My stories sometimes track Tolkien's version of Middle-earth, sometimes Jackson's.

Thanks to the following reviewers of Chapter 78: CAH, Dola, and ziggy3.

This chapter may incorporate incidents and/or quotations from the book and/or movie versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The chapter may also draw upon posthumous publications edited by Christopher Tolkien, such as The Silmarillion.

Chapter 79: The End—Until It's Not

With Elladan and Elrohir on either side to steady him, Bilbo carefully climbed into the wagon bed. It was well padded with pillows and blankets and furs, and a canopy had been rigged over it to protect the ancient hobbit from wind or rain or intense sunshine. Elladan climbed in after Bilbo to help him arrange his nest while Elrohir stood at the wagon's tail and bantered with the Halfling. Elladan had always been quicker to utter aloud his affection for the hobbit, but Bilbo had become as dear to Elrohir as to any of the elves at Rivendell. "Now you are going away, we shall never hear the end of the tale you were telling of how Gandalf contrived to introduce you and Thorin's company to Beorn," he mock-complained.

Bilbo snorted. "I have fallen asleep in the middle of that tale every day for a twelve month," he retorted. "There was little chance I was ever going to finish it."

"No, because each day you would begin the tale anew. I don't know why you didn't commence from where you left off."

Bilbo colored a little. "Dash it! I could never remember exactly where I left off. It seemed simpler to start over."

"I could have told you. Each time, you reached the part of the story where Gandalf tells Beorn that the goblins were singing "Fifteen birds in five fir-trees."

Bilbo looked surprised. "I made it that far? I was quite close to the end of the tale."

"Then you must finish the story now. You have time, for Elrond and Galadriel and Mithrandir are still closeted within."

Other elves clustered around the tail of the wagon—Figwit, Lindir, Glorfindel, and Erestor among them—and begged to hear the story's end. Of course, they all knew the tale, for Bilbo had told the whole of it soon after he settled in Rivendell. But Bilbo's delight in having an audience was as innocent and childlike as it had been his first evening in the Hall of Fire, and the elves' delight in hearing him was equally pure and sincere.

"'Good heavens!' Beorn had growled when Gandalf repeated that verse," Bilbo recited. "He chided Gandalf, saying 'Don't pretend goblins can't count. They can. Twelve isn't fifteen and they know it'."

"I have met goblins who couldn't count," observed Elrohir.

"I'll thank you not to interrupt me, Master Elrohir," Bilbo shot back. "Unless you want me to lose track and begin anew—and the whole point is that I should finish the story, innit? Besides, it don't matter whether or not goblins can count. Beorn believed they could, and that's what, well, that's what counts."

Grinning, Elrohir fell quiet.

"Now where was I?" muttered Bilbo. "Oh yes. Beorn chided Gandalf. Told him that the goblins would know that twelve innit fifteen. 'And so do I', Gandalf said. And then the wizard added, 'There were Bifur and Bofur as well. I haven't ventured to introduce them before, but here they are'. Bifur and Bofur had waited their turn, and in they trotted. The last dwarf wouldn't wait, though. 'And me!' gasped Bombur, puffing in a few steps behind his fellows. I do believe he was a bit offended that he was to bring up the rear—for all he had a large one! His o'er hasty arrival didn't ruin Gandalf's plan, though. 'Well,' said Beorn, 'now there are fifteen of you; and since goblins can count, I suppose that is all that there were up the trees. Now perhaps we can finish this story without interruptions'. And that is how Gandalf's plan succeeded in introducing the company to Beorn."

"What was Gandalf's plan?" asked Lindir, pretending not to understand.

"A very clever plan it was," replied Bilbo. "Had Gandalf introduced us all at once, Beorn might have sent us all packing, for he was suspicious by nature and did not often entertain folk—only a few friends on rare occasions and even then no more than two at a time. But Gandalf awoke Beorn's curiosity by introducing the company in dribs and drabs. And so, willy nilly, Beorn found himself with fifteen strangers sitting in his porch!"

"Now I understand your strategy," Elrohir said slyly. "You have left this tale incomplete for a twelvemonth all the better to provoke our desire to hear it finished. Master Gandalf has taught you well."

Audience and storyteller alike burst into laughter. Then a triumphant Bilbo laid his head upon a pillow. Elladan adjusted his wrappings one last time before climbing down from the wagon.

Looking on from a balcony, Legolas smiled, his mind filled with the image of Bilbo's cheerful face as Elladan tucked a blanket beneath his chin. Just then Gandalf stepped onto the balcony. "Are you coming down to bid Bilbo farewell?" said the wizard.

"I bade him farewell last night," Legolas replied. "Before," the elf added wryly, "he fell asleep telling the story of how you introduced Thorin's company to Beorn. He has just now told the end of that tale. Gandalf, I believe Bilbo's story in Middle-earth also is at an end. It wants no appendix."

Gandalf nodded. "Very well. You will come down to say farewell to Elrond and Galadriel, then?"

Legolas shook his head. "I spent time with each last night."

Gandalf looked keenly at the elf.

"Truly, Gandalf, I am at peace. It was harder to part from Elrond, of course. Although I respect Galadriel, Elrond was my foster-father. I believe I shall miss him as much as I shall someday miss my father Thranduil."

"The meeting was as hard for Elrond as for you," Gandalf observed.

"He has spoken of our parting?"

"He had no need to speak of your parting. After he left you last night, his face bore the selfsame expression as it did when he bade Arwen farewell."

"I am sorry to cause him pain," Legolas said sadly.

"That you will cause someone pain is a fate you cannot avoid. But understand that it is not you alone who has made choices that must bring comfort to some whilst causing sorrow to others."

"I wish it need not have been my fate," said Legolas.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the choices that are given us."

Legolas smiled wryly. "Familiar words."

"Sound advice once; sound advice still, albeit slightly altered for the occasion."

"So I must be content if I have made the best choices that I could under the circumstances."

"If you have, then no better choices were possible—for 'best' is, after all, the superlative adjective, as our grammarian Erestor would say."

Legolas laughed at hearing Erestor so named. Then he drew a deep breath. Draft horses had already been harnessed and put to the wagon; now two riding horses were being brought from the stables. Elrond and Galadriel emerged from the Hall and went to stand by their mounts. Legolas turned toward Gandalf. He wanted to say something profound, something memorable, on the occasion of parting from the Istar who had been his mentor and, like Elrond, a father to him. Instead, before he was even conscious of what he was doing, he flung his arms around the wizard. "Oof!" Gandalf gasped, but he squeezed back until Legolas himself was breathless and gasping. Then they released each other. "Once more for good luck," cried Gandalf, reaching forward to tousle Legolas's hair so vigorously that a braid came undone. "There!" the wizard laughed, wiping a tear from his eye with his free hand. "You look a scamp. That's how I shall always see you—not as a warrior but as a mischievous lad. I shall smile whenever I think of you—so you see, I shan't be unhappy in the end. Nor Elrond, neither."

Gandalf turned and walked away. When he reached the balcony door, he looked back. "I want you to remember, lad. I want you to remember. I have been, and always shall be, your friend." With those words he left the balcony, reappearing a few minutes later in the courtyard. As Legolas watched, Elrond gave Galadriel his hand and helped her mount her horse before leaping onto his own. Meanwhile Gandalf climbed onto the seat of the wagon. A hostler handed him the reins and released the brake. With a snap of the whip, Gandalf signaled to the draft horses, which began to calmly walk forward at a gentle pace that would not jostle Bilbo. Elrond and Galadriel each rode to either side of Gandalf.

"Why did you say that, Mithrandir?" Galadriel asked.

"Say what?" Gandalf answered.

"Your words just now to Legolas."

"I said a great many words just now to Legolas," Gandalf retorted, "so it would be helpful if you would stop being so enigmatic and for once say what you mean." He would have added something about how dashed irritating it was for the Lady to eavesdrop on even his most intimate conversations, but as she was probably eavesdropping at the moment, that comment seemed unnecessary—as was, perhaps, the entire conversation.

"You said to him," Galadriel said serenely, as if Gandalf weren't the slightest bit irked, "I have been, and always shall be, your friend."

"Yes, and that is the truth."

"Is it?"

"Of course! Whatever are you getting at?"

"It is true that you have been his friend, but 'have been', as our grammarian Erestor would say, is in the past; 'shall be', on the other hand, is the future tense."

'So you were listening in then, too,' Gandalf sighed. Suddenly he had a disconcerting thought. Had Galadriel ever eavesdropped when he was with Edwen Nana? He decided he had better suppress the idea, for it was altogether too disturbing.

"Past tense, future tense—what is your point?" he growled.

"I hope you have not raised hope where there is none."

This gave Gandalf pause. Had he said something that Legolas might interpret as meaning that the wizard would return someday?

"My Lady," he said, suddenly contrite, "I have completed the task set me when I was dispatched to Middle-earth, and I do not know whether I shall ever be charged with another task that would bring me hence. I would not hurt the lad for all the wealth of Erebor, so I hope he does not take amiss anything that I have said."

"But perhaps you were speaking the truth and did not know it."

Gandalf stared at Galadriel, who smiled back provokingly. "Mithrandir, for long we endured comforted by the words 'There is always hope'. Are these words no less true now than formerly?"

Gandalf was too nonplussed to answer. To settle his confused thoughts, he pulled out his pipe and began to clean its bowl. On his other side, Elrond had said nothing but had been intently listening to the exchange between Galadriel and Gandalf. 'It is too much to hope that I will ever see Arwen again', he said to himself, 'but were Galadriel's words regarding Legolas meant for me as well as Gandalf?' He looked searchingly at Galadriel, but the Lady, smiling enigmatically, was looking forward and did not return his glance.

While Galadriel and Gandalf conversed, Legolas remained on the balcony, looking at the path taken by the wagon long after it had disappeared around a corner of the winding road. At last he heard someone cough gently, and he smiled as Gimli came to stand by him. The dwarf carried a goblet of wine in one hand and a key in the other. He proffered the wine to Legolas, who gladly took it. He had not realized how thirsty he was.

As Legolas sipped the wine, Gimli brandished the key. "Elrond gave me this. It unlocks the door to his private stock," he proclaimed. "I reckon he thought his good wine would be wasted on those rapscallions. Be wasted on me, too, but I have a plan. I mean to dole it out to you. Careful-like of course, because we both know you can't hold your liquor."

"Since I can't hold my liquor," smiled Legolas, "it may be best if this cache were shared with others. Such a step would lessen the chance that I might overindulge is spite of your precautions."

The dwarf scrunched up his face in thought. "Right. Don't want to run any risks, seeing as you are an elf and delicate by nature."

"You are wise, Gimli."

"Of course I'm wise. I'm a—"

"Dwarf," finished Legolas, smiling even more broadly. "O wise dwarf, let us put your plan into effect this very night. Elladan and Elrohir will be feeling the absence of their father, Erestor and Glorfindel the absence of their friend. Let us have a family supper tonight: you and I, Elladan and Elrohir, and Erestor and Glorfindel. We shall reminisce about Elrond, and about Bilbo and Frodo and Gandalf and Galadriel."

At the mention of Galadriel, Gimli sighed. "Galadriel," he said softly. He touched his hand to his tunic, where a little pouch lay hidden, inside it the lock of Galadriel's hair. Then he brightened as the touch brought back the words they had exchanged in the garden. "I shall see to the drink," he said enthusiastically. "And I shall go to the Cook and ask him to provide food for five elves and one dwarf. Where shall we sup?"

"Tell him that we shall dine in Elrond's chambers," chorused two voices. Gimli and Legolas turned around as Elrohir and Elladan stepped upon the balcony. "Imladris still lives," said Elrohir. "Several more years will pass before the last of its elves depart for the West. Let us therefore not treat any part of it as if it were a sepulcher, a repository of memory but not a place wherein new ones may be shaped. Above all, our father's chambers shall be a place for merriment rather than mourning."

Gimli and Legolas both agreed that this plan was an excellent idea. Legolas in particular wished to associate only joyful thoughts with Elrond's private rooms. The place settled upon, they returned to thoughts of preparing the dinner.

"Friend Gimli," smiled Elladan, "you are our guest. Do not trouble yourself about the food for tonight's dinner. I myself shall go to the Cook." He bowed low to the dwarf and vanished.

"Now I am left looking ungracious," lamented Elrohir. "How shall I equal my brother's courtesy? Ah, I know," he suddenly exclaimed. "As Elladan is seeing to the comestibles, I shall relieve you of the bother of seeing to the libations."

Before Gimli could answer, Elrohir had snatched the key from his hand and bolted out the door. The dwarf stood dumbfounded for several seconds before shouting an indignant 'hey!' and scurrying off in pursuit.

Behind him, Legolas laughed aloud. Then he turned and again looked down into the courtyard. Now that he was alone, the elf welcomed the chance to rehearse his final conversation with Gandalf, for the wizard's parting sentence echoed in his mind: "I have been, and always shall be, your friend." 'Future tense, that last phrase', he thought to himself, dredging up memories of Erestor's grammar lessons. 'I wonder why Gandalf used the future tense when we will never meet again. That is odd—singular, really, for Gandalf is always so careful with his words'.

Mulling the sentence over for a while, the elf at last settled it that, parted though they were by the Sundering Sea, they would nonetheless always be present in each other's memory. 'Yes', Legolas said to himself, 'Well may he say that he has been, and always shall be, my friend. And I may say the same to him, to the Gandalf who will always be present in my memory: I have always been, and always shall be, your friend. I have a future, and your memory—our shared past—is part of my future'.

With that, Legolas turned his back on the deserted courtyard and went in search of his friends. The Fellowship and the Quest were at an end, but the elf would not pine for departed friends. Instead, moment by moment the elf's spirits rose and he resolved that his and Gimli's tale should not be at an end. He recalled a line from a manuscript that he had spirited out of Erestor's library. The book was a collection of those sorts of narratives that the tutor discouraged his charges from reading. He thought them far too fantastical to impart the salutary lessons that he deemed appropriate for young and impressionable minds. Legolas, however, had delighted in the stories. In tale after tale, the hero and his company set out to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man had gone before.

"I'm going on an adventure," Legolas shouted gleefully to the Head Cook as he ran by the kitchen.

"I'll bake biscuits!" the Cook shouted after him.

Laughing at another sign that his past would live on into his future, the elf raced on to find his friends and to launch his latest (but most assuredly not his last) enterprise.

The Parallel Quest is now complete. I set out to retell the events covered from the creation of the Fellowship to Frodo's departure from Middle-earth from Legolas's point of view, and I have now done so. However, as the Road Goes Ever On, so too does Legolas's story. He is, after all, an immortal elf, and I look forward to sending him out into Middle-earth for more adventures.