I'm not giving up on 'What If ... ?' yet I'm just taking a break while I wait for insperation to hit me.
I've read a few other stories on here which are retellings of fairy tales i.e. Cinderella and 'The Little Mermaid' and thought that I would try my own. Obviously this is an AU and an eventual L/A pairing.
For the purposses of the story Arathorn and his wife are still alive as Aragorn needs some kind of parent other than Elrond.
As to which fairy tale this is it should be obvious, if it isn't then I will tell all of those with a serious mental block in the next chapter.
Once Upon a time ...
It had been 10 years since King Arathorn had asscended to the throne of Gondor and 5 years since he had married the beautiful Gilraen, for some years the pair lived in harmony with their neighbours. It was when the evil mage Sauron began to look towards expanding his already vast kingdom that Arathorn began to worry about the lack of any heir to his throne. In vain his counselor Denethor advised the good king to abandon his wife and find another who would be able to supply the king with the child that he so desired to have. Disregarding the advice of his friend Arathorn sent a messenger to Elrond the wisest healer in all the lands to try and find out why the queen was unable to conceive a child.
Elrond was one of the last elves left in Middle-Earth as many of them had listened to the call of the sea and departed for fairer shores. He had avoided dealings with men as he could see that a war was coming to them and he did not wish to see the last of his people caught up in the war. This message though held nothing but respect for the elven king and a request for help that he was pleased to grant. His sons and daughter were well aware of what they were to do when their father was not there he had made sure that all of his children were capable of running Imladris should anything happen to him his people would be safe.
The visit of an elf let alone one of the kings was an event of note to the people who lived in Minas Tirith, they were expecting a display, what they got was a tall man with brown hair who slipped in one of the side gates deliberately avoiding notice. He had got bored with that before he had lived out his first 100 years. Elrond made his way up the citadel towards the palace where the king and queen lived, all he desired was to see the royal couple and then to leave as quickly as he could manage to without insulting the rulers.
"I desire an audience with King Arathorn." Elrond said to the guards who tried to bar his passage.
"Who should I say is here?" one of them asked
"The man that he contacted about the health of his wife." Elrond said. One of the guards nodded and hurried into the palace to find King Arathorn. Elrond meanwhile was worried about being exposed to the view of so many humans, despite the fact that the hood was up on his cape he still did not feel safe. Despite this the elven king was surprised when a very short time later when the guard returnned with a man who was just approaching his middle years. He had black hair which hung dead straight to his shoulders, from the way that the other guard bowed on seeing the stranger Elrond guessed correctly that this was King Arathorn.
"My Lord I am more grateful than I can say for your assistance in this matter. I hope that you had no trouble in your travel through my country?" Arathorn said as he bowed to the elf then led him into the palace.
Elrond made sure he kept his hood covering his head until Arathorn opened a door much deeper in the palace where just two people were waiting for them, one was a young woman with blonde hair and a calm look on her face. The other was a man much of an age with Arathon however whereas the royal pair looked pleased to see Elrond the other man did not and he had a scowl on his face.
"Lord Elrond may I intorduce my wife Gilraen to you as well as my councillor the esteemed Lord Denethor" Arathorn said.
"Your ladyship it is my pleasure to be here and I hope that I shall soon be able to bring your problems to a satisfactory closure." Elrond said to Gilraen guessing that Denethor did not approve of his being there.
"Any help or advice that you can give me would be most welcome my Lord." Gilraen said
"Then I shall try to not disapoint you lady Gilraen. If you would allow me a short time to set what I need in order then I would be most grateful. I hope that we shall have this problem dealt with shortly." Elrond said.
"Certainly my Lord. I shall wait for you in my chambers." Gilraen and with a slight curtsey to the two kings she retired, Denethor bowed to Arathorn and left as well.
"Thank you for your hospitality my lord." Elrond said before following a servant to his room
10 months later ...
"I am pleased to announce that as of this evening Gondor has an heir, my son Aragorn was born to Gilraen and myself, rejoice with us, hope is restored to the city." Arathorn announced to the assembled citizens of Minas Tirith, behind him Denethor glared at his king. Until the child had been born Denethor had the possiblity in front of him of being the next king in Minas Tirith and now the brat was going to upset that. He would have to see how quickly he could get the message to his Lord Sauron so that plans could be brought in to combat this new development. None of the other nobles gathered there noticed the look on Denethors face apart from Elrond, the elven king knew what he was going to have to do to ensure that the child would survive but he did not think that the decision would be one that would please the king and queen.
A week later ...
Gilraen sat on the throne in the great hall of Minas Tirith with her child in her arms, this was the childs first time in a crowd and the nobles of Gondor as well as many from around Middle Earth. There were not just the human peoples there but also those of the elven race and the istari. Elronds children had been unable to leave Imladris but there were representatives from the other two major elven kingdoms. From the relm of Mirkwood there were Legolas and Tandil the two youngest sons of Tharundil, the royal pair felt particularly honoured by the presance of the elven queen Galadriel. None of them knew why she was there as despite the fact they had sent her a notice of the birth of the child she must have known about it before Aragorn had been born. Various gifts had been given to the young prince by the nobles however since Denethor and his son Boromir had presented the young prince with a magnificant suit of armor he had not stopped crying, no matter what the parents tried he would not stop crying.
Legolas had not particularly wanted to visit the human city but his father had decreed that he had to so he did, it had been interesting for him as the humans lived very different to the elves. The noise the child was making was a strange one as elven children did not cry, taking a few steps forward he brought himself into the vision of the child. Gilraen was surprised when the baby stopped crying and smiled reaching out towards something behind his mother, she turnned and saw the youngest Mirkwood prince looking at them with a confused look on his face.
"My son seems to like you Prince Legolas" Arathorn said with a smile, taking the baby gently from his wife handed him to the prince. Legolas had not had any experience with children before as despite the fact he was over 400 years old he was the youngest of the children and had never had to deal with a child Aragorn's age before. The child in his arms smiled up at him before reaching up with one hand and pulling on one of the princes braids, scowling slightly the prince looked down to see the child smiling so happliy at him that he could not stay cross and he smiled back.
"Your highness, may I speak to you in private?" Elrond asked Arathorn
"If you must." Arathorn said not particularly wanting to leave the gathering. He did however follow the elven king into one of the ante-chambers.
"I know that you do not want to hear this but there is someone within Minas Tirith who is working for Sauron. They will try and kill the child at the earliest opportunity. You must let me take Aragorn back to Imladris to protect him. If you do not then I fear you and your enitire family will be killed and the relm of Gondor will fall to the shadow lord Sauron."
That's the first chapter of this story. I guess you can see which way this is going but you never know there may be some surprises
Please let me know what you think of this anyway and I'll update it soon.
