A/N: Well, whenever I write Aragorn fic, they show up. Can't be helped; that's how Tolkien did his history, after all. Surely, my Hurin fangirling has nothing to do with it... (Insert proper self-mocking emoticon here.)
Few men could keep mysteries on the battlefield. When faced with trolls, Mumakil, and worse, one's origins and political goals did not matter, only one's ability to keep his feet beneath him. When blood was gushing in time with a heartbeat, the contents of that heart were plainly visible to those that looked. The contents of the conscious mind, at best, slipped away during these times, leaving a warrior with nothing to distract him from training and instinct.
Still, the secrets were still there, in the background, for those with the time and inclination to look. They held themselves apart from the gore and the animal terror, waiting to reemerge with the rational mind. Like the mind, they did not always return, leaving the earthly remains of a man with his death, - or worse, left him still alive and unashamed, - never to be pulled back from the shadow.
The mystery of Thorongil was one that he would often see, just out of reach, yet never have the time to solve. From the man's tightly wrapped and zealously guarded second sword to his silver-tounged wizardly companion, there were simply things about the captain that never sat well with the Captain-General.
Chiefly amongst them, he listed Thorongil's ability to quickly gain the favor of their ruling lord. When alone amongst the soldiers and the Steward, Thorongil did not hold himself as a foreign or lowborn vassal elevated merely through the kindness of the ruling Steward. Rather, the man conducted himself with less decorum than Denethor himself! The Captain-General privately supposed he should have suspected as much, but it still rubbed the wrong way against his closely guarded heart every time he saw the foreign captain relax and jest with Lord Ecthelion. Worse, in Denethor's eyes, his father laughed with the stranger who so uncannily resembled him.
For the sake of his pride, Denethor did not probe too deeply into the connection between lord and captain, but like the sword upon Thorongil's back, the secrets of the stranger sat just out of the Captain-General's reach, taunting him with promises of justice and vengeance. For the sake of his mind, Denethor did not reach. Like that sword, those secrets promised pain for him as well as for Thorongil, and Denethor was not ready to let go of his rational thoughts just yet.