Hope u like it! Thanx for all your reviews, about 2 weeks later I actually
received them! I'm glad this sites working again, Oh how I missed it so!
lol, well, not that much! Anyways, enjoy! Hana X
Chapter 2
It took him no longer than twenty minutes to seek out what he was looking for. He knew Arwen so well that in some ways they even thought like each other, and that's why he knew where to look for her.
He found her in one of their childhood haunts, a huge treehouse they had built together. It was made of strong and supple wood, and had a roof able to survive any winter. Luckily it was now mid June, so the weather was warm. He hated the thought of Arwen out in the cold all by herself. He hated the thought of anything bad happening to her, and knew he would hate himself if anything did. It was in his nature to be protective. He presumed that came from his father's ancestry, a line of kings looking after their people at home and their soldiers in battle.
What was he doing, think about irrelevant things when he was so close to what he sought? Mentally bracing himself for the worst he began to climb the ladder, half slowing each step in trepidation, half rushing in need to set eyes upon her.
However his apprehension was for nothing, as she wasn't there when he entered the one roomed elven nest. The remnants of a meal lay on the table, what looked like bread and butter. There were clothes strewn over the bed in the corner and the whole place had the look of Arwen. It was undoubtedly where she had been living, but where was she now?
"Who's there?" Came a melodious voice suddenly from the behind the back wall, a voice so pure that it made his heart leap to his mouth. She was here, on the balcony they had added.
Not knowing exactly how to introduce himself in words, he walked quietly through the room and emerged in the warm outside air once more. And there she sat, all his visions of heaven rolled into one being.
"Aragorn?" She blinked through the dim evening. "Is that you?"
"It is I," he replied, kissing her hand. He was a little puzzled by the fact she didn't stand to hug or kiss him, just sat huddled up, her arms round her knees. It looked an awkward position to be in.
"How was your journey?" She asked, perfectly politely, but her voice held something like sadness and she did not smile.
"It was fine. But how are you? Your father said -"
"My father? You have spoken already to my father? Then you will know the full story I presume." Her voice was not cold, but oddly cheerful.
"I think not. Maybe that is his story I have heard, but I do not understand any of it. Arwen, what is going on? He said you'd done something terrible and that he has disowned you. Surely this cannot be true!"
She turned away and looked into the dusk of night. A small laugh escaped her throat. "Oh Estel, you have been away too long. My father, sorry, Lord Elrond as perhaps I now should call him, did not lie. He was right to do what he did."
"But what did you do? This makes no sense."
She stood suddenly and walked back inside, all the while keeping her back to him as though hiding something. He followed, completely perplexed. He really did not like whatever was going on. All he wanted to do was hold her and kiss her, but he needed to know what had happened. After all, Elrond was like a father to him, and for him and Arwen to have fallen out was like Aragorn's family being torn apart. It did not just affect them but him also.
She adopted the same sitting position on the bed and gestured for him to sit on a chair. He obliged.
"Do not look at me like I am a little child you need to worry about. I am not sick or mentally ill or anything else they tell me I am. I am still me."
She lit a lamp and her face was bathed in orange light. Aragorn gasped and felt his throat constrict in terror. She was..... he couldn't describe it. She was still as beautiful and breath taking as the very first time he laid eyes upon her, but her eyes.... he could not bear to look into them for all the empty loneliness that resided there. She looked so tired, dark circles under her eyes. It appeared as if she had been tortured and left for weeks to wilt in solitude and pain.
"Arwen, your face..... What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"But you look so..... so terrible."
"I thank you, you do not look too great yourself."
"No, I didn't mean it like that." He reached out a hand to her arm but she flinched away. "Please, Arwen," he begged, "tell me everything. I want to help. I can't bear to see you like this."
"Oh but you could bear to see me seven months ago and still leave? You could bear to tell me you loved me and then go without a trace?" She was scowling and her voice dripped venom which stung his very soul.
"Arwen, I still -"
"Don't!" She said fimly. "I don't want to hear what you have to say. You know, I have been imagining what this day would be like since the second you left." She gave an ironic laugh. "Funny how things never go to plan, don't you think?" Suddenly she stood up and Aragorn almost yelled in horror. "Obviously you do. This," she stroked her rounded stomach, "is what never went to plan. This is what has made sure I have been cast out of everything I know. This thing inside me is what I love and what I hate, what I desperately want and yet what I wish had never been created. This is what you left me to deal with, all by myself. This is life, Aragorn, my life, and I hate it so much sometimes I go to bed wishing, hoping I won't wake up in the morning. Every minute of every hour of every day I think about how everything used to be and will it so much to be like that again. My father, my family, you by my side, on my side, with me. But then I come back to reality and realise that I'm living on a false hope, something that will never happen. It can never go back to how it was. I have brought this upon myself, and now I have to live with it. I was foolish enough to think I loved you, and believe you when you said you loved me too. I deserve nothing more than what I have and have nothing more than I deserve." She stopped and inhaled deeply. No tears stained her face. She had learned long ago how to block out the pain.
Aragorn was stunned. He had just received the biggest shock of his life. He realised there were tears on his cheeks, but did not wipe them away. Every word she spoke cut him like a knife, the way she was so emotionless, so cold. But what got him deepest was that he had put all this on to her. He was the cause of everything she had just said. He had hurt her so badly that he wanted to rip his own heart out.
"Arwen," he breathed finally, "I am so, so sorry. I know you probably don't want to hear it, but it is one of the truest words I have ever spoken. All this is my fault, I-"
"Your fault?" She laughed coldly. "Oh no, none of this is your fault. Did you force me to make love to you the night you were due to leave? Did you tie me down and rape me? Did you etch the words 'I love you' so deeply onto my brain that they blinded my vision so completely I did not realise what was going on until it was too late? No? Then this is not your fault. The blame lies entirely with me."
She sat back down and rubbed the small of her back, shutting him off as though they were in two separate worlds.
"Arwen," Aragorn said, when he had taken in all the words she had just spoken and re-read them over and over until they made no sense whatsoever. "Arwen, listen to me."
She looked up slowly and smiled. "Yes?"
"Arwen, the blame cannot lie with you because there is none. Surely a gift as precious as what we have been given is not a burden, but a joy. We-"
"We?" She was staring at him as if he was mad. "Estel, there is no 'we'. There is only me and you. I only wish there was a 'we'. Oh, there I go again, dreaming my life away! You'd think I'd have learned by now, wouldn't you?" She chuckled to herself.
Ignoring her completely he said, "this child is a gift. It may have been unexpected but it is still a wonderful thing. Surely your father-"
"Aragorn, what is the most precious thing in all the world to Elves?"
He had to think quickly at her sudden interruption. He did not like the game she was playing. "The most precious thing to Elves in the world is life."
"Precisely."
"Arwen, what are you getting at?"
"Do you not think that if the most treasured gift in all of creation is life, that the opposite, most despised thing, apart from death by choice, is a life created in a fleeting moment with no love involved at all? No second thought to the life being made? When my father found out what I had done, that I was expecting an illigitimate child, I felt so small at the way he looked at me that I knew I was getting what I deserved. I do not hate him for that, because he was right in what he said. I am 'selfish and egotistical'. I am 'disrespectful'. I am 'dirty, disgusting and a disgrace to the good name of the Elves'."
Her voice momentarily cracked with emotion and for the first time that night, Aragorn saw pain and terrible grief cross her features. For a minute she looked as if she was going to cry, but she didn't. She kept it bottled up inside, letting it slowly eat away her former happy, loving and beautiful self.
"Did you not tell him the child was mine? He would not have been as horrible to you then, knowing it was not five minutes of passion with a stranger but a bond for life between two people in love?"
"Was it? Were we those two people in love?" She shook her head sadly but continued before he could interrupt. "There was no point blackeneing your name. Either way I would have been thrown away, I did not wish to take you with me. Even now, after all that has happened, I would not wish that on you. Whether you believe it or not, I am still hopelessly in love with you. I would not hurt you if my life depended on it. I could not hurt you. I am not angry at you for saying that you loved me, because I believed it and that has been what's kept me going through all the dark days I've faced alone."
A tear traced its path down her nose, and another down her cheek. "Just your image in my head has been enough to guide me away from the deep depressing corners of my mind to a place where I am temporarily blinded by such a bright, warm light that all the pain just disappears. Just the sweet rememberance of the taste of your lips on mine has been enough to tear my heart in two, but not in the way the darkness would have it. Just the touch of your skin and the warmth of your soul has been enough to keep me going, your voice taking me to a place where there is nothing but love; no hate, no grief, no sorrow or despair. Just the sweet memory of being with you has kept me alive."
She was crying freely now, tears fighting their way down her face. "Each night I dream of you, after singing myself to sleep to escape the endless torture of the waking world. And do you know what I sing?" She shook her head and laughed softly. "It is such a silly song that I never understood when my mother used to sing it to me. But now it makes sense, so much so I even changed the words." She closed her eyes and began singing soflty, as if to herself.
"There is a castle on a cloud
I like to go there in my sleep
Nobody shouts or talks to loud
Not in my castle on a cloud.
*
There's not a thing that I can't be
It is a place where I am me
I can be strong and stand up proud
When I'm in my castle on a cloud
*
There is a ranger all in white
Holds me and sings a lullaby
He's nice to see and he's soft to touch
He says 'Arwen, I love you very much'
*
There is a place where no one's lost
There is a place where no one cries
Crying at all is not allowed
Not in my castle on a cloud."
The last note still rang in the air as she let out a huge sob and collapsed onto the bed, crying so hard her whole body shook.
She wanted so hard just to be loved, just to have someone on her side. Aragorn had heard every word like she said as if they had been engraved on his heart since birth. Some of it was even the same for him, how she described her memories of him helping her through the pain. It was the same when he had been on the darkest paths, past the black gates of Mordor itself, a place so consumed by evil that the very air threatened to wipe out all memories of anything good in life. But it seemed Arwen was so pure of heart, so beautiful and loving, that nothing, not even Sauron himself, could erase the deep imprint such as she had made on Aragorn's soul. He would never be without her. And neither would she.
And so, wrapping his strong arms around her weeping body, he held he so tightly it was as if he was holding her together, which he actually was. She did not flinch away this time, but clung to him, the last chance she would ever get of finding happiness once more.
"Arwen," he whispered to her silken hair, "Úndomiel, I should have told you this every day from the moment I first met you. I should have told you all those times we met in secret. I should have told you that night we made love. I should have told you..... Arwen, I should have stayed so I could tell you every minute of every day. I should have told you.... I love you, more than I could ever say. I am so sorry for all the pain I have caused you, I have hurt you so badly it has hurt me too, deeper than you could ever know. I..... I love you....."
No more words were needed. Aragorn knew he had so much more apologising to do. He had to make her understand that he was sorrier than she could imagine. He had to affirm to her so strongly the belief that she was loved so utterly and completely she need never feel pain again. He had to love her, honour, cherish and protect her with all the strength he possessed.
But first of all, he simply had to be there. And as she cried on, he held her tighter until he was sure she would break. And still the tears came, and still she needed him more. There was no life without him, like there were no rainbows without rain, no life without light, no love without hope.
Estel was her hope, her one chance of survival. The calm after the storm, the glowing embers after the roaring blaze, the happy ending she had always dreamed of. Estel was Estel, and she loved him more now than she had ever before, so much so that it physically hurt.
She no longer needed dreams to transport her to her castle on a cloud. She was already there.
***************
And the verdict is.......?? Was it surprising/not surprising/ fluffy/ not fluffy enough for you? Plz tell me!!! Hana X
ps the song Castle On A Cloud comes from Les Miserables, but I don't know who wrote it so I'm sorry who ever you are, its a really great song! Obviously I changed some of the lyrics, but its such a pretty tune if you've ever heard it, really minor and so sad!
Chapter 2
It took him no longer than twenty minutes to seek out what he was looking for. He knew Arwen so well that in some ways they even thought like each other, and that's why he knew where to look for her.
He found her in one of their childhood haunts, a huge treehouse they had built together. It was made of strong and supple wood, and had a roof able to survive any winter. Luckily it was now mid June, so the weather was warm. He hated the thought of Arwen out in the cold all by herself. He hated the thought of anything bad happening to her, and knew he would hate himself if anything did. It was in his nature to be protective. He presumed that came from his father's ancestry, a line of kings looking after their people at home and their soldiers in battle.
What was he doing, think about irrelevant things when he was so close to what he sought? Mentally bracing himself for the worst he began to climb the ladder, half slowing each step in trepidation, half rushing in need to set eyes upon her.
However his apprehension was for nothing, as she wasn't there when he entered the one roomed elven nest. The remnants of a meal lay on the table, what looked like bread and butter. There were clothes strewn over the bed in the corner and the whole place had the look of Arwen. It was undoubtedly where she had been living, but where was she now?
"Who's there?" Came a melodious voice suddenly from the behind the back wall, a voice so pure that it made his heart leap to his mouth. She was here, on the balcony they had added.
Not knowing exactly how to introduce himself in words, he walked quietly through the room and emerged in the warm outside air once more. And there she sat, all his visions of heaven rolled into one being.
"Aragorn?" She blinked through the dim evening. "Is that you?"
"It is I," he replied, kissing her hand. He was a little puzzled by the fact she didn't stand to hug or kiss him, just sat huddled up, her arms round her knees. It looked an awkward position to be in.
"How was your journey?" She asked, perfectly politely, but her voice held something like sadness and she did not smile.
"It was fine. But how are you? Your father said -"
"My father? You have spoken already to my father? Then you will know the full story I presume." Her voice was not cold, but oddly cheerful.
"I think not. Maybe that is his story I have heard, but I do not understand any of it. Arwen, what is going on? He said you'd done something terrible and that he has disowned you. Surely this cannot be true!"
She turned away and looked into the dusk of night. A small laugh escaped her throat. "Oh Estel, you have been away too long. My father, sorry, Lord Elrond as perhaps I now should call him, did not lie. He was right to do what he did."
"But what did you do? This makes no sense."
She stood suddenly and walked back inside, all the while keeping her back to him as though hiding something. He followed, completely perplexed. He really did not like whatever was going on. All he wanted to do was hold her and kiss her, but he needed to know what had happened. After all, Elrond was like a father to him, and for him and Arwen to have fallen out was like Aragorn's family being torn apart. It did not just affect them but him also.
She adopted the same sitting position on the bed and gestured for him to sit on a chair. He obliged.
"Do not look at me like I am a little child you need to worry about. I am not sick or mentally ill or anything else they tell me I am. I am still me."
She lit a lamp and her face was bathed in orange light. Aragorn gasped and felt his throat constrict in terror. She was..... he couldn't describe it. She was still as beautiful and breath taking as the very first time he laid eyes upon her, but her eyes.... he could not bear to look into them for all the empty loneliness that resided there. She looked so tired, dark circles under her eyes. It appeared as if she had been tortured and left for weeks to wilt in solitude and pain.
"Arwen, your face..... What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"But you look so..... so terrible."
"I thank you, you do not look too great yourself."
"No, I didn't mean it like that." He reached out a hand to her arm but she flinched away. "Please, Arwen," he begged, "tell me everything. I want to help. I can't bear to see you like this."
"Oh but you could bear to see me seven months ago and still leave? You could bear to tell me you loved me and then go without a trace?" She was scowling and her voice dripped venom which stung his very soul.
"Arwen, I still -"
"Don't!" She said fimly. "I don't want to hear what you have to say. You know, I have been imagining what this day would be like since the second you left." She gave an ironic laugh. "Funny how things never go to plan, don't you think?" Suddenly she stood up and Aragorn almost yelled in horror. "Obviously you do. This," she stroked her rounded stomach, "is what never went to plan. This is what has made sure I have been cast out of everything I know. This thing inside me is what I love and what I hate, what I desperately want and yet what I wish had never been created. This is what you left me to deal with, all by myself. This is life, Aragorn, my life, and I hate it so much sometimes I go to bed wishing, hoping I won't wake up in the morning. Every minute of every hour of every day I think about how everything used to be and will it so much to be like that again. My father, my family, you by my side, on my side, with me. But then I come back to reality and realise that I'm living on a false hope, something that will never happen. It can never go back to how it was. I have brought this upon myself, and now I have to live with it. I was foolish enough to think I loved you, and believe you when you said you loved me too. I deserve nothing more than what I have and have nothing more than I deserve." She stopped and inhaled deeply. No tears stained her face. She had learned long ago how to block out the pain.
Aragorn was stunned. He had just received the biggest shock of his life. He realised there were tears on his cheeks, but did not wipe them away. Every word she spoke cut him like a knife, the way she was so emotionless, so cold. But what got him deepest was that he had put all this on to her. He was the cause of everything she had just said. He had hurt her so badly that he wanted to rip his own heart out.
"Arwen," he breathed finally, "I am so, so sorry. I know you probably don't want to hear it, but it is one of the truest words I have ever spoken. All this is my fault, I-"
"Your fault?" She laughed coldly. "Oh no, none of this is your fault. Did you force me to make love to you the night you were due to leave? Did you tie me down and rape me? Did you etch the words 'I love you' so deeply onto my brain that they blinded my vision so completely I did not realise what was going on until it was too late? No? Then this is not your fault. The blame lies entirely with me."
She sat back down and rubbed the small of her back, shutting him off as though they were in two separate worlds.
"Arwen," Aragorn said, when he had taken in all the words she had just spoken and re-read them over and over until they made no sense whatsoever. "Arwen, listen to me."
She looked up slowly and smiled. "Yes?"
"Arwen, the blame cannot lie with you because there is none. Surely a gift as precious as what we have been given is not a burden, but a joy. We-"
"We?" She was staring at him as if he was mad. "Estel, there is no 'we'. There is only me and you. I only wish there was a 'we'. Oh, there I go again, dreaming my life away! You'd think I'd have learned by now, wouldn't you?" She chuckled to herself.
Ignoring her completely he said, "this child is a gift. It may have been unexpected but it is still a wonderful thing. Surely your father-"
"Aragorn, what is the most precious thing in all the world to Elves?"
He had to think quickly at her sudden interruption. He did not like the game she was playing. "The most precious thing to Elves in the world is life."
"Precisely."
"Arwen, what are you getting at?"
"Do you not think that if the most treasured gift in all of creation is life, that the opposite, most despised thing, apart from death by choice, is a life created in a fleeting moment with no love involved at all? No second thought to the life being made? When my father found out what I had done, that I was expecting an illigitimate child, I felt so small at the way he looked at me that I knew I was getting what I deserved. I do not hate him for that, because he was right in what he said. I am 'selfish and egotistical'. I am 'disrespectful'. I am 'dirty, disgusting and a disgrace to the good name of the Elves'."
Her voice momentarily cracked with emotion and for the first time that night, Aragorn saw pain and terrible grief cross her features. For a minute she looked as if she was going to cry, but she didn't. She kept it bottled up inside, letting it slowly eat away her former happy, loving and beautiful self.
"Did you not tell him the child was mine? He would not have been as horrible to you then, knowing it was not five minutes of passion with a stranger but a bond for life between two people in love?"
"Was it? Were we those two people in love?" She shook her head sadly but continued before he could interrupt. "There was no point blackeneing your name. Either way I would have been thrown away, I did not wish to take you with me. Even now, after all that has happened, I would not wish that on you. Whether you believe it or not, I am still hopelessly in love with you. I would not hurt you if my life depended on it. I could not hurt you. I am not angry at you for saying that you loved me, because I believed it and that has been what's kept me going through all the dark days I've faced alone."
A tear traced its path down her nose, and another down her cheek. "Just your image in my head has been enough to guide me away from the deep depressing corners of my mind to a place where I am temporarily blinded by such a bright, warm light that all the pain just disappears. Just the sweet rememberance of the taste of your lips on mine has been enough to tear my heart in two, but not in the way the darkness would have it. Just the touch of your skin and the warmth of your soul has been enough to keep me going, your voice taking me to a place where there is nothing but love; no hate, no grief, no sorrow or despair. Just the sweet memory of being with you has kept me alive."
She was crying freely now, tears fighting their way down her face. "Each night I dream of you, after singing myself to sleep to escape the endless torture of the waking world. And do you know what I sing?" She shook her head and laughed softly. "It is such a silly song that I never understood when my mother used to sing it to me. But now it makes sense, so much so I even changed the words." She closed her eyes and began singing soflty, as if to herself.
"There is a castle on a cloud
I like to go there in my sleep
Nobody shouts or talks to loud
Not in my castle on a cloud.
*
There's not a thing that I can't be
It is a place where I am me
I can be strong and stand up proud
When I'm in my castle on a cloud
*
There is a ranger all in white
Holds me and sings a lullaby
He's nice to see and he's soft to touch
He says 'Arwen, I love you very much'
*
There is a place where no one's lost
There is a place where no one cries
Crying at all is not allowed
Not in my castle on a cloud."
The last note still rang in the air as she let out a huge sob and collapsed onto the bed, crying so hard her whole body shook.
She wanted so hard just to be loved, just to have someone on her side. Aragorn had heard every word like she said as if they had been engraved on his heart since birth. Some of it was even the same for him, how she described her memories of him helping her through the pain. It was the same when he had been on the darkest paths, past the black gates of Mordor itself, a place so consumed by evil that the very air threatened to wipe out all memories of anything good in life. But it seemed Arwen was so pure of heart, so beautiful and loving, that nothing, not even Sauron himself, could erase the deep imprint such as she had made on Aragorn's soul. He would never be without her. And neither would she.
And so, wrapping his strong arms around her weeping body, he held he so tightly it was as if he was holding her together, which he actually was. She did not flinch away this time, but clung to him, the last chance she would ever get of finding happiness once more.
"Arwen," he whispered to her silken hair, "Úndomiel, I should have told you this every day from the moment I first met you. I should have told you all those times we met in secret. I should have told you that night we made love. I should have told you..... Arwen, I should have stayed so I could tell you every minute of every day. I should have told you.... I love you, more than I could ever say. I am so sorry for all the pain I have caused you, I have hurt you so badly it has hurt me too, deeper than you could ever know. I..... I love you....."
No more words were needed. Aragorn knew he had so much more apologising to do. He had to make her understand that he was sorrier than she could imagine. He had to affirm to her so strongly the belief that she was loved so utterly and completely she need never feel pain again. He had to love her, honour, cherish and protect her with all the strength he possessed.
But first of all, he simply had to be there. And as she cried on, he held her tighter until he was sure she would break. And still the tears came, and still she needed him more. There was no life without him, like there were no rainbows without rain, no life without light, no love without hope.
Estel was her hope, her one chance of survival. The calm after the storm, the glowing embers after the roaring blaze, the happy ending she had always dreamed of. Estel was Estel, and she loved him more now than she had ever before, so much so that it physically hurt.
She no longer needed dreams to transport her to her castle on a cloud. She was already there.
***************
And the verdict is.......?? Was it surprising/not surprising/ fluffy/ not fluffy enough for you? Plz tell me!!! Hana X
ps the song Castle On A Cloud comes from Les Miserables, but I don't know who wrote it so I'm sorry who ever you are, its a really great song! Obviously I changed some of the lyrics, but its such a pretty tune if you've ever heard it, really minor and so sad!