A/N:  Special thanks to the lovely and talented Cairistiona for the beta feedback.

Disclaimer:  I own nothing except my OC’s.  I’m doing this for fun.  Sue me and I’d have to pay in quarters and tic tacs.

~

The stars were fading in the East—the first sign that sunrise was not far off.  Herumor instinctively drew his mount deeper into the shadows of the hills.  Time was running out.  He could wait all day if need be, but if his minions were to fight at their best, they needed to find their quarry soon.  Patience, the man reminded himself.  Perched atop his black horse, dark cloak drawn tight against the night wind, Herumor could almost be taken for one of the fabled Nazgûl.  But, there was nothing incorporeal about the grizzled hand that clenched his sword hilt or the black eyes that glared out from behind a sable mask.

His servants were growing restless.  They sensed the approaching dawn.  One, a particularly wretched beast dared to rise from his place of concealment.  Herumor’s throwing knife caught the goblin in the throat.  The orc fell without a sound.  Herumor stalked up to retrieve his dagger.  The fallen orc’s fellows ducked their heads and averted their eyes, clearly more frightened of their shadowed captain than of the approaching sunlight.  The man wrinkled his nose in distaste.  He would take men over these fell creatures any day of the week, but circumstances forced his hand.  And besides, the beasts had their uses.

There.  A stray gust of wind carried the sound he’d been hoping for; the faint rustle of leaves indicated an approaching party.  Herumor signaled his minions.  There was a low creak as bows were drawn.  The approaching party was moving cautiously.  Four scouts patrolled—one ahead, one behind, and one to each side.  Between the scouts rode eight mounted men—no, make that six mounted men.  The last two horses carried the gray-cloaked forms of elves.

Herumor suppressed a hiss of fury.  Hearing that the traitors and their kin associated with the wretched Eldar race had not prepared him for seeing it in person.  He forcibly stilled himself.  He was not here to hunt elves.  Leaving his mount behind, Herumor crept closer to the road.  The first two men were engaged in some kind of debate.  Their low voices should not have carried beyond the small party, but Herumor’s hearing was hardly average.

“I’ve told you too many times, Belegion, your nephew is too young to ride on patrols.  Is it not enough that we must fight alongside sixteen-year-olds?  Would you have us also endanger boys too young to shave?”

“Halpharn is young, but he is now the eldest in his family.  And besides, it is not we who endanger them but the Enemy.”

“We are nevertheless responsible for their safety.  Valar’s sake, Belegion, he’s not yet fifteen!”

“Yet already his family falls prey to the shadow.  I don’t like it anymore than you do, my lord, but experience has taught Halpharn that the village will not protect him—or his loved ones.  If we do not accept him in a patrol, he will find his own way of lashing out against the Enemy.  I have lost my brother to this fight, and now my niece is gone as well.  I do not want to also lose my nephew.”

Herumor tuned out the rest of the conversation and focused on the man Belegion had called “my lord.”  The man was a Ranger, tall and thin like all the others, dressed in an unremarkable green cloak that was unadorned, save for the standard silver star at his shoulder.  Herumor squinted to make out the man’s face in the dim light.  It was gaunt and dirty, with gray eyes and three days of stubble, but even so Herumor could see the resemblance.  He indicated his target with a quick wave of his hand, and the news passed quickly and silently from orc to orc.  The horsemen drew near.  Their scouts passed within twenty feet of Herumor’s concealed minions.  Still, the captain waited.  He savored the taste of the air, the anticipation of imminent death.  It was nearly time.  His work was almost complete.

Finally, when the leader of the party passed a mere fifteen feet from the hidden orcs, Herumor let out a shrill whistle.  The leader’s head came up and turned, seeking the source of the strange noise.  This proved a fatal mistake.  A bowstring twanged and a black-feathered arrow buried itself in a silver eye.  The man Belegion had called “Lord” didn’t cry out; he just grunted slightly and sank in his saddle, slipping from his gray horse almost in slow motion.  The sight took Herumor’s breath away; silent, almost poetic death.  The captain almost laughed.  How easy it was, then, to slay a legend.

Belegion broke the spell.  “Arathorn!” he screamed, trying to catch the dead man even as the Ranger slid beyond his reach.  His cry seemed to awaken the rest of the patrol.  Bows were strung in a flash; swords appeared from saddle bags as if by magic.  The two elves drew their long knives and spurred their horses towards the source of the signal.  Herumor’s orcs sprang out of their hiding places, almost a score strong, bellowing and swinging wildly.  But Herumor himself sheathed his sword and stalked back towards his mount, swift and silent as the wraith he resembled.  When the elves reached his former position, they would find only orcs.

The scouts joined the battle, and orcs quickly began to fall under steel and shaft.  Those who remained were wild and chaotic.  They looked for their captain, but he had vanished like vapor.  Herumor was no fool.  Though his force outnumbered the Rangers, ill-trained orcs stood no chance against outraged Dúnedain.  His servants had served their purpose; he could find others to replace them.

Leaving the fury of battle behind, Herumor pushed his horse into a canter and raced away into the East.  His task was almost complete.

~

The first light of dawn stole across the worn floorboards and crept up the sleeping woman’s pillow.  Gilraen groaned and rolled over, trying to steal a few more moments of slumber.  It was no use.  The light’s gentle nudging had not only woken her, but alerted her to the fact that her bed was cold.  With a sigh, she pushed back the covers and reached for her thick dressing gown.  Moving quietly, so as not to disturb the sleeping toddler at her feet, Gilraen rose and quickly made the bed.  The chore was painfully easy; none of the covers on the left side of the big bed had been disturbed.  Aragorn slept on, oblivious in his little trundle bed.  After a moment’s thought, Gilraen took an extra blanket from the foot of the big bed, folded it in half, and tucked it gently around her son’s shoulders.

Little Aragorn had his own bedchamber, of course—there were more than enough rooms to spare in the chieftain’s cabin—but when his father was away on patrol, as Arathorn had been for the past two weeks, Gilraen preferred to keep her son close to her.  The two-year-old stubbornly held that he was much too old to share the big bed, so the trundle was their compromise.

The outer chambers faced west.  Gilraen lit a candle to see by as she sparked the kindle in the big hearth.  Winter was slow to release its grasp on the northern hills.  Though March was almost gone and the earliest flowers were beginning to blossom, clear nights still left a hard frost on the earth and a chill in the air.  As Gilraen patiently stoked the fire into a modest blaze, she was glad of the robe around her shoulders and the woven rug under her feet.  She added another log.  They were almost out of firewood.  In another day or so she would have to choose between asking her brother to chop more or taking Aragorn to gather deadwood from the forest two miles away.  When she estimated that she’d built the blaze up as much as was prudent, the woman stepped back to warm her fingers and admire her handiwork.

The fire cast darting shadows over the big room—or the “hall” as Arathorn preferred to call it, though to Gilraen the grand name seemed incongruous with the humble wooden chamber.  Still, she had to admit there was a certain splendor to it.  Though stone was hard to come by and masons were few, the Dunedain who’d built this village had laid a foundation of granite that was built up into a large hearth and tall gray chimney.  The wooden rafters curved upward, recalling the sweeping arches of palaces and fortresses long gone.  The rough walls were hung with tapestries, many of them generations old, and here and there atop rustic furniture, one could spy a golden candlestick or a silver pitcher, memories of wealth long since faded.  The Rangers had little, but they afforded their chieftain what honor they could.

That sentiment was reflected in the size of the rest of the house—in the wide, flagstone-tiled kitchen, the dining room with its long table, and the many smaller chambers and sitting rooms.  Sometimes Gilraen wondered ruefully whether the size of the house truly reflected a desire to honor the Chieftain or whether it was rather a not-so-subtle admonition to the family to produce many children.   If that was indeed the motive, it had proven woefully ineffective of late.  Arathorn was the only son of Arador, who was himself the only son to survive childhood.  These days, the big house was full only when Arathorn’s sisters came with their husbands and children at Midwinter.

All the more reason to break the trend. Gilraen thought with a sly smile.  Arathorn’s farewell the night before leaving on patrol had been quite . . . enthusiastic.  Though she had told no one as yet, when her husband returned in two weeks, Gilraen hoped to have good news.

The sun was now fully over the distant hills, and its rays were finally filtering into the hall.  Tucking her feet into a pair of leather slippers, Gilraen stepped through the foyer and tugged open the front door.  Seeing the small wooden pitcher in its usual place on the front step, the woman smiled.  Her neighbor, Lothiriel, had mouths to feed and troubles of her own, but she always made sure that Gilraen had fresh milk for Aragorn.

Looking out over the collection of cabins, the woman couldn’t help but snort at the wild optimism that had prompted her forefathers to name this simple village Fornost Eden.  It looked the farthest thing from a fortress of kings.  At first glance, the dwellings were built to suggest a simple community of herders—and indeed that was how most Northern Dunedain supplemented their winter storehouses.  Fornost Eden was a modest collection of about a hundred houses, built of roughly hewn wood on a broad shelf halfway up a bluff.  The narrow streets were just dirt packed hard by the passage of men and animals.  Smithies and armories were tucked back against the hill, out of sight until one had passed through the entire village.  The large stable masqueraded as a simple storehouse, and houses of healing were hidden away in lofts or back rooms of unassuming cabins.

The trained eye, however, looked on Fornost Eden and saw immediately a town built for defense.  The hills at its back were largely impassable and guarded the dwellings on two sides.  A few trails cut through the heights, but they were narrow, allowing men to ride only two abreast at the widest points, and were so well concealed as to be nearly invisible.  Aside from these trails, the only path to the village was up the eastern face of the bluff.  The road there climbed and twisted, always within view of the village plateau.  A few well placed archers at the edge of the bluff could defend the road from all but the most determined attacker, and though the town’s gate was usually left open, two young men stood by the palisade walls night and day, ready to bar the entrance at a moment’s notice.

Well, maybe “men” was the wrong word.  Those on duty now had just begun their formal Ranger training.  Though neither could have been older than fourteen, they stood proudly in their green cloaks, quarter staves in their hands and horns on their belts.  As Gilraen watched, the shorter of the two raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he scanned the plains.  Suddenly, he turned to his companion and tugged excitedly on the other’s cloak, pointing at something far below.  The other youth stood still for a moment, then raised his horn to his lips and let out three short bursts; the signal for “Patrol Returning.”  Gilraen frowned.  Her husband’s patrol was the next one due back, and it wasn’t expected for another two weeks.

All around her, women and children were emerging from their houses with various expressions of curiosity or apprehension.  Lothiriel emerged from her barn, sleeves tied back, apron dusted with hay.  Gilraen put an arm over her neighbor’s shoulders.  “Perhaps they’ve found some sign of Laleth.”  Lothiriel’s only daughter, a girl of six, had disappeared nearly three weeks earlier.

Lothiriel shook her head slowly.  “My heart bodes ill.  I do not think they’ve returned for me.”

The party came into view, and Gilraen’s heart clenched as she realized the other woman was right.  It was a mounted patrol.  The men were not riding in their usual loose, scattered formation.  Instead, the horses walked in two orderly columns of about six men each.  The last horse was riderless.  Towards the front of the line, two slender forms in dark gray stood out from their brown and green clad fellows.  Even from a distance, Gilraen could recognize Elladan and Elrohir, the twin sons of Elrond.  So this was her husband’s patrol.  Gilraen sighed.  Arathorn always hated delivering bad news.

Later, when she was rational enough to think once more, she would wonder why it took her so long to recognize the obvious.  She could only guess that pity had moved the Valar to blind her eyes for a few moments longer.  Though the leader of the patrol always rode first in parade formations, the column was headed not by her husband’s dapple gray gelding, but by her brother Arandur’s dun-coated mare.  As it was, the patrol was through the palisade and halfway up the sloping street before she realized the contradiction.

As her brother’s face swam into view, Gilraen’s throat constricted.  Let it be a coincidence.  Let Arathorn have joined a separate patrol, taken a message to the southern villages, stopped to go hunting, anything!  As the riders slowed to a stately walk, her heart hammered a wild protest, as if trying to pound its way out of her chest.  Let me be wrong.  Let him be somewhere at the back of the line.  Let him be holed up in a healer’s house somewhere.  Let him be inside the cabin right now, ready to jump out and surprise me.  Let it be a joke, a prank, a dream.  Arandur reined his horse in a respectful distance from Gilraen’s doorstep.  Desperate, Gilraen’s eyes raced across the faces of her neighbors, looking for anything that would contradict the pain in Arandur’s eyes.  Don’t let it be true . . . Arandur reached into his saddlebags and removed something long and slender, wrapped in green cloth.  Gilraen’s gaze finally fell upon her mother as she stepped from her cabin with Gilraen’s younger brother.  Ivorwen seemed carved of stone.  Her face was pale under a mass of dark curls laced with silver.  Her expression was frozen.  Something inside Gilraen seemed to be breaking.  Arandur was standing a few paces away, the green bundle held out in the hands of a supplicant.  It was true.

Ivorwen met her gaze and gave a single, solemn nod.  A strange quietness came over Gilraen.  Her eyes slowly swung back to meet those of her eldest brother.  They were dry.  She drew one deep breath, then stepped forward to meet the patrol leader.  Those who saw her said later that she walked like one in a dream.  Others claimed she moved as elves are said to do in sleep—in the world, but not of it.  Her steps were even—measured.  Her gaze never wavered.  She halted a mere half-pace from Arandur and raised steady hands to take the shrouded item.  As her hands closed on the damp wool and cool metal underneath, the slow breaking in her chest climaxed in a wracking wave of agony and the wreckage was complete.

~

Aragorn rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head.  He didn’t want to get up.  He was warm and comfy, but there were footsteps in his house.  The pull of curiosity battled with that of sleep, and for a moment, he allowed himself to hang suspended between the two.

There was a slight creak as the bedroom door swung open, and the decision was made for him.  Mama stood there in the doorway for a moment, just looking at him.  Aragorn picked his head up.  His mama was still in her nightclothes and that was strange because she always got dressed before she made breakfast and breakfast was always cooking by the time he got up. 

Mama walked over and sat down on the little bed.  Aragorn wiggled.  Now he couldn’t sit up; she was smooshing the blankets together.  He stilled when he saw her face, though.  It was white.  White like the papers in Papa’s study, white like the lilies they left for Grandfather Arador who had gone to the Valar.  She tucked Aragorn’s hair behind his ear.  Her hand was ice cold. 

There was something in her other hand.  She lifted it onto her lap so Aragorn could see.  It was green cloth like the kind in Papa’s cloak, all pinned together with the shiny star Papa always wore on his shoulder when he went out to fight orcs.  Aragorn reached out to touch the star.  It was as cold as Mama’s fingers.  He pulled it off the cloth.  The ornament was almost as big as his whole hand.  The cloth fell apart without the pin to hold it together.  There was metal and leather underneath.  Aragorn jerked his hand back.  He wasn’t allowed to touch Papa’s sword!

Mama just smiled sadly and took the pin from him.  She placed his hand on a hilt too big for his fingers to curl more than halfway around and folded both of hers around it.  Her hands were freezing, but Aragorn didn’t pull away.  His eyes began to fill, though he didn’t know why.  He blinked furiously.  He was much too big to cry.  Nevertheless, the tears welled up and made his silver eyes gleam even brighter than usual.  He looked up at Mama and swallowed a sniffle.

“When’s Papa coming home?”

~

Aragorn fidgeted a little by his mother’s side.  The strange clothes Mama had dressed him in were scratchy, and they fit all wrong.  The tunic was made of a strange fuzzy material that Mama had called “velvet,” with lots of black threads crisscrossing over the front—except she’d called those “brocade.”  The clothes were all the same color—a dark gray that matched Uncle Arandur’s eyes.  Mama had called them “mourning clothes,” but that didn’t make sense because they looked nothing like mornings and sunrises and besides it was past lunchtime. 

Aragorn looked down at Papa’s stone.  Mama had explained to him what the stones meant; now that Papa had gone to live with the Valar and Grandfather Arador, the people put his name on a big granite block and set it here on this pretty hilltop above the village, facing the West.  Mama said it was there so that people could look at it and think about how much they loved him.

The boy looked down at the flower Lord Elladan had given him.  It was a white lily—Papa’s favorite.  He remembered picking with Papa beside the riverbank.  “See, here, it looks like a trumpet,” Papa would say, “But don’t tell your uncles we’ve been talking flowers!”  Secretly, Aragorn didn’t think Uncle Arandur or Uncle Thorondir would have minded.  They were both standing behind Mama now, and they both had identical flowers in their big hands.

Grandfather Dirhael was speaking, but it was in Sindarin, and Aragorn didn’t know all the words.  Aragorn stared at his flower.  Were there lilies on the riverbanks where the Valar lived?  Was Papa picking them with Grandfather Arador right now?  His eyes were stinging again.  He scowled furiously.  He was not going to cry again.  It was too late, though; he couldn’t hold back a loud sniffle.

Mama’s hand came down to brush his face and pull him against her.  The hand was like a block of ice, but it was Mama and she was there.  Hiding his face against her rich skirts, Aragorn let himself cry at last.

~

As evening fell, Dirhael’s cabin was filled with raised voices.

“He is all that remains of the line!  He will never be safe here!”  Elrohir’s voice was almost desperate.  A fierce light, such as Gilraen had never seen, came over his face as he and his brother argued with Dirhael and Arandur.

“He is a son of Isildur.  I’ll thank you to remember that as you rearrange his life!”  The bitter accusation in Arandur’s voice did not go unnoticed by Elrohir.  The Elf Lord flushed.

Elladan stepped in before his brother could respond.  “What Elrohir means is that all peoples have a vested interest in seeing this bloodline preserved.  Here, the child will be ever subject to the whims of the Wild.  In Imladris we could protect him, we could educate him . . .”

The source of all this contention slumbered in Gilraen’s lap.  The long day had taken a belated toll on little Aragorn.  After the farewell ceremony, she had refused to take her son back to the chieftain’s house.  Instead, she sought shelter for a little while in her parents’ tiny cottage.  Yet, trouble followed, even to her childhood refuge.

“Bloodlines?  Don’t speak to me of bloodlines!  That child is my grandson.  Am I to sacrifice my blood so you can protect your precious bloodline?”  Dirhael.  Gilraen had rarely heard her father so angry.

Elladan tried for a placating tone, but his indignation was clear.  “Aragorn is a son of Elros.  We are his kin too.  We would treasure him no less than you . . .”

“But you cannot teach him who he is!”  This time, it was Arandur who was indignant.  “Can a fish teach a bird to fly?  No more can an Elf teach a child to be Dúnedain.”

“If you would but—“

“Gilraen?”  Ivorwen cut Elrohir off as if the Elven Lord were nothing more than a disobedient student.  “You’ve been very quiet tonight, my daughter.  Do you wish for your son to go to Rivendell?”

Gilraen took a deep breath.  Her eyes darted from face to face before coming to rest on Lord Elladan.  “You believe he will be hunted.”

It was not a question, but she waited for an answer.  Elrond’s elder son nodded emphatically.  “Some evil has been growing for several generations, now.  It was no coincidence that your husband alone of our company fell to the ambush.  The heirs . . . heir of Isildur is in danger.”

“It has always been so, my child,” Dirhael interjected gently, “Arathorn was sought as a child and Arador before him.  They survived and grew to manhood in this very village.”

“But they were not the last of the line!” Elrohir exclaimed.  He would have gone on, but Ivorwen silenced him with a look.

Gilraen returned her attention to Elladan.  “If I take him to your city . . .”

“To Imladris,”

“Yes.  Will he be able to visit Fornost Eden?  Will his uncles train him when he’s old enough?”

Elladan’s expression grew distinctly uncomfortable.  “Arrangements . . . would have to be made.  We won’t know the full details until we discuss the boy with our father.”

Gilraen turned her gaze on Lord Elrohir, hoping that the other elf would give her the honor of a straight answer.  Elrohir’s jaw worked for a moment under her steady gaze.  His eyes flicked from hers to his brother’s and back.  Finally, he spoke slowly, “Lord Elrond would have . . . concerns with such a situation.  It has been many years since the Rangers frequented Imladris.  If there were a sudden traffic of Dúnedain in and out, or if a large group suddenly took up residence, it could tip off the Enemy’s spies.  That could bring the Enemy’s wrath down on Rivendell—on all of us.”

Predictably, it was Elladan who broke the tense silence that followed.  “You have to understand, my father must protect his own people as well.  Enemy forces grow ever more numerous and more widespread.  Our best defense is in secrecy, as he has always said.”

Gilraen didn’t respond.  She continued to meet Elrohir’s gaze steadily, suspecting that there was more to be said.  There was a flicker in his eyes, and she arched one eyebrow deliberately.  Elrohir sighed and looked at his feet.  Gilraen had almost given up on further information when the elf murmured almost inaudibly, “Secrecy . . .” Slowly he raised his head and met each pair of eyes in turn before finally resting his gaze on Gilraen.  His voice was strained.  “Your son is the youngest chieftain in the history of the Dúnedain.  Protecting his identity from the Enemy . . . will be difficult.  I do not yet know what action my father would take were we to raise the child in Imladris.  But, if I were advising him, I would ask that the boy’s identity be kept a secret even from Aragorn himself.  Only you would accompany him to Imladris, and no other could visit for some time.  The child is young enough that we can raise him under an assumed name, imparting his true heritage to him only when he comes of age.  It will be as though Aragorn son of Arathorn never existed, and if, as we suspect, the Enemy already knows of his existence, he will conclude that the boy died of some childhood accident or illness—that the line has truly failed.”

For a moment, Elrohir’s words hung on the air.  Then came the sudden clamor, as everyone found their voice at the same instant.  Arandur and Dirhael were on their feet, arguing fiercely with Elrohir as Elladan tried to calm all three.  Even Gilraen’s brother Thorondir, only twenty years old, had joined in the debate.  Their voices grew louder.  Elrohir stuck a finger in Dirhael’s chest and Arandur balled his fists.  Gilraen drew a protective arm around Aragorn, who was finally stirring, a sob building in his small chest.  “Enough!” Ivorwen’s voice cracked like a whip, silencing all five men.  The matron’s imperious gaze skimmed over each of the debaters before finally coming to rest on Gilraen.  Her tone brooked no argument.  “The decision belongs to the child’s mother.”

Aragorn, still only half-conscious, rolled into a ball and buried his head in the front of Gilraen’s dress.  The woman carefully shifted him to her hip and stood.  “It’s been a long day.  I need to put my son to bed.”

To their credit, the men promptly looked ashamed of their thoughtlessness.  Dirhael spoke quickly.  “Of course, Gilraen.  You should take the master bedroom.”

Gilraen shook her head quickly.  “That’s alright, Papa.  My old room will be fine

By the look in Ivorwen’s eyes, Gilraen knew she understood.  “I’ll get the bed linens.”  The two women left the sitting room together and climbed the steep stairs to the tiny loft that had once been Gilraen’s room.  Everything was as Gilraen remembered—the narrow bed with its faded quilt, the old, battered boudoir, the moth-eaten curtains.  Though she hadn’t been in this chamber since marrying Arathorn, it would always be home. 

Ivorwen briskly stripped the bed and laid down clean sheets.  Gilraen carefully set Aragorn down on the mattress.  The child stirred, and his grandmother soothed him with a gentle hand on his brow.  As she arranged the blankets around him, the older woman spoke in a quiet, conversational tone.  “No one’s expecting you to make a decision tonight.  The peredhil’s proposal deserves careful consideration.”

Gilraen tugged a woolen blanket up to Aragorn’s chin.  “I cannot think of a life outside this village.”

“Perhaps you should.”

Gilraen straightened slowly and turned to face her mother.  She swallowed.  “What have you foreseen?”

Ivorwen avoided her gaze.  “It’s best not to speak of it.”

“Mother!” Gilraen’s voice caught, and she quickly lowered it to avoid waking Aragorn.  “This is my child we’re talking about!  I must know.”

Her mother sighed.  “You do know, Gilraen.  You know that so little can be known from visions and dreams.  It is not the nature of the gift for things to be clear and precise.  Often in trying to predict we do more harm than good.”

“But to speak so, you must have some idea?”  Ivorwen didn’t respond.  “The peredhil are right, aren’t they?  They said he’d be hunted?”

The other woman nodded slowly.  “But your father was right, too; we have faced such evil before.”

“Tell me what you saw.”

“Gilraen—“

“Tell me!”

The old woman closed her eyes, suddenly very weary.  “There are two paths now before your son, and the choice lies with you.  If he goes to Rivendell he will be protected—sheltered.  The Elrondion weren’t lying; they consider the children of Elros their family.  He will want for nothing, but he will not know his past, and so his future will ever seem frightening and tenuous.  When he finally learns of his heritage, the knowledge will be a burden, perhaps too great to bear.”  The woman ran a hand through her gray-streaked hair.  It was coming loose from its orderly braids.  “If he stays in Fornost Eden, he will ever be in danger.  Like all our sons, his childhood will be short, his life difficult.  He will know constant peril, and the Enemy may yet claim him.  But he will be Dúnedain, raised in the traditions of our people, and perhaps that will be enough to ground him for the trials to come.”  Her eyes watched something far away.  “Sometimes, the sight is more a curse than the gift we call it.”

Gilraen swallowed past the lump in her throat.  “You knew.”  She said suddenly.  “That’s why Papa opposed the marriage.  You both knew Arathorn would fall.  But you talked Papa around . . .” There was a long silence.  “Why?” Gilraen burst out suddenly.  “Why did you let me marry him?  How could you let your own child become a widow?”

Ivorwen’s hand reached out to cup her daughter’s cheek.  “It had to be somebody’s child.”  She slowly let the hand fall.  “It always does.”  Without another word, Ivorwen turned and hurried down the stairs.  For a long moment, Gilraen stood where she was, forcing herself to inhale deeply and exhale slowly.  Then she turned just as silently, lifted the covers, and slid into the bed.  As the wind howled outside and muffled men’s voices rose once more, she pulled her child to her and longed for the ignorance of sleep.

~

A/N:  Hope you enjoyed!  Expect a few more chapters of this tale.  Please let me know what you thought by leaving a review.  Concrit is welcome and appreciated.

The Lothiriel mentioned here is an original character and bears no relation to other characters of that name mentioned in Tolkien’s work.

I made a canon goof in plotting this story.  According to Appendix A "The line of kings was continued by the Chieftains of the Dunedain of whom Aranarth son of Arvedui was the first.  Arahael his son was fostered in Rivendell, and so were all of the sons of the chieftains after him." (RotK, p. 401).  For the purposes of this story, this tradition has not been kept for several generations beginning with Argonui, Aragorn's great-grandfather.