(still)

2981

*******

Even Gilraen had seen better matches, and she tended to avoid watching them. Today needed the distraction, though, so she sat on the high wall of the semi circle, as twin warriors sparred in the arena below. There were shaded benches for spectators on ground level, but her preferred vantage on the opposite side of the field basked in the scent of roses from Elrond's gardens close by.

A crack, holler, then the scorekeeper called, "Mark!" Elrohir was unstoppable; Elladan uninspired.

Gilraen had averted her eyes from this same pair engaged in mock combat almost half a century before. And the gardens were Celebrían's of old, she later learned; but Elrond had sat upon a bench there with her son, still a toddler, while they played with a puzzle box. Before his next birthday, Estel was calling Elrond father in all sincerity. Forty and eight years.

"Tell me a story." Gilraen nudged her companion, who tossed her head.

"No. I am still wroth with you."

"Come now."

"No." Telmoth regarded the contest with narrowed gaze, mumbling something Sindarin about form and rhythm. When Gilraen did not press her --or beg-- the Elf said, "Leaving indeed. To think, you just left, just got back."

Gilraen kept her eyes from rolling at this elvish lack of respect for words related to the passing of time. "Not just. And I will not come back this time."

"Hmph. Go now and it will be like you never lived here."

"Not now. But soon." In all these years, Elrond ever proved and remained the only person to rely on for good stories, sure diversion. Gilraen rubbed her head at the contradiction: even Elrond could not distract her from himself. "Never mind it. I did not mean to have told you regardless."

The contest stalled over some dispute; Elrohir demanded explanation of the arbitrator's verdict, and only shifted his scorn to Elladan when he willingly conceded the point. Telmoth sighed. "No matter. I have kept it to myself, you know, and I will continue thus. What. I will!" The Elf stood, huffed, and finally laughed with Gilraen. "Well, they shall be there all day without my intervention." She gestured to the combatants and scorekeeper, where now Elrohir called to the benches for a more competent mediator. "See you at mealtime, if this can not be resolved swiftly."

Forty and eight years here would make Aragorn fifty and one as of March. It felt like he had been shut in with Elrond in that hall of his for longer than that. She wondered if he still called him father, or thought of him so, and what he would think of him or call him after coming out from that hall. She did not wonder what they spoke of, and would not have even if Arwen had not tried to tell her.

"You need not be troubled. My father loves your son no less."

That part Gilraen remembered best. Something followed or came before about conditions and doom, but Arwen was only guessing. Mothers can intuitively tell when children guess at their parent's mind.

After what felt like another forty and eight years, Aragorn sat down beside her. She heard his back make a sound like new boots as he bent; so unlike clothes, mortal bodies, getting no more comfortable with longer wear.

"For all I have learned in this place, the art of telling time eludes me still."

She did not see his expression when he said, "Mother?" Whether amused or confused or aught else, it would be new to her, new wrinkles and scars and cares making up the right shape. There had not been much time yet to find out if she could decipher it all nonetheless.

"Such is Elf-magic. Take you. You leave and come back with half your life lived out there already, and here I cannot even tell time."

"Mother."

She looked at him; sure enough, he had started to guess. "Only wondering how long you two spoke together, how things turned out."

His brow smoothed; trimmed beard twitched at the jowl when teeth clenched; he tipped his chin back and sideways. Ah. That. Well. One thing had not changed then: Gilraen never need guess with her child.

"I--" he paused to scratch a cheek, nose, then rubbed his whole face with both hands. They sat unspeaking for another forty and eight years, Gilraen just glad for the company.

Aragorn said at last, "No matter what now, I break his heart." He looked at his hands: one massaged the fourth finger of the other, indented where Barahir's ring had been as though he wore an invisible replacement. His hands were like Half-elven hands --except for the invisible ring-- more oblong in the palm and more length to the fingers than most men. To say the rest, he showed her his older face and wiser eyes and a frown that was all his father, all sad ungrudging hardship. "Forgive me. I know how you must have come to love him, dear as family."

"And he loves you no less. Do not be troubled." Gilraen settled her head upon his shoulder and closed her eyes. "Now you promised."

"Hm?"

"Tell me a story."

***

Arwen had tormented the same plum for half the morning meal, after Aragorn relented to her persistence and revealed what Elrond decreed the previous day.

Come to some decision, she passed the bruised fruit hand to hand with increasing finality before releasing it to wind in shrinking circles and rest alone on her plate. "In your place, I would be wroth with him," Gilraen was more than surprised to hear the Lady say.

Aragorn winced and even took a drink, as though her words left bitterness in his own mouth. "Arwen... no." He poured more water into the already diluted wine and drank again.

"Verily, you should." It looked that she failed to either completely suppress or summon a smile. "He underestimates you. King of both Gondor and Arnor indeed. There is no question of that. A Silmaril, however--"

"Please, do not jest."

Arwen placed her hand over his upon the table. "I had not, until the end. Pray you not now misjudge my hope."

"He has hope as well; but more than that, he has Sight, better than most."

"Yet even he does not see furthest of all, or clearest." No doubt Arwen looked to Gilraen for encouragement, but having anticipated as much, Gilraen had her face turned away beforehand, and thus stayed out of it.

Aragorn shook his head and sat looking straight ahead at nothing for several minutes. "Let us speak no more of it." He signed. "Where are your brothers, I wonder?"

Arwen took a turn at vacant staring and helpless shaking of the head. "Where is anyone, I wonder not."

Turning a sudden flinch into deliberate motion, Aragorn reached across the table. Gilraen could hardly begrudge him forgetting her presence when she had spent the better part of the morning trying to become invisible. She took the offered hand and returned his smile. "We are come too early."

"I agree!" said Aragorn, laughing. "And I said so myself when--" Gilraen had not seen a man blush in over forty and eight years. He coughed. "Well, I was rallied nonetheless, and here we are. But I am grateful for good company."

"This is unlike him." Arwen still had not broken out of her reverie; somehow, Aragorn managed to do it for her with naught but a glance. She blinked and smiled, her gaze settling upon Gilraen with steady easiness that unsettled. Elrond looked at books that way when he understood each word and perceived the author's nature besides.

"My father is very fond of you."

Quite unsure of what to say, Gilraen said nothing.

"I have been comforted these years while away in Lothlórien, knowing that you resided here in his company. Of course visitors come and some companions of old remain, but Estel and even I are not long for this place." Her undemanding tone rang dissimilar to the question put forth. "Shall you stay with him?" Suddenly she reached for her hand as Aragorn had done, and smiled a smile that must have belonged to Celebrían, for Gilraen had never seen its like.

She could not bring herself to reciprocate the gesture, she would not leave Arwen to guess, but that did not make it painless. "No, my lady," licking dry lips with dry tongue, it seemed she swallowed sand, "for I too will die."

Arwen's eyes widened. For a while, there was no change. Then with a sigh noticeably releasing neither breath nor tension, she shrank away from Gilraen's touch. Her mouth moved first without sound, until she said, "Forgive me." Gilraen could only nod in no definite direction.

Somber and slow, Aragorn undiluted his wine. "To mortality then." Arwen paled a little when he passed the cup to her, but she drank of it as well. Gilraen had once made that cup with her own hands; now she emptied it. They spoke no more.

***

She found him in his study, where he sat alone -- these days, she found him alone more often than in company, when he could be found at all.

He slept, or might not have. She remembered first learning that Elves can rest their minds during waking hours, eyes open and even bodies in motion. Quiet, she approached the chair and stood nearby for a while. No acknowledgement. Though Elrond faced the window, she guessed his sight lingered elsewhere, and backing away, turned to go.

"Would you sing for me?"

"Oh." She came closer again, saying after a moment's hesitation, "I think I could manage no Elven melody. Some others I might recall, cradle songs mostly, though they must be plain. I was never very skilled, and have not sung in so long, even when Estel was young he would ask for tales from you or Lindir before--" He had rolled his head up and back to see her, his expression some sort of apologetic, smiling frown.

"Excuse me, I was asleep."

"Yes, I'm sorry. I tried not to wake you."

"I thought you were Arwen."

It seemed significant to him, grave. "I have seldom known you to dream, lord, unless it be a vision of foresight. Certainly I have never known the Eldar to mistake mortals as their own kind. Oh--" Too late, she clasped a hand over her mouth.

As she spoke, he returned his face frontward, and might have become a statue or asleep again. In the instant it took Gilraen to realize her blunder, he had already forsaken the window to bury that countenance of anything but stone or slumber in both hands. She made the final step to his side, her hand frozen in midair a foot from his shoulder quaking in contained anger or worse. When he seemed to calm, sitting straighter and revealed, she rested that hand upon herself, where heart had leapt towards throat.

Before interruption, they shared a brief exchange: apologies, pardons, never-minds; politic nothings such as Gilraen thought almost forty and eight years ago they had moved quite beyond.

She excused herself as quickly as etiquette permitted, trying for the rest of that day to forget their awkward encounter, and all of that evening to remember why she had sought him out to begin with.

He sat there still, alone in his study, when she returned mid night. Motionless, facing but not seeing the star-riddled window, he might have slept, save for the tears upon either cheek.

She walked straight up to his side, fastened her arms about his shoulders, kissed his temple as he had kissed hers precisely twice in the past, and embraced him strong and sure, all without thought, without doubt, all what she would never dare during waking hours. Somehow, that made it all right.

He smelled like the West as she knew it from faded paintings and ancient songs, like places so high that mortal eyes could barely discern them from the ground, and with her ear thus near his breast, she could almost, breath held, hear the Bruinen beat.

Emerged from the valley of his shoulder, she found the sky of his eyes had closed, a little too firmly for slumber. Unhurried, she allowed herself to have a good look, as she had not since Arwen's choice; rather become accustomed to chiding her imagination, whenever from sidelong glances she thought to glean frost in his hair. Now she wove her fingers through the ebony tresses, no longer kept trimmed short, and indeed mingled with silver. It slipped through her fingers like strands of hourglass sand as he turned his face towards hers.

Those familiar eyes, ever keen, never unkind, held fast.

"The hour is late."

Gilraen saw stars, then nothing, as darkness came fully over her mind. Pushing aught away, she found herself in bed squinting from sunlight, unable to remember the last time she had fallen asleep wearing daily clothes, nor able to find any book lost under blankets or bed that might have lulled her to unexpected slumber -- strive and search though she might.

*******

(Author's Note: Since writing/updating again, I noticed a phenomenon with the page click counter that I'd never seen before: every other chapter has nearly double (or half) as many hits as the next. I'm afraid what's happening is that most readers are only opening the last chapter on the list every time I update. Problem is, I've been adding two chapters simultaneously for each update of late. So it would be worthwhile to check each chapter as of Part Three - Chapter Two just to make sure you've seen the whole story -- judging from the discrepancy in hits, half the people reading this will find some new material. Thank you!) -AE