Wisdom fair garlanded her. She had known so many seasons that she no longer counted life in years, and yet, sometimes she lived so completely in the moment, like a warrior marching to certain death, furiously determined to smell every flower along the way. She had something of that desperation in her eyes this morning, but also a touch of something else. Humour?
"I missed you when I woke," murmured her husband, coming to stand behind her. He knew he needed not touch her, even. Indeed, within moments, a tell-tale flush stained her nape, where he'd drawn her hair aside. Aragorn slid an arm about her slender waist.
"You know I sleep but rarely," she replied. "And also, the Boy was up before minuial. Again."
The Boy, indeed. Aragorn grinned, following the path of her gaze. Rain had fallen aforenight, and there, beside the crenellated lip of the highest tier of Minas Tirith, Eldarion had found a most entertaining puddle.
"There splashes the heir of Luthien and Beren, scion of both Elwe and Finwe," Arwen drawled, as if she were remarking upon her child's dress or manners, but Aragorn knew how much she thought about this. She could recite the generations from Finwe to Elros, and from Elros to Eldarion. She knew the number and path through time, knew it as if it were written on her own hands.
"Aye, and bearer of the blood of Brethil and Hador, and mighty kings of Numenor," Estel added with some pride.
"So tall..." Arwen murmured. Estel had never seen an elf child, so he could only imagine what Arwen saw when she looked upon their son. She had told him that Eldarion was taller by far than elflings at his age would be, and somewhat clumsier. And his halting baby speech, so unlike the fluent utterings of young elves, delighted her to no end.
"The fair hair I suppose is a legacy of your mother," he noted, setting his chin on her shoulder. She raised one long hand and stroked his hair absently.
Bored of the puddle, Eldarion set to work untwining a vine along the wall. The vine had long grown in this spot and seemed to spring from the stone itself. Eldarion's baby fingers traced it along the wall, always upward, touching a leaf here, a bud there.
"It would have to be," Arwen said softly. "She always did wonder that all her children were dark. She was such a creature of light, before." Her hand eased back to her side, and Aragorn reached for it, clasped it.
He led her away from dark thoughts.
"And those heavy brows. For all his frowning, I do not recall the Lord of Rivendell sporting such copious facial hair. In those he must resemble my fathers," Aragorn reckoned.
"Well, they are hardly remnants of dwarf blood on my side," Arwen replied caustically, and her husband chuckled.
Eldarion, rather more daring than other children Aragorn had observed, had managed to set the vine to good purpose, using it as a makeshift rope-ladder to scale the wall. He would be unable to heft himself dangerously high, Aragorn saw, so his father needed not intervene.
"Only one thing about him yet puzzles me," Arwen said, sighing back against Aragorn's sturdy body.
"And what is that?" replied her husband. Before them, Eldarion missed a handhold but, undaunted, fought for another and hauled himself upward still.
"Which of our august lines included monkeys?"