Tindómiel is twenty-five when her father brings her to his private study to discuss Fate. Hers, specifically.
Tindómiel already knows what he will say; her older brother is terrible at keeping secrets and she has only ever had to smile to extract information from anyone. Her bright smile (fake, all her smiles are fake) works on everyone, her mother included, except for her father Elros.
"When your uncle and I were given the ability to choose our Fate, whether to be counted among Elves or Men, we each chose differently," her father begins, as Tindómiel knows he began with Vardamir, as he will with Manwendil and Atanalcar. "Everyone knows that Elrond was told his children would also have the choice to be counted among Men or Elves, but few are aware that I was told the same. And so the time has come to inform you, as I have informed your older brother, and will inform your younger brothers when they reach twenty-five years of age as well."
Tindómiel doesn't speak but she smiles. It is an echo of the smile her father wears after he is finished, small, and a bit sad around the edges, and Tindómiel knows her father is aware of the choice she will make (was always going to make) and the thought does not feel as bitter as the tart cherries she loves which grow in the king's private garden.
The thing is, Tindómiel is the only one of her siblings besides her eldest brother who is plagued with foresight, but her gift (curse, it is a curse and she has met her uncle enough, is close enough with her father, to be aware they too share the same opinion) is stronger, much stronger, than Vardamir's.
Tindómiel's earliest memories are not the joyful laughter of her father, nor her mother's violet eyes sparkling with joy or her brother's teasing hair pulling. Tindómiel's earliest memories are of her nightmares, which she learned later were visions, and the most frequent one, the one that occurs over and over again, is the most terrifying thing she has ever witnessed.
(A mighty black wave rising from the sea to blot out the eagle-storms in the sky and drowning the legacy of her father which has turned to darkness and evil.)
Tindómiel does not, cannot, allow her potential descendants to succumb to such a fate. And while she knows she cannot prevent such a Doom—the bitter knowledge in her father's eyes as her child-self explained her night terrors—she can at least remove herself and her bloodline from falling along with the rest of her siblings' descendants.
"I choose to be counted among the Elves," she tells her father as tears silent track down her snow-white face.
Her father smiles again, half joyful, half sad, because he has always known that just as he has sundered his fate from that of his twin, (and his niece who will not be born for another Age of the world will do so to her father) Tindómiel will sunder her fate from that of her brothers, her mother, and himself.
Two Ages later, after her uncle Elrond has come back to Imladris from the wedding of her cousin Arwen and her many-greats nephew Aragorn II and ask her how she made the choice she did, Tindómiel will tell her uncle about his brother, her father, and how he knew well before Elrond's wife was even born that each of them would know the same pain, but would carry it with a bit of joy to know their children would be happy at least.
Privately, Tindómiel will think that at least Arwen had made her choice out of love and not fear and despair.
When she finally sails to Valinor with her uncle, she will be happy that at least her foresight will no longer be a curse of dark visions, grief, and pain. She will be happy that when they turn black once more they will be a herald of the reuniting of her family in whole.
