Disclaimer: I own nothing, just having fun with Middle-earth.
On the day he turned thirty, Kor, Ambassador from Harad and the eldest son of the Emperor, received an urgent missive from home. The Emperor of Harad was ill, growing weaker day by day, and the Emperor had sent for his wayward son to return home from this self-inflicted exile. Kor read the missive three times, before putting it down and looking out of the window. The White City had been home for him since his early childhood, first unwillingly, but then gladly chosen, and there were many here that he loved and cherished.
All of it would come to an end very soon.
He breathed out slowly, and then sent a page to request an urgent audience with King Aragorn Elessar. He did not expect the Princess Araniel to come fetch him for the audience with the King barely an hour later.
The devastatingly beautiful Gondorian princess came to him and said, "Father has perhaps thirty or forty minutes now, before he must devote himself to the southern lords for the rest of the day. He said if your need is urgent, you should come now to speak with him."
Kor nodded silently, barely taking his eyes off the princess. Here is another he will never see again. Araniel did not seem discomfited by his uncharacteristic stare, she only flashed him a smile, her flawless white face bright and glorious like the snow glistening in the sunlight atop the peak of Mindoluin, so bright it all but blinded him. He ducked his head and followed, willing himself to forget these inescapable pains.
Oh but how he will pine for the White City from a strange home!
He was only seven when first he beheld Minas Tirith. A war between Gondor and Harad had just concluded the winter before. The Gondorian King and his paltry army of less than ten thousand, weary from the Great War against Mordor, met one hundred-thousand men from the heart of a newly reunified Harad just north of the Harnen. Somehow the Gondorian King wrested an impossible victory, dividing the Haradrim force and capturing the pocket that was the Royal Guard and the Emperor himself. Gondor's demand after that fragile victory was terrible yet not wholly unexpected: Harad's prince and heir apparent as a hostage.
At the tender age of seven, Kor braced himself to make the ultimate sacrifice for his people. He was ready to face humiliation, subjugation, even death, but the Gondorian King only ever looked on him with guileless pain and guilt and treated him like an estranged but still beloved son. Here in the heart of the enemy nation he was still a prince; whatever suspicious and unhappy grumblings there existed were carefully kept out of his way. Confusion and resentment did not take long to pass, for Minas Tirith was fair and different and her King full of the strangest stories, from the spiraling towers to the labyrinthine alleys, from the grand ancient library to his own secret seat at the King's public receptions, there was so much to explore and to learn, that a little boy easily got lost in the excitement. By the age of fourteen Kor was almost like any other boy from one of Gondor's noble houses. He thrilled at receiving his first sword and could not help but show off in front of Gondor's young princess, causing the nine-year old girl to entreat mightily with her parents for a sword also.
But at the age of fourteen he also returned home. For him it was seven exciting years of growing up in a strange and beautiful place, but for Gondor, it was seven years well spent healing, recovering, and rebuilding old strength. At the end of those seven years, when Minas Tirith was again teeming with hundred of thousands of people, when the Reunified Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor felt more than prepared to face the Empire of Harad again in peace or war, it was time to return the hostage home.
"I am glad 'tis over," The King of Gondor said to Kor at that first parting, grey eyes still pained and guilty, "If I had any other way, Kor, I would not have done this. I do not ask for forgiveness, for you should not forgive me by all account, and I cannot ask for it when I cannot regret this course of action. Perhaps one day, when you are much older, we must parry as kings do, but for now, will you be a friend and write to me about the beauties of Tantor?"
Kor nodded. He knew he should be joyful about returning home, but he did not feel such, not truly. He never knew his mother, and even before his journey north he barely saw his own father, who, like all great emperors, was always working and had little patience for women and children. He was forlorn about leaving the White City, but he put on an eager smile instead. He was fourteen that year, and already he knew duties were greater than feelings.
Araniel was standing beside her father, holding on to the King's mantle while eying him fiercely. "When you come back," The princess of the Reunified Kingdom declared, "I will have secured myself a real sword, bigger and brighter than yours!"
After returning home Kor had tried to write, once. It was a simple letter cataloging some presents and asking after the Queen and the Princess's health. This was entirely fitting for a prince of Harad—he was not so oblivious of the ways of his own people! Yet his father flew into a terrible rage upon seeing the letter, before it even had a chance to make into the Foreign Affairs office to be vetted. He was the confused target of a long, impassioned rant, one from which his relationship with his father would never quite recover.
He held on for as long as he was able, making what peace he could with his father, all the while deflecting schemes of his younger brothers and their supporters, and it quickly grew immensely tiring. When he was twenty the ambassador to Gondor passed away, and he snatched up the opportunity with a rare hunger. Maneuvering with every art politic he did not even know he possessed, he made sure the court would not be against sending the Crown Prince as an ambassador to Gondor (and that was no mean feat!) and then approached his father for the job. He had expected to be in for a long fight, but to his utter surprise, his father agreed all too easily.
"You can go enjoy the so-called White City and her King," His father had pronounced glumly, "You can go taste every joy and pain I have known at his hand."
Ten years had flown by since then. He was not always in Minas Tirith for those ten years, for he did also have to attend his princely duties at home, yet every second of those ten years he had spent in the White City now seemed too brief.
He will never see it again, in all likeliness, and never set eyes again on all the fair ones that dwell within the city.
"You seem out of sorts today, Prince," Araniel spoke and snapped him out of his reveries, peering at him with worried grey eyes, "Are you quite alright?"
"Yes," Kor answered reflexively, but after yet another prolonged stare he shook his head, "No. I have some news to share with you, but after I spoke to His Majesty your father."
"Of course," Araniel nodded as she led him into the King's sitting room.
This was a room for conversations among family and close friends, rather than for official business. Normally Kor was grateful and glad for the kind familiarity the northern King afforded him, but today he had to be official. Upon entering he bowed in the fashion of his people, with his hands stacked in front of him, palms facing his body. Such was his right as an ambassador, to offer respect following the way of his people, rather than that of Gondor.
"Your majesty," Spoke Kor, "I have come to you with urgent news."
King Aragorn Elessar looked mildly surprised, then he turned towards his daughter with a look. Araniel curtsied and exited the sitting room, looking just a trifle reluctant.
"Is this something the court needs to hear?" Aragorn asked after Kor sat down and Araniel closed the door behind her, "I can offer you an official hearing tomorrow morning at the earliest, should you desire it."
"It is something Your Majesty can choose to tell your court at your convenience. I am here to inform Your Majesty that my father has taken ill, and I must return home to Harad at once. I cannot tarry to conclude any official business still on the agenda, and Harad may not send a replacement ambassador for many months, but that is by no means a sign of ill will, only of our misfortune."
Aragorn nodded thoughtfully, before saying, "Do you see yourself returning to Minas Tirith as the ambassador in the future?"
Kor hesitated a second and then said, "I do not think it likely."
"I see," Aragorn watched him with those keen silver-grey eyes, "How old is your oldest brother, Kor? If memory serves me right, he would be twenty-one this year?"
Kor flinched. In the breath of two brief exchanges, the northern King not only deduced that the Emperor of Harad must be near the end of his life and Kor now prepared to return home to receive a throne, he also guessed that the transition of power would not proceed quite so smoothly.
The Haradrim prince could only nod, and then he added, "The third son is nineteen and the staunchest supporter of my second brother. There is also a little brother of fourteen whose mother is from the White Reed Clan."
Aragorn asked gently, "Do you desire the throne?"
Kor opened his mouth, and then closed it again. For a moment he did not know what to say. Aragorn waited patiently for Kor to untangle this himself, not saying a word, only kept that cool, grey gaze upon his face.
At last Kor said, "Father sent for me. He wants to see me, and he wants me to be the next emperor, so I think. All those years, despite our disagreements, he never tried to bestow the title of Crown Prince upon another." He breathed out, and sat up straighter, "Not only am I the heir decreed by law, I am also more capable, more experienced than my younger brothers. I will be the emperor Harad deserves."
Aragorn nodded once more, but he said, "Yet judging by your voice, you do not think it will be easy."
Kor grimaced, feeling his determination flag a little. He murmured with his head lowered, "I do not foresee armed conflicts at least, only tiresome plots, but no, it will not be easy. I have been gone for too long perhaps, in my eagerness to escape my father's moods and the much scheming about nothing at court."
"And you have been too long in the thrall of the northern King, no doubt some of your kinsmen will say so."
"Only the young ones will speak thus, and be told off for being foolish young creatures, all outside my father's earshot, of course," Kor had to smile a little at this, even if the memories were heart wrenching as well as humorous, "They remember Your Majesty; many who once fought under the Eagle of the North, who learned from him and lived and died by his commands are still there, though they are old. They pass on the tales, as do our scholars and historians. The people of Harad may be short-lived, but we revere history and let nothing be forgotten; we record every minor player and venerate the true giants. Even when Gondor is gone with the passage of time, we will still remember our Grand Marshal."
"Bold words, Kor," said the King, softly and with no admonishment. He simply sounded sad. Aragorn fell silent, grey eyes growing dim and faraway, as one who walked in memories. And then he sighed, the light of the past gone from his eyes, and he was once more the King of the Reunified Kingdom, calm and calculating. He said, "So you recognize that even now I hold sway in Tantor. Would you like my help then to win yourself a throne?"
Kor's heart leapt, not out of surprised joy and hope, rather it hummed and buzzed with something akin to terror. Aragorn put a hand on his arm to still his racing heart and said, "No, I do not mean with decrees or armed forces. I am neither a conqueror nor a king maker. I was simply offering to write a few letters to people who might aid you, and not as the King of Arnor and Gondor, but as an old friend who still loves Tantor and the great land of Harad."
Aragorn was clearly coaxing a child, it was too obvious, but Kor felt comforted nonetheless. Yet he was still wary, bitter, even. He said with a small laugh, "Your Majesty is not a King maker? Even my royal father at his most resentful would disagree, as would every biography of the Grand Marshal ever put to paper."
"I cannot offer you what I once gave your grandfather and your father," said the northern King, "But I hope what I can still do for you may be of some use."
"Of some use to whom?" Kor wondered out loud.
"To the both of us," Aragorn replied smoothly and without hesitation, "Let us not parry false words, Prince, for it is a plain matter that I prefer to see you upon the golden throne of Harad than your brothers. You are familiar to me and predictable, I can have a measure of faith in your will for peace, yet as a friend I would also like to see you achieve your heart's desires."
Kor's mouth twisted and he muttered, "Had my father not been all of these too at some point in time? Did you not fulfill every one of his heart's desires? Not even that long ago as you would measure it."
Aragorn's face instantly darkened. When he spoke his voice was low and dangerous, like the rumble of thunder from faraway clouds, and lightning passed through his eyes. He said, "I was less prepared than I should be to meet your father's betrayal both times, but never again. The days of secrecy are behind me, and the Reunified Kingdom has regained all of her ancient strength, so cross me at your own peril. Great love I still have for the people of Harad, though the path your father forced me to walk cut my very soul, but I will not—cannot—abide another treachery. Turn on me, and you and all of yours will pay dearly."
With every ounce of his strength Kor willed himself to not cower, yet he still squirmed in his seat. After a moment of calming his heart, he nodded very slowly. The fear did not quite dissipate, but he knew he needed every help. So he said, "If Your Majesty is willing to write those letters for me I shall be forever grateful. Though methinks I must be the one to decide if, when, and how to deliver those letters."
