A/N: Arwen turned out a little darker than I had originally thought, but I still hope that you enjoy. Please review! I'm also going to use this opportunity to say that any readers who have been waiting for Chapter 11 of "Searching For Tigress" will have it preferably by Monday!

A Word About the Series: This is the first part of a continuing post-LOTR series named "The Meribor Chronicles". They don't have to be read in order, but as I write more of them, I might reference other stories. It will include both book and movie verse.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Year Four: Fly the Nest

FO 29

"Ada, will you play with me?"

Aragorn set down his paperwork with as much patience as he could muster. This day had been particularly trying and he was in no mood to deal with his clingy, moody daughter. He had been employed by his wife to find her Book, an object she assured him was of great value. Aragorn had looked in their quarters while Arwen roamed the halls like a ghost. After an hour or so, the queen had informed him that the Book had been located; only now he had to explain the situation to a hysterical ambassador.

After going through the motions of a royal welcome, Aragorn received the disturbing news that Legolas and Gimli had arrived in Minas Tirith and were in the Halls of Healing.

So Aragorn had dumped Meribor on her nanny and hurried away. He had thought that she would be more mature about the whole situation — it was only a few more months until her fifth birthday — but he was sadly mistaken. Meribor had grown up in some ways: she no longer screamed whenever her parents tried to wash her hair and she ate most of her dinner without getting it on the floor. However, she had reached a stage when neither Aragorn nor Arwen could leave the royal quarters without their daughter throwing a fit.

"I have a lot of work to do, iell nîn. Perhaps a bit later?" Aragorn suggested, hoping that he would not have to deal with one of Meribor's tantrums.

"Why are you here?" she asked. "This is not your work."

"Your uncle Legolas and your uncle Gimli have seen fit to drag themselves into my beautiful city wounded," the king ground out. He was more annoyed with his friends than he was with his daughter but he could not help the way the words tumbled out of his mouth. It sounded like he was angry with her and Meribor took a step back, her eyes filling with tears. Aragorn did not want to deal with a crying child either, so he quickly took his daughter into his lap and set aside his papers.

"Are you angry with me?" Meribor sniffled.

"No, of course not. I am so sorry. I did not mean to snap at you, I am just tired and worried." He bounced the princess on his knee while she wiped her teary eyes with the sleeve of his tunic. He sent a helpless look at the stack of paperwork he had brought to the Halls of Healing — mainly so he could keep an eye on his friends, who were peacefully sleeping — and then sighed. "Merry, I really do need to work. Why are you not playing with Maari?"

"Nanny" was a broad term for what Maari's job entailed of. The Gondorian woman had been with the royal family since Meribor's birth. When Aragorn and Arwen were called away to court — or were just too tired to take care of their daughter after a long day — Maari would step in. Now she acted as their occasional cook, messenger, and assistant. Aragorn did not know what he and his wife would do without her, but lately Meribor had reveled in pushing Maari's buttons.

"She is too tired," complained Aragorn's daughter. "I do not want to play with her."

Aragorn grabbed a quill and scratched down a note to remind himself to have a word with Arwen about Maari. "Maybe Naneth can play with you, if she is not busy."

"Yes!" Meribor leapt from her father's lap and raced around the Halls of Healing before screeching to a stop in front of Aragorn. He winced as she nearly ran into Ivoreth's assistant, who was carrying a large vat of some strange concoction. "I will find Naneth!" the girl announced and prepared to run off again. She was only stopped when Aragorn called after her and asked for a kiss on his cheek.

The king watched his daughter skip down the hall, her curly hair bouncing behind her. Truly, the child was so wild and spirited that Aragorn wanted nothing else but to fall into his bed. Her mother's grace, beauty, and temper mixed with the rough-and-tumble nature of the Dúnedain made for an explosive mix; she consistently wore Aragorn and Arwen out.

He turned back to the cots where his friends were resting. "I know you are not sleeping."

Aragorn was rewarded by movement in one of the cots. "How?" demanded Legolas, trying to sit up and immediately deeming it a horrible idea as he winced with pain.

"Gimli stopped snoring and you stopped muttering,"Aragorn joked.

Legolas frowned as he looked at his friend. "You are older."

"I am older. You do not know how aged I feel compared to Meribor." Aragorn stopped to stretch out his arms. "By the Valar, that girl is a handful."

"Her father's daughter," commented Legolas softly. Aragorn could feel his friend's eyes on him, taking in every little detail — the new wrinkles, the graying hair, the exhausted and wired yet impatient energy. He met Legolas' gaze steadily, wincing with guilt at the pain he saw there. He still does not accept that I will die eventually, thought Aragorn sadly.

"You two need to stop having conversations with your eyes," complained Gimli. "I do not understand any of it."

"Gimli." Aragorn greeted the dwarf heartily before turning his affection on the prince of Eryn Lasgalen. "Will one of you tell me how this happened?"

" You see, there were orcs — "

" — mercenaries, the like I have never seen — "

" — idiotic thieves on the road, we dealt with them — "

" — foolishness of elves!"

"Wait," ordered Aragorn and the two unlikely friends paused. "I would like one explanation, please. Preferably the truth."

"It was the elf's fault!" Gimli accused.

Legolas hissed and glared at his stout companion. "I thought we agreed that both of us were equally responsible!"

Aragorn rubbed his forehead as Legolas and Gimli began to argue again. Then, without preamble, he slowly turned and continued to complete his paperwork.

…

"Naneth, will you play with me?"

Arwen looked up from her sewing. This day had been particularly trying and she was in no mood to deal with her clingy, moody daughter. First, the twins had decided that it would be humorous to hide her Book. There was not anything special about the Book, except the fact that it held all of her mother's stories and that it was the last thing Celebrian had ever given her. If the twins had known, they never would have touched the Book…but they had taken it and hidden it in a supposedly empty guest room.

What she had not known was that an ambassador for the Haradrim had arrived early, much earlier than anyone expected, and that this particular room was chosen for him. So when the ambassador — an easygoing man with a tendency to laugh and a bright, infectious smile named Utdayl — opened the door to his new quarters, he found the Queen of Gondor crawling out from underneath his bed, Book in hand. It had been an embarrassing situation which took nearly two hours to explain, mainly because Utdayl could not stop laughing. And then Arwen had to be present at the royal welcome of the ambassador before retiring on the grounds of a headache.

The twins had made themselves scarce after that little incident.

When Meribor came in, she had just finished sewing two small dolls, joined at the hands and the feet, with one tiny red heart each. Arwen had been in the process of viciously stabbing the dolls with her pins. Keeping one eye on her daughter, she now pushed a pin into the soft fabric of one of the dolls. It gave her glorious satisfaction.

"Repeat that for me, iell nîn," said Arwen.

"Will you play with me?"

Arwen could hear her daughter pacing around the room and gave a small sigh.

"Mmmmmm, not right now. I have a lot of work to do," the queen replied. She was not really listening, entirely preoccupied with her rather disturbing game of pushing pins through the bodies of her dolls. I should make sure no one ever finds out about this, Arwen mused.

"But I am boooooooooooooooooooooooored," Meribor whined and planted herself on the rug.

"Tithen pen, I would love to play with you, but I am quite occupied." Arwen gestured at the spread of fabric, scissors, needles, and pins. "Have you tried asking your ada?"

"Yes. He says he is busy."

"Merry, my naneth always said that if you are bored, you have not tried hard enough to find something to do."

"I have! I asked you and Ada and no one will play with me."

Arwen sighed, finally putting her sewing down. "Aunt Éowyn is here for a few days; I am sure she would love to play with you. If she cannot, I will ask Maari to take you on a walk in the garden. How does that sound?"

She was speaking to an empty room.

…

"Aunt Éowyn, will you play with me?"

Harried and very tired, Éowyn could hardly hear Meribor over the sound of her son's crying. This day had been particularly trying and she was in no mood to deal with her friends' clingy, moody daughter. Most of her family — seven people — had traveled to Minas Tirith for a break from life in Ithilien. Of course, this had not gone over very well with one of her children. Her eldest, Finduilas, had stayed in Ithilien with her husband of two years, and Elboron had wanted to spend the day with his sister. Éowyn had dragged her son and his four other siblings to the palace, only to have Faramir run off as a result of some ambassador and he had not yet returned.

Within minutes of their father's departure, her children had decided to run amok. Elboron had wandered away; Éowyn never saw where he went because she then had to separate the sword fight two of her sons had started, even though Ecthelion was only seven and his brother Theodred was six years older. Alasse had curled into a chair and began to read, oblivious to the carnage.

And then Frëawine began screaming.

"Not right now, Meribor!" Éowyn had to shout to be heard, which only encouraged her youngest son to scream louder. Theodred and Ecthelion had begun a new game in which they chased each other around the quarters and waved their wooden swords wildly, and Alasse simply continued reading. Éowyn hoped that her sons would take a leaf out of their sister's book and calm down, yet it seemed futile.

I told Faramir it was a horrible idea to give those boys something hard, she berated herself furiously. But no, it was all about keeping up the family tradition. Éowyn winced as something in the next room shattered and her two sons began yelling at each other. I really need some wine. She noticed with a pang that Meribor was still standing in the doorway, looking a bit lost. "I am sorry, Merry, I just have too much to do! Maybe you can come back another time?"

But Éowyn was speaking to thin air.

…

Maari turned yet another corner, resigning herself to an inevitable fate.

She had lost the princess of the Reunited Kingdom. She had already started her resignation notice — providing she even got to resign, because what if the king just lopped off her head? She knew for a fact that His Majesty was very…high-strung when it came to his daughter, possibly because the little orc-spawn — sorry, princess — had a habit of getting in trouble during the most inopportune of times.

The Gondorian woman felt like crying. Her Royal Highness was nowhere to be found and Maari could feel her job slipping away from her. She remembered the excitement she had felt when she was first hired as a nanny for the royal family; then she remembered the panic that had lashed through her when she discovered her young charge missing.

As of late, Maari was easily tired and she kept on falling asleep. She had thought that a nice trip to the library would cool the princess's fiery boredom and obviously her plan had failed miserably. Maari had been left behind in the library after dozing off while reading a book.

Suddenly, she froze.

Meribor was standing on the balcony railing, somehow managing to have climbed up without assistance. Maari stood there, silent as a statue, for a few seconds before exploding into action. With a scream of fear and desperation, she raced towards the balcony and the small child — only for her fingers to close on thin air. The princess had jumped, giggling and shrieking with joy as she fell. Maari covered her eyes, dreading the pained cry as Meribor smashed into the ground, but it did not come.

There was only more laughter.

Maari raced to the balcony railing and stared over the edge to find her charge in the arms of her elvish uncles, both of them pale and obviously frightened. "Lady Maari," one of them called. "Let me just start by saying that this is not our fault…"

Meribor turned and grinned at her nanny. "Maari, did you see the game we playing?"

Ada - daddy

tithen pen - little one

Naneth - mother

iell nîn - my daughter