Disclaimer: Own nothing, don't wish to. Just enjoy! This is the only somewhat sappy tale you're ever(hopefully) going to get from Bill.
Memoir
---
Cerin Amroth stood bare amidst the mellryn as it had for age upon age. Here it was, in years bygone, that once a house was founded, of the lordly Amroth, but long now had it diminished to give back its resting place to the flora.
A breeze blew with trepidation that morning, shifting through the grasses and playing haltingly amongst the elanor and niphredil. It was an important place to the king that had trod up the gentle slope some hours before, a cherished ground to his predecessors also. This was not Amroth returned from the great sea as one might assume upon first regard. How many years had it been since that lord had stood upon this selfsame rise of earth, this king could not recall without much deliberation. Eldarion of Gondor this was, son of the beloved Elessar and Arwen. Now, looking closer at his face, such fair resemblance to both was unmistakably striking. The angle of his jaw and the noble brow were that of his father, his hair that of his mother's, but his eyes were an inheritance from both.
Eldarion had not come alone. A short ways off, head bowed and all attention riveted to a very green enticer, grazed a strong-limbed horse with a coat suited for a fearsome winter despite the temperatures being far from frosty. He had been winding around the slope since being released from duty, taking a mouthful, then spotting a lusher patch a few steps off. The horse too had a history that wound through the years back to this hillock.
The king tipped back his face to the Sun arching overhead, bidding her warmth to envelope him. It was so terribly silent with only the sound of tearing grass and an occasional bird that came hither to pipe a hesitant song. Ghostly this place would have seemed if not for the very real earth beneath his feet. In the years of his childhood he had often heard wonderful tales of the beauty of the wood of Lórien, but he had set foot only once before in the fabled forest.
He remembered clearly the blissfully ignorant hours he'd spent on his mother's lap when the weather did not permit his frolicking spirit to play out of doors. Oh, the stories she would tell! But even better were the times when his father would join them before the hearth. Both father and son had lost count of how many times the latter would plead his elder to tell "just once more" the tale of the Fellowship, or the defeat of the Corsairs of Umbar. Looking back on the later tellings, Eldarion had to smile. Apparently, even kings such as his father had the tendency to exaggerate. Everything did become larger on the retelling. For one, the Balrog in Moria had grown two times in ferocity and size as he had been the first time Eldarion had heard it.
The stories hadn't all been that of adventure and daring do, though, undoubtedly that was the majority of the ones told by his father. There had been fables of a cottage where laughter reigned and the joys of childhood prevailed, of mice, white stags, and all manner of woodland creatures that spoke in the tongues of men. So many could he recall and so much pleasure could he derive from their very memory!
But there was one - one that stood at his forethought while he stood on that knoll with the white mellryn all about him.
Its characters were a ranger and an elven lady – and a very special horse.
---
Théoden became king of Rohan in the year 2980 of the Third Age of the Sun. It was the same year in which Drogo Baggins and his wife Primula died in an ill-fated boating accident leaving their young son, Frodo Baggins, orphaned. Yet as with every year, death accompanied new beginnings.
Midsummer had fallen over Lórien and still the fair dwellers of that wood were caught between a canopy of emerald and a carpet of gold. Evening was drawing nigh and the warmth of the day still lingered, a soothing balm ushered over hill and vale by gentle breezes.
Aragorn, with the daughter of Elrond, Arwen, walked side by side under the great boughs of the mellryn. They did not speak, contented simply in the other's company. For a season had Aragorn tarried here, enraptured heart and soul to the infatuation of his deepest longing. From out of the dark of the Black Land had he come, to settle for a time here in the embodiment of light and abode of all things fair. The irony never failed to find a smile. Truly, he had not known the full feelings of happiness until now.
This evening, his spirits were even higher than the last. He did not think that they could fall even when the time came to bid a goodnight to his love. A smile crept over his face unbidden and unprovoked save by that almost giddy feeling in his heart.
"Do you laugh at me?" queried his walking companion, her eyes turning to regard him with amusement.
"How could I?" it was an honest response. If he could fall at her feet and bless the very ground she trod upon it would be the least he could do! "Quite the opposite, to be sure." Their speech dwindled as before, leaving them once more in peace.
---
As the story had been told by Eldarion's father they had walked for what seemed hours in the gathering dusk. It had seemed a dreamy world to Aragorn.
But here the memory of Arwen and Aragorn had differed. Mid-telling, the story had habitually stopped, and a small scale argument would be waged between both story-tellers. Then it would come to a question to their son: Who's side do you believe?
His mother had always been the triumphant winner. Her story went like this:
---
"You do know how much I enjoy these walks with you, Estel, I cherish them as a very great treasure," a concerned, pinched look creased her smooth brow. "But, do we have a destination? And," she added tentatively, peering closely at her companion's face, "are we lost?"
It was perhaps the most degrading question that could be asked of a great tracker and woodsmen such as Aragorn, Arathorn's son. And to be asked from the fair lips of the one who could do no wrong in his eyes? Salt upon an open wound! "Never fear, I know exactly where I am."
A brow arched slightly, doubt coloring her tone. "Are you quite sure?"
She was answered with that mirthful smile born in the years of careless childhood. "Of course - I am here, at your side. Any other location is but a thought of yesterday."
The imp. "You really are lost, then!" she declared with a laugh. "You, a ranger no less!"
"Really, Arwen, you needen't twist the dagger." It was said in a sulking tone with an averted gaze. "Must you be so perceptive?"
"One can hardly help such things," she squeezed his arm.
They had stopped walking, and now looked about them. "You aren't lost I hope."
"I'm afraid I am. So we shall be lost together."
"At least I am in good company."
---
They had wandered, she said, for what seemed a very long time. Eldarion in his younger years had wondered why they had not simply asked for directions, were there not other elves to be found?
"You see," she would begin, laying a hand upon his head, "your father - and all male personages like him - have a strange aversion for asking anyone for directions."
His father had followed this with that accursed excuse that, "you will understand when you are older."
Whether his father did eventually ask for directions, or by happenstance, they came to Cerin Amroth, this very same hill that looked far to the east and to the west.
---
Unclad feet made little sound on the grass over which they trod. To the top they came, again silent for something brooding lay on both their hearts.
They could see far to the east where Shadow lay in wait, while to the west there hung the last glimmerings of Twilight under the created sky. Tendrils of muted gold and soft pastels stretched out to the east, searching, searching for life in the dark lands.
"Here now we stand, together as I have oft' dreamt we might," at last spoke Aragorn, finding with relief his voice did not hold the tremor his heart felt. Arwen remained unspeaking, looking towards the Twilight with her back to the dim east. Oh, if she would but speak a word of, of – anything! But she didn't. "What should I say?"
He had not meant for that wondering to be spoken aloud, still it had slipped past his lips impishly and now stood ghastly out in the open, quiet childishly stepping on its own toes and biting its proverbial lip.
At last Arwen turned. No mirth was in her face and it seemed to Aragorn that he felt all his feelings laid bare to her discretion. Oddly, he felt no discomfiture; it was almost...a quite natural feeling when coming from her eyes.
"Speak, then, what we both know."
"Do you speak of love?" He spoke at last after a long, endless moment of silent communion.
She peered long and hard at him, one hand finding the others. And what was said between them...
...was interrupted by a long, bewhiskered nose, thrust between the two in a very chummy fashion.
"Rohfin!" Arwen cried, a hand over her heart as she gasped in surprise. "Where ever did you come from?"
Rohfin, as he was called, was surely to be a horse of great build. It is said "surely" as he was yet a youth of few years though his size belied his age. His legs were terribly disproportioned to his body and his head larger still.
Yet it was more than his size that caused no little widening of Aragorn's eyes at the sight of the beast. Shaggy, was the best term while others failed. Rohfin had a coat worthy of three horses in the peak of winter, colored a deep mahogany with a mane and tail of the thickest black. His ears seemed to droop beneath the weight of the great mass of hair falling from in and about them.
Rohfin stood before Aragorn, a most quizzical expression gleaming in his bright eyes. He was paying no heed to the badgering from the Elf to leave them be. Legs splayed, he stretched out his neck with upper lip extended. The testing snuffle came unexpectedly, connecting solidly – and wetly. But Rohfin was a canny creature – more than was given credit to him – and he danced back with a toss of his head and a laugh before any reflexive reaction could damage his muzzle.
"Mayhap the better question is: Where ever did you get him from?"
With a look of apology to her accompanier, Arwen refused the horse's offered reconciliation. "That is a question better suited to be asked of Haldir the Marchwarden," she expounded further upon his curious expression. "It was five, no, six mornings back when he and his fellows returned for a short respite. They brought back with them this one here. They say he showed up from the outermost borders and attached himself to their company." She laughed, removing stray bits of foliage from Rohfin's bushy mane. "From the demeanor of the Marchwarden, Rohfin was a bit too social for his liking."
"I had not heard this tale!" Aragorn approached the horse, offering a tidbit of grass. "So he belongs to the Marchwarden? I would never have supposed."
"Actually, that is not quite so,"Arwen corrected. "While watching him amongst the other horses, he stole my affections." The young horse prodded Aragorn with his nose, sniffing hand and clothing in a fruitless search for hidden vittles. "He was so uncaring of his slightly paranormal appearance amongst the elvish horses. He practically antagonized every horse within view until one solidly told him off. Even then he went back in hope of finding a kindred playmate."
From first snuffle, attachment formed at reciprocated appraisal.
Aragorn looked back to the horse, who stood watching him coolly with dark eyes. "You are still too young to be abroad," he said, speaking to the creature.
"He will follow, and learn when the time is right."
"You will be in the way."
"No more so than your own feet."
"I shall not be able to see over your mess of a mane."
"His will be no great addition to your own great mess of hair." Arwen laughed gaily, "How you can see through that mop of yours has been a mystery to me."
Aragorn brooded, bumping the colt's nose off his shoulder. "I have no need of another horse, my feet have served me well."
"And his will serve you better. Oh come now, you cannot tell me you do not feel the pangs of loneliness when trekking abroad in the wide lands. Here is ever a companion as you might wish!"
"A shaggy beast, with a stomach disproportionate to his mind?"
Rohfin voiced his affront and blew a mighty snort, forcing Aragorn to throw up his arm as a shield.
"He has more sense and less vanity than some two-legged beings I know," came Arwen's censure.
Taking his admonishment to heart, he touched his forehead and dipped his head to the Lady, "I recant: his logic most likely exceeds my own."
"Then you accept his partnership."
Aragorn's head snapped up, already vociferating his refusal. A minute gesture from Arwen's hand silenced him. "He is my gift to you Estel, son of my father's heart. You will need his presence for dark days lay ahead, devoid of your namesake."Tighter Aragorn gripped her hands. "Coming days needn't be so dark if we shared the hope of reunion when both we live to see light come again."
As Rohfin grazed at their feet and Twilight waned, a promise was made, a troth of unselfish love plighted on that fair hill of light and darkness.
Then their hands parted and Arwen turned to the West with a wrenching mixture of joy and grief on her face. "Dark is the Shadow, and yet my heart rejoices; for you, Estel, shall be among the great whose valor will destroy it."
"Alas!" Aragorn sighed, standing a little ways behind, "I cannot foresee it, and how it may come to pass is hidden from me. Yet with your hope I will hope. And the Shadow I utterly reject. But neither, lady, is the Twilight for me; for I am mortal, and if you will cleave to me, Evenstar," then the next words he said pained him greater than any sword or torture might ever wreck upon him, "then the Twilight you must also renounce."
She stood motionless, eyes peering far into the West – the Twilight which could ever cradle her in comfort and safety from worldly ailments. A white tree she seemed in the Ranger's eyes, even then weathering a mighty storm. At last she said, "I will cleave to you, Dúnadan, and turn from the Twilight."
---
Eldarion knelt in the grasses, his horse, Rohfin the second, son of the late Roheryn formerly known as Rohfin, had laid down beside him, basking in the warm sun.
His mother, Arwen, had turned aside from that simpler path for one of purpose. Aragorn, his father, had traveled from that place with the horse Rohfin, renamed Roheryn in honor of the Lady of his devotion.
Death had come for them both, Roheryn included, all quiet deaths, without remorse or regret for tasks left undone or words left unsaid. Minas Tirith's grief had been great. All of Middle-earth had mourned their passing.
Eldarion rose, Rohfin with him, eyes dry and heart now prepared to move higher up the hill to the place he had come to visit.
Grasses covered what once was freshly upturned earth and elanor and niphredil grew thick over the mound where beneath lay the earthly shell of his mother: the Evenstar.
"I come at last, Mother of mine, here to where last I shed the bitterest of tears. But now my eyes are dry, and a smile comes easily; for though I miss you grievously, I am at peace by the grace allotted to me by our common Father." He laid a hand upon Rohfin's neck, the messy coat tickling his fingers. "Aye, the little colt we watched birth has grown to be a fine companion to me, just as you promised while I was yet hardly tall enough to see over the stable door."
Eldarion chuckled and ruffled Rohfin's unruly mane. He breathed deep, head tipping back momentarily to the sky. Twilight would soon be here, with it the stars and the moon, the night creatures and their song. He would remain and look to the West and see part of what his mother had seen that day so long ago, mayhap better understand their tale. But then he and Rohfin must depart, for time goes on outside the muted life of the Wood. This Age had been given to him to shepherd; it was his mandate to protect those things free and beautiful.
Beside, his son's birthday was forthcoming and a certain offspring of Rohfin, son of Roheryn, was in order as a gift.
Finis