Title: The Unsung
Disclaimer: I do not own nor profit from the use of these characters.
Summary: Aragorn thinks back.
~~~
THE UNSUNG
Out of doubt, out of dark, to the day's risinghe rode singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
Hope he rekindled, and in hope ended;
over death, over dread, over doom lifted
out of loss, out of life, unto long glory.
~
Song of the Rohirrim in tribute to Theoden
-Many Partings, The Return of the King.
Aragorn sat in the Golden Hall in Edoras. There was feasting and making merry. Hours before they had buried Theoden. The group was not subdued, though. King Theoden had fought bravely and died bravely, and Rohan, indeed all of Middle Earth, had much to celebrate. Darkness had been defeated… again.
The King of Gondor watched as Eomer talked to his sister and Faramir. He watched Merry slip away to mourn his beloved King. He watched them all until they seemed to fade from his view.
In their place, he saw the dead.
He held Boromir in his arms as he breathed his last. The proud son of Gondor had succumbed to the Ring but had been true at the end. Aragorn had no idea then how much pain and sorrow was to come.
He smelled fear, felt fear as the rain began at Helm's Deep. He had seen boys who were not yet old enough to shave don rusty armor and go to the front lines. He had seen old men who should have been telling stories to their grandchildren suit up in that same rusty armor and die alongside the children. He had not been able to stop it.
He saw the army sent from Elrond with its dashing captain in his red cloak. He had held that one too as he died; died beside a mountain of others of his kind who fought for a land that they were leaving and a people not their own. He had not even had time to mourn them.
He had ridden the Paths of the Dead and commanded that shadowy army, finally releasing them from their curse and sailing to the aid of Gondor. He saw the darkness fall over the land.
He looked across the table to the lovely blond shield maiden and knew in another lifetime, she would have been his wife and the mother of his children. He was glad she had the Steward instead. She had fought and killed the Nazgul, she and Merry. He knew of none braver than they were.
Faramir, brother to Boromir, was a diamond among men, forged in the fires of madness and greed into something fine and true. His own father had tried to burn him alive yet here he was, happy and healing finally, coming into his own.
Pelennor Fields had run red and black with the blood of both men and Orcs. And as well a warrior, he had become healer. His touch had healed the sick and was beginning to heal the land. He still saw in his mind the ones he could not heal.
He closed his eyes and thought of the tortured blue eyes of Frodo, who had given even more than his life. Frodo had paid the price for them all. The Ring had taken his innocence, his health, and his happiness. It wasn't just that it was a thing of evil… it was the loss of it that finally left him a shell.
He thought back to just a few days ago when his wife had given Frodo a gift; she had given him her right to go to the Undying Lands and the Evenstar. She had closed the door once and for all on her past and embraced being the Queen of Gondor.
"Aragorn," Eomer's voice startled him from his reverie, and he raised his glass in a toast to the renewal of the kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor and an alliance that both hoped would protect their futures.
But Aragorn did not just raise his glass to Gondor, he raised it instead the others, all the ones who died and would know no burial, who went unmourned. He raised his glass to the ones no one would write stories or tell tales about. He raised his glass to the unsung ones. For it was they who had saved Middle Earth.
~end~
