Chapter 2: Meeting Old Friends.
When Aragorn finally arrived home, it was well past noon. "Sorry I'm so late," he said to Arwen who was already standing in the doorway. "It's fine," she said. "But the others will be arriving soon. You should start getting ready." Aragorn nodded and went to his room to get changed. As he passed through the other rooms, he noticed that Arwen had cleaned everything and tidied up a bit. He felt guilty, because she had done all this while he was out.
Shortly after he had changed, Eldarion came into the room saying, "Dad, they're here!" Aragorn and his son met Arwen in the kitchen, and together they went to greet their first guests.
It was Legolas and Gimli, who had travelled together. Aragorn was overjoyed to see them again. They had been through a lot together, and hadn't seen each other in a while.
Eldarion had only once met Legolas. He was too young to remember, though. Now that his dad's friends were actually arriving, he got quite shy.
Aragorn led Legolas and Gimli into the kitchen and began offering them something to drink. After about five minutes, the next few arrived.
It was the four Hobbits, that were in the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin.The last person to arrive was Gandalf, the old Wizard of the company.
The reunion involved lots of hugging and tears. Legolas, Gandalf and Aragorn dropped to their knees to properly hug the Hobbits. Aragorn introduced them to Eldarion, whom they had never met before. He was happy to see everyone together again. Well, almost everyone.
He raised his glass. "To Boromir!" he said. "To Boromir!" they all repeated.
Later, the evening became quite exciting. Legolas and Gimli told stories of their travels throughout Middle-earth, while Sam spoke of his life with Rosie and their daughter. Merry and Pippin shared tales of the pranks they had pulled (both recent and older ones). Gandalf did not speak much, but he listened and laughed with everyone else.
They were all curious to know about Aragorn's life as king. He told them about the council meetings he had to lead and all of the Lords who constantly fought over the smallest of things.
Aragorn was happy that his son could finally meet the people he had heard so many stories about; the evening was full of laughter.
Until there was a sharp knock on the door. Aragorn frowned and opened. "Good evening my Lord," a guard said, bowing. "What is it?" Aragorn asked. He hoped it wasn't a nother call to come on a patrol or something.
"I was on the patrol, we just came back, and -" Here it comes, Aragorn thought. "we have brought prisoners."
This caught Aragorn off guard. "Prisoners?" he asked the guard. The guard nodded and said, "They are very young." "You didn't hurt them, did you?" Aragorn asked worriedly. The guard replied, "No, but they are unconscious."
Aragorn raised an eyebrow. "Well, what I mean is," the guard continued, "is that we didn't give them any kind of wounds. But they were fighting very well, in a style that we did not know, and we knew we could not get them here while they were conscious."
Aragorn nodded. "Bring them in," he said.