingers very late into the Fourth Age in Lindon, till she becomes the very last elf left, alone in her apothecary with no patients visiting her anymore. Resigned, she sails together with Celeborn and other elves on the very last boat left. But not before she passes down all her life’s work to as many human and dwarf healers as she can find.
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Dûion certainly did not, even at the cost of the love of his life. It was a choice between a life spent with his lover but lived surrounded by calaquendi (and especially the noldor) or spent alone but in his ancestral home together with his family. And he chose his home. In the end, as it is the fate of all elves, he fades but refuses to answer the call to Mandos. Since in this state, their spirits are bound to the command of the Valar, he is forcefully summoned to Mandos but vehemently refuses to be reembodied. He is forever left to wander the Halls of Mandos.
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Lothrin has a predicament that is close to Dûion’s, but at the same time while she loves her culture and lands, she has also seen thousands of years of warfare and death. Valinor seems like a very tempting offer for her very weary mind and body, a land where trauma and tragedy can’t touch her anymore. Also the place where her closest friends Naeriel and Astoeth sailed to. Late into the Fourth Age, after Lothlorien, Imladris and Lindon become deserted, she leaves Eriador and goes to Celeborn’s colony in Eryn Lasgalen. By the time Celeborn announces he is finally ready to sail to Aman, Lothrin is still undecided. So she stays in Middle-earth for many more years. She alongside all the avari, silvan and sindar left fade and her spirit answers the call to the Halls of Mandos. In the end, she is reembodied in Aman.