Hope you all had a great Christmas! I was going to publish this on the 25th (heard some strange people celebrate Christmas Day instead of Christmas Eve, isn't it weird?) but well, I didn't. So here's a late present for you all. Enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: Alas, I still own nothing.

As always, thanks to Atiaran for beta-reading.

The Breaking of the Storm

Today, Aragorn thought, gazing out the window.

The morning was a damp grey, shrouded in fog and blurred by the waterdrops on the windowpane. Far below the White City huddled beneath the remnants of the night's clouds, water streaming down the streets, and the field of Pelennor lay soaked, the brown winter grass shivering in a gust of cold air.

The sun was rising. Beyond the plain and the river and the forest, behind the blue shadow of the eastern mountains, it rose as a pale disc of light shrouded in mist - and where its fingers reached, it turned the world to gold. Every tiny drop of water caught its light and became its own sun, and dotted here and there on the courtyard outside the citadel, the puddles caught the patches of blue on the sky, and they became skies. The White Tree stretched out its tiny naked branches, defying the wind. Birds soared above it, singing.

Aragorn held the curtain aside so the sun could fall on his face. It felt warm, even through the windowpane. Today, he thought again, and smiled.

Today he would be out there. Today the road - that ribbon of mud, trampled by hooves and feet and furrowed by cartwheels - would be his, and the wind, and the open sky. Today he would follow that street - he could see parts of it from here, a white serpentine already filled with townspeople - and ride through that gate - he could see it too - and he would not look back, not once.

"Today," he whispered, leaning so close to the shimmering glass his breath steamed it up and the world went blurry behind it. He smiled and wiped it away with the sleeve of his night shirt.

"Today what?" came Arwen's voice from behind him, and he heard the whisper of soft silk as she sat up on the bed. While he had slept beneath the bear skin he was now wrapped in - the fire had burnt down to ashes, and there was always that little draught from the window, and those tiny cracks for the damp to get inside - she was happy with a thin silk blanket, and a night shirt with no sleeves. Last Aragorn looked she was still asleep, her eyes open but glazed over, lost in dreams; the shadow of a smile on her lips; and he had left the bed as quietly as he ever could because he did not want to wake her. She had looked so peaceful, and she often had a frown on her face nowadays. It was his fault, of course, because she was worried for him.

But now, when he turned and looked at her, just as the sun crept to her side of the bed and glinted in her hair, there was no frown, and the smile was not only a shadow.

"Today," he said, "we leave. At noon we'll be out of this city and then it's just us and the road and the..."

"Mud," Arwen filled in. The window was too high for her to see more than the sky from the bed, but the night's rain still lingered in the air. "Won't there be?"

"It will dry," Aragorn said carelessly. "Maybe not all of it. What does it matter? We'll be on horseback."

"So we will."

He left the window and sat down on the bed again, yawning. It was still early in the morning. Arwen snuggled close and he swept the bear skin around her - not so much because she froze, but because she warmed him.

"You know what's funny?" she asked, leaning her head to his chest. "Before we married, I used to long to wake up beside you in the mornings. Not for anything special - I mean, not because I've always wanted someone to talk to in the mornings or because I need someone to help me dress or anything like that - just because it would make me happy. I used to dream of doing that, of doing that every single morning for the rest of my life."

"And you will," Aragorn promised, smiling.

It was not the right thing to say.

"I haven't been," Arwen said. Her smile faded slightly. "I mean, I was at first, but lately you've always been away when I wake up. Or else I wake in the middle of the night to see you leave. When I woke up just now, Estel, I... I was frightened, because at first I didn't see you and I thought... I thought it had started all over again."

Aragorn shook his head. Inside him it hurt, violently so, and he knew he had hurt her even more - but it was over.

"I swear," he said solemnly, "I swear, Arwen, that I will never ever hurt you again. I will never lie to you again. I will never leave you again."

Arwen gave a sad sigh. "Not even you can swear that. I don't ask for it either, it's just..."

"It will be fine," Aragorn urged. He looked around, searching for a way to break the tension - he didn't want this discussion. He found a pillow behind him and as Arwen sat up straighter - maybe to get away from him, maybe to shift to a more comfortable position - he said: "I swear on this!" and threw it at the back of her head.

For once he took her by surprise. There was a long moment of shock, then Arwen cursed, turned, and hurled the pillow back much harder than he had.

"What was that for?"

He had to smile; her expression was too funny. "Ah, come on, it was nothing..."

"Stupid mortal," she growled. "I'll give you for nothing!"

Laughing Aragorn held his hands up as she reached for another pillow to throw, then he tried to get near her and seize her arms, which resulted in her seizing his arms, and throwing him backwards on the bed, and landing on top of him, and leaning close, and laughing. No, giggling. It was very long since Aragorn had seen her giggle.

"You may reconsider your definition of me as stupid," he said, beaming at her, because her eyes were shining and he needed nothing more than that to be happy again. "It may have been my intention to make you laugh."

"But was it your intention to tempt me into tickling you?"

"By the Vala-"

Fortunately for Aragorn, after growing up with Arwen's brothers he had become almost immune to tickling, and it was only when taken by surprise he was truly helpless. Arwen was strong, but he was heavier, and in the end she laughed so much all he had to do was lightly push her off him and then she lay there, still giggling, tangled in the blankets. It was Aragorn's turn to smile down on her, and he did, just as the sun reached that side of the bed and was reflected in her eyes - bright sun on a midnight sky, glowing, burning, with joy. Outside the window the clouds drifted away, and the sea was waiting, and maybe Faramir had already ordered the retinue to make ready once again. And Aragorn lay down beside Arwen and kissed her cheek, and everyhing was fine.

"Breakfast, maybe?" he said, tracing the smooth line of her chin with his finger. "I want to be ready at noon."

"Mhm."

"I'm sure all the clouds will be gone by then."

Arwen twisted so she could look at the window. The sky was slowly turning a darker, clearer blue. "Do you think Legolas has made up his mind yet?"

"Doesn't matter. He will come with us."

"I hope so," Arwen mused, "but really, there's no forcing that elf if he decides not to do something."

"There's tying him up and put him on one of the wagons."

"Of course," she said ironically. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Aragorn grinned, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and reached for his clothes which hung over the back of a chair. "It's not the worst I've done to him. " He pulled on his trousers - plain brown ones fit for a day in the saddle - and a fine woolen under-tunic. The over-tunic was fur lined velvet, black as night and with the Tree and the Stars and the Crown in silver thread on the front. "I shouldn't have given him any choice in the first place. I'm the king, for Eru's sake - why didn't I just command him to come with us?"

"Because he would kill you if you did?"

"Legolas would have killed me a lot of times, but he never has. He can't scare me with that." He found Arwen's underdress folded on the chest by the foot of the bed and threw it to her.

"But Thranduil made sure you would have no command over the Ithilien elves," she said, wriggling out of her night shirt. "And honestly, if you defy that, Thranduil will kill you."

Aragorn had to admit that was true. "He didn't say anything about tying them up and loading them on wagons, though."

"Or we could take Arod hostage. Where Arod goes, goes the elf, don't you think?"

"An excellent idea! Sophisticated. I like it."

Arwen actually looked rather pleased. Her brothers had always said she had no sense of mischief, but the truth was she had her moments.

"So what say you?" Aragorn asked, pulling on a pair of ornate leather boots. "Shall we try and talk to the princeling now and hope he is sensible, or shall we hide the horse first to be on the safe side?"

"I say let's eat breakfast and think about it. Help me lace up my dress, will you?"

While she got dressed and bound her hair in a simple braid, Aragorn went to the window at the other end of the room, the northern one, and pushed the curtains aside. The wind was still from the north, and clouds were gathering again - or so it seemed. Such things could change. The wind might turn, or the clouds might let their rain fall before they came to Minas Tirith. Sure, they looked heavy, and sure, the air was tense, but what did it mean? Nothing, of course.

Aragorn looked down. Far below he could see the King's Garden, surrounded by walls and much smaller than the Queen's, because no king had ever been interested in gardening. He grew medicinal plants and herbs there. The ground was almost bare, a few heaps of snow gleaming white in the yellow grass, but he knew the first sprouts would come up soon - yarrow, sage, athelas... Last spring he had helped Éowyn plan her own herb garden in Emyn Arnen, because Éowyn was learning to be a healer too. They had been digging and planting and watering all that day, on their knees in the soil, with earth even on their faces after wiping sweat away with the back of dirty hands. They'd had so much fun.

"I like the city this way," Arwen said, coming to stand beside him. "It's beautiful."

"It is," Aragorn said, and he could see that it was true, now that he knew he would leave it - but he could not feel it yet.

Arwen reached for the window latchand pushed the window open. The curtains billowed; cold, sharp air came rushing into the room. She leaned over the windowsill and looked down.

Where the King's Garden ended, so did the citadel. The smooth white wall fell down into the tangle of narrow alleys and broad streets that was the White City. Already the bakeries had opened, children played in the snow and the gates were open at all levels, people streaming in and out. From the main street, Aragorn knew, everything seemed in perfect order, but from here it was a spiderweb, twisted and intricate.

"It's not like Imladris, of course," he said.

"Nothing is like Imladris." Arwen reached out her hand and a blue tit swooped down and sat on her wrist, watching her curiously with eyes like black pearls. "And Gondor would have been a lot better if the winters had been more like the Imladris ones, wouldn't it?"

Aragorn smiled, thinking of winters in Imladris - that close to the mountains there was always lots of snow, and maybe the magic of elves had something to do with it. Sometimes the snow was so deep they could hardly open the doors in the mornings, and everything was so covered you could not tell tree from ground, nor hill from valley. He remembered sunny days when all the young elves sleighed down the hill behind the library, and the twins hiding on rooftops and bombarding people with snowballs as they passed underneath, and the amazing snow sculptures that Lindir made, and Glorfindel commenting that maybe Erestor was no elf, after all, because who had ever seen an elf slipping on a patch of ice and falling backwards and dropping all his important papers in such a disgraceful way?

"They were a lot livelier," he laughed.

"They were," Arwen agreed, watching the blue tit fly away over the citadel."But we had a snowball fight last year, on Mid-winter's Eve, remember? We had a lot of snowball fights that year."

Aragorn nodded. He remembered it well too. For a brief moment he felt sad, because he missed those snowball fights, and he missed planting gardens with Éowyn, but they were just like everything else he loved - unfit for a king. Then he shrugged it away.

"And I had about as many colds. Let's go and eat breakfast, shall we?"

"Just a moment. I want some air. You go ahead."

"I'll wait for you."

She gave him an amused look. "It's - what is it, ten yards? Fifteen? I think you'll manage on your own."

"Oh," he said, took her hand and pulled her away from the window. "but I thought we might go down to the first floor. I'm tired of eating alone. A king should eat with his people, should he not?"

Arwen's eyebrows lifted almost to her hairline with surprise. "Eru save me! Who are you, and what have you done to the grim man I am used to?"

"Perhaps," Aragorn said, "I am the merry youngling you fell in love with."

Arwen laughed all the way out of the royal apartments, but it was a laughter that warmed him.

Aragorn rose to his feet. "Impossible."

Horse Master Narion, tall and stout and confident as he was, lowered his eyes. He had just come from outside, and his stubby cheeks were red from the cold, his rough woolen cloak beaded with droplets. His boots had left tracks of mud across the floor of the dining hall.

"How could this have happened?" Aragorn demanded, his voice rising until it could be heard all over the room, but there was more fear than anger in it. "Where there no guards? Eru forbid, weren't the stables barred?"

"We don't know how it happened, Your Grace," Narion replied, solemnly shaking his head. "The stable boys at duty last night will be questioned, as will all the watchmen posted near the stables, but I cannot see how it's possible that... that he's escaped."

"And he is nowhere to be found?"

"No, Your Grace. We've searched the stables and the pastures and all of the sixth level, and the fifth level will be searched as we speak, but by the graces of the Valar, how could a horse have made its way there on its own?"

Aragorn shook his head and repeated: "Impossible."

Outside, the mist had not yet lifted. The sun threw pale squares of light through the windows to his left, glinting dimly in the silver plates and goblets on the High Table; even the tapestry on the wall behind, with all its pearls and metal threads, failed to look as dazzling as usual. Three fires filled the room with heat and smoke, spitting at the dampness of the air. The commoners on the benches below the dais all wore shawls and cloaks to ward off the cold.

Despite the weather, up until now it had been easy to keep his good mood. The sun was shining after all, and the day would be cold but clear - a good day for a journey.

"His Majesty is happy this morning," Counsellor Beren had commented as Aragorn bade him join himself and Arwen at the table. As always in the mornings, the benches of the commoners were crowded, and the High Table on its stone dais, where nobles, counsellors and honoured guests flanked the king, was almost empty. Only Faramir had been there when Aragorn and Arwen entered, and only Counsellor Beren and young lord Findel had appeared after that.

During these last months - these dark months - Aragorn had preferred the silence and privacy of the royal apartments to the dining hall, and had eaten there as often as he could get away with it. The thought of having all the nobles and counsellors of the court surrounding him with their chatter, like the buzzing of a hundred persistent flies, made him feel sick. It would still have made him sick, even though the dark time was behind him. When he told Arwen he was tired of eating alone, it wasn't the gossip and smalltalk of court he longed for.

In the mornings, like now, the voices from the lower benches reached up to the King's Seat on the dais - the voices of soldiers at their dice, of squires boasting about coming glory, of the blacksmith and the armourer flirting with the chirurgeon's daughter, of servants whispering as they stirred the porridge pots hanging over the fires - the voices of real, true people, who didn't plan their every word in order to advance their own interests; people who didn't always watch their tongues, who didn't scheme and plot and act every hour of the day. Most of all, although they might have been almost as far away from him as a human being could be, they were the sort of people he knew and understood.

And Aragorn loved listening to them. He couldn't join them, but he needn't do that either: listening was enough. When the rangers told their stories by the fireside at night, Aragorn had often only listened, and kept his thoughts to himself; his heart they had still shared. It was the way he had always wanted it, and he wanted it now too.

When the talkative Counsellor Beren joined them the listening was over, but it was fine, because Aragorn liked him too. He didn't scheme as much as the others, and was always straight to the point, which might have been the reason he wasn't higher up in the ranks. They had a very amusing discussion on the difficulties of travelling to the coast at this time of the year, and how very adventurous it could be to get stuck in a bog during a heavy rainstorm when night was coming.

Faramir had been less happy. "I sent men to check the road," he said, glaring solemnly at the windows as a cloud briefly covered the sun. "If it's too muddy the wagons will get stuck. You know how it is. They won't make it half a mile, and then..."

"Then we'll have to go without them," Aragorn said, helping himself to a slice of bread. Before he even had opened his mouth to ask for it, a servant was behind him pouring water in his goblet.

"Go without them?" Faramir repeated. "With all due respect, Aragorn, we'd need a hundred packhorses to carry all the luggage, and, say, thirty men to tend them. We don't even have that many horses." His face became even grimmer, as if he realised that Aragorn had meant what he had said. "There is more rain to come. The clouds are heavy. If the road is too muddy, or if the weather gets worse, we will have no choice but to wait for it to dry."

Aragorn wasn't going to wait, not a day, not an hour more. "We don't need all of the luggage. If we don't have wagons, we won't need the carpenters, and we can leave all their equipment behind."

"And two carpenters and their equipment will make such a big difference."

"You don't need thirty men to tend a hundred horses," Aragorn tried.

"Perhaps not," Faramir replied firmly, "but we still do not have a hundred horses."

Ironically, that was the moment when Master Narion came running into the dining hall to tell them they were yet another horse short.

If only it had been one of the soldiers' horses - they could be replaced. Even Bronind, or Dae, or Fréonda, or even Arod, could have been replaced, although their riders might be more reluctant to leave without them - but why make such a fuss about a missing horse? It would not be found faster because its rider was still in Minas Tirith.

But this was not a soldier´shorse, and it was not Bronind or Dae or Fréonda or Arod.

This was Roheryn.

"I will go down and see for myself," Aragorn said, pushing back his chair. "There must be some explanation. Roheryn cannot have escaped the stables himself, can he?"

"That's what worries me," Master Narion said, hurrying to keep up as Aragorn rounded the High Table and stepped down from the dais. "He cannot, not unless some of the stableboys have been very careless - and I trust my boys, all of them. I fear... I fear, Your Grace, that he might have been stolen. Not that anyone should be able to get into the stables either."

"Stolen," Aragorn repeated, and felt as though Narion had just punched him hard in the stomach.

Stolen meant there was less chance to find Roheryn, because he would be hidden - somewhere far from the City, if the thief was any clever. It would mean he would be sold, maybe shipped away, maybe killed when the thief realised he was impossible to sell. Roheryn was not the most noble-looking of horses - he was built for travelling long distances, for rains and storms and battles, and he was grey and spotted, not majestically black or beautifully white - but he was the king's horse, and easily recognizable. Anyone who had seen Aragorn riding would know the horse was his. And who would dare to buy the king's own horse?

It was all Aragorn could do to not start running - not that it would have mattered. They were out of the dining hall, and he started walking even faster down the hallway, fear building up inside him. Narion was close behind, slightly out of breath, but Aragorn took no notice. Roheryn could not be gone. Not Roheryn.

The puddles on the courtyard were ankle deep, but he waded through them on a straight line from the entrance doors to the tunnel. Water ran down the steps of the tunnel, but he ignored it; water filled the street outside, but he didn't even feel it. It had to be a mistake. Roheryn was a smart horse. He would not have let himself be taken.

The courtyard at the sixth level was just like the day before - crowded and noisy. Once again the oxen were harnessed to the already loaded wagons, and the soldiers saddled their horses and led them out into the sunlight. The carpenters were arguing again, the chirurgeon told everyone near him how very fragile his instruments were; Arwen's maid Maew struggled with a painted wooden chest that was way too heavy for her. The air was biting cold, the mist a breath of tiny droplets.

The stable didn't look any different either - there were no signs of a break-in - and for a moment Aragorn foolishly thought that must mean something. It didn't, of course. Even the most stupid of thieves would know how to lift the bar from its hinges. Or to not use the doors at all.

"I don't believe there is anything to see in there," Narion said, nodding at the stable. As they came closer, a couple of younglings who had been standing by the doors gave them wary looks and slipped away. They must be some of the stable boys, scared of Aragorn because they had lost his horse. Didn't they see that he wasn't angry, but scared as well?

"But," Narion went on, "I think Your Majesty knows more about things like these than I do. Maybe you should take a look." Another young man tugged shyly at his master's sleeve and Narion turned to him. Aragorn went on alone.

The stable was almost empty - Dae greeted him with a soft whinny, and lord Cambeleg's startingly white mare looked up from her bag of oats, but the others must have been taken outside to be saddled. Just like from the outside, it looked normal. No broken latches, no signs of struggle. If someone had tried to sneak away with Roheryn in the night he would have kicked and reared, but there were no signs of that; no signs of anything out of the ordinary at all. The stall door was closed and locked, the stall itself in perfect order.

Aragorn peered over the door, completely lost. The sight made him more confused than scared, because it didn't make sense at all. If Roheryn had been stolen, he would have seen it, but if Roheryn had escaped by himself, the door would have been open. Was somebody pulling a prank on him? The twins couldn't possibly be back, could they? There was Legolas, of course, but Aragorn didn't think the elf wouldn't be in a mood for pranks. He moved to open the stall door... and there, pinned to the door just by the latch, was a tiny piece of parchment.

"This gets worse and worse, Your Majesty," came Narion's voice behind him.

"It does?" Aragorn carefully took the parchment off its nail; now this must mean the twins were behind it, however strange it seemed.

Narion sounded grim. "I believe so, Your Majesty, because - or have you found something? What's that?"

Aragorn smoothed out the parchment. It contained only a few words, hastily scribbled down and difficult to read. There was no explanation. It was typical for Gimli to write such a short message; obviously there was another note, or something he had said that Aragorn had forgotten - or did the dwarf expect that he would understand?

I already regret this, but Aragorn, don't judge him. On the inside he is crying.

That was all. It made no sense. Aragorn stared at the note as if hoping it might tell him more if he looked long enough - but he did not understand. Regret what? Don't judge who?

"My lord?" Narion tried. "Does it say anything?"

"No," Aragorn said with bitter disappoinment. "Nothing."

"Apparently there was one thing more that the boys didn't dare to tell me," Narion said grimly. "Roheryn is not the only horse who is gone. Arod is as well."

Arod...

"Why anyone would steal that horse fails me... I mean, instead of Dae and Bronind and lord Cambeleg's horse... they all look so much more valuable. Arod is so small. I..."

"Yes," Aragorn said hoarsely, while his heart started to pound. "Yes, it's strange." He turned, balling his fist so Gimli's note crunched between his fingers. "Find the guards posted by the gate at dawnbreak. They might know."

"Your Majesty, what..."

"Excuse me," Aragorn said, pushing himself past the horse master, and in the next moment he was running, running over the courtyard, running down the street, all things kingly and appropriate forgotten.

It made sense now. Arod was gone, and Roheryn was gone, and Gimli didn't want him to blame Legolas, because Legolas had taken them, because Legolas had left, because he... he must think Aragorn would come after Roheryn. And on the inside Legolas wasn't crying; on the inside he was childish and stupid and selfish...

It stung like knives inside him, knowing that. Aragorn ran all the way to the entrance hall, water splashing around his feet, his heart beating so fast he thought it would burst, and maybe that would be for the best. The usual way up the stairs would take too long. He turned left, then right, and down a hallway, and into a rarely used audience chamber, and in behind the statue of Beruthiel and her cats.

He had no candle, so he darted up the narrow stairs in the dark, stumbling and groping for the cold stone walls. Three times he fell, scraping up the heels of his hands; he even slammed headfirst into the wall once, misjudging the turn of the stair, but he felt no pain. In front of him in the dark he saw Elladan's empty room in the guest apartments, the bed neatly made, the used sheets folded on top of the coverlet. He saw the place where Elrohir's sword should have been leaning against the wall, the place where his cloak did not hang. He saw the street beneath the chestnut trees, snow covering the tracks of elven feet until not even he could see them. Not again, he thought, stumbling for the fourth time over an uneven step, rising with a curse that turned into something like a sob. Not again.

But as soon as he opened the door to the guest apartments, he knew they were empty. There was no life in there, no warmth, no breath. Still he opened every door and called out their names, pleading for them to be there, to have stayed. He got no answer.

Gimli had written another note, left on his nightstand. Aragorn took it with shaking hands. The words went blurry as he read.

Aragorn, this is madness. I have to go with the elf because I will not leave him alone, but don't blame me for it. I never wished to have a part in it. Don't blame him either. You are both fools.

Do not blame them? Then who was he to blame? Legolas had gone, and Gimli with him. They had left.

Aragorn sat down on the abandoned bed, breathing hard. Tiny drops of blood where he had scratched his hands had stained the parchment. He stared at them for a moment, trying to grasp the meaning of this.

Then he shivered, and buried his face in his hands, and for the first time in many years he cried.

He did not know for how long he sat there, staring at the little piece of parchment, but the tears had long since dried on his face when he became aware of the rain drumming hard on the window. Aragorn looked up. All he could see was the water running down the glass; behind that everything was a blur.

At first he did not mind. He could not possibly go on as planned now, could he? Not when Legolas had left him like this. Not when Gimli - trusty, loyal Gimli - had abandoned him. He could not pretend that nothing had changed.

But if he did not do as he had planned, then what?

In the end he gathered what courage and strength he had left and rose, tossed Gimli's note on the embers of the fire, rubbed the salt streaks from his cheeks, and left the guest apartments with his head held high. It must be about noon; the retinue must be ready to leave. He could go to the royal apartments and change into something warmer, then walk down to the sixth level, find a horse that would do instead of Roheryn - at least he knew Roheryn was in good hands, unless Legolas had lost all sense - and then they could set off. Lord Rafthir had a very fine horse, and surely he would be honoured to borrow it to the king. If he didn't think too much about it all, it didn't feel so bad.

At the end of the hallway outside the guest apartments, where a flight of broad marble steps led up to the fourth floor, he found Arwen and Faramir, talking in hushed voices with their heads close together. He froze, still some paces away. The sight of them standing in the shadow of a pillar, their faces hidden from his view, reminded him too much of yesterday, when he found them in the morning room and it turned out they had been talking about him. But this time, when Arwen caught sight of him, she didn't look guilty - only sad.

"Estel," she sighed and came to meet him, her eyes full of pity. "Master Narion found the guards at post by the fifth gate this morning. They said Legolas and Gimli had passed on Arod, and they had Roheryn with them, and the guards let them out. You understood, didn't you?"

"I did."

She sighed again, wrapping her slender arms around him, and for a brief moment he let her comfort him. Her body was so warm, her arms strong and safe. But when she looked up at him, again with pity in her eyes, he felt pain welling up inside him. It was unbearable. Gently he loosened her arms from their grip.

"Is everything ready?"

"Ready?" Now she frowned.

"It's almost noon, isn't it? It's time to leave."

"Estel..." Arwen took a step back, her glance briefly darting to the side - she had not expected this. "You have seen the weather, haven't you?"

"What of it?"

"We cannot leave now."

"We've already talked about this. I..."

"No." Arwen's face hardened. "We talked about setting off when there could be rain. Now we're talking about leaving when it's already raining. Look outside, Estel. It's near storm. We cannot leave now."

"I can."

"Yes, you can, because you want to! But do the servants want it, or the soldiers? No they don't; and they don't have a choice. You cannot treat them like that. And do you think I want it, or Faramir, or - "

"Then I'll go alone!" Aragorn exploded, slamming his fist into the pillar beside him... in the next moment he realised what he had said. I will go alone. Arwen did not laugh, but she would have been right to, because it was so pathetic. And then, suddenly, everything seemed pathetic. A foolish attempt to do what he wanted and still do as he should - a foolish belief that it would be the same, that he could feel like a ranger and still be a king - that was what it all was. Pathetic.

"I ordered the journey to be postponed," Arwen said, her voice as hard as steel. "Change it if you will, but Dae stays in the stables, and Maew remains here. And my luggage."

"And you," Aragorn said.

"And me," she confirmed.

They looked at each other, but it was as though there was a wall between them, or a ravine, and they had just burnt down the bridge. He had never, ever felt this far away from her. One and a half yard of stone floor, one and a half yard of air - and an eternity of anger and regret.

Almost at the same time they averted their eyes. Arwen's face softened. The sadness came back into her eyes, blocking out the shimmer of the evening star in them.

"I don't want to argue with you, Estel," she said, biting her lip. "I never wanted that. It's just, I don't... I hope I'm wrong; the Valar knows I hope I'm wrong, but I don't believe in what you're doing. I think you'll hurt yourself. And your're hurting others in the process."

Aragorn wanted nothing more than hug her, to lean his head against her chest, to feel the strength in her arms, the warmth in her breath. For a moment he thought he could do just that, that if he did everything would be fine, and the wall would be gone, and they could go through this together. But he hesitated, and the moment was gone. He turned and walked away.

The thought that he would change into something warmer was still stuck in his head, so that was what he did. Up the staircase, then left, then down the hallway, and there were the royal apartments; into the bedchamber, into the wardrobe. The furlined velvet cloak was a monstrous thing, so wide four people could have wrapped themselves easily inside it, with a huge hood and silver embroidery all over it. It closed with three great silver clasps the shape of stars, and was trimmed with squirrelskin at the hem and in the hood, and bearskin in the rest. It was the warmest thing Aragorn owned.

Yet when he took it up, he felt sick. It was too much: too silvery, too black. He put it on, clasped it together, hated it.

His eyes darted towards the chest in the alcove, just outside the wardrobe door, below the northern window. He rarely opened that chest; there was nothing in it that he needed. He was going to pass it, to let his eyes wander away from it as they usually did, but then he stopped. For a long time he stood still, wavering, his heart pounding the slow and heavy rhythm of doubt. The rain hammered on the window, the wind howled - and now he crossed the room and knelt before the chest. Why by the graces of the Valar did he do that? He had already made up his mind so many times, had already made the decision to leave it behind. This was like denying everything he had said earlier. It was a stupid, irrational decision, unfit for a king.

The heavy lid squeaked slightly as he pushed it open.

In the dim light of the candle flickering on the wall, an old iron brooch glinted faintly, still fastened to the ragged neckline of his old cloak. Aragorn lifted it up, carefully, as if handling some old and fragile relic. It was heavy, still stained with dried mud and maybe blood at the hem; patches of odd fabric and rough, crooked seams showed where he had once mended it. This cloak had survived for more and harder years than the velvet one would ever see. Aragorn touched the brooch once and put the cloak aside.

Beneath it was his tunic, green once, but blackened with age and dirt. Once it had been beautiful, with embroidery along the neckline and down the front. Now it was nothing but an old and precious rag, the embroidery seams falling apart as he touched them.

There was the undertunic, plain linen, and a pair of half mittens, and the rucksack with all his belongings - not that they were many. A leather pouch for medicines, another for pipe weed, a pouch for coins. Aragorn took them up one by one and put them on the floor in a neat line; it felt like holding the belongings of someone recently deceased; like going through them one last time before they were sent to auction. A box of tinder, a whetstone, a roll of string. Needles and thread. A dagger. Nothing more.

His old bow hung above the fireplace in the study, beside the sword he had used before Anduril was reforged, but the quiver was here, the leather hard and brittle. And beneath it was the Lothlorien cloak - still shimmering like when it was new, still soft as silk and perfectly clean. Aragorn held it for a long time. Now this was the warmest thing he owned, and the most valuable.

His legs aching from being bent so long, Aragorn sat back on the floor, the cloak still clutched in his hands. He felt like a child, lost and abandoned, with no one to tell him what to do. It would be so simple, to put on the clothes and leave... for the first time he seriously considered doing that. For the first time it seemed like a possibility. He couldn't find it in his heart to care for Gondor at all - yet there was Arwen, and there was that faint longing inside him - fainter than a memory, maybe nothing but the echo of a memory - of having a home.

The rain kept drumming on the windows while he sat there, immobile, telling himself to think, then losing himself in thoughts that didn't take him anywhere. Someone knocked on the door, opened it even, but whomever it was he did not see Aragorn in the alcove, and before Aragorn could think of answering he was gone. The candle burnt down in its holder. Aragorn played with the leaf clasp; opened it, closed it; took it off, pinned it back. Took it off again and clutched it in his hand. It felt strangely warm, as if there was a fire inside it.

At long last he rose, cursing the velvet cloak as it caught at his wrists. The silver clasps chafed at his neck. He pulled them down below the collar of his tunic and walked to the window.

Outside the world was a lake, grey and hazy. The White City faded into thick fog, and farther away the plains would be turned to muck and streams and the roads would be impassable. He knew that, and it was just as well. In the courtyard far below, the White Tree shivered in a pool of water and the guards surrounding it stood trembling as the rain hammered on their helmets, dripped down their faces and trickled beneath their cloaks. They were the only ones there.

Except...

Except for that figure running across the courtyard, splashing through the puddles. That tall figure in the grey cloak, with a rucksack flung over one slender shoulder, and strands of long pale hair escaping the hood and curling down the embroidered front of its cloak. At the mouth of the tunnel that led down to the gate, it slowed down, only barely stopping, and looked back towards the citadel. There was something about that gesture that piqued Aragorn's curiosity. He ought to be too weary to care... but as the figure vanished into the tunnel, he backed away from the window and turned to the door.

The velvet cloak trailed behind him as he left the royal apartments.

Thank you for reading, please review! :D