4. A Sea of Secrets

"Does Meril know you've stolen a dead mortal?" Laurelin asked Orophin quizzically as he carried the elfling across one of the many bridges spanning the flets of the city, the twilight gathering around them as Rumil chuckled, trailing a pace behind them.

"Yes she does and we did not steal him." Orophin replied with only the slightest hint of annoyance "We found him and brought him home." Laurelin gave him a reproachful look that he returned in kind.

"You do not believe us?" Rumil asked trying to look wounded as he hid his smirk.

"Aduial didn't believe me when I 'found' the baby squirrel in my wardrobe." Laurelin replied practically. Orophin bit his tongue to keep from laughing as Rumil shook his head. They had truly met their match for mischief.

"Rumil, are you going to marry Aduial?" she asked, resting her chin on Orophin's shoulder as she stared at his younger brother.

"Where did you hear that?" Rumil asked curiously a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"You told Dinendal yesterday on your way to the bath houses." Laurelin stated.

"Pen neth, there are far better uses of your time than to spy on foolish elves like my brother." Orophin joked earning him a giggle from the elfling and a punch in the shoulder from his younger brother. Laurelin swatted him away playfully and he obligingly acted hurt, pouting as he followed them and making the tiny elleth giggle.

"Rumil?" she asked presently, her small brow knitting in concentration. "What is it the girls in Mithlond do with their hands that Meril didn't want to hear about?" Rumil froze in the middle of the bridge, sputtering and rather white faced as Orophin slowly turned around to face him, both of them looking quite terrified.

"It... Ah... Uh..." Rumil blinked at her in alarm as Orophin bit his lip to keep from laughing outright.

"Aduial wouldn't tell me either." Laurelin stated with a sulky pout. Rumil's mouth worked soundlessly a moment as Orophin lost his battle against laughter.

"You are doomed." Orophin shook his head slowly as even Rumil's hair seemed to pale "Best to flee for the borders now while you still have some use of those Mithlond maids."

"Do you bring lots of things back from the borders?" Laurelin asked curiously as Orophin, still chuckling, set off again.

"Most of the things we find on the borders aren't of the keeping sort." Orophin replied. He was completely at a loss as to how to explain orcs and cut-throats to an elfling who knew nothing of the world outside Caras Galadhon nor was he at all certain he would want to.

"What do you do with the things you find then if you don't hide them in your brother's room?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

"What did you hide in your brother's room?" Dinendal asked with a smirk and a shake of his head as he appeared from the shadows on the flet ahead of them.

"Nothing!" Orophin and Rumil replied, quickly and in unison. Dinendal snickered, they looked as if they had been pranking again and he was keen to find out the joke.

"A dead mortal they found at the borders!" Laurelin supplied instantly, smiling brightly as all three males went slack-jawed in surprise. "Haldir is hiding him in his room, but I don't think Lady Galadriel is going to let him keep him."

"Pen neth, you promised not to tell!" Rumil moaned. Laurelin clapped a hand over her mouth and then began to giggle as her cheeks turned pink. Dinendal, for his part appeared to have stopped breathing.

"The dead mortal we found today?" Dinendal asked in shock, looking a bit repulsed.

"He's not dead!" Rumil said in exasperation.

"Not yet." Orophin sighed, dragging his fingers through his hair.

"He looks dead to me." Laurelin observed.

"Why..." Din shrugged, staring at them blankly, apparently at a loss for words.

"Haldir told the rest of you that he died so that we might sneak him into the city unnoticed." Orophin explained. "We could not risk news of his presence spreading."

"Aye, Lady Galadriel will have your hides!" Din replied in alarm, "There shall be another kinslaying when she finds out!"

"She already knows." Rumil frowned.

"What's a kinslaying?" Laurelin asked brightly as Orophin shushed her.

"Then..." Din looked as if he might hyperventilate and Laurelin stared at him curiously as if waiting to see what would happen to the shade of his face next.

"He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn." Orophin spat out bitterly, as he pushed past their friend and continued carrying the little elleth home.

"Aragorn?" Dinendal blinked as all of the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall neatly into place. He drew a shuddering breath looking for all the world as if the whole of elvendom were crashing down around him.

"He is not dying!" Rumil snapped angrily marching after his brother as Din hastily gathered his wits and hurried after them.

"He looks pretty dead to me." Laurelin insisted. Rumil stifled a growl and drew in a deep breath.

"Haldir told you sweetling," He replied as patiently as possibly "He is not dead he is wounded. And you must keep his secret and tell no one. Remember?"

"I remember," Laurelin replied, her cheeks turning pink again "I won't forget again, I promise."

"Try your best, pen neth." Orophin said gently, kissing her temple "It is very important." Din only shook his head as he followed them as if in an attempt to clear it. The tiny elleth watched him for a bit before resting her chin once more on Orophin's shoulder.

"Dinendal?" she asked as the warden rubbed his forehead in confusion.

"Yes?"

"Why do you like Faeneth when she thinks you're an 'insufferable orc'?" the tiny elleth asked curiously. Dinendal froze in his tracks, his jaw falling open once more.

"Where did you hear that?" Orophin asked in surprise as Rumil patted Din on the back consolingly.

"On the ranges last Tuesday." Laurelin replied.

"Pen neth," the elf smiled "I think you would make a fine warden one day."

"Do I want to know what you are doing, dear?" Meril sighed at the sound of the lilting female voice and she scowled slightly as she leaned around the corner of the stack of crates to eye the elleth standing on the bottom cellar step.

"You would be much happier if you did not." She replied reasonably, setting several bottles on one of the crates before continuing to pick though the supplies. "Haven't you a message to deliver to someone?"

"Apparently there is absolutely no news of interest outside the city." Faeneth stated happily, crossing the cellar to collect the bottles as Merrill gathered several blankets into her arms.

"And you chose to spend your free time with me," Merrill smirked. "I'm touched." She held out a hand to take the bottles but Faeneth shook her head with a grin, holding them out of her reach and with another sigh Merrill headed up the cellar stairs.

"Actually I decided to spend it with Rumil," Faeneth pouted a bit, "But as I could not find him I had no recourse but to pester you instead." The pair stepped into the soft moonlight and Faeneth turned to secure the cellar door.

"I hate to tell you this," Meril stated with a serious frown. "But I am just not your type dear." Faeneth jostled her arm playfully, glaring at her.

"What is it with him?" she sighed, looking a bit forlorn.

"I believe it has more to do with what is not with him," Meril considered her statement a moment and then shook her head "or rather whom."

"I don't know what he sees in Aduial," Faeneth stated sulkily. "It's not to say that she is not lovely and charming."

"Do not forget witty, prestigious and honorable," Meril added with a smirk that earned her a glare from her friend.

"Well she positively loathes him!" Faeneth declared in exasperation.

"She does not loathe him," Meril shook her head. "She simply does not care for his company."

"She pinned him to a mallorn with her dagger and left him in the middle of the forrest," Faeneth stated with obvious disbelief. "If that is not sheer animosity, I do not know what is."

"Well he got free eventually," Meril pointed out defensively.

"I was not implying that he did not deserve it," her friend answered uncomfortably.

"You are merely wishing he would give you an excuse to pin him to a tree?" Meril asked with a rather suggestive leer.

"You have a dirty mind, mellon," Faeneth stated.

"Of course I do!" she answered, tossing her golden tresses over her shoulder, "look what I married." both elleths began to giggle, stopping in the middle of the path to share their joke. Meril shifted the bundle she was carrying to link arms with her friend and they continued on.

"Perhaps if you loathed him as much as Aduial you would attract more attention." Meril suggested "It certainly worked well on Orophin. The more spiteful I became the more enamored he was."

"I haven't the heart to be that cruel," Faeneth blushed, then paused a moment, "do you think there might be something wrong with their family?"

"Oh no," Meril replied, shaking her head as she stifled a giggle, "I am certain of it." The sound of female laugher melted into the night.

"Aragorn," Haldir wrung out the damp towel and draped it over the feverish mortal's forehead in the dim lamp light. "Rhach, do not quit on me now, mellon." there was no answer except a pained moan.

"Arwen is here." Haldir continued "She still thinks of you. All these years have past, long years to you, pen neth. She still loves you." Haldir leaned back in the chair beside the bed, staring into the face of the mortal.

He did not look so very young now. His rival in Imladris nearly thirty years past had been little more than a child. A boy with innocent eyes and a cautionless heart. The man who now lay, dying before him, was marked by war and hardship. The scars of whatever battle had brought him here he would carry all his life. A life that did not look at the moment to be continuing much longer.

"Well do not think for one moment I shall permit you to die on my watch." Haldir stated with dark scowl. "The task of informing your adar would then fall to me and I have no intention of telling the lord of Imladris his youngest son has passed on to the fate of men under my keeping. I have no fondness at all for kinslayings."

He searched the mortal's face for some sign that he was still with them, but there was nothing, only the frettings of fever and the raspy breathing that now seemed a part of his very soul.

"You can not die, Estel." the march warden stated firmly, his voice barely more than a whisper as he leaned closer. "She needs you. She fades, mellon, she fades because she has nearly lost all hope of your return. Every day I watch her grow weaker. Do not let it end this way. Come back to her. I can not bear to watch her heart shatter. I still love her."

There was one shuddering breath and then silence. Haldir felt his heart stop in his chest and he bolted to his feet, overturning his chair as he shook the mortal by the shoulders.

"Rhach! Breathe!" He commanded, white faced, as his hands searched out a pulse. "Aragorn! Think of Arwen, your brothers, your adar! Do not do this!"

Pain and haze swirled around him and a distant voice whispered, this time a male. The sounds churning in his ears until a single word surfaced to his recognition.

Ada.

Adar.

Father...

"My father cares more for you than his own son." the voice was attempting to be sulky but the underlying hurt could not be disguised.

"I shall have to be more careful during our sparing matches as I seem to have addled your brain." Thorongil stated as he tended his horse. "If the steward of Gondor cared so much for my safety, then I should not be going to Umbar to be skewered by pirates while his precious son is safely tucked away in Minas Tirith."

"He doesn't trust me as he does you," Denethor shot back as he climbed onto the stall rail. "It is your council we keep, not mine." Thorongil turned a withering glance on him that Denethor returned in kind.

"Tell me, son of the Steward." he stated coldly, "how long have we been friends?"

"Ten years." Denethor replied heavily as if he already knew where this conversation were leading.

"And shall you throw aside that friendship for an imagined rivalry?" Thorongil persisted. "Shall you and I be enemies now because I have placed Gondor and the Steward I serve ahead of my own life?" Denethor looked as if he had been slapped in the face.

"You have been as my brother," he said finally, hanging his head. "I could not hate you, dear friend, if I tried."

"If you think of me as a brother than you shall understand this," Thorongil's arm shot out like a snake, catching the steward's son in the shoulder and sending him pitching backward off the rail. His arms windmilled for only a moment before his feet flew up followed by a large splash. Thorongil smirked as he stepped closer, peering over the rail.

"I take it back." Denethor scowled from his place in the horse trough. "I hate you."

"You deserved it," his friend chuckled. Denethor glared at him only a moment longer until they both burst into laughter.

"There will be other battles my brother," Thorongil stated, reaching out a hand to help the young captain to his feet.

"Not like this one," Denethor shook his head sadly. "Gondor shall speak of your deeds for years to come."

"The name of Thorongil shall be lost to Gondor," he shook his head. "In time none will remember it. But better to lose a captain's name than the only son of the steward."

"Breathe!" the voice cut through the darkness in his mind like the shattering of glass and he shuddered in pain as he drew in a single shaky breath. brilliant light burned through his eyelids and he groaned in misery hacking and gasping as he struggled to get air. He felt a hand on his forehead and then blessed oblivion claimed him once more.

Cerulean eyes peered out from beneath the branch, blinking in the soft starlight at the warden on the flet across the way. It was late now and most of the city slept but she had known she would find him here, on his terrace in the dark watches of the night. His face was turned upward, bathed in the light of the stars, his eyes closed, the only sound the soft stirring of the trees.

Silverin felt her heart pounding as she leaned forward for a better look between the leaves. He was magnificent. She had always thought so. She could not remember a time when the mere mention of his name had not sent a secret thrill of excitement through her. A secret she dared share with no other.

It was not that he was unaware of her existence. If he had a failing it was not a lack of observance. He was a warrior, and no Galadhrim warrior would allow the most insignificant thing to escape his notice, not even the lady in waiting of a princess.

She held her breath as he stretched his arms, his muscles rippling beneath his lose shirt. She had never in all her years seen anything more beautiful. And yet she could not remember a time when his heart had not belonged to another. If she had thought for a moment that there would be anything to be gained by speaking her heart to him she would run to him even now. But it was folly, she would gain nothing but a broken heart.

Her insides twisted as his eyes fluttered open, drinking in the stars. Her secret obsession stretching his arms wide as if taking in the whole of the heavens. He sighed heavily before turning and disappearing once more inside his talan.

"Until tomorrow, melleth nin," she whispered.

rhach - curses
pen neth - young one
mellon - friend


Authorís note : groan I am so SO sorry everyone. I hit a bad patch of RL and of course the thing that suffers is my writing. Iíd like to thank everyone that still reviewed over my long and inexcusable absence and Iíll try to do better in the future.

Brownie24 - Aragorn is ëyoungí for a descent of Numenor. He is 49. Since he will live to be 200 he is just hitting his prime. Denethor is 50. There is not a lot of canon history for this period in Gondor so much of this sub plot will be conjecture.

RS - Youíre cracking up because you know Aragorn is going to live... it makes me crack up too

everyone else... I am sooooooo sorry. blush