ceri han daro
Fourth Age; Year seven
Minas Tirith, Gondor
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
"My Lord."
Elessar Telcontar, King of Gondor and Arnor, Lord of the White Tree stopped and turned towards the breathless voice. A servant was running at him, desperate to speak his message. Aragorn sighed and considered resuming his hasty walk to the council chamber. A trading agreement with Rohan had been unwittingly broken and although both sides were willing to move on and forget the incident, it had forced him to jog in a decidedly un-regal manner to the daily council. He had stopped now, so to ignore the boy would be rude. He would just have a word with him explaining that all messages sent to the king were considered by their noble senders to be "of the utmost importance" however few actually were.
"My Lord... the... the prince..."
Aragorn placed a steadying hand on the boy's shoulder. "Slow, catch your breath," he said kindly to the panting figure. The servant looked up, gratitude in his eyes but went on with his speach.
"The prince... he... he's gone. His nurse went out to call for breakfast and... when she came back, Prince... Prince Eldarion was gone."
Aragorn straitened, suddenly comprehending why the servant was in such a flustered panic. His son, gone? Through his mind ran chilling scenarios, Eldarion kidnapped, Eldarion taken for ransom, Eldarion murdered. His knees felt weak at the thought and the hand still resting on the shoulder in front of him served to steady the panicked king rather than the serving boy.
"Take me"
He did not trust his voice to say more while he ran down the corridor. He forgot about his image and the council. His thoughts focused soley on his son, he ran. The corridors seemed to lengthen as he flew down them, drawing him further from where he wanted to be. Distance stretched in the space before him, time measured by his pounding heart. Aragorn quickly overtook the servant and spun into the spacious nursery suite.
The floor was strewn with toys knocked from their shelves and the remains of a breakfast tray. Sitting on the edge of a pint sized bed, Prince Eldarion's nurse sobbed into the shoulder of a nursery maid. A chair lay on it's side against the green wall, painted with silver trees.
Aragorn did not cry like the nurse, run like the servant, stare blankly like the maids or charge about the citadel like the guards. He dropped to sit on his knees, bending to stare and sniff at the floor. He did not care who saw him now. He was not Elessar, King of the reunited kingdom, but Strider, ranger of the North.
There was nothing to see near the door and most of the debris had been left by the maids. Crawling around the bed, Aragorn found a disturbed patch of carpet. Things had fallen all around and lay framing the empty space. Looking up, he saw a shelf had been ripped from the wall on one side. The chair which usually stood proudly by the bed had been thrown to the ground, the delicate fretwork back splintered. The destruction around him was not what caused Aragorn to stop, silent in shock. It was not the room which froze his heart . It was the blood.
There, before him the carpet was stained a dull red. He bent close to examine the colour. It was recently spilt. Spilt from a young dunedain prince?