A/N: This takes place the morning after my story "Dead Elvish Writers," though it should (hopefully) stand on its own. It is a two-shot, and the second chapter will (also hopefully) be posted before the New Year. With great thanks as always to my beta, Zopyrus, for pushing me to expand this and make it better.

T.A. 2957

Usually Ivorwen rose before Dirhael in the mornings, but as he awoke he turned to find that his wife was still sound asleep beside him. He smiled fondly as he pushed her hair out of her eyes, wondering if he should attempt to wake her himself or if he should simply leave her be. The previous evening’s festivities had gone long into the night, and he doubted that they were the only ones who had allowed themselves a few extra hours’ rest. He rose from the bed to stoke the dying embers in the fireplace, and added a fresh log amongst the coals before pulling back the curtains to their window. The previous night’s snowstorm had finally abated, and the late-morning sunlight streamed into the room.

“Shut the curtains,” a voice moaned from behind him, and Dírhael turned to see Ivorwen with her arm thrown over her eyes, “’Tis far too early to allow that kind of light in here.”

“It is nearly midday, my dear,” Dírhael replied. “Even in Rivendell folk are usually up and about before noon.”

“They can surely forgive our absence for one day,” Ivorwen said, burying her head underneath a pillow. “It will be awhile, I fear, before I am fit for pleasant company.”

“Just how many glasses did you have last night?” Dírhael shook his head, eyebrows raised.

“I lost track,” came the voice from under the pillow, “I’ve been told that’s where you run into trouble.”

Dírhael forced himself not to laugh as he busied himself with setting a kettle for tea over their bedroom fireplace. He could not remember the last time he had seen his wife in such a state, but their positions had been reversed enough times over the years that he knew he was in no place to judge. And Ivorwen was certainly better at hiding her intoxication than Dírhael himself would ever be. Indeed, had Gilraen not stopped him at the end of the night with a ginger root in hand and a whispered “Look after Mama, would you please?”, he never would have guessed anything was amiss.

"Elves do not water their wine," Ivorwen said weakly. "Did you know that?"

"Gilraen warned me," Dírhael replied, "the second night we arrived. Clearly she thought she did not need to worry about you."

"Daughters always underestimate their mothers," Ivorwen murmured as she rolled over in the bed, "so shall it ever be."

Dírhael poured out a glass of water for his wife, and Ivorwen winced as she sat up and pressed a hand to her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said as she took the glass. “I can only hope that the Lady Arwen is having a better morning than I am.”

“Is that who you were with?” Dírhael asked. “All of you women went missing at some point or another last night—even Lord Elrond noticed, by the end of it.”

“Oh, he noticed far before you did,” Ivorwen said, “I imagine he simply wished to give the lady some time to put her mind at ease before requesting she return to the hall. Though I’m afraid Gilraen and I were not very helpful, in that regard.”

“Were you not?” Dírhael removed the kettle from the fire and poured out two mugs of ginger tea. “Am I going to have to worry about us wearing out our welcome?”

“She was the one who wished for us to remain,” Ivorwen said, a note of defensiveness in her voice. “She said she could not remember when last she kept company with the women of our race. It made for…an enlightening conversation, to say the least.”

“I imagine as much,” Dírhael said as he placed Ivorwen’s tea on the table beside the bed. “So, am I going to be privy to that conversation, or shall I be left to my own devices to figure out what is going on?”

“I beg your pardon?” she sputtered.

“Out with it, Ivorwen,” Dírhael leaned back in his chair and blew on his tea. “There is something you and Gilraen have been keeping from me, something concerning the lady Arwen. I would have you tell me, before I have to threaten Gilraen with singing tales of her childhood before the Hall of Fire to get to the bottom of it all.”

“You wouldn’t!” Ivorwen smacked him lightly on the knee. “Leave our daughter out of this, Dírhael, I put her through enough grief last night as it is.”

“I am not above resorting to blackmail, if that’s what it takes,” Dírhael chuckled, “but it would save us all the trouble if you would just tell me yourself.”

Ivorwen sighed, and ran a hand through her hair as she reached for her own cup of tea with the other.

“I suppose there is no point in hiding it any longer,” she said slowly, “for it concerns Aragorn, too. He has been in love with the lady Arwen ever since he first laid eyes on her, the year he left Rivendell and returned to us. It is a love I fear has only strengthened with time.”

So, Dírhael thought, that is it, then. He had not pressed the marriage issue with Aragorn since their last thundering argument about it two years before, not wanting to create lasting discord with his grandson and Chieftain. It maddened him that Aragorn refused to budge on the matter, but he had been forced to accept that there was something far greater at work in his grandson’s heart than a mere reluctance to marry early. That he held a candle for the Lady of Rivendell herself, he supposed, should not astonish him in the least.

“Well, that explains his reluctance to give a straight answer to the captains,” he said at last. “I had guessed it must be something like that, for him to keep evading the subject for so long. He has a stubbornness to rival even the best of them.”  

“He has indeed,” Ivorwen raised her eyebrows, “and I cannot imagine for the life of me where he gets that trait from.”

Dírhael ignored her and rose from his chair to pace before the fireplace.

“I forget, sometimes, how young he still is,” he muttered. “He is wise beyond his years in so many respects, but in this he carries all the folly of youth.”

“Do not let Gilraen hear you saying that,” Ivorwen warned, “she already worries enough about how the men in her family get along.”

“Am I wrong, Ivorwen?” Dírhael fought to keep his voice from rising. “Everything we have done in the past thirty years has been for the cause of ensuring our line’s survival. Everything! Would he undo that now simply because he cannot let go of a childhood dream?”  

“Dírhael, please,” Ivorwen said sharply, “I have enough of a headache this morning, I do not need you adding to it. Do you think I have not already had these thoughts a thousand times over, ever since he told me?”

She fixed him with the glare that he knew so well over her cup of tea, and he sat down again in his chair as he picked up his own mug once more.

“Yes,” he sighed, “yes, I suppose you have.”

“Aragorn knows the weight of his actions,” she continued, “something we all could do well to remember. He deserves our faith now more than ever, as difficult as that may be in this situation.”

“Faith,” Dírhael shook his head. “How many things would I have done differently had I not placed faith in my Chieftain. Always have I trusted their judgement, even if it differed from my own. I held my tongue when Lord Arador led our son on that fool’s mission against the trolls…”

“Dírhael--”

“I held my tongue,” he continued doggedly, “and it cost both their lives. I believed Lord Arathorn when he said no harm would come to our daughter, and he left her a widow sundered from her kin before she’d passed her twenty-sixth year! So tell me, dear wife, what sort of path does faith in the line of Isildur give to us?”

“That is old grief talking, and you know it,” Ivorwen said, her own face taut with pain, “grief that has little enough to do with the choices our grandson faces now.”

“Are they not the same?” Dírhael asked, “Our lives have been defined by our losses, Ivorwen, it has been that way ever since the fall of Arthedain. We fight to preserve what we have left, and there is little else we can do...”

“Oh, we have fallen far indeed if you truly believe that is all we can do,” Ivorwen gave a bitter laugh. “For twenty years I stood by your side as you proved to our people there was more to live for than simply eking out an existence in the shadow of our forefathers. What now has caused you to think otherwise?”

Dírhael looked down at his hands, suddenly unable to meet his wife’s eyes.

“I do not know,” he sighed. “I look back on the years and I fear that little has changed. Forever are we doomed to be two steps behind the enemy, with our Chieftain ever in peril. There are days when I can think of nothing else beyond mere survival, and that even when Aragorn is with us.”

“You have always held out for more than that,” Ivorwen said. “You never settled for anything less than a better future. ‘Tis what you taught to Aragorn, when he returned, and I would be very surprised if that is not part of why he clings to his love for Arwen now.”

“So this is my fault, now.”

“Did I not say he got his stubbornness from you?” Ivorwen offered him a wry smile.

Dírhael shook his head once more, and stared into the steam still rising from his tea.

“Surely the lady Arwen has her own thoughts on the matter,” he said, to fill the silence. “I cannot imagine why else you all were holed up in that room for so long. What does she have to say about it?”

“Plenty, as it turns out,” Ivorwen’s face reddened. “She would not refuse him outright, not so long as her own heart remains conflicted. But it is no matter—you know as well as I do that Lord Elrond would never agree to it, no matter how his daughter feels.”

Dírhael snorted.

“I have been in his position before, with less at stake,” he said. “I do not doubt he would refuse any proposal Aragorn might be bold enough to put forth, and rightly so. So where does that leave our kinsmen? Left to hammer out our own survival while the heir of Elendil chases the impossible?”

“It would hardly be the first time,” Ivorwen reminded him dryly, “and there is much that is unforeseen. Only the Valar know what his journeys abroad will teach him. Perhaps his time in Rohan and Gondor will bring about a change of heart.”

“Your optimism is touching,” Dírhael rose from his chair once more, but gave a small smile as he did so. He pulled back the curtain and gazed out the window at the new-fallen snow, untouched save for the tracks of a deer leading off to the west. Somewhere, farther off in the same direction, his own people would be out in the freezing weather, busy concluding their preparations for the winter. The harvest had been good this year, a blessing that grew ever rarer, and for once no one would need to worry about going hungry in the frigid months. Orcs and wolves, however, were another matter entirely…

“You wish we were home,” Ivorwen murmured as she came up behind him, “not even the most heated of conversations could distract you from that.”

“Aye,” Dírhael said. “It gladdens my heart to be so near to Gilraen, and if proximity to Elven healing will stave off another year of lung fever, I shall stay as long as I need. But it maddens me just the same to be so far from our kin in the harshest of months, even if I can no longer ride out with the men myself.”

Ivorwen did not answer, but leaned her head against his shoulder in silent understanding.

“It shall be Mettarë soon,” she said, “and the turning of a new year. Perhaps it is time we let go of the fears we’ve held so close to our hearts these last decades.”

“Perhaps it is,” Dírhael said softly, “The fate of our people rests with Aragorn now, and Halbarad in his absence. Perhaps it is time I stopped pretending I can affect much else, beyond praying that they might still heed the grumblings of an old man.”

“Do not underestimate the grumblings of an old man,” Ivorwen smiled as she took his face in her hand, “Aragorn and Halbarard both know to listen to those who came before them. Trust in what you have given them, my darling--it is not simply your blood that runs through their veins. It is everything you have taught to them as well.”