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A Matter of Honor by meckinock	23 Review(s)
pipinheart	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 3/22/2006
Aragorn, you have to feel for him here, he is in pain, and knows something no-one else does it seem...Can he not trust elrond to ease his fears...It must be bad if not, and leave when he still isn't recovered... Great!! Author Reply: Hi, Pipinheart, I'm glad Aragorn's misery came across for you! Of course he could have (and probably should have) trusted Elrond with his fears, but right now he's still too mortified to do that, unfortunately. Glad you enjoyed it.

Ellie	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 3/21/2006
This such a good story! So intriguing and such well developed characters. I can't wait for more. Author Reply: Thanks, Ellie. Glad you like it!

RS	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 3/6/2006
Just want to let you know that I am still waiting for updates! Read this story again (just love it!) and the suspense is killing me. What happened? Just a friendly reminder that I have not forgotten you and am patiently waiting! Hope all is well. Author Reply: I am so sorry, RS! I got very busy at work for the past month. I'm on a trip for work now; and I put Chapter 9 on a flash drive so I could work on it while I was away and the flash drive ate my file. So I won't be able to finish it until I get home on the 17th. Thanks for your concern, I feel terrible but there's nothing I can do from here!

estel e edain	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 2/24/2006
I can't wait till the next chapter to see what aragorn does and what happens. this chapter was my favorite Author Reply: Hi, estel, I'm sorry it's taking so long to get the next chapter up. I will try not to keep you waiting much longer. Thanks so much for letting me know you enjoyed the chapter. meckinock

Elflingimp	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 1/24/2006
Well Ive read this whole story in two days and it has the same quality in it as the first,you have captured all of their personalities so well,I am in awe so I will be waiting( Patiently) for more Thanks for the good read! Author Reply: You found the trail of bread crumbs! I'm glad! I really enjoy working with these characters, even the ones I never really thought of before, like Erestor. Thanks for reviewing. meckinock

The Karenator	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 1/24/2006
The PI was still in the bushes. Meanwhile, the chieftain was wheezing his way up the steps to an attic dustier than the Munster’s drawing room. The maid rarely made her way to the expanse bat hotel that kept all the discarded mismatched plastic ware and chipped china the elves had accumulated through Ages of soirees and Tupperware parties. When the ranger finally gained the door of the dusty den, he found the punkish pie pixie and his sidekick, Erestor--an elf with the grooming habits of an undertaker--already rummaging around the stacked castoffs and boxed bunkum. Aragorn, as blue in the face as Papa Smurff, hacked his way over to a trunk sporting a fine layer of powdery mildew and bat guano. He flipped open the lid as easily as Mel could flip flapjacks at his greasy spoon. After a few minutes of coughing and sputtering, the ranger yanked out a stack of Golden Books and tossed them to the tactless trumpery tatterdemalion. The compact castoff collector gave the goods a once over and sneezed. “You ain’t got Tomb Raider or John Madden’s NFL?” “These,” Erestor said, looking as grim as Timmy when Lassie didn’t come home, “are books, my dear gormless git, hand wrought by the last homely dad when he was still living in a cave with no electricity and had to trudge through the snow five miles everyday to elvengarten.” The prunish pee-wee poacher grimaced as if he had been eating bad meatloaf and went back to thumbing through the pages while looking for the button to turn on the sound. The ranger looked fondly at his Thomas, the tank engine, until the undertaker left to scare up a cadaver to bore into the grave with his discourses, and the pesky petulant piddler pranced off with his proffered putterment. Another trunk caught the ranger’s eye and he delved into it like it was Davy Jones’s locker. His face fell like Zsa Zsa’a after a lift that didn’t take. There was nothing but a smelly Hell’s Angels jacket, a sweaty bandana, and a creased ticket stub to some long ago rock festival on a farm in the upcountry of Eriador. At the very bottom of the crusty box, he spied a stiff leather wallet bulging with paper. “Summertime,” one of the bookend brothers said from the door, “and the living was easy.” “What are you jabbering about?” the ranger snapped as he tossed an empty bottle of Love Potion number 9 back into a mess as jumbled as Vanna White’s hair. He tore his eyes away from the billfold. Elladan, one half of the twinset, dropped to a knee next to the trunk of truncated tales. “It was the summer of ’69,” he said wistfully. “Three days of music and mud. I was there, you know. Me and Bobby McGee. Elrohir too. Janice was cosmic in blue and nursing Southern Comfort. Country Joe was rockin around the world. The Band was up Cripple Creek. Crosby, Still, Nash and Young were still speaking. It was the time to be a ranger in the wild.” His eyes misted and turned as dark as Barnaby Collins before he chowed down on a juicy jugular. “We were undercover, you know. Word had come down to us from our troll snitches that Sauron had put together a band and was going to give them a test ride at the festival. Called themselves LACE—Looting and Crushing Everything. So we copped a disguise and went in.” Anger shot through his eyes like a Saturday Night Special fired point blank. “We were set up, man. Our worm had turned. Those trolls had flipped so many times we were dizzier than a Gillespie. The trolls had never been trustworthy, but we’d pay them good—hard cold cash and a bucket of Kentucky Fried. Later we came to find out that Sauron had bought them with Gold.” He shook his head with despair. “Never, and I mean, never trust a stoned troll, man.” Elladan jumped to his feet and paced, leaving no footprints on the dusty floor. “As soon as things got to piping, Sauron and his minions pulled their tricks. Orcs came rolling out of everywhere. It was like third down on the ten-yard line. People were being tossed and diced like a salad.” He stopped and squared his gaze on the ranger. “Just before the end, your old man snatched up a naked chick who’d been taking a bath in the pond and carried her to safety. Then it happened: One minute he was riding high next to me and the next second he keeled over like a Weeble with his bottom sheared off. He was gone before he hit the mud puddle.” “A warrior could ask for no better death,” the ranger said. Elladan nodded in agreement. “Your old man didn’t suffer Pinkos and before he went to the big bash in the sky, he took out more orcs than anyone else there. He was hailed a hero.” He placed his hand on Aragorn’s arm. “He still is, you know. Arathorn’s name is still tattooed on many a derriere.” Aragorn wiped dust out of his eyes and pointed to another stack of books. This wasn’t the time to take a stroll down memory lane. “Take those down for the natty niblet and I’ll close up the shutters so the bats won’t get out.” Once the brother skipped the scene, Aragorn snatched up the wallet, hoping to find his old man had left him a nice little nest egg. Instead he found a stash of love notes. The handwriting looked like something he’d need a decoder ring for, but he strained his eyeballs to the point of them blowing up like overfilled water balloons and deciphered the scraggly penmanship. His heart took a leap off the Tallahatchee Bridge. He didn’t know how long he had spent picking out snaky letters and trying to guess the words when Olorin Gandalf spooked his way into the attic. Great! Just what the ranger needed; a science guy to start running tests on the ink and working code. Aragorn stuffed the pack into his shirt and put on his best Howdy Doody smile. “Dinner is served,” the wizard said, “and your can is going to be the main course if you don’t get it downstairs to the table.” Gandalf survey the ranger with the practiced eye of a wizard of odd. He knew when something was brewing even if the Falstaff light had flickered and gone out long ago on most of these goods. “Something eatin’ at you?” he asked. “Nothing a little Nitaway won’t fix,” the ranger told him getting up to follow after the wizard like a puppy caught weeing on the rug. The corndogs had already been scarfed up when the ranger made his way to the table. “You want a fried weenie?” Elrond asked eyeing his foster son like he had just stepped out of drag and the king turned out to be a queen after all. “I’ll pass,” the ranger said. He knew by the penetrating look on the elf lord’s face that he had gotten wind about him raking though tattered trunks. What Aragorn didn’t know was if the last homely dad had ever caught wind about some perfumed epistles piled in personal plunder. “Guess what I did today?” the compact cookhouse collector asked. A collective sigh of relief not heard since the last time the last homely dad had aired out his drawers breezed from the adults at the table. “What did you do today?” the science guy asked with dull enthusiasm. “Bulbous and I went for a walk and I didn’t see one single satellite dish. Then Aragorn and the undertaker took me up to the attic, and Aragorn gave me these things Erestor called books. Did you know that Aragorn is so old he didn’t have a Gameboy when he was growing up?” “He’s always been rather gamey,” Elladan muttered under his breath. “If you keep piling up junk to lug to the Shire,” Olorin said, “we’re going to have to snatch a U-haul.” “They’re presents,” the knee-high knick-knack napper said. “Besides, it’ll help me remember everybody when I’m holed up in hole.” He turned to the ranger. “I’m gonna miss you. Are you gonna be lonelier than Sonny without Cher when I go?” “Sure,” the ranger replied. “But I’m blowing this pop stand tomorrow too.” The last homely dad’s face became pale and hard. “Not in this Age,” he said in a low furious voice that sounded like Rin-Tin-Tin’s growling over a soup bone with a hank of ham still hanging on the haunch. “So,” Elladan piped up like the lead singer for the Vienna Boys’ Choir, “anybody want a cold one?” “Yeah, pop me a top,” Elrohir said congenially. When Elladan plopped the icy brew down in front of him, he kicked it back. After wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he smiled. “These hops are hoppin’ good. I think it’s because they grow on the southern exposure of…the big field…where they grow.” “Indeed, my brother,” the other twin of the set said, “I think it’s all the acid dropped in the dirt back when Leary was growing mushrooms there.” Buffy, the balrog slayer, jumped to his feet. “Can it! Grab a tub and let’s ice down the rest of the suds and get down over at The Firewater.” Chairs scrapped across the floor like nails being dragged over the last homely dad’s board expression. The ranger snapped to, ready to make his getaway, but a hand like a cold vise clamped down on his arm. “Not you, Captain Convalescent.” Aragorn slumped back in his chair and let out a sonorous sigh. The last homely dad stood like a dark tower over the runty ranger and tapped his foot. “So what’s got a burr under your blanket that you’d head for the hills before your hand is handy?” “Dust to dust,” the ranger said, hoping the homely dad wouldn’t mention the rubble he rummaged in the attic. “All the dust bunnies rolling the aisles in the belfry reminded me of my mama. She’s been pushing up daisies for a while now and I’ve not stopped to sniff a one.” “She knew you were going to have slippery fish to fry,” he said, his face losing only enough of the stiffness to give a glimpse of compassion. “What’d you expect of her? She was tired. She squeezed every ounce of juice out of her joy to see that you got a good start. She was with you every minute until the end. Maybe you couldn’t see her. Maybe you didn’t know she was there. But she was. Looking over you like a dame with a heart of gold and a hat to match. She was threadbare, but she was happy. She went like she was meant to, like she wanted. She rounded up peace and shook it out good. So now you’re going to throw away her life’s work by steaming out of here like a clam at a bake? Before you’re ready? You’d break her heart like day-old saltines.” “I owe it to her to at least stop and smell the flowers,” Aragorn said, his own heat rising like Poppin Fresh. “There ain’t no hurry. She ain’t going nowhere.” The ranger hated himself for what he was about to say, but it had to be said. He had to give the homely dad the slip and the only way was to nail him with a well-placed word-punch. “What would you know about hurrying?” he shot back as coolly as a Long Island Iced Tea. “You couldn’t run in that dress if your life depended on it.” He got up from the table, untangled his belt from the table cloth, and walked out. This time the homely dad stepped aside like a bicyclist barely being missed by an out-of-control semi. Ray’s Dog Author Reply: Barnaby Collins? Barnaby Collins!!! Holy crap. That's from...I know this. Dark Shadows, circa 1968. The whole entire Woodstock in Eriador sequence was brilliant. And the thought of Arathorn's name tattooed on derrieres....priceless. Magnificent, Your Queenliness. Thank you.

Estelcontar	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 1/21/2006
Wooooooooooohooooooooooo, thought I when I saw your new chapter. Here is my favourite ranger back, and not only is he back, but now he's in for some quiet time basking in the comforts of Rivendell, and happy, for once, in the company of Elrond and the twins, waiting for Arwen to arrive. And what happens? Bang, he's right there again in the middle of another major angst trip. Well, you've done it again. Now I'm going to wait even more anxiously for your next chapter because I just have to know what Aragorn found out. "Aragorn looked down at Elrond’s hand on his arm. He had known himself to be the son of two fathers since he was twenty. He had never before felt so torn between the two. Anger rose in him at the father he had never known, for forcing him to lie to the one he did." That sounds so true to character that I can just see Aragorn agonising over it. Author Reply: now he's in for some quiet time basking in the comforts of Rivendell, and happy, for once LOL. Nah. All that warm and fuzzy stuff was just a set-up :-) Well, not totally. Aragorn really does feel awful about making Elrond feel awful.

Gandalfs apprentice	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 1/21/2006
Hi, meckinock Great chapter! It seems I'm always falling back on the same words at each of your postings. With each chapter the story gets more intense and more interesting. Good heavens, it must be that Arathorn had another son who was born before Aragorn. But wouldn't that be a threat to his position only if the son was from a legitimate marriage? I'm agog, as usual. I was out of town when you posted and read the chapter then, but I couldn't leave a review as I couldn't log in. Looking forward to chapter 9! G.A. Author Reply: Hi, GA, Interesting issue. The claim might not prevail in the end, but in a stateless society with no organized religion, the definition of illegimate could get a little sticky, I think. Especially if the birth of the allegedly illegitimate child pre-dated the recognized marriage. Ignoring it and having someone pop out of the woodwork at an inopportune moment is a risk I don't think Aragorn is willing to take; especially not knowing all the facts. Although Halbarad will probably try to talk him into doing just that! And aside from the succession issue there's a personal one, which is just as important to him at the moment. Thanks for reviewing!

Oshun	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 1/20/2006
What an interesting chapter. So evocative. Hmmm, broader shoulders, smaller feet. Loved your comment in a review: "He's having a bad heir day." Surely, you wouldn't do that to us? Well, you've definitely hooked me now. As my daughter would say, "he's such a man!" A woman would have had it all out with Elrond right on the spot and got him involved in it right then and there. Oshun Author Reply: Oh, definitely. This is the same gender that won't stop at the nearest BP station and ask for directions. I honestly think he would have said something to Elrond if he had any indication that he knew what the letters were about, though. He just wasn't up to trying to explain it to Elrond when he hadn't had time to digest or analyze himself. But that's probably more of a guy behavior, too.

grumpy	Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 1/19/2006
What a great and wonderful chapter. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall, in that attic. Whatever was in those letters, sure has Aragorn in a tizzy. I wonder if Elrond and I, can wrestle Aragorn to the ground and make him tell us. But I suppose that spoil the story, and might hurt the ranger. Thou I would love to get in close contact with him! Erestor said there were no ghosts in the attic, and the place was packed with them. Whatever did Arathorn do? Love it that the toys in the trunk had been replaced by bigger, sharper and more dangerous toys. Also loved the image of Aragorn comparing the boots to his own feet. So looking forward to more. Author Reply: I'm glad you liked the boot size check. I couldn't resist that. And Erestor said there were no ghosts in the attic, and the place was packed with them. Exactly! You have a way of picking out some of my favorite little tidbits.

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