10: A Midnight Conversation

Aragorn leaned against the parapet of the Deeping Wall, looking out onto the Westfold, smoking his pipe and thinking. The steppes lay before him, tall grasses undulating like waves on a dark waterless ocean. Above him Elbereth’s stars were ablaze, sparkling with careless beauty in the deep wells of night.

Behind him Helm’s Deep slept. He had drawn the first watch and was just now gone off duty, but he was not sleepy and so he stood there gazing across the midnight-canopied land of Rohan, his thoughts elsewhere. He felt rather than heard Thandir approach him, treading silently as was the way of the Elves. Aragorn sighed and tapped the ash from his pipe before stowing it away. Without bothering to look around he spoke.

"It’s all right, Thandir. Come and stand by me."

The Elf glided on ghost feet to come beside the Dúnadan. For a long time neither spoke, each lost in his own thoughts. Then Thandir turned his amaranthine gaze upon the Mortal he still thought of as ‘Estel’.

"You are angry," he said quietly, without emotion.

Aragorn shook his head but did not look at the Elf. "I am confused and I little like feeling so."

"But you are angry."

Aragorn sighed and finally faced the immortal. "Yes, Thandir. I am angry."

"With me."

"No, mellon nîn. With my adar."

Thandir raised a delicate eyebrow, his grey eyes shining silver in the light of the stars. He waited for an explanation. It was not long in coming. Aragorn turned back to look out into the night, his tone harsh, and to Thandir’s practiced ears, young.

"I am angry that he trusts me so little that he needs must send you to look after me."

"Ah, I see."

"The orcs..."

"They were real enough, never fear, child," Thandir assured him. "We did indeed track them across the Wold into the Eastfold and thence to the Ered Nimrais. We do not know where they were heading. Whatever their destination, they will not reach it now. Haldir and his people are even now returning to Lórien. Celegrýn, Gilgirion and I decided to return to Imladris. That your adar suggested to us that we look you up was fortuitous, else we would not have come to Edoras when we did."

"How did Adar know...."

"Child, the Firstborn are possessed of powers of which you Mortals do not know, for we do not speak of them. Trust that Elrond was able to communicate his concerns and I but seek to assuage them... and my own curiosity."

Aragorn sighed, leaning against the parapet. "I have lived among the Elves nearly all my life, yet I still do not understand you."

Thandir smiled, leaned over and gently kissed the Mortal on the brow. "That makes two of us. You Children of Men are such a mystery. I think the only one who truly ever understood you was Finrod, for he loved you beyond all reason or hope."

Aragorn glanced at the Elf in surprise. "Did you know him?"

Thandir nodded. "I served under his banner. I helped to patrol the forests of Dorthonion until Morgoth overran them and turned them into woods of terror."

"What was he like?"

Now Thandir sighed. "He was... starlight on calm waters, reflecting beauty with such reckless disdain. He cared not for pomp, for all he was our king. He loved the hunt and often sought solitude among the trees of Region. He was...." He shook his head and when he spoke again it was in a whisper that was barely heard by the Mortal beside him. "I loved him... I would have died for him... I would still die for him if he but let me."

Aragorn stared at the Elf in wonder and for a long time there was no sound between them but the wind on the grassland. After a time, he sighed, turning his attention back to the stars glittering like shards of ice above them. "I wish I could have known him," he finally said, sounding wistful.

Thandir put his arm around the young Man and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "He would have liked you, Aragorn son of Arathorn. You would have reminded him of Beren, whom he loved."

"Truly?" the Dúnadan asked in surprise. Thandir nodded, giving the Dúnadan a sad smile.

"You wear his ring, you know," the Elf said. "I am surprised you wear it openly though. The Enemy knows that ring, knows it intimately and hates it and the one who wears it. I would hide it away for now if I were you. A time may come when it should be worn openly and without fear, but that time is not yet, Little One."

But Aragorn shook his head. "It was the only thing I brought with me to remind me of who I am. I will not hide it even from myself."

Thandir gave the Mortal an appraising look and sighed. "Stubborn. Your father was the same, though I think you are worse than he ever was."

"Did you know my father well, Thandir?" Aragorn asked shyly.

The Elf shrugged. "I knew him, Estel, for a brief time, but I cannot say I knew him well. I’m sorry."

The Dúnadan sighed. "I have no memory of him. Nothing. He is just a name to me with no reality attached to it."

"You favor him in looks, though there is much of Gilraen in you as well. He was tall for a Mortal, taller than you by perhaps a couple of inches. He did not laugh much but he was not averse to telling a joke now and then. And always he smoked. I had thought that would be one habit you would not pick up living among us Elves, but I guess it was too much to hope for. You are a Mortal after all and Mortals do strange things."

"The same could be said of some Elves I know," Aragorn said with a light laugh and Thandir joined him.

"It grows late, Estel," Thandir said once the laughter had died down. "You should rest."

Aragorn nodded and took a few steps along the wall to the stairs that would take him down into the courtyard fronting the main doors leading into the Deep. He stopped and turned to find Thandir staring out into the night, softly singing.

"Thandir."

The Elf stopped singing and turned to face the mortal, his expression unreadable. Aragorn hesitated for a moment. "Thank you," he finally said.

"For what, child?"

"For caring."

Thandir smiled and the beauty of it smote Aragorn’s heart. The Elf reached out and took Aragorn’s head in his hands and kissed the Man on the brow. "Ú-moe a channad nin, hên nîn, ar ci melin."

"Ar le melin," Aragorn whispered as the Elf released his hold on him. In a short while Thandir found himself alone upon the parapet, looking out into the star-spangled night, raising his elven voice in a joyous song in praise of Elbereth. The sentries further down the wall on either side stood in shocked silence, listening to the Elf singing, tears running down their faces, though they knew not why.

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Ú-moe a channad nin, hên nîn, ar ci melin: (Sindarin) "It is not necessary for thanking me, my child, for I love thee (familiar)".

Ar le melin: (Sindarin) "And I love thee". Aragorn uses the formal "you" because he is speaking to one he considers his superior, not his equal. He would most likely use the formal "you" with people like Glorfindel and Erestor but not with Elladan and Elrohir, since they are his "brothers" nor with Elrond except in formal occasions when he is addressing the Lord of Imladris rather than his adar.

Aragorn and Thandir speak the Imladrian dialect of Sindarin which is heavily influenced by the Quenya spoken by the Noldor who reside in Imladris, thus, their use of the borrowed conjunction ar rather than the more normal a.