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At Hope's Edge by Cairistiona	10 Review(s)
Lexilooper	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 12/17/2025
Aragorn walked slowly back across to the main house, stomach comfortably full, even if he had not been able to eat as much as he normally did, and certainly nowhere near as much as Denlad and Eledh had packed away in their brief visit to Neala’s repast before they returned to work. Aragorn still felt a general malaise, the sort of feeling one gets when the horrible part of an illness is past but the body still needs to find its equilibrium and strength. His ankle throbbed, but it bore his weight and he would just have to put up with the nuisance of it until it healed. Just like he would have to put up with the ache that still arced across his chest, and the darkness that kept trying to creep back into his mind. And the chills that still rippled up and down his skin like dozens of tiny Mirkwood spiders. And the twinges from the splinter wounds on his left arm, whose healing had not been encouraged in the least by his battle with the Nazgûl. and and and and. This is. You do still need healing. <3 When was the last time I did not have some sort of wound, or ache, or broken bone or sprained limb? He realized he couldn’t remember. <:( He looked toward the horses. Randir was nowhere in sight, but Bronadui was standing by the railing, looking at him with an eager expression that meant he was ready to be ridden or be given some sort of treat. Aragorn smiled and dug out the apple Neala had pressed into his hands. "Give that horse of yours a treat, Lord Aragorn," she had said, and now he walked to Bronadui, slicing the apple with his dagger. He held out a piece. "Someone evidently thinks I don’t spoil you enough," he said. SJAKFH how I love her <3 Bronadui huffed and then his sensitive lips found the apple and in seconds, it was gone. Aragorn fed him the rest, smiling with pleasure as he scratched around Bronadui’s ears. Bronadui crunched the last of it, then, looking for more, nudged Aragorn’s chest, right on the bruised area. "Ahhh, don’t do that," Aragorn wheezed as the bruise flared to uncomfortable life. Stars danced before his eyes and he grabbed the railing and stood for a long moment, hardly breathing, afraid the darkness would come swooping down on him. But this time, for whatever reason, he felt nothing beyond the ordinary but no less excruciating protest of muscles that had been bruised nearly beyond their capacity. When the pain finally relinquished its grip and he could breathe again, he opened his eyes. Bronadui’s liquid gaze seemed to apologize. "Fear not. I am not angry. How could you know?" Aragorn rubbed the horse’s soft nose and bent his forehead to touch Bronadui’s. yesssssss :))) glad the darkness didn't come though <3 A loud yelp and then an enraged shout from the roof of the stable caught his attention and he watched with mingled amusement and alarm as Eledh, legs akimbo and arms grasping ineffectually at handfuls of thatching, slid down the roof and off the low eave to land on his backside in a pile of hay. Denlad’s head appeared at the ridge line, his expression ludicrously innocent as he nonchalantly picked up something from the thatching. From this distance, it was hard to say, but Aragorn could have sworn it looked like a very large, and hopefully dead, spider. He chuckled. "It seems Denlad’s over his latest fit of melancholy and up to his usual tricks," he said to Bronadui. "Halbarad will be happy." SKASHGSJKH XDDDD <33 With a final pat on Bronadui’s neck, Aragorn pushed away from the fence and hobbled back to the house where he sat on the bench and picked up the broken harness Halbarad had found in the stable and left for him with orders that, if he survived the foolhardy trip to Neala’s quarters, he could spend the afternoon quietly repairing. Aragorn shook his head with amusement. To say Halbarad had been displeased with him walking about so much and so soon would be like saying Forochel was a bit chilly in winter. Halbarad had all but threatened to sit on Aragorn to keep him abed, a solution that would not have had any sort of good outcome for either of them. Too bad Halbarad is not around to see that I survived my outing. But he was on watch, along with Galadh, so Aragorn had no opportunity to gloat. AWWWW LOL the foolhardy trip Setting aside the awl and the leather straps, he let himself into the dim cabin and with a groaning sigh, stretched out on the cot. He closed his eyes, but, contrarily, sleep did not immediately come. Instead, his thoughts trailed toward Rivendell, and his father. Much as he did not wish to return to Rivendell, and the always precarious walk on the tightrope that was his relationship with Lord Elrond, a nagging worry pestered him that only at the hands of his father could he be truly healed. Elrond was familiar with the Black Breath, after all, and Aragorn had heard stories of how Elrond had healed those who had fallen under the wraith’s spell. He bit his lip as a cold tendril of fear wormed through his mind. He had also heard stories of those who had been touched by a Morgul blade who had not received such healing... and who ever after walked in the nether world between the living and the dead, having become wraiths themselves. yesssss <3 He shifted uneasily. He felt... exposed. Alone and naked and terribly vulnerable, as if he were somehow trapped on a wind-swept ledge, with no one to throw down a rope and help him climb back to safety. One misstep... hmm <:( Time will heal this. That’s all I need. Time. uh-huh. Sure. Despite concern over whatever may be wrong with Denlad, Aragorn had to smile. Put a pretty woman within a league of Denlad and his normal dry wit melted away into shy, painful stammering. He had spent his entire time eating with his eyes on his plate and his cheeks flaming. loll aww Aragorn felt his eyebrows rise. As fractured as Denlad’s words were, it was the closest thing to a full sentence Aragorn had ever heard him say to a woman. His curiosity could be denied no longer. He got up and walked slowly and softly to the doorway. He peeked out and saw that Neala had a wet cloth pressed against the back of Denlad’s head. Her other hand supported his forehead, and Aragorn had to suppress a wild desire to laugh at the tension that held Denlad rigidly upright, tension that Aragorn was sure had little to do with pain from a bump on the head. Denlad’s knuckles were white where his hands gripped the edge of the bench. Aragorn didn’t think he chuckled out loud, but he must have made some sound, because they both suddenly turned to look at him. Aragorn had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing at the barely concealed panic in Denlad’s eyes. LOLLLL pure panic, this time in a "good" way :))) Neala sighed. "Did I do something to anger him?" Aragorn laughed. "No, Neala, you did nothing wrong. I suppose he has simply never had the opportunity to learn much about the ways of well-bred women." Aragorn stopped, not feeling it was his place to explain Denlad’s problematic upbringing. Being the son of a fallen woman, and having no father nor any knowledge of who the man was, did not exactly lend itself to Denlad learning the finer points of dealing with women of quality. To Aragorn’s knowledge, a pretty woman was the only thing that could send Denlad into full-blown retreat. Neala’s wistful voice interrupted his reverie. "A man such as that, and no woman waiting for him?" Aragorn tilted his head to look at her. There was no mistaking the faint blush on her cheeks. He slowly smiled. "Perhaps he has never found the right one." Her cheeks turned rosy, and she suddenly became very interested in the cloth she held. She finally muttered something about needing to check on the evening meal and hurried off. ASKDHGSDFJ AHHH AHHHHHH alright I ship them It was Randir, walking around the stable. The boy stopped when he saw Denlad, who had climbed atop the roof, and started to walk away, but Denlad saw him. He called out something too low for Aragorn to make out and immediately climbed back down the ladder. Randir waited, eyes downcast and hands bashfully shoved into his pockets. Denlad reached the ground and knelt beside him, talking softly, and finally elicited a small grin from the boy. Seeing Denlad so took Aragorn back to another time, where he had knelt in just such a fashion to talk to another shy boy. aksjdhsjkshjkshfjk so he's gonna be a good father to him too <333 shipping continues She had disappeared shortly after that, and he did not see her again for many years, until a chance patrol in the North Downs brought them to a shambles of a farm, and he saw that it was hers and that she now had a strapping young son of perhaps nine summers, a golden-haired boy who looked so wistfully at the small band of Rangers, who must have seemed to have appeared by a wizard’s magic on his front step, that Aragorn’s heart was pierced. The mother may have chosen poorly, but through her, the son had the blood of Númenor in his veins, and his path lay untrammeled before him. A nudge in the right direction, from the right person, might be enough to keep him from falling prey to the same sort of tragic mistakes that had claimed the dignity of his mother. And since Aragorn knew just a little about what it was like to have to overcome an ancestor’s error, he figured he might be just the one to do the nudging. skasdhfdjhsdfjkh thank you Aragorn <333 "And who is this mighty warrior?" he had asked the young man, who promptly blushed to his hairline and ran into the cabin. AWWWW <33 No amount of coaxing had convinced the lad to emerge, so Aragorn and his men had ridden off, but Aragorn never forgot the desperate longing in the boy’s eyes, nor the steadfast cut to the young man’s chin. So he made it a point each year to swing by the farm, to drop off a deer or a brace of pheasants, but mostly to watch the boy as he grew over the years. He was pleased with what he saw: as the tall boy grew into a strapping young man nearly as tall as Aragorn, the condition of the farm slowly improved, the cabin in better repair, the horses and cows in finer fettle. Denlad’s mother even seemed to soften, to mellow from the hard-faced woman who could only glare at Aragorn to a mother who instead watched her own son with a quiet pride. ASKDHFFSDJGHSJKDSFHJHFD changing even her <333 what a beautiful quiet tiny but huge influence Then at last came the year he and his company had arrived to find a fresh mound of dirt in a clearing beside the house, and a tearful young man sitting bereft against a tree. When Denlad stood, angrily wiping his eyes, embarrassed at being caught in his grief, Aragorn asked what they could do to help. At Denlad’s vehement denial of any need, he then asked another question. "Is the mighty warrior ready?" And this time the young man did not run away. OH OH MY GOSH I I CHOKED TEARSSSS what a beautiful follow-up question <333 Now Aragorn watched, a curious lump coming to his throat, as Denlad pulled a small knife and sheath from his pocket–one Aragorn had given him when Denlad was roughly Randir’s age–and handed it to Randir. Randir’s face lit up with a huge smile and he ran off. Denlad watched him go, a thoughtful look on his face, then he moved to the fence to stare moodily at the recalcitrant horse that had bested him. Denlad had won over Randir, and Aragorn had no doubt that given time, he would win over that horse. "And perhaps with time, Neala could win over you," Aragorn said softly. Then he cleared his throat and picked up the bridle. He started to work on it, but a passing cloud dimmed the sunlight, and its shadow left a chill in the air. Aragorn glanced at the sky. Sullen clouds seemed suddenly to race across the heavens, as if rushing toward warmer, more southerly climes before winter’s bite fell upon them. He looked again at the men, then turned his eyes to the south, toward Windydale. "It seems that time is all any of us need. But I fear time may be the one thing none of us have." skadfhsjhjkshfsjdfshdjsjhsdf giving the knife Aragorn gave <33333 time <:(((( NEALA YES <3

Ellynn	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 8/24/2010
Well, well. :) I remember a few lines from "The Ranger and the Hobbit", when Denlad is thinking of his little family and "a boy he loves as his own". :) Now, would that family be Neala and Randir? g I am glad that you included a little bit of romance, too. I am looking forward to see how it will go on. :) Author Reply: whistling innocently Why, whatever are you talking about? Neala and Denlad together??? That shy man ever marrying??? I must plead the right to remain silent on the grounds that I don't like giving out answers that a reader will discover later in the story. g

Dreamdeer	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 8/5/2009
I enjoyed this peaceful interlude between storms, taking the time to get to know Denlad's back-story and how it interwove with his present life. Cairistiona keeps the reader's awareness of the setting and situation fresh even as she tells stories within stories. As usual, well done! Author Reply: Thanks! I do like a story that's multi-layered and it worked well to focus on Denlad and telling his story in this particular tale. Other stories will do the same with Eledh and Galadh, so they'll have their moments in the spotlight. And yes, a story as intense as this one needs those places to let the reader catch his or her breath... but not too long a moment. ;) Thanks again!

Linda Hoyland	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 2/26/2009
I'm glad Aragorn is coming to realise he needs Elrond's help.I liked the story of Denlad and how Aragorn took an interest in him. Author Reply: Thank you, Linda! Yes, even a stubborn Ranger gifted with healing abilities like Aragorn has to realize that some things might be a little beyond his control. Of course, we're still a long way from Rivendell. Very glad you liked Denlad's story... he's had a tough life, that boy. Thanks again for the review!

Lady_Roisin	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 2/26/2009
Just wanted to say again how very much I love this story. I know I've been reviewing it at N&N, but, seriously, if this was a book at the store, I would buy it. Your writing is so inspiring, and your OCs are great. I love how they play a big role, but they get the same care as the canon characters do, and have a great deal of depth and personality. I love your Aragorn too. Author Reply: Thank you, Roisin! Wow, you didn't have to leave a review here, too, but thank you for taking the time. I'm flattered that you would pay money for my writing (my dream is someday people might do just that) and I'm so glad you like my OC's and feel they add to the story. And Aragorn... well, he's my favorite, so it makes me very happy when others feel I've got him "right". Thank you again for the review!

Estelcontar	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 2/26/2009
What a wonderful chapter. I really enjoyed that lighthearted part in which we witness Eledh's fall, with Deland reminding Aragorn of a very large spider, picking something from the thatching. It had me chuckling again. Poor Eledh. I see that Aragorn isn't yet completely free from the after effects of his battle with the Nazgul. Aragorn alone and exposed on a wind-swept ledge is a very vivid, and very effective image indeed. I'm sure he will make no misstep. It was so good to get to know Denlad's back story. It does indeed explain why he's shy around women and why he's so loyal to Aragorn. I do hope Neala gets her way with him. LOL A most enjoyable chapter indeed. Author Reply: Thank you, Estelcontar! I'm glad you liked this chapter, and Denlad's fake (maybe!) spider prank on poor Eledh. I do hope that was a dead spider he picked up from the thatching. grin Yes, and Aragorn's feeling pretty vulnerable right now, poor Ranger. And I'm glad you liked hearing of Denlad's backstory. As I've mentioned on other review replies, I wasn't 100% sure it was good to put all that in the story, but it seems to have worked out all right. Thanks again for the review!

Silivren Tinu	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 2/26/2009
Denlad and Neala would make such a nice couple! g Tell him I absolutely forbid him to get himself killed! ;-) Denlad's story is really a sad one. I'm glad Aragorn was there to keep an eye on him. It's really remarkable that Denlad did not forget how to love, and grew up to be a good man in spite of the difficult childhood he must have had. I liked that he was even able to soften his mother's heart in the end. :) I hope Neala is a patient woman, he'd really deserve some happiness. I'm glad Aragorn at least thinks about the nature of his wound and what's wrong with him, even if he doesn't share his worries or problems with anyone else (I wish I could drag him to Rivendell - I'd feel much better after Elrond has had a look at him!). "He felt... exposed. Alone and naked and terribly vulnerable, as if he were somehow trapped on a wind-swept ledge, with no one to throw down a rope and help him climb back to safety. One misstep..." - This is really not very reassuring. Somehow I'm beginning to doubt time will heal this specific injury. Loved it (though that's probably quite obvious g)! Almut Author Reply: Thank you, Almut! So glad you liked this latest installment! It's very reassuring to me that you're able to feel such sympathy for Denlad, considering all we really know about him is what's revealed in this story. One of these days I'll tell his tale in a separate fic, but it's good to know that even with the limited information about him here, you're feeling strongly about him. And yes, not really the time to feel comfortable about Aragorn's seeming recovery, is it! Thanks again for the review, and yes, I will tell Denlad to be extra careful. :)

Larner	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 2/26/2009
A wonderful look at life on a Dunedain farmstead. And I hope indeed that Neala wins over Denladh--he needs some taming and comforting. Now--to get Aragorn to Rivendell whether he wishes to go or not. Author Reply: Thanks, Larner... you know, Aragorn really needs to listen to you. But somehow I worry he won't ...

Fantasia	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 2/26/2009
This is such a beautiful chapter, so well written, I just can "see" them...I love this story...well, Aragon the matchmaker...I liked the spider joke scene, to see the rangers behaving as normal human beings is priceless Now, he needs to go and see Elrond and he knows that, but I suppose that he will keep pushing himself until Halbarad force him to go to Imladris. I was thinking that maybe Elrond will send some help when he receives the news from the survivors, maybe the twins? I'm sure that he will come to the conclusion that there is more than orcs around and I just think that Aragon and his little band of Rangers need help. And please, do not kill Denlad now or any of them, I can't take another loss. Thanks, Fantasia Author Reply: Thank you, Fantasia! I'm glad you enjoyed this chapter and its touch of "ordinary" life. And yes, Aragorn's in quite a state, isn't he. Who knows when he will finally accede to Halbarad's good sense. Sometimes it seems that "sensible" and "Aragorn" are not concepts seen often together. ;) Glad you like all my Rangers well enough not to want to lose any of them. I don't really want to lose any more, myself, but that will be up to them, and how well they continue to fight this Nazgul. Time will tell! Thanks again for the review!

Ainu Laire	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 2/26/2009
Aww, a love story! :P That's adorable. I have a feeling that this little boo-boo isn't going to go away soon- and the nightmares likely won't, either. And perhaps not easily. A Nazgul is no small foe. This is the calm before the storm. Dun dun dun. Author Reply: Thank you, Laire! I'm glad you like the little Denlad/Neala subplot. It almost didn't make the cut... I was afraid it might be too distracting. But then I thought about how real life isn't all just one-dimensionally big, bad and ugly, and neither should it be for our Rangers. And those two just would not quit making moon eyes at each other... And yes, definitely in the calm moments for now. Glad you liked this and thanks for the review!

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