Work Text:
He understands himself through slivers of Otherness and One-of-Us. To be King is to be othered. So, too, is to not be King. A failure of seed and effort of a mother to provide hope for her people. She who devoted her entire being to that cause. I gave hope, I reserved none for myself she said as she died.
Aragorn was gentle with her, he held her hand, he said he loved her and would always remember her and that he would do his duty as she wanted him to. Later, years and years later, to someone who knows what it is to hold heavy burdens Aragorn asked, How can that be said to a son who did not ask for such sacrifice to be made on his behalf?
And Bilbo replied, I don’t think she meant it like that. In my experience, the dying are sometimes speaking to those already dead rather than the living in front of them. Tell me, Aragorn, do you look much like your father?
/
He is a Dúnedain, he is a Man of Gondor, he is a child of Imladris, he has journeyed to Lothlórien, he is a Ranger, he is a Prophecy Come True, he is Hope, he is Legend, he is Healer and King.
The first time he met Arwen he called her Lúthien. Thought they were in some sort of tale and that this would save them. What a story to choose! Beren and Lúthien and their love and their deaths and their myths. She had sighed but had not contested the comparison and it took him years to understand the exhaustion that comes out of being seen more as a dead forefather instead of a person of this present moment.
/
He was in Bree, once, and asked a man, How do you understand yourself?
And the man ordered them more ale and told Aragorn, Look, Strider, you’re a man, you’re a northerner, did you know your mother? Father? There you go. You’re that.
I had a foster father as well, Aragorn replied. Who was more father to me than my own father who died before I was born.
So we all have dead parents, the man shrugged. My own father died when I was two. My mother remarried to an angry man, a right misery to live with but then I left. Did you leave?
Did I leave what?
Wherever it is your head thinks you are?
Later that night, the man had switched to firewater and Aragorn was still slowly drinking ale, Aragorn asked, Have you been in love?
The man sipped his liquor. He was a mangy fellow with straw hair and a round nose whose skin was weather worn with deep lines. His lips were too large and his chin broad. He replied, Course I have. Girl once, when I was young, lived south of here a few good miles and we courted but then fever came through. It was a bad year.
I am sorry for it.
So am I.
I love a woman…she lives, will outlive me almost certainly, but I worry we are doomed.
The man squinted at Aragorn. Took him in, with that drunken stare, and shook his head. Don’t go in with that mindset, boy, you’ll fix yourself bad if you do. Did you tell her you’re doomed?
I compared us, once, to doomed lovers. Do you know the tale of Beren and Lúthien?
Not as such. That’s one of them elven tales, isn’t it?
It is. And they were doomed in love, Beren a mortal and Lúthien an elf-maiden.
Ah but you’re both mortal (Aragorn didn’t correct his misperception) so scrap that nonsense and get on with it. The man then laughed and slapped Aragorn on the back. You’re a queer one, Strider. Where was it that you said you’re from?
He hadn’t said and he was tempted to lie or equivocate or change the subject but something about the closing in of a gentle winter’s evening and the quiet of the Prancing Pony and the congenial drunkenness of the man before him, who called himself Torald, had Aragorn being honest: Imladris. Rivendell. I was raised in the house of Elrond.
The man laughed. You’re having me on. Then he noted Aragorn’s lack of smiling along with him and his eyes became bowls. You’re not having me on.
No, I’m not.
Blimey. So you’re an elf.
No, I am a man.
But you’ve got elf in you.
Not as such.
But you’re related to an elf. You’re not one of us, being the point, right?
Aragorn frowned, he shook his head, No, no, I am Man just as you are. I was raised in the north just as you were.
The man half-smiled and patted Aragorn’s hand, I’ve no doubt you think you’re just like me but you aren’t are you? Ever shoveled pig shit?
I – no.
You should shovel some pig-shit. Then you’ll be like me. But I like you all the same.
/
In Imladris, a brief respite from patrolling the roads and fields of men like his friend at the Prancing Pony, Aragorn took tea with Elrond and says, ‘You never made me tend the animals when I was a boy.’
They are in Elrond’s study with windows closed against the winter air, though uncovered by drapes so crisp light of the early, low December sun comes in to glint off shined wood covered with carpets laid down in autumn. With the fire there is no chill to permeate clothes and they are comfortable in their studied silence of books, papers, one another.
Aragorn loves the stillness of Rivendell. The sounds of nature are present, of course, but there is a sense of sacred calm that is woven into the land. Something akin to what it means to be close to the gods, he was once told. A dark, reverent place within the heart that is safe and warm and filled with something like truth and goodness.
Elrond sets his tea aside and folds his hands neatly on his knees. His motions are studied and deliberate. He moves with the grace of the ageless while still conveying a sense of being time-worn. It is the eyes, Aragorn always thought. The eyes are old but in a way that is different from other elves. Glorfindel has old eyes but not how Elrond does. Glorfindel has seen much, has lived much, has done much, has lost much but still, he does not show it how Elrond shows it. Aragorn’s foster father carries inside of him the results of a decision he had no control over: mortality or immortality. He named his daughter for the cousin she never met because that is how Elrond mourns.
‘Should I have made you clean stalls?’ Elrond asks.
‘I couldn’t say,’ Aragorn replies. ‘I’m not a father. But possible you should have.’
‘And when you become one, as surely you will, would you have your son clean stalls?’
‘Maybe.’ Aragorn tracks the movements of a jay-bird. Its sharp blues against the pale of the snow and barrenness of the land. ‘I couldn’t say.’
‘Where is this coming from?’
‘A late-night conversation I had with a man in Bree.’ Aragorn balances the tea on his knee. He is the cleanest he has felt in months and the most calm. Sometimes, a strange energy writhes in his chest when he thinks about the largeness of the future and the uncertainty of the world. Elrond sees him as King. Aragorn thinks, sometimes, that Elrond looks at him as though searching for Elros. That ancient decision he had no control over. Aragorn is one of the results. But mostly, Elrond sees him in his mind’s eye with a crown and a throne, a ring and a sword. He sees it because he believes in Aragorn utterly and wholly. It is overwhelming as much as it is reassuring. Aragorn goes on, ‘I mentioned that I was raised in your house and the usual result occurred. It separates me in a specific way I cannot put my finger on. I said that I was a Man like him, raised in the north like him &c.’
‘And he asked if you had been made to clean animal stalls?’
‘Shovel pig-shit were his exact words,’ Aragorn replies with a grin called cheeky.
Elrond flutters one of his ethereal smiles. ‘You are not him in more ways than simply having been raised amongst elves, son of Arathorn, son of Kings.’
Aragorn shrugs. He is aware of this. That isn’t, exactly, what was being got at by the man’s comments. ‘His name,’ Aragorn explains, ‘is Torald and he has some Southron in him. Rough life, good mother, terrible stepfather, his lady-love died of pestilence or fever, and now he drinks.’
‘You like him,’ Elrond muses.
‘I do, for what it’s worth. He’s not a likeable man, but I like him.’
If this were someone else, Aragorn would feel defensive of Torald. The sad man who always lights up when Aragorn slinks into the Prancing Pony for hot food and a real bed. But Elrond holds no judgement for this dirty drunk who tells Aragorn things Aragorn doesn’t like to hear but might need to hear.
‘Sometimes, there is a stillness that disturbs men,’ Elrond says after some thought. ‘My brother spoke of it. When he chose a mortal life and lived amongst Man, he was told that he moved…wrong, for lack of a better word at this moment. Having been raised amongst my kin, you move as we do, and perhaps that causes discomfort. Even if the people themselves are unconscious of it.’
‘Bilbo has never been discomforted and he is mortal.’
‘Bilbo riddled with a wyrm of old and befriended Thorin. One of these tasks being harder than the other. Bilbo, you understand, is therefore different.’
Aragorn laughs, Elrond smiles, the soft winter sun reflects off pearling snow.
/
When Aragorn meets Lord Boromir as a full man and not a newborn which was when he truly first met Lord Boromir, though Boromir would not remember, naturally, Lord Boromir looks him over after the council and says, ‘I suppose you’ll do.’
‘I clean up alright,’ Aragorn promises. ‘I’ve been told that if I seemed more fair than foul it would be a sign to mistrust me. Ask Sam, he’ll explain.’
Boromir has a particular stillness to him as well. Which Aragorn wishes to point out to Elrond, to say that not all men are put-off by such things therefore the Otherness that disallows for the One-of-Usness must be more than that. But then, Aragorn recalls that Boromir’s father is Denethor which is why Boromir seems particularly adept at navigating difficult people and is also, probably, why he is so quiet and still.
‘Is this something you wish for?’ Boromir asks. This eldest son of Denethor spins slowly in a circle, taking in the beauty of Rivendell. They are in the full thrust of autumn and Aragorn is planning to leave with Elladin and Elrohir to scout out information on the enemy. To help Gandalf and Elrond determine the best time for this thing called the Fellowship to depart.
‘To be King of Gondor?’
A miniscule incline of that noble head.
‘It is something I am born for,’ Aragorn replies after some thought.
‘But not something you are required to take upon yourself,’ Boromir says. He faces Aragorn, looking at him directly. Here is a man made of the marble and strong stone of the great city of Minas Tirith. Here is a sentinel of old. A guardian carved of good rock against which the storms of the enemy can pound and lash but never wholly erode. ‘I would hope for a king who wants to lead and love our people. Not one who merely feels obliged. Since there is a choice.’
‘Is there? Aragorn asks. ‘I, at times, do not think so.’
‘For you? Of course there is. You were not born to Gondor how I was born to Gondor. You can choose Gondor, or you can choose to leave that to the next generation.’
Boromir takes his leave of the small corner of a garden they are in, he pauses near Aragorn as he goes, ‘Others will ask this, so I am preparing you for the question: how is it that you can understand yourself as a man of Gondor if you were raised in the world of elves?’
‘This is not the first I have been tasked with such a thought.’
‘Good.’ Boromir curtly bows. ‘Gods bless you, my lord Aragorn.’
Not born to Gondor how Boromir was born to Gondor. This is true. Aragorn half wishes to reply that when he traveled through the land as Thorongil he came to love Gondor and those who might one day be his people. And is love of people and land and language and culture not enough? To him, it is. And likely to Boromir it is, too. But this child of the white city is sliding his blade into the meat of a truth that Aragorn has not wrestled with as mightily as he should have in all these many previous years: Is this something you wish for? Since there is a choice.
There isn’t, if he wishes to wed Arwen. But this is bigger than his personal desires.
A month later, Aragorn has returned to Imladris with news of the movements of the dark lord’s servants. He spends hours with Gandalf and Elrond pouring over maps and discussing routes. When not there, he sits with Arwen and believes they are on the precipice of something that will fundamentally change all that is between them. For good or ill he cannot say but change it will.
But, at this precise moment, he is wondering who his mother had been. Who she felt she had to be. Something he asks Arwen who lifts an eyebrow in the same manner her father does when curious about an inquiry.
‘Perhaps clarify,’ she suggests. ‘What do you mean by this: who was she? She was your mother. She was a daughter of the north. Wife of Arathorn. Who she felt she had to be? That I cannot say. I never knew her as well as my father did and even then, I do not believe she imparted her mind to him on that matter. I suspect she never considered it. Duty was stitched into her skin from birth. I do not think she ever thought about alternatives.’
They are in a small warming room near gardens that tumble down the side of the mountain into which Imladris is built. It is the first they have spent true time together since their second meeting and betrothal some thirty-eight years ago. Arwen having lived long in Lothlorien and when she finally returned to Imladris, Aragorn was abroad on errands to steel the world against the might of Sauron. They caught passing glimpses of one another. A few hours here or there. Maybe a day, if they were lucky.
He explained this to Frodo who said, So you’re just getting to know her, then. And Aragorn had to sit down for a few minutes and think about it.
Right now, Aragorn watches Arwen turn the ring of Barahir over in hand. His gift to her, all those years ago. The ring that comes with a sword and a crown and a myth and a legend and a hope and a fear and a fate – heavy. It is a heavy ring.
He says, ‘Her last words to me—'
‘Ónen i-Estel Edain, ú-chebin estel anim.’
‘Yes, she gave hope to the Dúnedain but kept none for herself.’ Aragorn continues to watch Arwen turn the ring around and around and around. Snakes eating tails, snakes telling tales like in the legends that Elrond would tell him when he was a boy just breeched and making havoc. ‘Why would she say such a thing? That she gave everything to our people through me, as though I had asked for it. As though she were nothing but a… Did my father love her?’
‘I understand that he did,’ Arwen replies. Her eyes soften as she looks at Aragorn, as though she were trying to recall something of someone long remembered yet somewhat forgotten. Elven memories and minds work differently to that of man, naturally, and how they remember the dead is a strange experience of forgetting in order to remember new dead but holding onto strings of what had been of the old dead.
‘That is something I suppose.’
‘Tell me, what has you asking these questions?’
‘Something someone said about my being raised here. How would I know who I am in the world of man if how I came to know myself was through the world of Elves.’
The fire cracks, a few sparks skittering onto the smooth stone that rings the hearth. They flare, briefly, before becoming dark with their death. Aragorn leans forward to gently brush them back into their proper place.
‘Lord Boromir has much to adjust to,’ Arwen eventually replies.
‘He only ever asks me questions that are reasonable,’ Aragorn says. ‘He loves his people, he wants to ensure their King is worthy of them. I would do the same were I him.’
‘Which you are.’
‘You tell me so regularly…He asked me how I liked noise.’
Arwen half-smiles, a confused expression, as though to ask, Why ever would he inquire about that?
‘It is quiet here and Minas Tirith can be quite loud,’ Aragorn shrugs. ‘I haven’t told him, yet, that I have spent much time there. It would…given his father’s reception of me and that – hm…’ He flounders off into silence.
Arwen tucks the ring away into her gowns then laces her fingers and bows her head in thought, which may take some time so Aragorn relaxes into his chair, into the grave silence of the room, into the quiet intimacy of their conversation. He stares out the window as a light snow begins to softly dust the land.
From the vantage point of the warming room, even seated at the fire, Aragorn can make out one of the many ponds and rivulets that run through Imladris. This one has a slender statue of a doe and fawn rendered as though they are leaping back into the forest of the surrounding hills. Walking around it, bundled against the weather, is the lord in question. Boromir pauses to admire the statues then he bends to inspect the pond. He stands, turns, goes to the stone ledge to lean and look down to the misting valley. The naked trees that had been a riot of fire only a month ago clattering their branches in a sudden breeze. Boromir stares out over the land for longer than Aragorn expects before he at length disappears down a path, out of view, and presumably towards the guest house.
‘You have a skill,’ Arwen suddenly speaks. Aragorn withdraws his mind from the window to the fire and their conversation. ‘You have a skill in building trust with those who have cause to most mistrust you – whether through familial history, cultural views, misguided folk tales. I have no doubt that you will rise to this occasion and that Lord Boromir will come to see your merit. As for your mother, I believe what you are trying to ask is whether she was happy and whether she lived a life that fulfilled her.’
‘Am I?’ Aragorn asks, half with a smile that could be called cheeky if he were not Aragorn. But Arwen seems to recognize it for what it is and suffuses a sense of mild amusement at it. ‘At least one of us knows what I’m on about.’
‘You often know what you want, what you wish to know, you simply fail to ask it directly. Alas, I cannot answer that question for you. No one can. But she loved you, and she was loved by you. And she loved your father and I believe he loved her. And she loved Imladris and was loved by all here. If that is any solace.’
It is and it isn’t. Aragorn takes her hand in his, turning it over to trace the lines of her palms. They are different striations to that of Man, and he thumbs one that runs parallel to the outside of her hand. In the lore of Imladris it is called the swordsman’s line and speaks to whether a person will see battle. Arwen’s is deep and chainmail-linked which means yes, she will. Of course, not all battles are fought with swords or witnessed on fields. Some are within hearts, minds, souls, and families.
‘Do you wish you had an upbringing elsewhere?’ Arwen suddenly asks.
‘No,’ Aragorn replies. He lifts his eyes to hers. ‘I was well reared here. I was well taught and well loved. I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
Arwen flicks a smile across her face. She settles back into her chair and with her free hand plucks up the volume she had been reading before Aragorn entered. She resumes the pose of a scholar lost in thought and ageless, as though a ghost caught in time.
/
Once, when Aragorn was no more than nine, he fell into a pen where a bull was pastured and the great beast raised its shaggy head and stared at him with fiery eyes. He thought he saw the blue-white of flame in that animal gaze and was hypnotized by it. He had a mad thought that this what it must feel like to have a father – to be awestruck and terrified and envious. To be made of the same materials of flesh, blood, and bone but to be fashioned completely differently.
With such thoughts, Aragorn found himself unable to move, stick on hands and knees as the bull slowly walked over. It was early spring, still cold, and the beast’s great breath steamed the air. Aragorn, still only Estel at this point, marvelled at it. He thought of its strength and its vigour and how fearless it seemed.
The bull paused several yards from Aragorn and waited. It tossed its head so its horns were caught bright in the sun. Beneath Aragorn’s hands and knees new grass bursting forth from icy ground. Clover will come, so too will heather, gorse, other bright wildflowers, also tall bottle rushes by the pond at the back of the paddock.
Aragorn shivered. Still frozen on the ground waiting for the bull to do something. They were in a strange dance and once whose rules Aragorn did not know. The fence was near him, behind him, and Aragorn began to slowly crawl backwards, not wanting to startle the great creature before him.
Like a god of old, its gaze could smelt a man’s soul. The bull so beautiful, so fearsome. Once escaped from of the paddock—he had inched under the fencing, roughing up his tunic and his hose fully mud-stained—Aragorn stood. Only then did he understand how truly far apart he and the bull were. While in there, on his knees, he had felt as if they were inches from each other. As if they were breathing the same air.
The bull tossed his head again, snorted, and walked off. Aragorn ran all the way back to the main hall of Imladris, tracked mud and grass in with him, and found Elrond to ask him if this was so.
And Elrond pressed a hand to Aragorn’s face, that broad fatherly palm that had held swords and killed more men than numbers Aragorn could count to, and he said, I too lost my father when I was young and so I cannot answer your question. But I hope I am like a father to you, in the ways that matter.
You are, Aragorn chimed. But I am not afraid of you.
Elrond sat back, lips slightly parted, a worrying crease beginning to dent his brow: Why should you think you should be frightened of your father?
Aragorn shrugged, That’s what I heard from a human boy once. Perhaps it is different with elves.
Elrond set aside his papers and though Aragorn was beginning to become too big Elrond pulled him onto his lap, not minding the mud on his clothes, and said, Let me tell you the tale of the war between the dwarves and dragons. Have you heard of the dragon Scatha who was slain by a Man called Fram?
Aragorn stoutly shook his head.
Scatha was a fearsome beast, who crawled like a slow creeping death freezing Men with fear through the use of his icy breath. He was something to fear and something to find wonderous, in its own right. Often both things are true at once.
Like a legend, like a king of old, Aragorn said.
Some, yes, but not all kings are that.
/
There is something about the Fellowship that cements Aragorn’s future more firmly than anything before. Not even plighting his troth with Arwen carved this line in the earth so firmly. Never before has the plough been there for him to put his hand to. Now, as they walk and run and hide and travel in midnight shadow, he feels as though some forward thrust of history is taking him in hand and events gathering at speeds faster than even an Éothéod horse can travel.
On Caradhras—that almost life-ending decision, who knew a mountain would tear itself down to be rid of them?—Boromir tells Aragorn, ‘We have to shovel the snow and get to that rock behind us – see it? That is where the snow lessens.’
Aragorn readily agrees and they take turns being the front of this two-man path clearing force as behind them the remainder of the Fellowship crowd around a meagre fire with fast dwindling supplies. Boromir had said, I am a child of the mountains, we must bring wood or we will perish. He had been right.
Part-way through, they’re pausing to rest, Boromir says, ‘I think this will work.’
‘Our plan to get off the mountain? Yes, I think so too.’
‘I meant once you are King. We are diverse, we think differently, you are much like my father and brother and the two of them are too much alike by half which is why they are the way they are about one another. But I am different – too much like the Middle Men, such as the Éothéod, my brother says,’ a wan smile, ‘but that’s younger brothers in a summary.’
‘I thought Faramir revered you.’
‘Faramir loves me,’ Boromir shrugs. ‘That does not mean he likes me. I love him, naturally, and I like him a great deal. But,’ a second shrug, ‘we have our differences. I think it is hard on him, I being the eldest and therefore preferred by our father even though our father loves him just as well. Complications.’ Boromir subtly rolls his eyes. The first Aragorn has seen him do so and Aragorn flashes a grin because learning to see Boromir’s silent colour commentary has been a slow lesson. Boromir continues, ‘But you and I will work well together as Steward and King, once my father passes. We see the world very differently and that is good.’
‘Gandalf told me that you once asked him why the Stewards weren’t made Kings of Gondor.’
Boromir pushes himself up from their crouched rest: ‘We have a mountain to climb down from.’
‘I understand you were but a boy.’
‘Fifteen or so and filled with forward thinking opinions.’ Boromir slides an unreadable expression across his face. ‘If I didn’t think you the right one for my people you wouldn’t touch the throne. But I believe I am coming to that conclusion—’
‘You said, before we left Imladris—’
‘I am being honest, my lord Aragorn, what I said there was what needed to be said to make things happen. What I am telling you now is my truth. Because I am coming to believe you will help bring hope and restore peace, should Sauron be defeated.’
Aragorn fish mouths for a half second before saying that Boromir is cunning when he wants to be and that Aragorn will watch out for this in the future. He smiles, a saucy expression of amusement, but it lasts for but a second. Aragorn adds, more sombrely, ‘You are Denethor’s son.’
‘Of course I am. Who else should I be?’
If on Caradhras Boromir was coming to see who Aragorn could be as King, it is in Moria that Aragorn begins to see who Boromir could be as Steward: selfless, fearless, filled with boundless energy, strong, capable, compassionate, and also just a mere man like any other.
Aragorn has no mourning rituals because he was raised in Imladris and death was rare until he was older and then it was so often experienced in relative isolation. When Gandalf falls, all he can think is that they must keep going. They must arrive in Lothlórien before nightfall lest they find themselves overrun by orcs. Legolas keeps saying, Mithrandir cannot die. Mithrandir is one of the Wise. Mithrandir cannot die. What does it mean that he is fallen? Frodo is inconsolable in a silent, studious fashion. Sam and Merry are lost. Pippin keeps weeping that it is his fault, because of the well and the arrow and the noise he made. Gimli seems as in shock as Legolas. One of the Wise! One of the Wise!
Boromir to Aragorn in private council a few feet away, ‘We must give them a moment for their grief.’
‘We don’t have time.’
‘We have fifteen minutes.’
‘We don’t have fifteen minutes, we have two.’
‘They must have time,’ Boromir insists.
‘They will have time in Lorien,’ Aragorn replies. ‘That is my decision. Will you abide by it?’
Boromir puts hands on his hips, he wants to argue, Aragorn can see his disagreement. The weeks and weeks of him asking: Why not the Gap of Rohan? Why not these other, safer routes? And Gandalf had his reasons for his choices and not even Aragorn was privy to his thoughts so he did not know all Gandalf knew, only that he trusted Gandalf and will do all that Gandalf would have done because no the Wise cannot see all ends but they can see more than either of them.
‘Can you see forward enough to know this is the right decision?’ Boromir finally asks. ‘My father as the Sight as does my brother. I’ve none of it. Do you?’
‘I have some…it’s unreliable and no, I cannot see the immediate future. But it is what Gandalf would have us do.’
‘And you always do as Gandalf advises?’
Aragorn opens his mouth to defend his friend – who has just fallen before them, by the heavens! – but he will not fall to argument at this time. Boromir is asking questions a general would ask, a commander of men, a leader of legions, a Captain of Gondor.
‘Is there something I should know?’ Boromir asks into Aragorn’s silence. They are being quiet, despite this minor disagreement, because Boromir knows first and foremost the value of leadership presenting a united front. Arguments and quarrels are best had away from the eyes of soldiers or, in this case, their companions. ‘Especially about Éomarc, that is to say Rohan. Is it truly just Saruman he was concerned about?’
‘To the best of my knowledge.’
‘Then Éomer and Théodred must be told, if they haven’t sniffed it out already. I know, I know, cross that bridge later. Look,’ Boromir glances at the Fellowship then back to Aragorn, ‘I am cautious of this Golden Wood because I have heard it said that no man who enters leaves unscathed. That there is a witch who resides within its depths, and she does not willingly let go whom she ensnares.’
That old story, Aragorn doesn’t sneer but he thinks it’s on his face by Boromir’s half-step back. His little up-down assessment: more elf than man? More man than elf? Who will he favour in his kingly decisions? And he’s marrying an elf, too. Aragorn can see Boromir’s inner ledger lining up items to assess and account for.
‘Please,’ Aragorn replies more softly than he feels. ‘Do not say unscathed. No man leaves unchanged, this I concede as true, but say not unscathed. The stories of a witch are just that, stories. The Lady Galadriel is powerful, but she is no more a witch than your father or Lord Elrond. She is a great elven leader and worthy of our respect. I did not take you for someone who would judge a people before you met them. You speak warmly of other races of Middle Earth and have complained, if in your veiled way, of others you know who categorize Man into different estimations of worth and goodness.’
‘You are right,’ Boromir finally says. ‘We cannot stay here long, we will go to the Golden Wood, I will support your decision in this, but I want it noted that I raised concerns before we took this path.’
‘Your concerns are noted.’
‘Good.’ Boromir curtly bows his head. He turns on his heel to help rouse their companions but does a half-turn back to Aragorn to add, ‘should we start taking minutes of our conversations for future record? My father is a great believer in having a written record of council deliberations, even two-man councils.’
Aragorn smiles. He ignores the dark warning in his heart that this may be the last true smile he experiences for some while yet.
/
One time, Aragorn was riding with Elrond, a week or so after Elrond sat Aragorn down and explained his heritage (fate) to him and Aragorn wanted to know why his mother wasn’t there to also explain it and Elrond did not have an answer and it was one of those moments for him where the Wise had no wisdom to spare because some mysteries of the heart and of love are beyond even them when it comes to words.
The day had opened beautifully and Elrond seemed to want to make something like amends for something he could not name and so they were taking one of Aragorn’s favourite paths when Elrond’s horse startled – had it been a snake? Aragorn can’t remember. Some little wyrm of distant relation to the likes of Smaug and Scatha. What Aragorn does remember is Elrond being thrown and hitting his head to land face-first in a river.
Elves can die. They are not wholly immortal.
Aragorn raced off his horse and dragged Elrond out of the water, hair sopping and clothes wet-through, muddy. And in that moment Aragorn had this necessary revelation that Elrond is simply Elrond and he is made of flesh and blood and bone and sinew with meaty organs, soft tissue, skin and fat and hair, the same as him and anyone else. It was a strange moment, the earthiness of his foster father, but it removed the shine of the heavens from Elrond that Aragorn always felt blinded his eyes a little, and it was good.
He explains this to Boromir and Gimli in Lothlórien and Gimli says, ‘It’s always a queer moment when we realize our fathers are no different than us. They do their best, some are more successful than others.’
And Aragorn agrees, yes, this is true, but there was something else in that moment that he cannot put his finger on. Some understanding of the shared, twin fates that elves and men have when put unconscious face first into a river. Death comes, she cares not for your race, if you are stabbed or hanged or beaten to a pulp or drowned or burnt or shot full with arrows or any number of other means.
‘I’m not sure that’s an issue I have,’ Boromir replied when Aragorn laid this out. He had been faintly bemused, in his noble and grave way. ‘My father being no more than a mere mortal.’
‘Have you informed your lord father that he is no more than a mere mortal?’ Gimli asks with a laugh. He pulls a bowl of leaf for his pipe and begins the ritual of smoking. It is passed around between the three of them cementing, in dwarven custom, friendship and brotherhood. Aragorn had asked if they should wait for Legolas, since they’re apparently fast friends now, and Gimli had rolled his eyes and declared he’ll never live this down but that is fine, that is alright, he will persevere. The friendship of the elf is worth it.
‘If you have,’ Aragorn adds, ‘I’m sure that was a lively conversation.’
Boromir smiles, fully, for a second or two then replies, ‘I have, more or less. He is no longer young, and the defence of our people takes a toll. I said that he ought to leave more to Faramir and I. That he has served Gondor better than most of her Stewards, but he need not carry the world on his shoulders because it is killing him. It will be his death. My death, too, but hopefully not for many years yet and I will have nephews to worry over me by then.’
‘What did he say?’ Gimli asks.
‘He asked if I was calling him old. (Gimli laughs at this.) He demanded to know if I thought he had entered his dotage, that the second childhood was ripe for plucking. I said no father, I am merely remarking on the passage of time, its impacts on a man’s body, and your unavoidable mortality. I then asked him: What think you of me, father? That I’m chopped liver? That I am not equal to it?’
‘I imagine he said no,’ Aragorn replies.
‘Oh, he said he thought me well equal but wanted to carry this burden a little longer yet &c. &c. then he said that I always had a problem with back-talk when it came to him and that he was too lenient when I was a boy. But that’s what he says whenever he is done being piqued with me and wants to return to amiable relations.’
Aragorn laughs, loud. He can imagine Denethor’s face during the conversation and thinks Boromir brave for saying it to his father. Boromir shrugs through the compliments: ‘Fathers, eh?’
/
Once, in the early days of the Fellowship, Aragorn heard Gimli asking Boromir why it is he never married seeing as he was Captain of Gondor and first son of the Steward &c. Boromir didn’t have an answer beyond, Oh, you know, never seemed the right time.
We’re in a war, Gimli had replied, there’s never a right time in war save for the present moment.
I am not a man made for marriage, Boromir finally said. I am not like my family in many respects. Though I am lucky and they mostly forgive me for it.
/
Later, later and later and later, gods they will be in Helm’s Deep and Aragorn will be thinking of Boromir, briefly, and Gimli will say, ‘He understood your challenges with existing between peoples and expectations. He said as much to me, that it must be hard to be presented with clothes to wear by a thousand different roles and peoples and that you’re do it with grace.’
‘He felt he needed to be forgiven for his differences, whatever they may have been. He never shared them with me. I do not feel I need forgiveness, I just hope they do not cause too many waves when the time comes. He will make a gesture to indicate the crown and kingship.’
‘Have you spoken with Théoden? I heard tell from that spit-fire nephew of his that he was not from Rohan. Or not raised in Rohan. Doesn’t speak the language comfortably. He might have some insights.’
A thought that will not have occurred to Aragorn until Gimli suggests it and he will tuck it away for later and he will not have time to ask Théoden until it is too late and Théoden will be dead and that old guard of rulers coming into lands they feel foreign to, even if it is their people and their right to the throne, are gone.]
/
Amon Hen.
/
Gods. What is there to say about Amon Hen? Save that Aragorn never wished more fervently to have the Sight of which Boromir spoke – that of Elrond. Galadriel. Gandalf.
Aragorn has some talent for it, as he told Boromir he is not without the Gift, but he is not Gandalf. Gods, even Denethor has a stronger talent – or, rather, he could call upon it more reliably than Aragorn.
If Aragorn had the foresight of his ancestors, a good man might still be alive. A Fellowship might not have foundered on the rocks. The beginning of a friendship might not have ended abruptly. Prematurely. Permanently.
If he were not so much a Man, if he had drawn stronger from his Elven side, the knife would not have cut through this cloth of life so completely.
/
How will you know who you are in the world of man if how you came to know yourself through the world of Elves?
/
Faramir will later say to Aragorn, ‘While I always knew I loved my brother, I did not realize how much I did until he was lost.’
And Aragorn will say that this is a common occurrence. Elrond, foster father, told him this of Elros and Aragorn secretly believes Elrond loved Elros more than Faramir loved Boromir therefore the realization is either worse than Faramir’s (oh gods, I knew I loved, dear gods, now what?) or better than Faramir’s (I knew I loved so I knew to expect it to hurt more than anticipated).
Or, Arwen will suggest, maybe her father’s grief and Faramir’s grief are merely different. She will say, ‘I felt the same when my mother left. She is not dead but I will never see her again therefore it is a death, in its own way. I loved her, I didn’t know what that meant until she was gone.’
Faramir will later say to Aragorn, ‘I loved him, of course, but I am also aware he had his faults.’ He will become ginger and cautious. ‘If he was difficult, I can only apologize.’
‘Difficult?’ Aragorn will ask, confused.
‘Sometimes…well, he never had the blood of the Númenor in him how we do, therefore he tended to be more like the Men of the Twilight. Such as the Rohirrim. Better than the Men of Darkness, the wild men scratching their living off rocks, but he still loved glory and honour and war as things in themselves. He might have resented what it is you represent.’
Aragorn, now called Elessar, will not know how to take this. What does he represent beyond the vague concept of hope? Hope delivered. His mother will be able to rest in peace, at least, her life and death were not in vain.
‘I did not find your brother to be difficult,’ Aragorn replies at length. ‘I found him brave, honourable, and fearless. I remember when he told us to run ahead and that he would stay behind against the Balrog if that would buy us time to escape. He knew what it would mean death. He knew what it would mean for his people and his family. Still, he offered.’
‘He would have been remembered in song.’
‘He wasn’t thinking about glory, Faramir, he was thinking about his friends and companions surviving an impossible situation.’
They are in gardens of the palace, the white tree is blooming again and the world is learning how to reckon with peace after so many years of war. Aragorn will not know what to do with Faramir’s strange and complicated grief. He will not know how to ask Faramir what it is Faramir is looking for in this conversation.
There are parts of the journey of the Fellowship that Aragorn will not spend much time looking at because it will hurt too much to do so. Boromir’s death will be one such item.
‘I did not mean to say he was without honour,’ Faramir hastens. ‘I think what I am seeking to say is that he would have found peace hard to bear.’
There will be so much unspoken at the end of that sentence that Aragorn will want to sit down but he can’t because they will be in a garden. Aragorn will pause at a trellis with a crawling vined dotted with vibrant pink and purple flowers sunning themselves in the June warmth. The air will be perfumed with early roses and rich honeysuckle.
‘Éomer doesn’t find peace difficult and he is Éothéod. I speak of men as I find them, not as…not as I read about them or from tales heard. I never found the Éothéod, so-called Men of the Twilight, to be people who seek war or glory as both a sport and an end. They rode to war because they had to, the same as the good men of Gondor. There are some who would look at certain elven kingdoms from Ages past and could assign them the same read from the outside as is given to your wife’s people. Yet, I know that things were always more complicated on the inside than the outside. The Éothéod value marshal prowess, I’ll not deny it, but as a skill and an artform. Is archery on horseback not something to marvel at? The abilities some of those men and women have? I certainly marvel. Who is to say art cannot come from what was originally a skill for war?’ Aragorn catches himself. Becomes Elessar and holds up a gentle hand, he means this to be a peaceful conversation. He amends: ‘What I mean to say is that perhaps your brother was as you said – a man who valued war and valour more than he ought. But that is not the man I met. That is not the man I knew and not the man I held as he died. For what that is worth to you, I believe the man I knew was one who was planning for a hopeful future. He spoke of peacetimes and what kingship might look like. He loved his people more than his own life and that love is possibly what killed him, in the end.’
Perhaps Boromir had some foresight after all. Tragic as it may be.
/
Estel of Imladris.
Son of Arathorn, foster son of Elrond, of Imladris
Aragorn of the Dúnedain.
Thorongil of Nowhere in Particular, but lately of Éomarc and Gondor.
Strider of Bree and the North.
Longshanks, also of Bree and the North, but in a pejorative sort of fashion.
Wingfoot of the Fellowship, of Éomarc, friend of the Éothéod.
Aragorn, or Strider, of the Fellowship, of Imladris, of the North, of the Dúnedain, of Gondor, of Éomarc, of Hollin, of the Paths of the Dead, of the rivers and trees and mountains and deep places of the earth and the golden woods and green woods and hills and dales and everything between.
Elessar of Gondor, Isildur’s Heir.
/
Aragorn used to have conversations in his mind with Arwen while he was in the wilderness of the north. Out of loneliness, out of missing her, out of a desire to know her better but he does not have her company, out of a belief that her council and advice must be as worthy as that of her father. He can count on one hand the number of times they have spent any great duration of days in one another’s company. He described it Torald, during one of his brief respites in Bree, and Torald said, This is the woman you’re doomed over?
That’s right.
Torald scratched himself. He has fleas, he told Aragorn, best stay far and Aragorn said, I’ve had some weird things in my time, as a Ranger and Torald laughed, No doubt, no doubt. Though I didn’t know elvish-non-elf-humans got fleas. Aragorn smiled, mysterious, and said no more.
Have you told her you’re doing this? Torald asked.
Aragorn had been baffled – no, he hasn’t. Why should he? Torald shrugged, Not sure rightly, but seems like something you should tell her. You still not thinking you’re doomed, yes?
It’s complicated.
Torald clearly didn’t believe him, but he listened to Aragorn as he launched into an elvish ballad and Aragorn felt that this was good enough friendship for the moment.
/
When Aragorn told Boromir he was betrothed to Arwen, daughter of Elrond, Boromir went a little squinty-about-the-eyes as if he were working through a maths equation of some difficulty. And the difficulty became clear when he said, All the lords of Gondor’s fiefs will be disappointed. Some have very marriageable daughters. Not to mention the Lady Éowyn of Éomarc. A natural alliance.
Sometimes, Aragorn felt as if he were stepping out of a legend into life, when he spoke to Boromir, and it reminded him of Denethor and he could see the resemblance even though Boromir is so very different to his father in all the best ways.
You are not married, Aragorn rejoined. They were in Moria during this conversation and murmuring by a small fire as the Fellowship slept. Is Lady Eowyn very beautiful?
She is, and fearsome. High hearted, noble, and not one to trifle with. I admire both her and her brother greatly.
And Théoden-King?
Boromir ate some cured meat then sipped a bit of water. Aragorn took this as answer enough.
He was a very workman-like King when I knew him, Aragorn continued after the pause. But that was many years ago.
He was, Boromir agreed, but age and infirmity comes for all men.
And his son? I remember Théodred’s birth, I was in Edoras for it.
He will certainly do his best, Boromir smiled. What more can we do against the relentless cruelty that is Sauron? We must do what we can, hold to hope as much as we are able, and survive. Survival it sometimes the greatest gesture of a rude nature a man can make at the Dark Lord.
Aragorn thought, in that moment, that Boromir as Steward won’t be so bad just as Boromir has begun to say that the prospect of Aragorn as King won’t be so bad. Unless his opinion had changed since Caradhras.
Later, still in Moria but time was meaningless in that place, Aragorn asked: Do I move…wrong?
Boromir, baffled, However do you mean?
Too still or somehow not how I ought. It has come up…what I am trying to get at is whether I seem sufficiently a Man and a Man of Gondor at that.
Boromir, still baffled, You seem sufficiently a Man, yes. What mean you by a Man of Gondor? You are more a Man of Gondor in some ways than I am, yet I would count myself as much a Man of Gondor as my brother and father – who you are more alike to than I. How are we defining Man of Gondor? What qualities must be possess in order to qualify as Of Gondor?
It was precisely the answer Aragorn had hoped to hear.
I don’t know, Aragorn replied. I suppose we needn’t define it.
Ask Faramir, Boromir shrugged. He has ranked everyone accordingly. I don’t pass muster, but that’s alright. He smiled, a little, and laughed, a little. Shrugged again. Brothers, eh?
/
Aragorn, Strider, Estel, Elessar, Wingfoot, Longshanks, Thorongil, Isildur’s Heir: of Imladris, of the Dunadain, of the North, Gondor’s Hope, Elven-wise, child of a wandering heart – Bilbo once told him, Don’t be a fool. Get out of your head for an hour.
Rich, coming from Bilbo, Aragorn didn’t reply but wanted to.
/
Legolas tells Aragorn, after Boromir is laid to rest over the Falls of Rarous, ‘I have witnessed death but never of those who were not supposed to die.’
Aragorn nods.
‘Mithrandir I never thought could die,’ Legolas continues. ‘And I still cannot believe it. I still wake on cheerful mornings and expect him to be present. Boromir I never thought to die on this journey. He was so much a warrior and a man who seemed able to weather anything.’
Aragorn nods again. He is working his jaw. Legolas begins to sing, again, because he does not know what else to do and when elves feel great emotions that could drown them, they sing.
Aragorn cannot join him.
Death at once Others and Joins Together. Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas – all bound in grief and yet each having their own journey within it. Aragorn walks with it, what his future as King could have looked like but will no longer, differently to how Legolas, who knows death so little, walks with it which is different to Gimli, who was perhaps the closest of the Fellowship to Boromir, walks with it.
/
Boromir said, perhaps it was back when they were on the endless plains of Hollin, Éomer is worth making a friend of, as King. He is worth his weight in salt. The Éothéod, or Rohirrim as you may know them.
I know them as the Éothéod.
An appreciative nod. They are a stalwart, worthy people. Loyal, just, fair-minded. They will be by your side to the ends of the earth, if they count you a friend.
And the lords of Gondor?
Fickle bastards, I say with affection. And I’m allowed to, I’m related to half of them. In their defence, if it came down to it – and it will, soon – they will show their colours to be true to Gondor. They are reliable and loyal and true to their country. But I still have opinions on them.
Aragorn laughed. Sam asked what the jest was and Aragorn replied, I think I found familial-political gossip that might rival the Shire.
Never, Frodo replied with mock gravity, we best all peoples in Middle Earth on that field and no mistake.
/
Éomer is Éothéod, and while he is more worldly than most of his kith and kin, he still has an ingrained sense of unease with those deemed Other by the broad consensus of his people. Which is why Éomer keeps saying after Helm’s Deep: ‘It wasn’t that I distrusted your honour when we first met. It is only, one hears tales of the Golden Wood and the witch who lives within it. If Lord Boromir had but been with you…’
He is attempting to apologize.
Aragorn says, ‘It’s alright, Éomer. All is well. I bear you no ill feeling for how we were met. It started a little uncertain, but we ended warmly.’
Éomer staunchly, ‘You are honourable, that is clear.’
‘And elves are not?’
Éomer hesitates. He has been weaned on tales of elvish magic and trickery, Aragorn knows. As many men in the south have been taught since childhood. Perhaps one of the greatest tricks of the Enemy was his ability to create distrust amongst those who should be natural allies. So even when presented with clear proofs opposite of what has been taught, there remains uncertainty. A crack in a foundation is never good.
‘I believe you travel with honourable people,’ Éomer settles on. He then appears to think over what he has said, translating back to himself the words he had translated out of Éorléden into Westron. He makes an addition: ‘I also believe that you are friends and kin with honourable people. I am not…there have been men in my uncle’s household who despaired when I spoke with foreign dignitaries.’
‘You are young, you will learn.’
‘The one I am thinking of called me Compulsively Truculent once and said that I should refrain from Beginning International Incidents.’
With the precision of Éomer’s speech, Aragorn can hear the capitalization even though Éomer may not realize that this is how Aragorn reads it in his mind since the Éothéod are not a literate people. Aragorn can also hazard a guess as to which member of Théoden’s court was giving Éomer such feedback. One no longer present. Aragorn refrains from replying, He might not have been wrong about that. A man can be an oath breaker and a snake yet still speak truth from time to time.
Éomer, Aragorn swiftly discovers, is a man who is missing the cousin that was more brother to him than cousin and has, apparently, decided to substitute Aragorn into that role.
‘What is it like to love an elf?’ Éomer wants to know when Aragorn explains Arwen and the necklace and everything that is bound up between them. ‘Mystical?’
‘I do not think it is much different to loving a mortal.’
Éomer chews on this. They are between battles and future-present-past. Aragorn has listened to a song by one of Éomer’s men, a young man called Éothain, about how all three tenses exist at the same time. The still point of All and Now. A strange tune for a people who more usually sing about their history and legends. But who is to say that philosophical thought cannot be wrapped in verse? He translated it for Elladen and Elrohir, who arrived with Aragorn’s Dúnedain kin after Helm’s Deep, and they seemed taken with the song and keep tugging at Aragorn’s sleeve to ask him to ask Éothain to supply further of the same nature.
‘They are her brothers?’ Éomer asks, nodding to the twins who remain enraptured before Éothain not understanding a word the man sings but eager regardless.
‘Yes, they have come with a message from their father.’
‘Who raised you.’
‘That is right.’
Éomer hums and squints and thinks about this, becomes shy, becomes awkward, becomes again bold as he declares, ‘Well, they are elves. They must do things differently.’
Which is a statement Aragorn isn’t certain how to interpret and wishes, not for the first time, that Frodo and Boromir were here if only to share in this particular moment. Both would find it terribly amusing if for very different reasons.
/
‘Boromir spoke well of you,’ Aragorn says before he leaves for the Paths of the Dead. ‘I wanted you to know that he greatly esteemed you, your sister, and all your people.’
Éomer is at once proud and mournful. He says, ‘I didn’t know him as well as I would have wished – there was never time – but I am honoured by his good opinion. Of the brothers, Boromir seemed the most…the one I liked the most. Certainly, the one I knew the best.’
Aragorn thinks Éomer a man who says much with only two or three sentences. Words doing a lot of weight carrying. Meaning layered within meanings. Everyone honourable and polite, everyone saying what must be said, hiding what they mean underneath it.
‘I thought well of Lord Boromir,’ Éomer continues after a moment of reflection. ‘I know I said this to you already, but he was a brave and capable leader. A man someone could be proud to call a friend. He will be missed more than I think people realize.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I don’t know, just something my uncle said, and he said something about Boromir not being made of the same materials as his father and brother and how that matters in Gondor. I said that I thought him made of the finest materials, from where I was standing, and he agreed.’ Éomer falters, trails off, embarrassed. ‘I mean not to gossip or speak ill of anyone. Only, he was loved here – even that snake-bastard Wyrmtunga liked him, and I am honoured that he thought well of me so much as to recommend me to you.’
Before they part for the evening Aragorn asks, ‘How do you feel? Since you are to be King but never thought that this fate would be one for you to wear.’
Éomer smiles, bright as the sun before summer solstice and says, ‘I mourn my cousin, of course. I loved him more than I can say. But I am not afraid of kingship. If the fates chose this for me then I choose it back.’
Aragorn thinks Boromir was right about Éomer and that they will be very good friends and allies indeed.
/
There was the first summer Bilbo spent in Imladris after his Retirement, as the hobbit termed it, and Aragorn spent some of it in the hills with him. They were thinking through Bilbo’s book, how to pace it, and some of Bilbo’s poetry so their walks were long and meandering. Often departing mid-morning and not reappearing until after sunset. Elrond amused at their scruffy hair and clothes as they saddled past the great hall where supper was laid on tables.
Bilbo said, You need to stop worrying about this. He tapped Aragorn’s forehead. They were sat on a rock overlooking a view that could be termed too pretty for the swooping valley and craggy rocks up the mountainside opposite them. The world was a sea of greens and golds.
I think it’s a reasonable question: how is it that you perceive me?
As a menace.
Elf or man?
Man.
Aragorn smiles, See, that wasn’t so hard.
Bilbo wagged at finger at him: You’re worse than Frodo with your incessant questions. For a Ranger you sure do talk a lot.
I am so often silent in my own company or the company of others I trust and know not it is a relief to be with one I know and can be honest around.
Bilbo, flattered, fusses about with his walking pack. Then, he lighted upon a plan and Aragorn could tell because Bilbo had a glimmer in his eye that was made of pure mischief. I will make a poem in honour of you.
Oh gods, Aragorn laughed. That is unnecessary.
Oh no, no, it is. Bilbo became firmly convinced of this. You have much aligned with someone I once knew, save I believe your fate will be kinder, therefore it is to honour but also to honour my friend. If only, in my heart. Not all that is gold glitters…how is that for a start?
/
‘What shall I call you as King?’ Faramir wishes to know. ‘Will it be Aragorn?’
‘Elessar,’ Aragorn says. ‘It should be Elessar.’
One further transformation in a life filled with them. Some names and transformation chosen, others bestowed, others still earned or born with grace despite their less than illustrious heritage. Many of the identities are ones he would shift between them within a day, a year, half a lifetime.
Inquires are then made if Aragorn wishes anyone specific to be invited to the coronation or, perhaps if they cannot make that then the wedding, and he has this mad recklessly wild thought: Torald. It should be Torald who is invited.
If only to thank him for his conversation and friendship over several rough years. But Aragorn-now-called-Elessar is furthest from shoveling pig-shit as he has ever been in his life and does not want to see Torald’s opinion of him change.
/
Is this homecoming? Aragorn wonders as the crown is placed upon his head a weight he half-never thought to hold and gods is it heavier than he ever expected.
Everyone keeps telling him it is a homecoming. He is home, now, amongst his people. This land he has known, a little, but not how Boromir knew it, not how Denethor knew it, not how Faramir knows it. These people who are his but whose accents and dialects differ. These people who are his yet call him elf-wise, stamping it into Aragorn’s entrance into a room or meeting of someone new: he was not raised here. He was raised elsewhere. Amongst Elves. Do with that information what thou wilt.
Boromir told him it was a choice. Like love, Boromir said, you wake up every day and choose the people of the country you serve. Every day, that decision is made and vow to them renewed.
/
A king is his land. A king is his people. A king, Aragorn is learning, cannot look in the mirror without seeing kings past and kings future. A through line of a paternity composed of men who were trying their best and often failing.
Arwen says to him, when he raises this to her a month after their marriage, ‘And your mother? You asked me about her, once. What about her? The through line of maternity composed of women who were trying their best and often failing.’
He feels chastised. His cheeks flare, for a brief moment. He is happy they are alone for this conversation – first time they have been truly alone during the day in weeks.
‘I mean it not harshly,’ Arwen says. ‘Only that Gilraen should be in that reflection as well. She should not be forgotten and unnamed. Just as I am determined not to be forgotten and un-named. And if we should have daughters, they will not be forgotten and un-named. Unless someone in the far future decides to forget them and un-name them. But that is out of my hands and so I will not worry about it.’
Aragorn twists the ring of Barahir around on his finger. Arwen having returned it to him on their wedding night and he had wanted to know if she wanted the Evenstar back and she said no, that was for him. He said, And this ring was for you.
But it so matches the sword and the crown, she replied with a slanting smile. He is coming to know her occasionally pawky sense of humour.
Stilling his hands, Arwen asks, ‘Do you want this kingship of yours to be a homecoming? Do you want this life in Gondor to be a homecoming?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Because if you do, you must make it that. And Estel (no one has called him that in years), a man is allowed to have more than one home. I certainly do.’
/
The crownless again shall be King. A fulfilled prophecy does not help Aragorn walk the line of Other and One-of-Us. Kingship remains as othering as he expected it to. But there is choice in all of this, as he is reminded of regularly. And Torald was right the whole time, anyway, when he asked: Did you leave wherever it is your head thinks you are?
His head thinks he is in Imladris and it thinks he is in the wilderness and Éomarc and Gondor and the borders of the Shire and many other lands besides. He is all of those places, his body and soul composed of a quilt of people. He never left and he has left; he is leaving but he is also returning.