Two chapters posted today. 48 and 49.
Eldarion
The boy Rhawion falls asleep in Estel's arms.
He sits between Erynion and Maewen, the child's head resting upon his shoulder as he subconsciously strokes the silken hair, while listening to Legolas—who is in an argumentative mood—discussing the likely location of Gimli with Finrod.
I miss him, even though he is only across the fire. I miss him sitting next to me, our friendly banter, I miss just us. I do get the flash of a grin when he looks up and spots me watching.
"Let me take Rhawion from you," Maewen says quietly. But the moment she begins to lift him he is instantly wide awake, blinking his way out of whatever childish dreams had wound their way around him.
"It is bedtime," she says softly yet he protests, burying a hand into Estel's hair with a vicelike grip.
"I want Estel to take me."
And she sighs.
"Estel will be here in the morning, Rhawion. You will see him then."
"I will take him, Mother." Estel gives in surprisingly easily. "It does not matter. I will tell you a story, Rhawion."
The boy is instantly entranced.
"An exciting one?"
"It is a story about an elf, and a wild river with a lot of rocks, and what happens when he falls into it." Rhawion's eyes are wide.
"Is it dangerous?" He gasps.
"Oh, very dangerous."
"Estel," Maewen says with a frown, "Is there something I should know?" She gives Legolas a searching look, but he just shrugs and Estel smiles.
"No Mother" he says as if butter would not melt in his mouth.
It is plainly obvious she does not believe him.
And Rhawion is impatient.
"What happens to the elf, Estel?" He tugs on his brothers sleeve.
"Well he is rescued by a Man," he says. "A special Man. But I cannot tell you any more until you are in bed."
Maewen however looks straight at my father.
"Elessar?" She asks him pointedly.
And Estel is off.
"Come on, Rhawion. I will race you to your bed."
They are both as quick as each other to disappear and my father is fast on their heels.
"It is late," he says, pulling himself to his feet. "I think I have had enough of this evening. If you would excuse me."
"Hardly late at all, Aragorn," Legolas is quick to interrupt but Father is having none of it.
"I am no elf who can run all night without sleeping, Legolas, and I am sure you can answer any questions Maewen may have far better than I can."
"I was not even there—" Legolas begins but Father is not hanging around to hear him finish and I follow after. I do not wish to become tangled up in that discussion. Maewen looks less than pleased.
I do believe Legolas is in trouble.
"I am staying out of that." Father says as soon as we are clear of the fire. "If Legolas has not told Maewen about that incident he is a fool. They have given me a flet," he goes on. "There is room there for both of us, but of course you can sleep elsewhere if you wish."
He means with Estel, obviously. Why does he not just say that?
"Estel does not wish that." I say rather more grumpily than I mean to. "I will sleep with you." If he is surprised I cannot see it in the darkness.
His flet is spacious. He is right when he says there is room for two. Lanterns already light it with a soft warm glow that dies not dim the stars above peaking through the foliage.
"This reminds me of Lothlórien," Father says as he lies back, arms behind his head to look at the stars. "Though I do wish they had not built it quite so high." To say my father is not keen on heights is an understatement.
"Or Ithilien," I say since I never saw Lothlórien. I have some sweet memories of Ithilien amongst the bitter. I used to go there often with my mother when I was young. Sometimes she needed to get out of Minas Tirith and be among elves. Having lived for so long now with no elves at all I understand.
"If you had told me I would have done something."
Father's voice cuts across my thoughts and confuses me. I am not sure what he means.
"What?"
"If you had told me about what happened in Ithilien," he sighs, "I would have tried my best to make it so you could live your life the way you wanted. I do not mean I disagree with Legolas' decision then, but as you grew, I would have wished for you to be with whoever you wanted to."
It is a strange thing to say. He is a practical man, not a dreamer. He knows that would have been impossible.
"Father, they would never have accepted me. It would not have mattered what you did."
"I would have argued for you as hard as I could."
"They would have made your life miserable! It would have been hateful."
I would not have wished that on him for anything.
"Then there were other options I could have tried." He will not admit defeat. "I could have stayed longer, I had time left to me. I could have waited until Gilrean's boys were older."
He knows that was not an option.
"I would not have allowed you to. You were ready to go, you had done enough. And what about Legolas, Father? You staying on would have impacted him. You know that. You know he was the reason you left us when you did. Because he could not stay in Arda any longer and he would not leave while you were there!"
"That is true," he sighs, "But Elboron could have stepped in as steward. There were choices, Eldarion. Difficult ones that is true, but still choices."
I think he is forgetting the reality we used to live in.
"What could I have done," he sighs, "that would have let you trust me with this? Is there anything?"
"It is not that I didn't trust you. It was not that at all. I did not want to let you down. You are Elessar, the King Returned, the one who saved us from the dark. You deserved a son as dazzling as you are and instead you got me. It was just another thing, another reason I failed you."
"You—"
I cut him off before he can protest I have it all wrong as I know he will. I hold a hand up to silence him.
"Father, you know this is true. I am not some glorious prince, certainly not what people imagine the son of Elessar would be. I am a strange misfit who does not fit anywhere. Elven or mortal? I am not enough to be either really and this was just another thing. I was not sure it was even real and when I met Rhíwiel I hoped it had all been in my head for I loved her, I still love her. I never fit in one place or another. I am always doomed to be stuck inbetween. I am not like Elrohir who only has eyes for Legolas, who has never loved a woman. If only . . . but that would be too easy. I am more like Legolas himself who flits between Elrohir and Maewen. But I am not a Silvan and so I am an anomaly."
He sighs before he reaches over and takes my hand. The contact makes me jump. It is unusual between us now.
"You are more like me than you know." He says queitly, "and you are glorious, and dazzling. You have not failed me, but our world and our people have failed you. I have not always been Elessar. There is more to me than that. A lot of what the world sees is only an act. I am the small boy who grew up in beautiful, immaculate Imladris and broke their china, disrupted their peace, spread chaos throughout their order and never, never truly fit. I am the young man who believed himself to be a nothing . . . Simply ordinary, then discovered he was a leader, a chieftain, a king of people he did not even know and had no idea how to do that, who roamed the world, under a dozen different names and never found a place he belonged.
"I am the King of a people who distrusted me because I was too Elven, too alien, spoke with a strange accent, was too fluent in Sindarin, moved in a way that was too smooth, too graceful, not Man enough, not the King they had imagined at all. I had no home, Eldarion, no place I truly fit, until I had you."
I had no idea he saw himself like that. How can he have it so wrong? People revere him. People want to be him.
"I was not always as confident as I appeared, Eldarion," he continues. "A lot of it was pretence. I am often beset with doubt and uncertainty. I do not always know the right choice to make. I am not perfect by a long stretch. People see what they wish to see. They built a myth and I tried to live up to it for them. The reality of Aragorn is far more ordinary, much more unsure, lonely, sometimes even unhappy. Elessar is a mask I put on and a role I play but he is not me. The truth of what we did in the war, Legolas and I, is simply a story of people with no options doing the best they could. It was not heroic and glorious. We staggered through, one foot in front of the other, we made mistakes, and no one could have done it alone."
"I did not know—"
He leaves me speechless. These things he tells me, they take my idea of what I thought him to be and shatter it in to pieces.
"If our people try to force you into the myth of the son of Elessar and cannot make you fit that is their problem not yours, Eldarion. Elessar has strangled my life and I will not let him do the same to yours, not again. Do not judge yourself against him. Do not try to measure up to him for he is not real, he does not exist and even I fall short. I will be pleased to be rid of him. Perhaps people can begin to learn who Aragorn really is."
"Perhaps I can begin to learn who Aragorn really is." I tell him.
"Perhaps you can." He turns to me and smiles. It transforms him. "Let me begin by telling you of Aragorn's son. Aragorn's son is glorious. He is beautiful, he is kind, he is unique. He has the light of the elves and the energy of Men. He is talented with wood, he has the best ability with the bow I have ever seen in a Man. He is a gifted healer,
He is Eldarion.
And I love him. I could not love him more."