In the following days, Nethril tried to ignore the strangeness of Elrond Half-Elven in her house, and set her sights on preparations for the long winter ahead. Things had been so chaotic that she still had not finished harvest inventories, and she spent a full day with Adanel and Faelhen scouring out the hearths and shaking out rugs to hang in the windows of the Chieftain’s house. She left Aragorn to finalize the winter patrols with Meldroch, but she took stock of those men who were home on leave and set them to work mending fences or repairing chicken coops. 

Aragorn carefully avoided the subject of Gondor, and she refrained from asking. His presence bolstered her spirits, when he was not attending to his duties as healer or Chieftain, and at nights she sat before the hearth with Elrond and Aragorn, learning all she could of Rivendell and her cousin’s strange childhood.

One morning she woke up smelling snow in the air, and she spent the day on a final patrol of the village, checking to see if there were any dire tasks that needed to be done before the first winter storm hit. She found her brother on top of their mother’s cottage, repairing thatching on the roof, and as she approached she heard a steady stream of muttered curses. He knelt on the roof, clutching at his injured arm with the other hand, and he glared down at the roof as though it personally offended him. She glanced around to see if anyone else was nearby, before she called up to him in the manner she had since they were children. 

“Get down from there, you idiot! Isn’t there a man without an infected gash who can do that job?” 

Halbarad startled and nearly lost his balance, but when he saw it was his sister he only rolled his eyes. “Of course not. Mama is far too polite to mention it to anyone, and Ada Dírhael is not here to do it unasked.” 

“Then you mention it to someone else. Brécharn is doing nothing but idling about drinking ale, and--” 

“I’m not harassing Brécharn, sister. The man has earned his rest. This is just about done, anyhow.” He climbed down from the roof, his long hair billowing out behind him, and he enveloped her in a careful, one-armed embrace. “Come inside, won’t you? I can make tea, now.”

“Only took a lifetime,” she said, but she followed him inside their mother’s small, snug cottage. 

The chair that Nethril had spent so many childhood nights in sat in its usual place before the hearth, a grey woolen blanket draped over it. The patterned rug she’d helped her mother make hung over the shuttered windows, and a pair of looms and a spinning wheel sat unattended in the corner. Baskets of thread and cloth were strewn haphazardly around the room, and Nethril frowned. Her mother was usually so meticulous about her housekeeping. 

Halbarad noticed her look, and he attempted a lighthearted smile, though it did not mask the worry in his eyes. “I think it’s good I was banished here. I did not know Mama had been ill.” 

“Oh. Oh, yes. Around harvest-time.” Finnael’s lung fever seemed a lifetime ago now, half forgotten in the midst of all the other crises that cropped up since. A brief pang of guilt stabbed through Nethril, and she ran a hand over the rough wood of the table before she sank into the chair she still thought of as hers. “Where is she now?” 

“With Ivorwen and Lord Elrond. I think they’re all gossiping about Aunt Gilraen.” Halbarad knelt before the hearth, gathering bits of kindling alongside flint and steel. Small, sputtering flames curled up around the twigs, and he sat back on his heels in satisfaction. He glanced up at Nethril, a slow, wide grin lightening his features, and she made a face at him in turn.

“What?” 

“You look like a queen, little sister, with that crown around your head. Meldroch says no one could have led us better, in Aragorn’s absence.” 

She flushed with pride and embarrassment, and she touched a hand briefly to the cool metal of Adanel’s circlet, the thin strand of mithril impossibly smooth within the silver. She’d worn it every day since Elrond’s arrival, and hardly felt the weight of it now. 

“I’m glad to give that burden back to him. And only pray he keeps it awhile longer, rather than gallivanting off to Gondor.” 

Halbarad hummed noncommittally. He rose and busied himself filling a kettle with water and removing mugs from the cabinet. She tried to catch his eye, but he ducked behind the chair to place the cups on the table. When she turned to face him, he continued to avoid her gaze, and she narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

“Oh, no. Do not tell me you think this nonsense is a good idea.” 

He stood bent over the table, hands resting on the rough wooden surface, and he sighed. “I think it’s what he has to do, Nethril. Every night on the road he dreamed of Minas Tirith.” 

“And suddenly we make our decisions based on dreams? Even Ivorwen would not counsel him such.” 

“She has. He told me last night.” 

It took a moment before the words truly sunk in, and when they did, cold fear washed over Nethril. All her careful arguments, silently marshaled, would be useless now. The fate of the Angle would rest on her vastly incapable shoulders, while Aragorn rode off wherever he fancied to chase an unknown dream. The thought crystallized her fear into anger, and she clenched her hands into fists. 

“So it’s decided, then? He’s to go over the mountains for his own needs, with no thought to his people? And he’ll consult with you, and Nana, but not the woman he’s entrusted the Chieftainship to?” 

Halbarad raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps because he feared you’d react this way.” 

“Please. You men with your plotting, you don’t—“ she stopped herself before she said something cruel. Her brother did not deserve her rage. Not even Aragorn did, though she had to reason with herself quite carefully to stop herself from bursting out of the cottage right then to berate him herself. 

She rose from her chair in agitation and paced before the hearth in an effort to calm her racing heart. This could not be the right decision. The Dúnedain needed Aragorn here far more than Gondor did, she could not face an indefinite stint as acting Chieftain, especially not when Adanel’s heart might shatter from the news…   

Halbarad’s steady hands caught her by both shoulders, forcing her into stillness, and she looked up to meet his troubled gaze. 

“Nethril, you were not there in the barrows, you did not see what he did. I don’t think he even realizes it himself. Those wights cast spells with their voices, I couldn’t move. But he…he broke free of them, kept their chief from destroying Gandalf. Not even Arathorn could have performed such a feat. He is destined to be greater than just Chieftain of the Dúnedain.” 

“For what purpose, Hal?” Her eyes filled swiftly with tears, and she bit down on her lip in shame. “What becomes of the Dunedain, if our Chieftain chases something greater?  You’ve seen how he lifts the people’s spirits, just by being here. There’s not a soul among us who can replace that, or lead as he does.” 

“His leadership will matter little, if our enemies increase as they have. These wights out of Cardolan, orcs and worse out of Angmar, men from Dunland pressing north near Swanfleet. They will pick us apart until there’s nothing left, and even our Chieftain will be powerless to stop it. Unless he goes, and discovers a different path. The path of Isildur’s Heir.”

A trace of fear shone through his eyes, one she had never seen, and it shook her more deeply than anything she’d witnessed these past days. She could not deny the long, painful history of the Rangers' defense of Eriador, defenses that seemed to weaken no matter what they did. Isilmë's words from a year ago haunted her, that the Dúnedain fought and died for an uncertain future. If Aragorn had a chance to reclaim his birthright in Gondor, perhaps it would lead to better promise for them all. But the thought did little to banish the gnawing fear in her gut that it would instead lead their people to utter ruin. Left in her hands...

“The captains’ council nearly tore itself apart, those eighteen years without a Chieftain,” she said desperately. “We kept ourselves going by Adanel’s strength alone. That is spent now.” 

“And instead we have yours,” Halbarad said, but she shook her head forcefully, the tears escaping now. She fell back into her chair, throat tight, and she covered her mouth with her hand to suppress a small sob.

“I’m so tired, Hal. I was not born to leadership, not the way Aragorn was. I do not have decades of marriage to a Chieftain, as Adanel did. These past few weeks ran me to the ground. I cannot do it for two years.” 

“I think it will be longer,” Halbarad said softly, and Nethril moaned. “But you cannot tell me you’re not prepared for this. And you won’t be alone. Dírhael will return soon, and he’ll come off patrols, once he hears this news. Mellaer and I can move back from Swanfleet, if you want. Never let it be said the house of Aranarth cannot come together, when need drives us.”  

Nethril snorted. “I’ve been trying to get to you to move back from Swanfleet since you left. Who would have thought it would take this.” 

“Isilmë, too,” Halbarad said, and warm relief curled through Nethril at the name of her love. They’d endured their separation for the past year through letters and promises, but it had made it no easier to bear. “Things will change when he’s gone. Perhaps not all in ways that cause grief.” 

She nodded, and exhaled with a shaking sigh. 

The kettle whistled from its hook on the hearth, and she rose to lift it carefully before pouring water into the cups Halbarad had set out. He smiled when she pushed a cup towards him, and she sat opposite him, noting that they still took the same places at the table they’d occupied every day as children. Steam dampened his whiskers when he brought the mug to his lips, and a sudden, hopeful thought came to her as she watched him.

“If you move back, they’ll push for you to serve as acting Chieftain instead. You’re the eldest, and a man.” 

Halbarad shuddered and shook his head. “They’d wish they’d appointed a cave troll. I serve best as a lieutenant, not even Meldroch can deny that. I’ll be yours, readily.”

She groaned in disappointment, but knew that he was right. He looked at her now with fierce resolve, and she gave him a rueful smile. 

"The Angle in the hands of Dirlaeg's children," she murmured. "If only he could see it." 

He reached across the table to take her face between his hands, warm from their contact with the teacup. He half-stood to kiss her gently on the forehead, and when he settled back onto the bench she saw just how much strength he lent her, and how much she’d missed him. 

“I’m here for you, Nethril. I always will be.”