Disclaimer: LotR and hence Estel (Aragorn), and any elves (or half-elves) mentioned here is not mine. I don't know if something like this has been done or not, but I know that if it has, I haven't seen anything like it.
F R A G I L E
Life and death
There's no one without the other.
A piece of broken pottery.
It is a dead body that he is looking at. A man whose wounds were so dire that even Elrond, the lord of Imladris, one of the best elven healer alive, could not stop him from dying.
On the bedding beside him lies an elf, as dead as the Man.
Dispassionately, like only innocent children can, Estel think of death as one of his adopted father's precious vase shattering into pieces.
Fragile, life is.
It took so much to give life, why is it so fragile that it is so easy to take it away? Lives are being cut short because of someone else's decision, and Estel knows, when he will be old enough, that one day this knowledge, this certainty, will hurt.
But hurt isn't such a bad thing, is it? When it is the one thing that allows him to know that he is still breathing?
A dead animal in the barn, a dead Man, a dead Elf. They all die.
So fragile.
But if there is no death, is there life?
"Estel, what are you doing here?"
Father's voice is weathered by his toll, and maybe his sadness about his helplessness to save the people now lying dead here. Fragile, fragile lives. It reminds him of his brothers' useless attempt of fixing one of father's vases, the deep blue one gilded with silver, the one that had come from an island that is not there any longer. His brothers had felled the vase while chasing after him that afternoon, after he had told on them stealing the cook's newly cooked pie. It was an apple pie, smelling sweeter than juice, and Estel would have liked a bite, but his brothers had cleaned off every last crumb.
"I am thinking, father."
"Oh? What about?"
"That things die, no matter what they are."
Father is quiet now, what is he thinking?
Maybe he is not thinking much about it? Father is now taking his hand and leading him away from the Healing House. It is time for afternoon tea, and Estel is a tiny bit hungry. "Father, are we going to have tea?"
"Tea?" Father hesitated for a moment. Why? "Yes, that is right. It is time for tea, is it not, little one? Shall we find your brothers?"
Estel nodded vigorously. Teatimes with his brothers are fun. "Uncle Glorfy too, father?"
"Oh, I'm sorry Estel, but uncle Glorfindel will not be joining us today."
"Is he busy?"
"Yes, he is busy today."
Estel nodded, a little down. He loves uncle Glorfy. Uncle Glorfy always makes him laugh the most.
Looking toward the garden as they walk past, Estel chance to look upon the fountain, and on the water, bobbing gently with the swell and fall of the ripple is a big, colourful butterfly, dead, one wing ragged as if chewed.
All around him death reigns, lives extinguish like candles in the wind, loudly and quietly, gently and violently, a thunder in a storm and a sigh in the still air, welcomed and not-so-well-received, all the shattering of a piece of pottery.
Fragile.
Living beings are so fragile.
Maybe, when he is big, he will wish that lives are like rocks, or mountains, or water. But now he is not big enough to be hurt by lives' fragility or even to know how to feel about it.
Maybe one day.
He is only a little hungry, now.
"Father? What are we having for tea today?"
"An apple pie, I think. Would you like that?"
"Very much, father."
And that's it?