Gilraen died of something akin to a broken heart when her son reached his twentieth year. Stroking his newly stubbled cheek one last time, she assured herself that she was no longer needed. With the sigh of too few happy days, she released her hold on the living and joined the eternal dead.
Her son, christened Estel by the Elven lord Elrond, wept bitterly at his mother's death, and not for the last time in his long life, he felt utterly alone. In this same year, Elrond revealed to him his true identity and thereby thrust upon him a future he never wanted.
After the death of her husband, Arathorn, Gilraen sought and received refuge in Imlradis. Elrond had been generous to them, offering them spacious rooms and everything they might want for. They lived for many years in comfort and in safety. Gilraen could never muster the courage to tell her son he could not live so freely forever, or that he was not destined to ever be an Elf. In this way, she ensured her last years, if spent mourning the death of her husband, would at least not be trying.
Peace. Calm. These are preparations for death.
When his mother lay dying, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Isildur's only remaining heir, pleaded desperately for her to stay. "Please, Nana," he had said, "stay with me always. I do not wish to be alone."
A small, sad smile graced her features as she replied, "Ah, my son, but you do not yet understand. You will always be alone."
Small comfort to a grieving heart.
When Elrond revealed to Aragorn the nature of his heritage and gave him ancient heirlooms for proof, Aragorn finally understood. To carry such a burden is to be alone. To become king is to always be alone.
So it seemed that Aragorn hastened his life of solitude, as if wanting to choose that path before it was forced upon him, by deciding to fulfill at least one of his duties: he would go North and join the Dunedain Rangers, long leaderless, and he would be their Chieftain. What was left of the Northern Kingdom could have him, he decided, a disbanded realm of wild things, but Gondor never would.
In this same year, before he shed his fine Elven clothing for the rough garb of a wild life, he met Elrond's daughter, Arwen, who had for the past three decades lived with her grandmother, Galadriel, in Lothlorien.
He had heard whispers about her, floating wisps of thought and affection. He had heard that she was as beautiful as the legendary Elf maiden Luthien, who gave her love to a mortal. And she was, he thought. She had to be. When his tired eyes first captured her visage, he thought he had strayed into a dream. Her features were so perfect, they seemed to blur before him; yet when he blinked, there they were—as solid as porcelain. And her eyes: impossibly kind. One glimpse into them, and thousands of years of wisdom rushed out—caressing, fondling. They made him feel like a child, those eyes.
So he would never have predicted that very soon those eyes would close under his clumsy touch, that his fingers would run through the dark, silky strands of her hair, or that the only skin he knew better than his own would be hers.
When their lips first met, he knew love.
Still, he left for the wild, as planned. He told her to forget him, but in his heart, he fervently hoped that she would not—that she could not. To Elrond, who had been so kind to him and to his mother, he promised he would keep himself safe and that Arwen had never been his.
For decades, he wandered, nearly always alone. Yet in the back of his mind, Imlradis remained his home. There his mother's body rested. There his true love dwelled. On the rare occasion of his return, it was as if they had never parted. It disturbed him a little that the both of them found the separation bearable. Then he realized that his entire life was but a dash of time to Arwen, that she perhaps had not considered that very soon (at least in her terms) he would die.
"You must forget me," he had said, "for I am mortal, and though my love for you is everlasting, I cannot linger here forever."
"Aragorn," she had said with a laugh, "you speak as if you do not think I have considered this. I have. I have thought about the grief of your passing, and believe me when I say this: I would rather live one lifetime with you than pass through all the ages alone."
Aragorn then realized another significant truth about the beings he had often so envied as a child: that because they lived forever, every instance was somehow less sweet to them, a little less poignant and a little less meaningful. A mortal had to savor each beautiful moment as if it were his last, for it very well may be. But an immortal, though never losing appreciation for beauty or truth, stood like a marble statue in a great hall. She could watch the passing of time without being a part of it. She had this leisure, to detach herself. Sometimes it was even necessary to do so, for Elves carried the woes and burdens of a single lifetime forever. Feelings ran deep, so deep they no longer appeared apparent, so deep, sometimes, that they were no longer easily recognized. She could go through a thousand years without falling to raptures or partaking in passion.
This was the curse of immortality. For happiness, there must be sadness. For true life, there must be death.
Some part of him understood that Arwen loved him only more because of his mortality. Because he was fleeting, she treasured him desperately. Because he was not ageless, she felt the pains of fear as well as the passions of love.
"Aragorn," she had continued, "I have made my choice. When the time is right, I will forsake the light of the Eldar and join you in life, as well as death."
"When will the time be right?"
"You will know, when the time comes."