Estel
I have never known people to talk so much.
My Father, Elrohir and Elladan, Aragorn-the-king and Arwen, they sit and talk . . . And talk . . . And talk. I thought I had heard every story there was to tell about Arda as I was growing.
I was wrong.
And then they begin on our lives in Valinor. I do not need to hear that. I lived it.
I am not sure what to make of this King. I can see why people like him—there is something about him. The look on his face when Father told him who I was made me want to laugh. He was pleased I had his name, I could tell, and that almost made me like him . . . Almost. . . But he has hurt my Father and so I watch him closely. I have not yet made up my mind what to think of him.
He has done nothing wrong yet. He asks Father questions about everything. He watches him all the time, telling him how well he looks in every second sentence which makes my father laugh. If he knew how unhappy Father had actually been all this time in Valinor he would not say that. But no one is telling him.
In the end I get sick of it—listening to stories of the home I have lost makes me miserable, and so I leave. They are so caught up in each other I do not think any of them even notice.
There is a balcony outside the room we sit in that wraps itself around the building and so I go to stand on it and look out over this place of Aragorn-the-King's. It is not a village—it is too big to be called that, but not is it a city . . . Nowhere near. A town I guess you would have to call it. There are so many Men here in such a small space and I am not good with small spaces at the best of times. I miss our woods with all my heart. The stars above me are the same at least .. . Well the same as the ones over our new home in the forest by the sea. They are different from the ones I grew up with in Valinor though and that hurts.
"Why are you out here?"
I am so caught up with the beautiful wrongness of the stars the voice makes me jump and I am ashamed of myself. This is no elf who has crept up on me but instead a human girl. I should have heard her.
"Why are you not in there with our parents and my uncles?"
So she is Aragorn and Arwens daughter then. Eldarion's sister. She does not look much like him. There is a fire to her he does not have—her eyes dance with it—and she reminds me of someone but the knowledge of who that might be floats just outside my reach.
I shrug my shoulders instead of giving her an answer. I do not owe her anything and I am not going to tell her of my loneliness. But my silence does not daunt her.
"Will you tell me of Valinor?" she says, and somehow it seems more of a command than a question. "I have always wanted to see it."
"They talk about Valinor now," I say, "You should go in there if you wish to hear it."
But she shakes her head sending her long wild curls flying about her face.
"Oh they talk of day to day boring things. It may as well be Arda they speak of. I want to know what Valinor is like. What does it look like? Have you been to Tirion? Is it truly as beautiful as they say?" She pauses in the midst of her stream of questions and gives me a searching look. "It is so strange you having my father's name. It seems wrong to call you that."
"It does not seem wrong to me!" I bite back. "To me It is my name, not his."
I expect her to apologise or perhaps be offended by my bad temper but instead she tosses her head and grins at me.
"No need to be like that," she laughs. "Your temper is as bad as they say mine is."
I can only stare. I do not know how to take her. Are all mannish girls like this? She is so very direct.
"I am Tinu." She sticks a hand out towards me. I know what she does for I have seen my father do this . . . Shaking hands to say hello. It is something he learned in Arda and never got out of the habit of. Still I know what she expects me to do and I grasp it. Tinu means spark in my language. It is very apt for she is full of sparks. Still, she was critical of my name so I shall respond in kind.
"Tinu? That is not very Princess-like." She is a princess after all.
"Who wants to be a princess?" She laughs. "Not me. My sister is princess enough for both of us. It was Legolas who first called me Tinu and I like it."
"Leave him alone, Tinu."
When I spin around I see it is Eldarion striding towards us, who admonishes his sister.
"Estel has only just arrived. Do not badger him to death this early in the visit."
"I asked about Valinor. That is not a crime, Eldarion."
And he answers her the exact same way I did.
"If you wish to know of Valinor you should be in the room with Mother, Father, and Legolas. They speak of it right now."
She rolls her eyes at him.
"They speak of boring, tedious, ordinary things. That is not what I wish to know."
"Details of the lives of those you love—the way they lived day to day, is not tedious, Tinu." He sighs.
"You say that because you never had it." She hoists herself up to sit upon the railing which makes me nervous. Just how good is the balance of these Men? "You never had it and pined for it, but I never wanted it Eldarion. You were a King! You could have had a life of such excitement. You could have done anything, and you wasted it moping after ordinariness."
I have landed myself in the middle of a fight between brother and sister and I understand nothing they argue about. It is most uncomfortable.
"Being a King is not the fun you think it is!" Eldarion's voice seeps with bitterness but it washes over Tinu and she pays it no heed.
"It is more fun than being nothing." She spits back.
I begin to look for ways to escape but I see none.
It is Tinu who saves me in the end. She leaps from her seat on the balustrade and pushes past Eldarion to leave.
"You never understood me." She mutters as she passes him. Perhaps she thinks I cannot hear her? "And you still do not!"
"And you never understood me either." He says quietly. . . sadly, to her departing back.
She turns, just before she disappears around the corner and flashes me a grin.
"I like you, Estel-from-Valinor. I forgive you your name."
And she is gone.
For a moment Eladrion and I both stand in silence and stare after her until he turns to face me.
"I apologise for my sister . . . I know she is feisty but she is also sweet, kind and caring underneath though you do not often see it. She has had to learn to be a warrior and fight for everything she has wanted to achieve in her life."
I feel my usual awkwardness faced with navigating his strange Sindarin and the right words elude me. It is strange they did not with his sister. Her Sindarin sounded just as odd as his. Perhaps it is because she did not pause to give me a chance?
I will try my Westron as Laerion suggested.
"I have a sister. I know how it is," I tell him.
The look of total astonishment on his face almost makes me laugh.
"Is it that surprising I have a sister? She is still in Valinor with my Grandparents but they will come out to join us when the Sindar decide to follow us here."
"I am not surprised you have a sister," He splutters. "I did not expect you to speak the Common Tongue! Who speaks that in Valinor?"
"Who speaks it? Let me see . . . " I count it out on my fingers, "My Father, myself, Calithiel—she is my sister—and Rhawion begins to learn though I do not think you can yet say he speaks it. So that is . . . 4."
He stares and I laugh.
"I exaggerate. Elrohir and Elladan can speak it, of course, but they only do when Father insists they practice with me or Calithiel. Many of the Arda elves can speak it but they never do."
"And so why do you?"
"Because Father was convinced we would one day be reunited with Men and would need to communicate with them. The others thought him crazy but he did not care."
"But you do not need Westron to communicate with me. I am fluent in Sindarin. It is my mothers tongue." He frowns as he considers it. Does he think I insult him? Well there is nothing I can do about that.
"It is not the same as mine. Sometimes I do not understand. By the time I have worked out what I should say the time to say it has gone. Of course, perhaps my Westron is as incomprehensible for you." I shrug.
If it is we are doomed to endless heavy silences.
But he smiles and I realise I have not seen him smile very often for it transforms his face.
"Your Westron is impeccable!" He exclaims, "Although your accent is perhaps a little . . . Dwarven."
That makes me laugh for my Father has told me it was Gimli who honed his Westron when they first met and Gimli who taught it to him again after his accident. It seems fitting Father has taught me how to speak Westron like a Dwarf.
It is certainly easier to talk to Eldarion in, that much is certain.
"I take no offence from the feistiness of your sister." I tell him. "It was you she was angry with anyway."
"It is life she is angry with," he sighs. "I hope it will be better for her in this new place, although I worry it will not."
"Why will it not? This is perfect, this place." Perfect for everyone but me, but I do not tell him that.
"She wants adventure. She wants to lead. What chance is there our people will give her that when they would not before? The place has changed but they have not."
That confuses me.
"She wants to lead and you did not." That was obvious from their argument. He did not enjoy being a King. "Why did you not just let her? Would she have been bad at it? Was she not suited?"
It makes no sense. My Father leads our people and not Laerion, even though Father is younger. Laerion does not wish to. He is happy the way things are, and Father is more connected to the Silvans anyway.
"Well she is not suited now." He says. "But had she been trained from the beginning as I was, well she would have made a fine leader . . . She still could. But I could not just hand the Kingship to Tinu. No one would have accepted that. Had I stepped aside, Elboron, Faramir's son would have been Steward until my nephews—my other sister's sons—were of age. It would never have been Tinu's. She is female, Estel."
"And?" I fail to see why that is relevant at all.
"And it would not have been accepted."
"That is no reason!" I cry. "Not if she was suitable. My Mother is as much our people's leader as my Father. She is as good at it, if not better at some things."
"Well then the Silvan's are more enlightened than we are. But the rest of your people... I think not. You do not get to be condescending about this Estel. Ask yourself . . . Why was Galadriel never Queen?"
I have never even thought of it. Why was she not?
"The Noldor are not my people."
It is no answer at all but it is all I have to say.
He laughs then which is strange.
"You sound just like Legolas." He smiles. "The number of times I heard him say that."
"Well they are not," I protest, "so of course he would say it!"
"Tell me," Eldarion leans out across the balcony railing and again I get that feeling of nervousness about these Men and their ability to balance. "why did he believe so strongly he would see us again? Why . . . To the point of teaching you a language you would likely never use?"
The answer to his question about Galadriel was impossible but this one is easy.
"To keep himself alive."
"What?"
"To enable him to put one foot in front of the other. To keep him with us. To keep the dark clouds that chased him, away. He has not been happy."
Sitting in that room in their reunion none of them would say that to Aragorn-the-King.
Out here under the stars I will tell his son.
"He had to believe it to stop his grief for all of you from swallowing him whole."