Author's Notes: This short tale originally inspired by the Teitho Challenge "Dark Places."
Uncovered Night
Mallorn limbs crackling like shattered bones and undergrowth suffering violent trampling far below proved a welcome distraction. Jarred out of contemplation by the noise, Aragorn stole across the talan until his boot tips nearly slipped over the edge. His sword hand locked round the hilt until the steel ring halving it bit into his palm.
The orcs' snarling voices and footsteps were slow to fade. Long moments crawled by without anything more than the drawn-out warble of a nightjar before the ranger loosened his grip on his weapon. Mingled relief and frustration curdled in his veins. Relief, for discovery would mean disaster. Frustration, for as a captain of Gondor and Rohan and Chieftain of the Dúnedain, he was unaccustomed to hiding from the enemy like a child fearing a beating.
None of the others had woken. Gimli snored yet, mumbling now and again in the Dwarf tongue; beside him, Legolas lay open-eyed with hands clasped over his breast, the only one completely at ease in a tree-bed; farther still, Boromir had curled up under his fur cloak, a hand furled over the hilt of his sword even here. All deep in a sleep of exhausted grief.
At least, for the most part.
The captain of the White Tower's rest was less than easeful. New lines in Boromir's brow deepened as if against some internal anguish that did not cease its gnawing even in sleep. As the ranger watched, his fellow rolled over without waking, perilously close to the talan edge. With the noise of a moon shadow, Aragorn bent over the other man, a hand outstretched to coax him back when the Dúnadan's head snapped up towards the tree across the way as if someone had sharply called his name.
A grey shadow, scarce to be seen against the tree stem, glided across the opposite platform and halted, vanishing as soon as movement ceased. Aragorn thought he glimpsed the spindly, huddled bundles of four hobbits lying as close to the center as they dared. But with the night as thick as it was, and the order of the marchwarden to extinguish all lamps, he knew he could scarcely see his own hand in front of his face, much less the remainder of his companions. Even Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir sleeping at his feet were dim shapes stretched upon the floorboards. Motionless as the dead.
Aragorn's hands knotted in his cloak and drew it tighter around his body as if wracked by a sudden chill. However, it was not the night-chill or even the chill of Gandalf's loss that set his teeth on edge. That made him pace the flet like a caged wolf. That made sleep impossible. That made dreams dangerous. He could almost hear its seductive hum from where he sat.
Backing away from the edge of the flet did not help. The darkness pressed around him like a second cloak, feigning warmth and comfort and security.
Gandalf is gone, a voice that only sounded like his whispered. Now is your time to show yourself a true leader. No more must you suffer scornful names from foolish, lumber-headed innkeepers or be called "rascal" by drunken no-accounts who would long ago have fallen but for your vigilance. The brothers-in-arms of your lands will forego their doubts and hail you as their father, captain and king. He glanced at Boromir who lay still.
Arwen will have someone worthy of her love at last, that insidious, far-too-intimate voice cajoled. A low hiss escaped his lips, his resolve flaking under the cruel scouring. You are a healer are you not? Relieve the hobbit of his suffering. Take it. Take it!
"How goes the night?"
Aragorn twisted so fast he cricked his neck. So mesmerized by the terrible voice had he been, he had not heard the intruder at his shoulder. With a surge of effort, he uncurled his fingers from his sword hilt, admonishing the only half-seen figure in a thankfully steady tone. "You and your men need to wear bells. Or to at least announce your presence in a less startling manner."
"But then where would our amusement lie?" Haldir returned with a teasing quirk of his lips that just as swiftly sobered. His head cocked, his silver gaze raking the ranger's face. "Why aren't you sleeping?"
"You are not." Aragorn flexed his shoulders in an attempt to dislodge the tension from them. It didn't work. Casting about for a swift change of subject, he gestured to the ground below. "How goes the orc-play in the woods?"
"We have set a merry dance before them," the marchwarden said, stepping up beside him and gazing out at the now-still night. Only leaves dappled their thin shadows across the trunks. "They will be dead by morning. How goes your night in the trees? If memory serves—"
"And I'm sure it does," Aragorn muttered with an exasperated eye-roll. His old friend had that familiar, smug tone in his voice that made the ranger rue their not being just a little closer to the edge of the flet.
"If memory serves," Haldir continued, folding his arms with perfect serenity, ignoring the dangerous glare Aragorn was leveling at him, "the last time necessity urged you to climb to the flets, you had to be all but dragged up by the scruff of your neck howling—"
"I did not howl," Aragorn protested, softening his voice only when Boromir grunted and stirred. He drew his friend to one side as far away from the others as was possible on the platform. "And if I…whimpered a little, it was for good cause. It is a long way to fall."
Once again, his gaze strayed across the boughs. Accepted by all.
Haldir grunted, following his gaze. "Only for those who fear falling."
"Well, as I tend to fall elsewhere than on my feet, I do."
Aragorn closed his eyes and rubbed two fingers across his brow. His head throbbed mercilessly. It had not stopped since their desperate race away from Moria. Boromir's stubborn resolve against venturing into the Wood had not helped until Aragorn finally snapped at the man to either go forward or dare the mines again, alone. He had lost his temper and regretted it every step since.
The son of Gondor would never have questioned your word had you but convinced him of the strength of your will, the voice hissed beguilingly.
Aragorn's eyes flashed open.
"What weighty paths do you tread tonight?" the marchwarden's voice checked his thoughts.
"What makes you think I am pondering anything of weight?" Aragorn hedged, avoiding the elf's eyes. His tunic clung to his back with sweat.
"Well," the elf captain propped an elbow on a low-hanging branch, the relaxed posture belaying the calculating angle of his head and the knowing stare, "there are only so many trees in a forest. And you, especially, cannot be enthralled for this long."
"I heard Frodo cry out when the orcs approached," Aragorn said, ignoring the would-be-playful barb.
It wasn't a lie, exactly.
Frodo had all but consumed his thoughts this night. The young hobbit suffered most of all from their loss and shared grief. He, alone, bore the burden. And shouldered much of the blame. Gandalf had lost his life protecting their company, protecting him. And now that burden fell on Aragorn's shoulders.
You could protect them so much better with its help. Bring them to Gondor in safety.
He could claim it.
He should claim it.
Not to wield it as an enslaver as its first master had done. Nor even to treasure it as a weregild and source of bitter pride as Isildur had done. He would take it with the hope of one day destroying it, when the lands were clean and wholesome again. When Sauron was vanquished by his own evil weapon.
He had but to stretch out his hand…and bury it in the ashes of his own undoing…
"Aragorn."
The ranger blinked. Haldir had said something and, judging by the use of the ranger's rightful name, he was getting irritated at not being answered.
"I'm sorry." He raised distracted eyes to the elf's angular face. "What did you say?"
"A gangrel creature was lurking around the other tree after we drew the orcs away. It looked like orc-kind," Haldir pursed his lips, still watching the ranger closely. "But it was swift. It fled towards the Nimrodel."
Aragorn shook his head, dropping his gaze to his hands. They looked oddly bare and unadorned. Translucent in moonlight. He had not told his companions about their little footpad though he guessed that Frodo too had heard the patter of bare feet in the lightless caverns of Khazad-dûm.
Gollum. Wicked. Perilous. And yet, despite all his hateful murmurings and bite marks from his teeth that Aragorn still bore in his shoulder, the ragged creature was worthy of pity. What might he have been had he been strong enough to resist the Ring's allure? What might he have done? What could those stronger than him do?
"I know nothing of it," he said, dropping his hands self-consciously to his sides.
"Ah."
Irritation prickled up the nape of Aragorn's neck. He cast a sharp, sideways glance at his friend whose eyes gnawed at him. That unblinking stare unnerved him more than anything else that night. Even Legolas had not picked up on Aragorn's unease, the conflict in his mind, but Haldir had known him longer than the elven prince. Those relentless, adamantine eyes probed under his skin, scoured away the masonry of a crumbling facade, peeled back the naked layers behind. He knows. He sees weakness. Anger pulsed in hot, little waves behind Aragorn's eyes. What right does he have to stare so? He knows nothing but the insular security of his own walls. The walls he hides behind. His land knows no stain, unlike Gondor which crumbles more every day as Mordor advances. He would have turned us aside. He would have delivered the Ring straight into Sauron's hands.
"Why are you looking at me so strangely?" He snapped, startling himself with the vehemence of his tone.
"What look am I giving you?" the elf countered, notching an eyebrow far too calmly.
The provocative spark was all that was needed to ignite an answering inferno in Aragorn's chest. "Play not the innocent! I have done nothing worthy of your reproach. And even had I, I have no mind to take correction from you. You, who hide safe behind your golden walls. You, who only heed the sufferings of others at the behest of those with power to move you. And you, who dares call such cowardice duty to the law!"
A knot in the floorboards creaked. The wind retreated from the branches as if cowed by such abusive invective. Aragorn realized his misstep as suddenly as if a bucketful of the icy Silverlode had been thrown in his face. The flames roaring in his chest extinguished as suddenly as they had reared, leaving him cold and hollow. Something of Sauron's will had reached out to him this night. And he had answered.
Haldir's eyes were chips of iron, riveted to his face.
An icy hole opened up in Aragorn's chest as he stammered, "Haldir, I…I do not what came over me. I did not mean what I said." His hands lifted of their own accord, palm-outward in supplication. Either to keep his wronged friend at bay or cage the thing inside himself that had so horrifically broken free, he wasn't entirely certain.
"You and I have been friends for long years, Estel," Haldir said with deliberate softness, but Aragorn flinched nevertheless from the glacial current slicing through the captain's tone. "For the sake of that friendship and that only, I will not extract the satisfaction of my honor from your hide. I will forgive you those words though I will not forget them. For they were meant, however unfairly spoken. It merely mars thought; it cannot make it from nothing."
Aragorn shook his head vigorously, but Haldir disregarded him.
"I do not need you to teach me my duty, stripling—for so your brash words make you. I know that you have come through fear. Through darkness. Through unspeakable peril. And yet have farther still to go with ever lessening hope. I know that that Burden in the next flet can shatter all that you have worked for to pieces in moments. One slip. One error in judgement. Do I touch near the mark of your thoughts?" he asked in a velveteen gnarl that reminded Aragorn of what it meant to provoke the marchwarden's ire.
Feeling the deep bite of those words, he was suddenly aware of how close to the talan edge he stood. Instead of taking a step back as he longed to do, Aragorn swallowed hard around the sudden obstruction choking his throat shut, his lax hands falling to his sides. He managed to whisper in what almost sounded like a sigh of pain. "Pricking near."
"I can come nearer yet. Let us see if I can strike the heart."
"Please, Haldir, no more. You have made your point."
"Have I? I think not. Not yet." With the swiftness of a trap springing, the marchwarden's fingers clamped around the muscle of Aragorn's upper arm. The ranger flinched, but Haldir did not withdraw his grasp. His smoky breath buffeted the man's cheeks and forehead as he leaned close.
"Try to tell any child he cannot climb a tree and without any awareness of heights or of the damage a fall can bring, he will dash up the slenderest branches that will still hold his weight. And he will succeed. With impunity. Until he realizes he cannot climb down again. And then he locks arms and legs around the trunk for fear and dares not move. Yet," a little, emphatic shake, the wolf scolding the nipping pup, "he did climb up to such a height and, in fact, he will realize that he can climb back down. It takes more effort, more will, less fear. But, he can do it and touch safe ground again."
"And if foot or hand should falter? If the fear cannot be borne?" Aragorn breathed. He no longer felt the bruising pressure on his arm, and instead raised his head to stare directly into his friend's blazing eyes.
The viselike grip jerked him a half pace from the end of the wooden beams.
"As long as you do not fall."
For a moment, stern elven eyes held mortal ones, and Aragorn understood that for all Haldir's talk of childish stubbornness, he had not meant children's mischief.
The moment broke as Haldir abruptly released him and whirled on his heel, calling back over his shoulder. "Watch your step. It's too early to scrape your broken body off the leaf loam."
Aragorn shook his head, letting out a long sigh that was part relief and part utter exhaustion. He rubbed his hands briskly over his damp. stubble-rough jaw and raked them through the silver-tinged hair at his temples. At last, he rolled himself in his cloak, staring upward through the tracery of branches. The stars gleamed through a gap in the leaves.
When at last he fell asleep, he did not dream.