Chapter Text
When Arwen returns from her prolonged visit to her grandmother in Lothlórien, she feels her whole body relax, sloughing off the unnoticed tension that comes of being away from home for a long time—nearly twenty years, this visit. To Elves, such time is but a blink, but when it is flavored by a constant background discomfort, even a short while drags. At the end of her stay, she is glad to leave Galadriel’s forest for her father’s. She loves her grandmother, reveres her, even—but Galadriel is ever the reminder of the perfect Elven maid that Arwen knows, no matter how hard she tries, she will never be.
Her father senses she is tired from the weight of it all, and so after a long, swaying embrace, he sends her to rest and make herself comfortable. Her rooms have been kept clean, and she finds her old favorite clothes, her bathing things, and makes haste to her secret oasis.
She has missed her spring almost as much as she has missed her father. Secluded deep in the woods, surrounded by high rock walls and soft green moss, the water always temperate, it is her haven, a closely-guarded secret.
But in the twenty years she has been gone, someone else has found her private place.
She stops at the edge of the trees, bare feet hardly pressing into the thick moss, and stares in affront at the youth in her forest spring.
They are long and lithe and naked, swimming with quick power through the water. When they reach the far side, they pull themselves up on a rock and toss their head, hair flying out behind them, water whipping through the air. Their face is calm enough that Arwen feels like an intruder in her own place.
They are not an Elf.
She barely shifts through the air, but that disturbance is enough to make their head whip towards her, grey eyes flashing in the sun. Immediately, the person slides back into the water, just their head visible, watching her warily.
Arwen clears her throat and steps forward. “Hello,” she calls, careful to keep her voice light, though she is tired and her throat sore. “I am Arwen Undómiel, daughter of Elrond. This is—” She pauses, clearing her throat. This is my pool, she had been about to say, but that was silly and jealous.
But the youth’s eyes are wide with recognition, and with those same quick strokes, they swim swiftly to shore, still well away from her, to where a pile of clothes awaits. She turns away until she hears them approaching her with light footsteps.
“Arwen Evenstar,” says the youth. “I’ve waited long to meet you.”
She turns around again, and feels herself caught up with surprise. The youth wears a pair of breeches that tie at the knees, and no shirt, baring a chest that is wrapped tightly with a band of fabric, pressing whatever is beneath into flatness. The youth shows no shame, walking to her with confidence, chin tilted up, wet hair clinging to their neck.
“You know of me?” she asks curiously.
The youth smiles at her, a flash of white teeth. “Of course. You are the beloved daughter of my foster father. I did not know that you are also the greatest beauty of Lothlórien and Imladris, but that much is clear. I am Estel.”
Arwen blinks, taken aback by almost everything in that sentence. “Estel,” she echoes, looking closer at him. Of course she knows of the child Elrond fostered, for many of his letters concerned the delights of Estel’s growth, the novelty of a human child raised among Elves. She has grown fond of reading of his exploits, narrating to her grandmother Estel’s misadventures climbing out of his windows to chase cats, sneaking out of Imladris to go drinking, and following Elven patrols onto the road for days before being caught. He was the mischievous spirit of her far-away father’s daily life, never real.
Never flesh and blood. Never a wiry, proud youth standing in front of her with a bound chest, fierce pride in his eyes, proclaiming her beauty. Some hibernating flower in her heart tilts towards the sudden sunlight.
“Elrond says you are like me,” Estel said eagerly, pressing a hand against the fabric across his chest. “I’ve never met anyone else who is. I always wanted to go to Lórien to find you—I tried one time, but I got caught five days down the road.”
Arwen covers a laugh with her hand. “My father speaks of me to you? He speaks of—how I am?”
Estel nods eagerly. “Yes, yes,” he says, coming closer, tilting his head up to look at her—he is so short, and she so tall. “Ever since I began to—” He waves a hand, struggling to find the words.
“To feel uneasy in your body?” Arwen asks tentatively.
“Exactly!” Estel cries, smile stretching further. “He said not to worry, for his daughter is just like me, but in the other direction.” His eyes gentle. “He loves you very much.”
Arwen is speechless for a long moment. Her father loves her beyond all others, all else; this she has always known. But she has generally thought that her troubles with her body have been a problem for Elrond to overcome. But the way Estel speaks, Arwen thinks perhaps she had underestimated her father, and he loves even this part of her.
“But my lady must be tired from her journey,” Estel says, abruptly gallant and courteous, that glint of humor still brightening his eyes. “Perhaps I will have the honor of dining with her sometime soon?”
“Yes,” Arwen says, smiling helplessly at him. “I would love that.”
He nods. “I’ll leave you to your bath, then. I didn’t realize this was your place—I won’t intrude again.”
“No,” Arwen says hastily, surprising herself with her hurry and her blush. “A place like this is too beautiful to keep to myself. Please—come whenever you wish.”
Estel bows graciously, and slips on a simple brown shirt before departing. He leaves it untied, his collarbones bared, his feet unshod, almost as light on the moss as an Elf’s. “Happy swimming,” he wishes her, as he strolls into the forest like he is perfectly at home among the trees, “and welcome home, Arwen Undómiel.”
As Arwen disrobes and slides into the cool water, the echo of his voice saying her name lingers.
They call Imladris “The Last Homely House East of the Sea.” Arwen is a lover of languages, and this description never fails to make her smile. For homely means both suited to a comfortable life—a place for a home—and also uncomely. The first definition is true enough, but the second … to call Imladris ugly would be to call the grass red.
Lothlórien is beautiful too—eternally so. Unchanging, it is an isolated oasis that her grandmother sustains.
But Imladris is near the road. Imladris has visitors—Men, Greenwood Elves, even the rare Hobbit. Her father’s sanctuary is open to all, and exists along those breathing pathways of travel and commerce. Here, her hungry ears pick up more languages than Sindarin.
She chooses a comfortable dress for dinner that evening, looking forward to a meal where she has nothing to prove to anyone. Just her and her family.
But when she arrives at the balcony that overlooks the wilderness surrounding Imladris, perfect for evening meals under the early stars, she meets not just her father, but a mortal Woman.
“Daughter,” Eldrond says, coming again to embrace her. She spares a moment to breathe in the smell of him: that specific scent that he uses in his hair, like earth and the faintest brush of smoke. It puts her at once at ease, feeling as though she is a child once again, being rocked to sleep in her father’s arms.
“Father,” she says softly, and draws away, smiling at him. Their faces are on a level, and his adoration shines through his eyes. “Who is your guest?”
Elrond turns to the Woman, sitting restfully on a padded chair by the edge of the balcony. Her eyes are kind, yet distant.
“This is no guest,” Elrond corrects gently. “Daughter, meet Gilraen, daughter of Ivorwen, mother of Estel.”
“Oh,” Arwen says softly. She approaches Gilraen, who does not stand to meet her—but Arwen sees in Elrond’s body language that she should take no offense. “Well met, Lady,” she said. “I have already come across Estel. He was …” She hesitates, wondering how to encapsulate her brief encounter with Estel. “Delightful,” she finishes.
Gilraen smiles up at her. “Yes, my child is so,” she agrees. “You are a very beautiful lady. And your father’s kindness knows no equal.”
“Thank you,” Arwen says, touched. Apparently remarking on someone’s beauty first thing is an inherited trait.
From somewhere below the balcony, a great flurry of shouts erupt. Gilraen sighs, and Arwen moves to lean over the balcony, curious.
Three figures tumble and shout as they race to the stairs that lead to the balcony. Two gleaming blond heads and one brown, athletic and nimble as they leap over sticks and vault boulders. As she watches, one of the blondes lunges and tackles the brown-haired figure, resulting in a tussle while the other blonde vaults over them. Outraged shouts come from the tangle, and then the brunette leaps up, narrowly dodging the blond’s grab for his ankle, and takes off after the other blonde, now mounting the stairs.
The brunette runs like a gazelle, bounding up the hundreds of steps, and finally catches the blonde up just as they both make the landing. The blonde goes down under the brunette, and they nearly fall back down the stairs, until Elrond clears his throat, just once.
The wrestling pauses, and then the two figures scramble apart. By this point, the lagging blond has made it up the steps as well, and leans, winded, on the edge of the balcony.
Arwen’s mouth has not closed since she first peeked over the edge, and now she cannot stop delighted burst of laughter from falling from her mouth, too surprised in her mirth to remember to lighten her voice. But its depth draws no strange gazes, only delighted ones from the figures standing sheepishly before Elrond: Estel, and her brothers.
“Arwen!” shout Elladan and Elohir together, and they come and suffocate her between them, lifting her up and spinning her one at a time, though she is taller than they.
“Our beloved baby sister is home,” sings Elladan, tugging her head down so he can press a kiss to her brow.
“We’ve missed you so,” exclaims Elohir, hugging her from behind. “And Estel has missed you most of all!”
Covered in brothers, Arwen glances over at Estel, who is grinning at this display. He is clothed now, in breeches and tunic and boots, hair plaited neatly back, looking for all the world like a young Man,
“How could Estel miss me,” Arwen asks, hugging Elladan and Elohir close, “when he has never met me before today?”
“I’ve come to know you through their stories, of course,” Estel says.
“Oh, sister, if only you were here ten years earlier,” Elohir says mournfully. “Estel used be so cute—he would climb up onto our laps and ask for bed-time stories about your adventures—”
“Elohir!” Estel cries, his face flushing.
Elohir bursts into laughter, and Arwen pushes him and his twin away. “Enough,” she says gently. “I have not known Estel long enough for you to embarrass him in front of me.”
“My lady has a kind heart,” muttered Estel, rubbing his nose. “Unlike her brothers.”
“Estel,” sighs Gilraen, and Estel is immediately attentive, hurrying to her side. “Do not be ungrateful, my child.”
“Never,” Estel swears at once. “Lord Elrond and his family have my unending gratitude.”
Elrond waves a hand. “Lady Gilraen and Estel are this lord’s family. Let us eat.”
They settle to dinner, a mixture of lighter elven fare and heartier things for the Men at the table. Estel sits beside her and insists on serving her, even though he can tell it amuses her—maybe because it amuses her. She has never met someone so instantly devoted to making her laugh.
“You know my brothers well,” she says to him, as they drink a light tea after dinner.
Estel’s eyes gleam. “They are my brothers, my lady. For all that they like to claim they are my uncles or grandfathers because of my age.”
“If they are your brothers,” Arwen says, “then am I your sister?”
Estel flushes. “Ah—I would be happy to have my lady think of me with fondness. However, having never known her before today, I cannot quite think of her as a—a sister.”
Arwen suppresses a smile. His speech becomes much more formal when nervous, and while she finds it endearing, she decides to stop playing.
“I agree,” she says gently, and he grins slightly.
They sip their tea for a moment, and then Estel clears his throat. “My mother and I walk through the gardens in the morning,” he says, hesitance creeping into his voice. “Would my lady join us? If it pleases her.”
Arwen feels a warm flush spread up her chest. “I will,” she agrees. “But no more of this ‘my lady.’ Your point is made. Call me Arwen.”
The next morning, Arwen dresses for a walk in the gardens in a long, pale green skirt, a white blouse, and her favorite summer shawl. Made by her grandmother, its intricate lace evokes ivy leaves in shades of pink and green.
She knocks on the door of Estel’s quarters, and wanders inside at his shouted invitation.
“Good morning!” He is behind a privacy screen; she can only see his shadow.
“Good morning,” she returns.
He pokes his head out the side of the screen, hair pulled up in a disheveled bun. “Forgive me if I overstep, but the nature of who I am often muddles propriety. You are a woman and I have a woman’s body; is it rude to ask for help clasping my binding?”
Caught off-guard, Arwen considers this. “I am not sure if it is appropriate,” she finally concludes, “but only because it is equally muddled for me. In any case, I have assisted physicians of Elves and Men before; you have nothing I have not seen. I will help.”
“Oh, good,” Estel says, coming out from behind the screen, pressing his binding fabric against his chest, the ends falling at his sides. “My mother often helps with this, but I do think it bothers her sometimes. By that, I only mean she thinks it hurts me.”
Arwen circles behind him and takes the ends of the cloth. Small hooks on one end are made to fit into eyes on the other side. “And does it?”
Estel takes a deep breath in as she hooks the first catch. “No,” he says. “There is only some slight soreness at the end of the day. It is something of a nusiance, though.”
She finishes hooking the band, having to exert some pressure in pulling it closed, and Estel twists his torso a few times, raising and lowering his arms to ensure it’s well-placed.
“Thank you,” he says, bowing, and retreats behind his screen again to dress. Arwen has to grin at this redundant reinstatement of modesty.
He comes out from the screen dressed more formally than she has yet seen him: high-quality trousers and tunic, a light cape across his shoulders reminiscent of her own shall. He plaits his hair easily, and pulls on a pair of fine leather boots.
“I recognize that make,” Arwen says, catching sight of the mark on the side of the leather. “Orodben?”
“An early birthday gift,” Estel said. “They will last me for my lifetime.”
“When is your birthday?” Arwen asks. Birthday celebrations are much more important to Men than Elves, she knows.
“Two weeks hence,” Estel says. “I turn twenty.” He offers her his arm, and she takes it, though he has to crane up a bit and she stretch down.
“I will have to find you a suitable gift,” Arwen sasy. “Twenty is a significant birthday for Men.”
“Your company is the greatest gift I could ever receive,” proclaims Estel, and she, astonishingly, feels her face heat.
They collect Estel’s mother, who graces her with a distant smile, and Arwen hands Estel off so his mother might take his arm. They stroll through the east garden of Imladris, taking frequent stops for Gilraen to pluck a bloom here and there, slowly collecting a bouquet. She tells Arwen about little things she has missed in her absence, interspersed with assurances of how grateful she and Estel are to her father, how kind Elrond was to take them in.
Arwen nods along, slightly discomfited by this obsequence. But Estel catches this mood, and only shakes his head slightly.
Later, when Gilraen returns to her room to replace yesterday’s bouquet with this morning’s, Estel draws her aside. “Please don’t think less of her,” he murmurs, looking out down the long, pillared hall. “Her mind often falls into the same patterns. She has known great pain and loss.”
“Of course,” Arwen says, understanding. “It matters not. She is lovely.”
Estel beams at her. “I’m glad you think so.”
The days pass in a manner Arwen is unused to. Days, weeks, months—to Elves, they pass at a steady rate, one more or less indistinguishable from the rest, unless something of significance happens. Time is measured by seasons passing, one to the next in the eternal rhythm of the earth.
But these two weeks Arwen has been back at Imladris … it is different, and she cannot delude herself that it is not because of Estel. She rises in the mornings eager to see him. The hours they spend together both stretch on, and yet come to an end far too quickly. A moment with Estel is, somehow, more precious than a month sliding by at a normal pace. She finds herself longing for time to slow for the first time in her life—for Estel’s twenty years may be a blink to her, but Men lead frighteningly short lives.
They swim in the pool every day, or near enough to it. Arwen has never swum with anyone before, save as a child. Once she began to grow—and, more importantly, began to try to conceal the body she was born with—any nakedness was out of the question.
But Estel tempts her to the spring with a picnic basket and wine, and strips out of his clothes right there, diving into the spring without a stitch of discomfort.
He rises up, hair sticking to his face, and calls to her: “Join me!”
Her hands flutter at her collar. “I …” She presses her hair to her head, soothing herself with the long fall of it. “Estel, I have a man’s body.”
He flips his hair. “And I a woman’s. Does that upset you?”
“No, of course not,” she says.
“I will see you no differently,” he proclaims. “Don’t worry—I swim with your brothers all the time.”
Huffing, she bids him turn around, and she quickly strips off her dress and hurries into the water, relaxing only when she is submerged to her neck.
“Okay,” she calls, nervous.
Estel beams at her, swims over and tucks a water-flower into her hair. “Race you to the other side,” he challenges.
She beats him on every lap. And by the time two hours have passed, they are sunbathing atop a boulder, not a stitch on them. For the first time since she was very young indeed, Arwen feels no shame in her naked form. The man beside her, idly telling stories of being raised by her father, leaves no room for it.
And that is another thing—Estel is the darling of Imladris. Of course her father raised him, her brothers dote on him, but all the Elves of Rivendell seem enamored of the young Man. Wherever she walks with Estel at her side, she is offered stories of his childhood in the Last Homely House. Her favorite baker sends them off with two loaves of bread and a tale of small Estel bartering for a fresh loaf with a river stone he found. The baker keeps the stone on the windowsill to this day. She visits a tailor who gleefully recounts how Estel commissioned a dress for his mother, choosing a different color for every fabric, resulting in a monstrosity that Gilraen wears on her birthday every year.
How she wishes she had been here for Estel’s childhood. Everyone knows him in a way she never will, with a fondness that is rare for Elves to show to other races.
Estel has made them all gentler—and he has made them all understand, somehow, in a way she never could.
“Lady Arwen,” says Findel, her dressmaker. “I have something new for you to try.” She passes Arwen a dress. “There is padding in the bust, here, to create a feminine figure. Try it on.”
Astonished, Arwen changes into the dress. It is cleverly sewn and does not gape from her skin. In all previous trips to the dressmaker, she has had dresses altered or taken in so they fall flat against her chest.
Findel looks at her eagerly, and Arwen gives her an honest, astonished smile. “It’s wonderful.”
Findel nods. “Estel gave me the idea, in the other direction. He came in with your brothers and asked if I could make clothes to change his silhouette.”
Arwen leaves with the dress, promising to return with more to be altered in the coming days.
She doesn’t quite understand the feelings bubbling in her, and doesn’t quite like those that she understands. Gratefulness, yes—Estel has changed things here, and in doing so, has made it easier for her. And yet there is also an ugly, burbling anger. Arwen is more than two and a half thousand years old. She was raised here, too. She has been this way since she matured. And yet no Elf has ever offered these concessions to her as eagerly as they do Estel, a mortal Man.
Estel’s brash confidence is so easily explained now. He has grown among those who only adore him, who only support him. If Estel says he is a man, then all the Elves of Imladris bend over to make it so.
Arwen was adored, by her father above all. But she was not accepted in this unthinking, delighted way. Perhaps it is because Estel was such a novelty, a mortal child among Elves. But Arwen cannot help but think it was something intrinsic to her that made it so much harder for others to accept.
The day after the dressmaker, Estel finds her on the highest peak overlooking Imladris. She set off early in the morning, before the birds were awake, and climbed to watch the sunrise. The changing temperature does not affect her. She lets the cool dawn pass to warm morning silently, letting her thoughts drift off in the wind, her feet hanging over the cliff-side into thin air.
She hears Estel as he makes his way to her, but does not turn. Does not look at him as he settles beside her, legs dangling, casual in the face of the overlook. Is there nothing that scares this creature? He is impossible.
They sit in silence for a long time, listening to bird and insect song.
“It’s not as you think,” Estel finally says, looking out over the vista.
“Oh?” Arwen says bitterly. “And you know my thoughts?”
Estel looks down at his lap. “I can guess at them. You wonder why they accept me so easily, as they never did you.”
She makes a short, cut-off scoff. She doesn’t want to feel this way. She can’t help it.
“But you have it backwards,” says Estel quietly. “I would never have had it so easy if you hadn’t come first.”
She contemplates this for a moment, and then finally turns to look at him. His eyes are deep and warm.
“I owe this all to you,” he says. “Because they loved you enough to learn hard lessons the first time, they already knew what to do with me. It’s not that they love me more—it’s that they loved you first.”
Arwen twines her fingers together. “Really?”
Estel nods. “I’ll tell you a story. When I was six or seven, I told mother—I didn’t know how to express it, you understand. So all I could say was that I didn’t want to be me. ‘I don’t want to be me!’ I would cry to her. I hid from my baths, from swimming lessons, I would refuse to change my clothes for days and days on end, until mother held me down to do it. She couldn’t understand what was happening.”
Estel laughs gently, not a bitter sound, but a loving one. Arwen stares at his face, amused and melancholy in turns as he speaks. “She finally went to Elrond. And Elrond, well, he came right to my room. I was hiding in my closet because I knew I’d upset mother. He got down onto his knees and crawled right into the closet, and he said, ‘Estel, if you were a boy, would you want to be yourself?’”
“He never went into a closet,” Arwen says, disbelieving.
“He did,” Estel swears. “And he stayed there for an hour or so with me. He told me that if I came out of the closet and took a bath, I could be a boy. I made him swear it over and over, and he did every time. And later, of course, he told me about you. I always understood that he only knew how to take care of me because he had raised you.”
Arwen laughs, shaking her head slightly. She loves her father so much.
“Here,” Estel says, and hands her a handkerchief. She hadn’t realized she was crying, but she is. Hastily, she blots her tears, blinking furiously.
“So please don’t be mad,” Estel says. “They don’t love me more than you. They just didn’t know how to until you taught them.”
Arwen laughs again, wetly. “I wish I didn’t have to teach them, still.”
“I wish that too,” Estel says, and leans his head against her shoulder. She leans her head on his and closes her eyes. Estel starts to sing.
Estel’s twentieth birthday arrives, and with it Elrond’s birthday present.
“Bilbo!” Estel exclaims, when he and Arwen arrive to breakfast.
Bilbo Baggins is seated at the breakfast table, surrounded by a quantity of food only a hobbit can consume. He rises to greet Estel, and Estel bends to embrace him, nearly luminescent with happiness.
“Happy Birthday, my boy,” Bilbo says. “Happy Birthday indeed. Twenty, now, twenty. Not quite of age for a Hobbit, but truly a man among Men now, indeed.”
“Yes,” agrees Estel. “I’m still waiting for the beard, though.”
Bilbog guffaws, and Arwen can’t help but laugh with him. It draws Bilbo’s attention, and his eyes light up.
“Arwen Undómiel!” he cries. “Why, I never expected to see you today!”
She kneels to embrace him. “Hello, Master Baggins,” she says. “I only arrived two weeks past.”
“Perfect timing for Estel’s birthday party,” Bilbo says. “I suspected you two would be fast friends. Was I right?”
“As always,” Arwen says. “Don’t let us take you away from your breakfast, Master Baggins.”
“Bilbo, lass, Bilbo,” he says. “And don’t be silly; this is second breakfast already. Won’t you have one of these lovely buttered scones?”
They tuck in, and Estel bothers BIlbo into switching back to Westron. “I need the practice,” he urges. “I only use it when alone with my mother.”
“Ah, but I need the practice at Sindarin,” Bilbo chides, and Arwen smiles at the slide of his voice between languages, his Westron now Sindarin-accented, oddly light for the Hobbit dialect. “After all, I have only my books to practice with, and Gandalf when he spares me a visit.”
“Have you seen him of late?” asks Arwen. “Might he arrive for Estel’s celebration?”
Bilbo shrugs. “Who can know the whims of a wizard? He does enjoy a party. But I have not seen him in the Shire for some two years now.”
“I’ve never met Mithrandir,” says Estel. “Only heard stories of his adventures.”
“Ah, you’ll meet him one day,” says Bilbo, pouring them cups of strong tea without being asked. “He’s always turning up when you least expect him, Gandalf.”
And that is true enough.
Elrond arrives, and Gilraen, and Elladan and Elohir, full of birthday wishes for Estel. Twenty years have apparently given them plenty of time to get a feel for the custom of celebration, and they have a day planned, much to Estel’s bright-faced pleasure.
They journey to one of the glades of Imladris—close enough that Gilraen can easily accompany them—where a troupe of Elves wait with instruments. They put on a performance, part music and part acrobatics, in celebration of Estel. There is also a picnic, insisted upon by Bilbo, with Hobbit staples of picnicking food.
Estel, naturally, is not content to watch and appreciate. Within ten minutes he is amid the performers, flipping and tumbling and even begging the flute off the flautist and leading several songs.
Gilraen sits on a blanket Elohir brought for her, smiling in her distant way, eyes not quite tracking the flips of the acrobats. Arwen settles next to her, putting her hands in her lap. “You must be very proud,” she says.
Gilraen nods, watching Estel somersault. “He reminds me of his father so.”
Gilraen. Arwen treats her as she would any treasured guest of Imladris, any beloved of Estel, but she also disturbs her. She loves her son, but Elrond is more his parent than she. Gilraen is a woman wrung dry by pain and tragedy.
She is the kind of woman Arwen is terrified of becoming.
Before Arwen’s thoughts can sweep her into melancholy, Estel is there. He’s breathing hard from his exertions, face flushed, loose strands of hair sticking to his forehead. He holds out his hand to Arwen. “Dance with me?”
She looks up at him, this young Man haloed by the sunlight, warm skin gleaming, white teeth bared in a bold smile. He is only twenty, she over two millennia. And yet the distance between their hands, closing as she reaches for him, trembles with a vibrancy of life she has never known.
This is no slow dance in the evening. At the sight of her acquiescence, the musicians pick up the pace even faster, and Estel leads Arwen into a quick and light-footed dance of the kind Hobbits favor, both of them whirling around and around each other, laughter pulled out of them like another step in the dance. When the music slows and stops, they stand in the center of the glad, hands clutching each others’, helplessly laughing.
She feels her father’s gaze upon her, but does not turn. She cannot look away from Estel.
It is nearing midnight on Estel’s birthday, and she has still not given him his present. This is because he disappeared with her father some hours earlier, and since then she has seen neither hide nor hair of him.
Bilbo and Gilraen went to bed long ago, after sitting by the fire while Bilbo told her story after story. Elladan and Elohir stayed up with her a while longer, and then retired too.
But where on earth is Estel?
Something is wrong, her intuition says. She remembers her father watching them dance and wonders if she has ruined something—if Estel has been turned from beloved foster son into a threat to Elrond's daughter’s immortality. He has always been so protective of her, but she cannot truly convince herself that he would turn on Estel because of a dance.
She makes herself think rationally. Estel is only a Man, and cannot hide from an Elf forever. She begins moving from one hall to the next, checking his rooms first, then Gilraen’s, before moving on. The feast hall is empty, as is the meeting hall. The kitchens, the bathing chambers, the herb garden, all empty.
She finds him in the Hall of Fire.
She had only resolved to glance in quickly—after all, it is the summer, and too hot to be in this grand room where a fire perpetually breathes. But there is Estel’s unmistakable silhouette, kneeling in front of the fire, flames throwing his shadow long and flickering across the ground.
Dread pools in her stomach, but she enters the hall. She has only fond memories of it: a place where stories are told and songs sung, especially during the winter. But now there is a creeping fear blanketing the walls.
Estel does not so much as twitch at the slight sound of her footsteps on the floor.
She stops by his side, looks down at his kneeling form. His head is bent; his hair falling across his shoulders, into his face.
Lying across his knees on a strip of cloth are two broken halves of a sword.
She knows that sword.
How could she not, when the heirs of Elendil have been harbored at Imladris since Anarath, first Lord of the Dúnedain? Her father is the sword’s keeper, ever passing it to the next of the line. The line that ended with Arathorn II, who died heirless.
“Narsil,” she says, naming the ancient blade, and the firelight trembles over its gleaming surface.
Estel looks up at her at last, and his eyes are red-rimmed and deep as the pool in the forest. “Did you know?” he asks her. “Who my father was?”
She frowns, and carefully kneels down beside him. “No. Who?”
Estel turns his gaze back to the sword-shards on his lap. “He was Arathorn II. Fifteenth Chieftain of the Dúnedain of the North. Heir of Isildur, and last of that line. For upon his death, he had only a daughter.”
The air turns still and silent. Arwen stares from Narsil to Estel’s face, shocked to her very core.
It is common knowledge that the line of Elendil was broken with Arathorn II. No one, then, must know that Gilraen is his widow, that Estel is his … son.
“My father named me Fíriel,” Estel says, voice low and thoughtful. “After the mother of the first Dúnedain Chieftain. Elrond gave me the name Estel when I was brought to him: a daughter, not an heir.”
Estel looked up at her, his eyes blazing in the firelight. “But I am not a daughter,” he said fiercely. “And so Elrond has given me a choice.”
He is so alive; he burns like the fire in the hall. Arwen can feel every movement of his body through the air between them. “A choice?” she echoes.
“Arathorn II died without a son,” Estel says. “Yet he has one. If I so choose, his mantle is mine.” He grips the pommel of Narsil, hand tight around it. “I am the last scion of the house of Elendil. I could be Isildur’s heir. I could be the sixteenth Chieftain of the Northern Dúnedain. I could be the rightful king of Arnor and Gondor.”
“You would have a great destiny,” Arwen whispers. Dread and excitement, each as strong as the other, churn in her stomach. “Great honor would hang on your shoulders.”
“And they would be as equally burdened,” Estel says, his voice low and harsh, the crackle of the fire. “No more would I be Estel, son of Gilraen, foster son of Elrond. No more could I live carefree, sheltered at Imladris.” He turns to her suddenly, so that they are knee to knee, Narsil resting between them.
Estel takes her hands. “Bright Evenstar,” he begs, eyes wide and bright, “you see with the wisdom of the immortals; give me council. What should I do?”
His hands are soft and warm in hers. Her thoughts rise to her throat, hasty, and she has to bite them back. Do not pick this burden up! she longs to shout. Remain Estel, forever; remain the youth who plays and dances. Remain my friend.
But forever means nothing to a Man.
Even if he should do as she wishes, stay in Imladris and be bright and joyful, he would only do so for twice the lifespan of a common Man. Two hundred years. A blink.
And Arwen may live a sheltered life in the bosoms of her father and grandmother, but she is millenia old, and she has seen the growth of darkness across middle earth. The darkness that took her own mother, that makes her father clutch her so tight. Oh, the Enemy is indeed rising, and rising fast, and the truth is—
An heir of Isildur would be boon indeed in this burgeoning war.
She can see it plain as day. Estel, who everyone adores, helplessly. Estel, a leader of Men, of Elves, of anyone who glimpses his shining face. If anyone could raise Arnor and reclaim Gondor, could unite the Dúnedain under common cause, it is him.
Estel bows her head, awaits her judgment.
“I cannot choose for you,” she tells him gravely. “But I see the turning of this world to the darkness, Estel. And my father will not always be able to keep it from the valleys of Imladris. Sooner than not, none of us will have a choice. So make yours well.”
Estel nods slowly. He releases her hands, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a ring.
The Ring of Barahir, Arwen knows. Of the oldest heirlooms remaining on Middle-earth. She has seen it on every Dúnedain Lord she has ever met.
Estel holds it up to the light. Twin serpents with jade eyes coil below a crown of golden flowers. “Elendil’s ring,” Estel murmurs. “And before him, some ways back, Beren’s.”
Arwen starts at the name of her distant ancestor, the first Man to marry an Elf, Lúthien. She supposes that she and Estel, if he is indeed Elendil’s heir, could both trace their ancestry back to this first remarkable union, she much easier than he.
Estel slides the ring onto his left middle finger.
Arwen feels that something should happen—the fire should tremble, thunder should boom, something to mark the moment that Isildur’s heir chose his fate. But there is only Estel and Arwen in the Hall of Fire, a broken sword between them, and Estel’s eyes blazing like torches.
“I am the heir of Isildur and Elendil,” Estel says, power and fate in his voice. “It is my destiny to lead the Dúnedain, to unite the two kingdoms, to reforge the sword that was broken, and to set myself against the darkness of the Enemy in all that I do. I am Aragorn II.”
Arwen clasps his hands and bows her head over them, witnessing this moment, so that it might be witnessed.
The charge in the air fades. Estel tugs her hands slightly, and he is smiling, again that mischievous and bright youth. She is glad to see it. “But my lady can still call me Estel,” he whispers.