It started with Meleth sneezing over her supper. The next morning Estel and Amin were also looking rather pink and feverish and by midday Hallam was coughing and Berya sniffling and it was clear all five had come down with cold.

"And what else can we expect with them kept standing in wet clothes for hours on end?" Nuneth 1 grumbled, moving down the line of boys popping spoonfuls of honeyed syrup into one obediently opened mouth after another. "Whatever was Lord Elrond thinking?"

"Of the treasure of Elendil spread over the grass I should think." Grandmother retorted, shaking her head. "Poor Elrond!"

"You have been rather trying recently." Aunt Ellian told her daughter mildly, as she and Aunt Gilraen tucked the girls snugly into bed.

"We don't mean to be naughty." Berya answered.

"At least not usually." Meleth added honestly, making her Grandmother laugh.

"Well they won't be getting into any more scrapes," Nuneth said, briskly herding the boys bedward, "not for a while at any rate."

The children were ordered to stay in bed with braziers in their rooms for warmth and given honeyed syrup for coughs, which was nice, and willow bark tea for fever, which was nasty. Uncle let them off lessons but they received a constant stream of callers, bearing fruit and comfits and cordials, ready and willing to tell stories, sing songs and play riddle games for hours on end to the delight of the children, the resigned amusement of their Mothers and Grandmother and the annoyance of their Nannies.

"Sometimes I think Elves have no sense at all." Iorwen 2 told Gilraen crossly, arms full of confiscated treats.

Estel's mother smiled, a little ruefully. "We must be patient with them, Nana, they're worried about the children."

The Elves always worried when the children were ill, knowing as they did that Mortals sometimes died of sickness and not quite grasping the difference between a cold and the plague. Uncle, of course, knew better but he was only Halfelven and had lived as a Man long ago when he was very young. But the rest of his people, including Elladan and Elrohir, were not completely reassured even though these children, (and previous generations of Heirs) had survived innumerable minor ailments in the past.

It may have been the stories and songs, or perhaps the comfits and sugared fruit, that brought on the dreams. Berya, shaken abruptly out of hers in the grey light before dawn, took several moments to remember where she was and recognize Estel and the other boys.

"What are you doing out of your room?"

"Never mind that," said Hallam as he climbed onto the girls' bed with the younger boys, settling themselves at its foot. "we just had the strangest dream."

"The same one," put in Estel, "all three of us."

"Really?" said Berya, waking up a little more and becoming interested. "A True Dream?"3

"I don't see how it could be." Hallam answered, frowning. "We were all in it, Estel, Amin and me -"

"And our father too." Amin put in.

"And we fought a huge army of orcs outside a city -"

"City?" this time it was Berya who interrupted. "We don't have cities any more."

"I know. And we were wearing armor and flying the banner of the High King."

"Don't forget the ships." Amin piped up. "We came to the battle on ships with black sails."

"And I had a sword," said Estel, looking troubled, "I think it was Narsil."

"It must have been a battle from the olden times." Berya guessed. "Maybe from the War of the Last Alliance."

"I don't think so." Hallam shook his head. "We were us, just grown up, and Father was there."

"And Elladan and Elrohir," added Estel, "and an Elf-lady. I think she was their sister Arwen." he turned pink. "She kissed me."

"Who kissed you?" Meleth asked sleepily and the boys had to tell their story all over again.

"Why would Lady Arwen kiss you?" she asked her brother when they'd finished.

Estel shrugged helplessly. "I don't know." 4

"Where would we get an army from? And what city were we fighting for?" Hallam demanded. "None of it makes sense."

"Maybe it's not a True Dream then, even if you all had it." Berya said. "I was dreaming about a battle too when you woke me up."

"Our battle?" Hallam asked interested.

"No a different one. We were fighting Stone Trolls and Orcs mounted on Great Wolves, in the Ettinmoors I think, an army of Rangers - but we were all got up in armor like the suits from the treasure, and flying the banners of Elendil and of Rhudaur."

"Rangers don't fight battles like that." Estel frowned. "Maybe you were dreaming about the old times - the wars of Queen Beruthiel" 5

"Can't have been." she shook her head decisively. "There were two Men, twins, riding with me and they called me mother. Beruthiel never had any children."

"That's even stranger than our dream." said Amin. "What about you, Meleth, did you dream about a battle too?"

"Ye-es." she said slowly, forehead wrinkled in concentration. "But it wasn't up north, or outside a city. It was at the foot of the Misty Mountains and Orcs and Cave Trolls were boiling out of the ground from a hundred different holes. But it was an army like Berya's, Rangers dressed up in armor, and I was riding next to Tithorn 6 under the banner of Cardolan." There was a brief silence as they puzzled over this.

"If they are True Dreams," Hallam said at last, "It means when we grow up the Dunedain stop hiding and fight our enemies in the open again." Everybody looked at Estel. As Chieftain such a decision would necessarily be his.

"Maybe that wasn't a good idea." he said uncertainly. "Maybe the dreams were meant as a warning."

"Anyway it's not going to happen for years and years if I had grown up sons." Berya said decidedly. "So get back to your own beds before you get caught and we all get into trouble!"

--

NOTES:

1. Nuneth is Estel and Meleth's Nanny, and was Gilraen's before that. She's in her nineties, but doesn't look a day over forty at the most.

2. Iorwen is Berya's Nanny, and was the nurse for Lady Ellemir's three children as well. She is one hundred and forty-two and beginning to show signs of age, grey hair, wrinkles, etc.

3. All Dunedain have episodes of fore and farsight, it is considered quite normal. Sometimes 'seeings' come as sudden inspirations or sometimes as dreams. A 'True Dream' is thus a dream that is also a seeing.

4. It will be some ten or so years before Estel finds out why Arwen kisses him.

5. Queen Beruthiel was the last ruler of the Kingdom of Rhudaur, and Berya's namesake. She kept the Witch King at bay for fifty years.

6. Tithorn, 'Little Eagle' is the child name of Belecthor, Berya's elder brother and Meleth's future husband.

Estel, Amin and Hallam are obviously dreaming about the Battle of Pelannor Field, Hallam, Amin and their father Halbarad are among the thirty Rangers who come south to aid Aragorn during the War of the Ring. Elladan and Elrohir are also part of their company, and in my AU Arwen is with them as well. Berya and Meleth are having previsions of the battles that will rage in Eriador at about the same time; the Dunedain will be called upon to repel invasions from the former Witch Kingdom of Angmar in the North and from the Orcs of Mount Gundabad and Moria.