13. Palantír: Returning home

Aragorn needed a moment to gather his thoughts, his head starting to hurt from the strain. There was a memory of an early autumn long ago…

-oOo-

“Call me Hyarmendacil!”

“No, I am Hyarmendacil today!”

“No, me…”

The voices of the two boys sounded with agitation into the afternoon.

It was near the ruins of Fornost that the Dúnedain build their fortified settlement. The grass smelled sweetly. The mountains at the horizon had snowy caps already, but here, the warm autumn will last for a few weeks yet. A pregnant woman was weaving a basket in the shade of a great oak before the gates, and two boys lay in the grass, watching a snail as it made its way through its high blades - it seemed the dispute was settled for now. They were sporting a few purple bruises, suggesting it wasn’t a peaceful process, but now they just leaned contentedly at the warm bark in the late afternoon. The smell of roasting mutton was telling them that the dinner is almost ready. 

“Next time, I will be king Hyarmendacil and you will be a Corsair! I have been a Corsair two times in a row already!” one of the boys turned to the other again.

“No, next time we will defend Annúminas from the Witch king! I will be the king of Arnor!”

“No, I will!”

“I’m not a friend with you anymore!”

The woman looked up from her basket, and wanted to say something to stop the threatening argument, but the words froze on her lips, as she saw something that captured her attention. The boys followed her look, and saw a lone figure, walking down the road. They watched in silence for some time, and then, when they were certain, they ran inside the gates. “The Chieftain has returned! The Chieftain has returned!” Apparently they were friends again…

Aragorn smiled. After the long journeys in the far lands, when he could only look to the stars to orientate himself, it was good to be home, in the country he knew well, among his people, to walk the bumpy dust road leading here.

The boys ran inside the settlement to bring the news to all, and when Aragorn was almost at the gate, Ivorwen came out to greet him, followed by Dírhael. “You are limping…” she said accusingly instead of a greeting, and Aragorn smiled. “It’s nothing. I twisted my ankle on a mountain path a week ago. It is almost healed already.”

She shook his head, and then tears welled in her eyes, as she opened her arms. “I missed you…”

“I missed you too, grandmother…”

Laughing, he ran to meet her.