Bubble Bath

Disclaimer: I don’t own Tolkien’s characters, places, etc.

Summary: King Elessar spends some time with his young son. Short piece of substanceless fluff ;)

King Elessar of Gondor was exhausted. While the average observer saw only that his kingdom ran smoothly, just his queen and his steward knew how much work was involved. At that time, his steward was in Ithillien and his wife heavily with child.

That thought brought to his attention his existing child. It seemed he never spent enough time with Eldarion. That truly ought to be amended.

Aragorn could not remember his own father. Elrond had been good to him, but Aragorn sometimes wondered what would have happened if Arathorn had lived. What could the son have learned from his father? Would he still have been raised in Rivendell? Would his father be proud of the man he had become?

Elessar made a private resolution to be more active in his young son’s life. What could they do alone together, though? They could not easily leave the city without an entourage of guards, and the child was too young to understand most of the old tales.

After much thought, Aragorn knew exactly what he could do. He smiled as he led the small boy into the room where he had made all the preparations. When Eldarion saw the bath, he seemed about to pitch a fit, but then realized that this was no ordinary bath…it had bubbles in it.

Motioning for the servants to exit, Aragorn stripped his young son and placed him in the warm, bubbly water.

Eldarion giggled. ("I do hope he develops a more manly laugh before he becomes king," Aragorn thought.) He splashed about, and giggled even more as his Ada began singing a hobbit bath song he had learned many years before.

"Look at me Ada, I have a beard!" the child shouted, his chin covered with white foam.

"I wish I had a beard like that," Aragorn said playfully.

"But you can, Ada!" Eldarion put an enormous portion of bubbles in his father’s beard.

There was a hasty knock at the door, and Aragorn reluctantly answered, finding an overly excited Steward.

"Sir, Éowyn and I came since we knew the child was due soon. She’s here Aragorn! The Lady Arwen has had a baby girl!

Aragorn felt a brief surge of anger that no one had informed him that his queen had gone into labor; then excitement overcame him and he scooped Eldarion up out of the water, wrapping him in a towel. He then made a rather undignified mad rush to see his wife and baby girl.

Arwen laughed as she saw her still wet and bubbly husband and son and willingly passed the new little bundle to Aragorn. She was glad she had not prevented their bath time moment by informing her husband that she had gone into labor. She had wanted to be with him, of course, but he only would have been overly anxious and been in the way of the midwife. No, it was much better like this.

Aragorn stared into his daughter’s eyes and knew that he could never deny any member of his family attention, even if he tried.