Disclaimer: I tried to sneak away with some gold from Gondor's treasury, but it didn't work.

Onwards to chapter five! Thanks to Atiaran for beta-reading, and to everyone who has reviewed this far. Enjoy! :)

The Wanderer

When Aragorn came down to the courtyard on the sixth level, it was empty. The wagons stood abandoned, their covers tearing at their fastenings in the wind; all doors and shutters had been closed against the rain, all horses and the oxen had been led back into the stables, and all those who had been here half an hour ago, preparing the journey, had left to seek shelter. Water filled the tracks of feet and hooves that crossed each other in the mud.

Aragorn stood at the very edge, where the stream-crossed earth-and-straw gave way to stone, breathing hard, because he had been running all the way. The silver clasps of the heavy velvet cloak - even heavier now that it was full of water - chafed at his neck. He had been running, and yet he had come too late - again.

Then he turned on his heel and ran back the way he had come, but where the street split in two outside the citadel gate, he chose the one that led downwards. She could not be out of the City. Not yet.

Instead of the hard drumming on the windows of the citadel, the rain fell on the streets as a soft murmur. It ran whispering down the walls of the white stone houses, skittering and jumping down the cobbled streets, as if to invite him to play with it. He ran through grey veils of droplets that the wind whipped up, cold and soothing on his face. The houses lost their outlines, so that there was no telling where one house ended and the next began; the lights in their windows became pale blotches of yellow, the shapes of trees and lamp posts blurred and unclear. The street was an island, floating on a grey sea. It would have been easy to forget where he was going and why he was in a hurry, and just keep on running forever through the shadows.

When he came to the gate that led to the fifth level, he bent his head low beneath the hood of his cloak and passed the watchmen in silence. They were the first other people he had met, and they only looked up briefly, cold and shivering and longing to be inside as they were. Aragorn kept his head low until he was some twenty yards past them.

When he looked up, there she was, just about to fade into the haze of rain where the street made a turn. She was just a shadow to Aragorn, the shape of a woman in a grey cloak, and yet he knew it was her.

"Wait!" he called, and set off running again down the drenched street. "Éowyn - by the Valar - Éowyn!"

And Éowyn stopped, startled, and warily looked over her shoulder. She couldn't see him any more clearly than he could see her, and his voice was almost drowned in the rain. Fréonda gave a whinny; recognizing him, maybe.

"Who..."

"It's me," Aragorn breathed. "It's Ar..."

"Strider! I was afraid I wouldn't get to say goodbye!"

A window to her left was open, letting voices out into the rain and perhaps their voices in behind the walls, and Éowyn was right of course - they didn't want to be recognized here, and there was no reason not to be careful. Still Aragorn winced when he heard it. Strider. However much he struggled against it, the name seemed to be glued to him.

He pulled at the silver clasps, uncomfortable. "My lady," he said.

They met under the window, where the street flattened out enough for the water to form a great puddle around their feet, and silently turned to walk down the street together in the rain. Expect for the rain and the voices from the window, slowly fading into nothing behind them, Fréonda's hooves on the cobbles were the only sounds.

Aragorn had known, as soon as he saw her crossing the courtyard, that it was Éowyn. He had understood somehow that she was up to something; that it had something to do with horses he knew simply because it was Éowyn, and that was why he headed to the courtyard. And that rucksack. She still had it flung over one shoulder, and it looked very heavy. Today seemed an odd day to go out for a ride, but Éowyn was an odd woman, so it made some sense.

"Did Arwen send you?" she asked now, as they walked in shadow where a great merchant's villa reached over the street. She had pushed the hood back from her face, and the loose strands of hair that had escaped from her braid curled and ringled down the front of her cloak, pale as winter's dawn. Her cloak wasn't grey, not really; it had only looked like that through the rain. Now he could see that it was dark green like a late summer oak, and pinned together with a round brooch such as the Rohirrim wore. "I looked for you everywhere. Arwen said you'd be in your bedchamber, but I knocked - well, I even looked inside - and you weren't there. I told her that if she saw you, she should send you down."

Aragorn looked away. "I haven't talked to Arwen in a while."

"I thought so," Éowyn said softly, and then he knew that she knew they had been quarrelling. Surely she must have seen it in Arwen, if she had talked to her. He didn't want to talk about it.

Éowyn seemed to understand that too. "So, anyway," she said, "I didn't mean to leave without telling you, but I want to be in Duinnan before it darkens, and I truly looked everywhere, so - "

"Hold on," Aragorn said, stopping dead. "Duinnan?"

"Yes."

That did not make sense. Duinnan was a village on the border of Anorien, too far for a day's outing; it was almost by the Drúadan forest, along the Great West Road that lead towards...

"By the graces of the Valar," Aragorn breathed, staring at her. "Edoras?"

Éowyn smiled - a small, triumphant smile. "Edoras."

And of course, that was how it was. In the back of his mind, Aragorn had seen it coming. She had talked about it for so long and when Éowyn wanted to do something, she did it, no matter what.

She was not leaving for a day's outing. She did not plan to be back at nightfall. Éowyn was heading for Rohan.

It wasn't like when Gimli and Legolas left - it didn't feel like a betrayal, simply because he didn't expect her to be there for him at all times. She was a friend, a sister even, but it was a different sort of friendship. But in one way it was worse, because Éowyn was bound by almost the same chains as he was - duty, honour, expectations - and now she did what he dared not. Broke them.

Or had they ever been there? Maybe you cannot chain one who has once broken free.

"I told you that before, didn't I?" Éowyn asked. "That I didn't want to go to Dol Amroth."

She had stopped as well, just where the light of a nearby window spilled out onto the street and was reflected in the rain. A cascade of topazes tumbled down her shoulders and fell into puddles of molten gold. She was beautiful, in a wild kind of way; her hair tied in that simple braid, her eyes glowing untamed, her body strong and slender beneath the ragged wool of a long tunic, the wrinkles of roughspun trousers. And that cloak, with that round ornate brooch that made her look like a rider of Rohan.

Aragorn remembered. How long ago it felt, that sunny spring morning when they stood on the courtyard at the sixth level and watched the horses graze and the clouds drift across a clear blue sky. Then he had felt young. Now the weight of eighty-nine years were on his shoulders.

"You wanted to get away from court, and in Dol Amroth there is... court."

"Yes, there is."

"And you wanted your sword sharpened. Just in case, you said."

Éowyn grinned. "I was planning to go with you to Dol Amroth, and then I'd go on to Rohan when you went back home, so I wanted to have everything prepared once we left Minas Tirith. But now that it's been cancelled - Arwen said postponed, but I doubt it. If she wants good weather she'll have to wait until summer. So I thought I'd leave on my own."

"Now?"

Her smile became... distant. Part of her was already out there, heading for the horizon. He could see it in her eyes. "Yes."

The pain that hit him then, like a thousand glass shards exploding in his chest, had nothing to do with her. Not really. It was just that he seemed to be losing everyone - everyone; those who stayed close to him were still not by his side, still not where he needed them, and somehow he hurt them all without meaning to. And Éowyn was perhaps the only one who could understand him. Oh, Arwen knew pain, and longing, and frustration; but she had never understood this lust for wander that he shared with Éowyn. She could try, but she could never fully grasp what freedom meant to him.

"So," Éowyn said, hitching the rucksack higher onto her shoulder, "like I said, I want to be in Duinnan before it turns dark, so I better leave as soon as possible. I've already said goodbye to Faramir and Arwen, and..."

Aragorn grabbed her arm.

"Wait," he said. The pain in his chest had turned into something cold and choking, and fluttering like the wings of a bird all the same. He remembered that feeling: it was fear. "Éowyn, you cannot... how can... you're a lady, Éowyn. You cannot just leave on your own like this, it's..."

"Inappropriate?" she said. "Yes, it is. I know. Just like it would be for you. I don't care."

Aragorn was lost. "How can you not care? People will talk about you, they will - "

"Yes." Éowyn sighed, and she seemed to shrink. "They will talk. They already do. The lady Éowyn is no real lady. The lady Éowyn is a disgrace. The lady Éowyn is so ugly. I've heard it all."

"Ugly?"

"I have freckles", she said, "and blisters on my hands, and I don't put up my hair like the other ladies. Yes, they say that I am ugly."

Aragorn stared at her. He had had no idea.

"And," Éowyn went on, "I still don't care. I spent too many years of my life regretting I was born a woman, but what use is there in regretting something you cannot change? I have stood face to face with death. One day I will face it again. And until that day comes, I will not waste a minute on regretting. I am who I am, not who they expect me to be."

Aragorn was silent. Maybe he had seen death too many times for it to affect him - or maybe, two years after the war ended, he had already forgotten what it looked like.

Éowyn straightened. There was steel in her voice, the sound of blades crossing.

"They can talk," she said, "for others praise me. The men who fought to protect these walls, the lords whose sons survived the battle, the fathers and mothers of those who were slain - they talk of me too, and for them I am a hero. I was their sword and their shield; I was their saviour, because I defeated the Witch King, and they will remember that. They won't care if I'm not ladylike. Besides", she added as an afterthought, "I don't really have any choice. If I would be bound like that again, like I was in Edoras when my uncle was sick, then I could as well lay down and die."

"And what about me?" Aragorn asked; it came out as barely more than a hoarse whisper. "If the people don't see me as a king - if they don't respect me - Gondor will fall. I mean, not because it's me, but I'm the king. I can't afford to be talked about."

He could see it on Éowyn, how she understood. She had not heard what had been said in the morning room, when Arwen and Faramir and Gimli found out what had been troubling him; he had never told her, had never thought of it. But there it was, in her eyes: the memory of long tedious days behind closed doors, of loneliness and bitterness and overwhelming cold, of a future bleak and inevitable like a straight grey road... and the memory of wind whispering outside the windows - Éowyn, Aragorn...

"Éowyn," she said, "Aragorn. We were born a lady and a king, but those are who we are. No one can change that. Not even we."

"And if we have to?"

Éowyn shook her head. "You know what happened to me. There is no choice. Sooner or later you have to break free, or Aragorn will die, and Elessar will be but an empty shell. But Aragorn, you..." She looked up at him. "You are not only a king. You are a legend. If you were to leave like me - if you became a ranger again - wouldn't you just be even more of a legend?"

He followed her down to the city gate on the first level, and all the way the walked in silence. In Aragorn's heart a decision was taking form - slowly and warily, as when the sun rises after a storm. He dared not to make it clearer yet. He dared not to pretend it was there. After so many days - no, weeks - no, months - of convincing himself there was no way to do what he somehow had always known he would do, in the end, when he couldn't deny it any more, he was frightened.

The gate in the black wall was open, but only the guards stood there shivering, water pouring down on their helmets. The wall was glinting bleakly, hard and unforgiving as ever, a proud and ancient sentinel always on guard. Aragorn often got the feeling the wall was watching; not him, but the plain outside, and the river, alert for enemies.

They stood for a while beneath the arch, just where it ended: the sky was above them if they leaned forward just a little. Aragorn felt strangely safe, standing there in the rain, because he knew that no one would recognize him. To anyone looking out of a window, Éowyn would just be a youngling with a rucksack, a courier maybe, and Aragorn would be an ordinary man in a great black cloak. Through the veils of rain, who could have told that the cloak was made of velvet? There was no light for the silver embroidery to shine in, and at distance the stones forming the seven stars would be plain and dull.

Again he pulled at the silver clasps, and then he opened then and let the cloak balance somewhat unsecurely on his shoulders. At last he could breathe. Though perhaps it wasn't only the cloak's fault.

"I was wrong," he said, while Éowyn checked Fréonda's saddle straps one last time. "I have been wrong all the time. I'm not afraid to leave, not at all; I know how to hide, I will not be seen. I'm afraid that I will not come back again." He looked at her. "How do you know you will come back?"

"Of course I will," Éowyn said. "Here is where Faramir is."

"And so is Arwen."

"So she is."

"I could never leave her."

Éowyn smiled. "When I rode to war, I sought freedom. Freedom and glory and death. I found something else. Something I didn't know I needed. That was Faramir. And you lost something you didn't know you would miss, didn't you? Maybe, if you leave, you will find something that leads you back home."

Aragorn looked out, to the road that began by his feet and went on and on. He couldn't see the horizon from the courtyard, but he could see the mountains.

"If I meet Legolas and Gimli," Éowyn said, swinging herself up in the saddle in one smooth movement, "shall I say something?"

Aragorn straightened so he could look at her, and as he did so, he felt the velvet cloak slowly slip backwards from his shoulders. He did not move to catch it. With a splash and a thud it fell to the ground, and brown water washed over the embroidery and the stones forming the seven stars. Yet the leaf clasp he still held clutched tightly in his hand, and it still felt warm, as if it was alive.

"Tell them," he said, "to look to the east."

The wanderer stopped by the roadside to push his dripping hood away from his face. It was raining, a heavy spring rain that turned the road to muck and the last of the snow to pools of brown water. Grey clouds hung low over the hills, all the way from one horizon to the next, thick and dense and without the slightest sign of movement. The road - naught more than a narrow ribbon of trampled ground, where the grass hadn´t even bothered to start growing - was all ankle-deep mud and trickles of water now, vanishing in a curtain of rain and fog, winding and twisting to where the soft hills gave way to a climbing forest.

The wanderer turned to look over his shoulder. He was a tall man, slender, but bent under a heavy pack, with dark hair plastered to his forehead and water dripping from the tip of his nose. There was a slight frown on his face. He had mud all over his boots and up to his knees, because he had waded over a flooded stream earlier and the water had been deeper than he thought. His cloak was so heavy with water it dragged at the ground.

Behind him, there was nothing but the same rolling hills, covered in yellow winter grass, glinting here and there with water and dotted with thorny bushes and naked trees. The City had vanished in thick grey fog. When he realised that, that the City was behind him, that he had gotten away, the wanderer felt something lift from his heart, like a bird spreading its wings and flying away with all his worries. He straightened up. Suddenly he could breathe.

It was gone.

Something bubbled in the wanderer's chest, threatening to break free. All around him the rain washed down, hammering on the little coltsfoots dotted by the roadside, but the wanderer didn't mind. He spread his arms like wings and tossed his head back and in the rain, he laughed.

He laughed because for the first time in many months, he felt free.

The road led steadily on to the north, and hills and valleys succeeded each other all the way to the bleak glinting of grey water that was Anduin, and it kept raining. It rained as the wanderer sat down in the wet grass beneath an oak and ate some bread and cheese, and it rained as dusk came and the puddles on the road became too dark to see. Occasionally the wanderer tired of it, but then he remembered the cold stone walls and the arched windows and the echoing hallways that he had left behind, and he laughed because rain was better than all that. And he laughed as a crane spread its great wings over a pond to his left and lifted high up in the sky, and he laughed as a newborn calf stumbled along beside its mother on a field beside the road, and he laughed when the wind caught his heavy cloak and whispered his name, because it was his name, and no one could take it from him.

At dusk he found a village - just a cluster of tiny grey houses, so old they had sunk into the earth as if they had grown out of it, clinging to the sides of a valley by the side of a little stream - and there he slept in the hayloft of a ramshackle barn, somewhat warm and dry. He fell asleep to the sound of water dripping from the roof, and rats scuttling over the floor and a water wheel squeaking and splashing in the stream. He woke with a smile on his lips.

The wanderer didn´t know it, but the villagers whispered about him long afterwards - that stranger who turned up at dusk as if sprung from a fairy tale, who was gone the next morning with only the smell of pipeweed showing he had ever been there, and who so resembled the king.

A second day passed, and a third, and a fourth. The road turned westwards, and the forest stood up from the ground to his left, silently watching him as he walked, whispering with ancient, moss-grown branches that had not yet grown their first tender leaves. The Great West Road followed its outskirts, but always at a few yards' distance, with a deep ditch between. The shadows were too dark, the trees stood too close; long ago there had been roads through there, very straight and paved, but no one used them any more.

But the wanderer had an errand in the forest.

At dusk on the fourth day, when the rain had passed and the setting sun threw gold over the grasslands, the wanderer left the road and crossed the ditch. It was broad here, more of a canal, but there was an old bridge made of rotting old boards where you could cross if you were careful. The wanderer would never have found it if he hadn't known where to look, and he would never have never known where to look if he hadn't known these lands, long, long ago when he was young. He almost missed it now. But there it was, much more rickety than he remembered it, and behind it there was the remnants of a road - a few stones visible beneath the undergrowth, and an old broken pillar hidden among the briars. So many stories, the wanderer thought, all old and forgotten. Had anyone seen him, they would have thought he was one of those stories.

Beneath the trees it darkened quickly, but the wanderer didn't want to stop yet, because he knew he was very close. The moon would rise soon anyway. So he kept going, careful not to lose track of the road, trusting it to lead him right. All the while he listened to every sound and every silence around him - the song of birds, the rustle in the undergrowth, the whispering of the wind, the silent shiver of an owl's wings, the inaudible voices of trees and earth and ancient stones - and he took in every movement around him, every change of air. It gladdened him that he still remembered how to move through a dark forest. At least he thought so; then he stumbled over a tree-root and almost fell, because he had forgotten to look where he put his feet. He laughed at that too.

At last the moon rose high enough to reach down between the entwined branches of the Druadan Forest, but still the wanderer almost walked straight into the fire, it turned up so suddenly in front of him. The trees opened into a clearing, just by the foot of the Eilenach mountain which rose towards the starry sky, only a little blacker than the night itself. The air was crisp, so cold there was frost glittering in the grass; winter's last effort before it went to sleep. The fire was reflected in billions of brittle jewels, glowing orange in the grass, and around it there sat four figures in long dark cloaks - four fey creatures, as old as spring itself it seemed. The wanderer quickly withdrew into the shadows again. It had always amused him to be invisible.

Warily, Legolas looked over his shoulder. "Did you hear that?"

"I heard a squirrel," Elrohir said.

"It was no squirrel."

"No? I can see it. It's over there."

He pointed to a tree some paces away from the wanderer. A squirrel sat there all right, for once completely still. The wanderer smiled.

"I heard something else," Legolas insisted.

"Maybe another squirrel," Gimli suggested, poking a stick into the fire to push the burning logs closer together. They had a pot hanging from a wooden tripod over the flames, and whatever was in it smelled fantastic to someone who had been walking through a cold forest all evening. "The horses would know if something was near, wouldn't they? You always say they are so intelligent."

The wanderer had forgotten to look for the horses, but when he looked around he saw both Roheryn and Arod grazing at the edge of the clearing, beside a little stream that came down from the mountain. It would have been very funny to sneak away with them, as revenge, but he knew the elves would hear him if he tried to move. Despite Elrohir's sardonic remark he was on his guard, as was Elladan. They had seen too much of danger to take chances. The wanderer knew it; he was like that himself.

He put his hands to his mouth and gave a very low whistle.

I am here, where are you?

The elves swung around, groping for weapons that weren't at their sides. They had left them along with their packs some paces away, and the wanderer could see them regretting it. In the moment before one second ended and the next began, the wanderer could see in their eyes that they were preparing for battle; he knew they were calculating the possibilities of reaching their weapons before the enemy reached them, advantages and disadvantages their surroundings might give them, what sort of enemy might be watching them and how many and with what intentions. The wanderer knew they did all this because he would have done the same. Only Gimli didn't stir - not because he wasn't as skilled a warrior as they, but because he was not used to hiding and scouting, or to dangers hidden in dark woods.

"That's a wren, if you were wondering," he said. "Nothing to be afraid of. They're quite common."

Legolas winced at the sound of his voice; you weren't supposed to talk when enemies might be near, every warrior of Eryn Galen knew that.

"Keep quiet," he hissed, probably fiercer than intended because his mind was already set on fighting. "I'm trying to listen."

There was silence so thick you could have cut it with a knife. Even Gimli groped for his axe - he had put it within an arm's reach - but he watched the elves, not the woods, knowing they would see whatever was hiding before he did.

The wanderer whistled again. I am here, where are you?

Elladan hesitated, glancing at the others elves who did not move, then whistled back: I hear you, I am here!

"I know you're there, Elladan," the wanderer replied, grinning, and stepped out into the clearing. "I've been looking straight at you for the past ten minutes." And he pushed the hood back from his face.

He hadn't thought it would be possible, but somehow it became even more quiet. Gimli's mouth fell open. The elves simply stared.

The smug grin on the wanderer's face broadened a smile. Of all things he had missed from his old life, he had never missed mountains or battles or walking as much as he had missed this: a small campfire beneath the stars, with friends around it. The laughter escaped him before he could hinder it, and once he had started he did not want to stop. Let them think he was a fool. He would love them anyway.

"Will you look at that," Elrohir said, trying to sound sarcastic. "Strider is back."

"He sure is," the wanderer said cheerfully, and finally the others smiled too. It had been so long since they saw this man - this ragged, quiet, thoughtful man, with a smile hidden behind the steel of his eyes, a story on his lips, a song on his mind. Elessar they had never known, but Strider was their friend.

"I am sorry," Aragorn said, "for taking so long. I have been a fool. Also, I couldn't find my horse."

Roheryn gave a whinny from the edge of the clearing, as if he knew they were talking about him. It took a moment before Legolas understood, and then he blushed.

"I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for."

"You could have taken another horse."

"I know. I said, nothing to be sorry for."

He stepped closer to the fire, lifting the heavy rucksack from his shoulder with a sigh of relief and putting it down carefully on the ground. But when he looked at Legolas again, the elf was still frowning.

"I wouldn't have taken Roheryn," he said, struggling to find the right words, "but I figured... I figured if I did, you might come after. Because you wanted him back as soon as possible, I guess? And I thought maybe somehow you'd understand that... Gimli told me not to but I thought it would be worth a try. But I really was an idiot, Estel, and I knew, and I'm sorry..."

Aragorn shook his head. "We've been idiots both of us, and believe me, I've been a bigger idiot than you. You were right, all the time. You all were," he said, looking to the others. He could see that Gimli needed no explanation, that Elladan understood, and that Elrohir was content that he had come at last, at least for now. It was all very much like them, just as it was like Legolas to be the one to take Roheryn, for he was as impulsive as any wood elf.

On the inside he is crying. Of course Legolas, who had never cared for tradition and never tried to hide how much he hated formality, could not understand what hindered Aragorn from being Strider.

Aragorn put a hand on his shoulder. "I don't want to talk about it," he said. "What's done is done. I just want to be here, now. Let's forget everything else."

Maybe some other time, if they needed it, he would explain everything. But he was tired of words. He was tired of his own mind. And he was very hungry.

"It's over," he said. Legolas embraced him, relaxed at last, and nothing more needed to be said after that.

"So," Aragorn said as Legolas let go of him, "since you have been waiting for me, is there possibly any food waiting for me too? Mine didn't last very long."

Gimli grinned and nodded at the pot. "Now that's the Aragorn I know. We've been making far too much food for the last two days, in case you'd show up - Éowyn passed us three days ago, and we thought you'd be right behind her. Help yourself."

Aragorn dug into his rucksack for a bowl and a spoon and Elrohir moved aside to give room for him on the sheepskin they had laid out on the grass. For some time they were all silent, the elves gazing at the stars, Aragorn eating, Gimli bringing out his pipe. While Aragorn didn't always smoke when there were elves nearby, Gimli seemed to have made a sport of doing it as often as possible. It was just as well, Aragorn thought when he had eaten two full bowls of chicken soup, because if Gimli smoked, there was no reason he shouldn't.

"So what about Imrahil?" Elrohir asked at long last. He was laying on his back now, ignoring the frost in the grass. The stars were unbelievably sharp, the moon so big it looked as though you might have reached it from the top of Eilenach. "Won't he feel a bit abandoned?"

"Arwen and Faramir are going," Aragorn said. "Arwen wasn't really keen on setting off when it was raining so much, but to be honest I think she liked the prospect of being in charge of the whole retinue. It's odd, but she's kind of fond of the whole being a queen thing."

He pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms loosely around them, thoughtful. He missed her already. It always felt strange to wake up in the mornings and not have her beside him. If it was absolutely quiet, and he listened as intently as he ever could, he used to hear her breathing, slow even breaths that only barely made her chest move. Sometimes when he woke early he looked at her and he just couldn't stop smiling, because she was so beautiful. He wished he could see what she saw, with her eyes focused far away in elven dreams. He wished he could be with her there, as anywhere else.

But this night he wanted to forget. With Arwen came Minas Tirith, and the overwhelming weight of his crown. Sure - if he decided to abdicate, to abandon the throne and flee, she would follow him. But would he ever be able to look into her eyes again?

No, this night he wanted to pretend he had no ties to anything. Leave those thoughts to tomorrow, or to someday next week. It was one of those nights when the air seemed to vibrate with magic, so beautiful you couldn't even begin to grasp it. Think of that instead. No, think of nothing; just be here, now. The stars are calling for Strider. Forget that you were ever Elessar.

For the rest of that evening they kept the fire alive, told stories of the old days and laughed at bad jokes. The moon made its slow way across the sky, the frost glittered in the grass, and they remembered every battle they had ever been in, every camp they had made, every road they had taken. It should have been cold, but somehow the elves radiated warmth, and the cloak of Lothlorien kept the winds away. They sat there for hours; time just ran away, and at the same time it seemed the night would go on for ever, and all the other nights they had shared were the same as this one, and everything in between had only been dreams.

Sometime when the moon was already on its way down Aragorn fell asleep. The song that they had been singing trickled into his dreams and filled them with summer.

He woke early, shivering in the cold morning air. Dawn spread a pale grey light across the sky. One by one the stars were fading away.

"By the graces of the Valar," Aragorn groaned, curling up beneath his cloak. "How many times do I have to tell you not to let the fire die?"

"It's not cold," came Elladan's voice from some paces away.

"It's freezing."

Elladan laughed, a clear merry sound so annoying Aragorn would have gotten up, walked over to him and hit him very hard on the head till he shut up, if only that hadn't involved getting up.

"Not if you're up and moving."

Aragorn could see him through his cloak - he had pulled it up over his head to keep his face warm - kneeling beside the still smoking ashes of the fire, rolling their two sheep skins into a tight bundle. A bit further away, either Elrohir or Legolas was fastening another bundle with a strap around Arod's back. The tripod had been taken down - the three thin branches had been untied and thrown in a careless heap - and Roheryn was carrying the pot, hanging from his saddle bags in a chain.

"I take it there will be no breakfast," Aragorn said.

"That's right, little brother."

"Remind me why I travel with you freely."

Elladan just smiled and kept working. Aragorn considered staying where he was, but the blanket he was laying on wasn't of elven make; it had become very damp. Reluctantly he dug his way out of the folds of the Lothlorien cloak and stuck his head into the morning.

Pale blue was spreading over the sky, but the clearing was still grey, tinted with a fine layer of crisp frost. The forest was blue-green. Thin veils of mist coiled around the feet of the mountain.

The colours were already returning; pale blue and pink in the sky, cold blue-green and greyish brown in the forest, shimmering emerald in the high grass that covered the foot of Eilenach. Gimli was still sleeping on the other side of the fire; Elrohir stood over by the horses, and Legolas sat above him on a branch, eating an apple with his legs dangling in the air.

Aragorn rose, shaking life into his legs. He found another apple in Legolas' pack and ate it while he rolled up the blanket and swept the cloak around him. All the previous nights he had slept in barns or on little roadside inns, which had brought a lot of memories back, but this was even more like the mornings of his old life - the feeling of damp, sweaty clothes, wrinkled and in disarray, head and shoulders aching from sleeping on hard ground, hair all messy; shivering and sniffling until the first bleak sunlight warmed him up. His boots were cold as he pulled them on, and his stiff fingers struggled with the belt clasp before he managed to close it. He had earth and dead leaves and blades of grass everywhere, even plastered to his cheek. And he laughed to himself again, just because he could.

When Elrohir returned from the horses, the sky was turning yellow just above the tree-tops. He had thrown his cloak casually over one shoulder and strapped the sword belt around his waist. "We should get going."

"That's right," Aragorn said, "where are we going?"

Gimli, who had just woken up and sat shivering swept in his cloak, grinned. "Why, where ever we want. That's the point, after all."

"And where is that?"

"Well," Elladan said, hitching his rucksack onto his shoulder, "as long as you don't say the Brown Marches, or the Path of the Dead or why not Lord Rafthir's estate, we thought you might decide."

"Well then," Aragorn said. He didn't need to think for a second. "Then I say we follow the old forest road, because I don't remember where it leads. And then I say we should go west."

He left the others to their chores and walked up the side of the mountain, the cloak trailing behind him in the grass. There was a butterfly, dancing around a stand of cowslips just a few paces from him; it was the first It was bright yellow, just as the sky was turning a bright blue when the sun rose above the mountains of Ephel Dúath.

When he had come so high up he could see over the treetops, he sat down on a rock in the grass and saw the forest stretch out before him, then the grasslands, then Anduin and Osgiliath. All the way to the sun could he see, and he sat there and thought of nothing special and it was warm in his face, and spring was coming, and there was not a single cloud on the sky.

"Aragorn!" they called from below. They had left the camp and were already at the edge of the forest, in the shade of the trees where mist still coiled around the trunks, and where the old forest road led the way to forgotten places. "Are you coming?"

Aragorn stood up. Before him the East folded out like a tapestry of green and gold and shimmering blue, dotted with the white of cities. Before him was his kingdom, the land he had had been meant to have, the land he had fought for even before he knew it was his. Before him was his birthright, his heritage, his fate. His Gondor. Before him was Arwen, and the prize he had paid to get her.

"I'm coming," he said, and turned his back on it, and walked down the slope towards the west.

TBC

It seems to me the next chapter will be uploaded reasonably soon. Or maybe this chapter was updated unreasonably late because it's so freaking scary to publish a new chapter. Always something wrong.

Thanks for reading, and please, please leave a review! :)