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With Hope  by AfterEver

*******

Yestereve they had returned, Elrond's sons and hers. Telmoth came to find Gilraen in the storehouses where she tallied well into night, and told her of this.

"Elrond has revealed all, lady," said the Elf lastly.

Gilraen nodded and continued her work, more relieved that the three would forego the dining hall in favor of private rest and simple fare. Once finished, she retired late intending to rise late and break fast late, reuniting with her son somewhere along the way.

Not until the next day did the full significance of Telmoth's revelation dawn upon her, and she never did find Estel quite as expected. For at the breakfast table they said he just left, and at the stables they said he never came, and in the end she should have known where best to find one Lord in the house of another.

He stood in the archway of Elrond's hall and could easily have palmed the apex with extended arm. Stretched on the balls of her feet, Gilraen could barely reach a fingertip that far. And he was smiling happy as he looked out upon the day, taking in a breath of its air so deep and full it seemed as though he swelled with life itself. He let it go in a sigh, while a look of peace came into his face and did not leave.

Their eyes met and he came with full strides on legs that would grow longer still, and stronger. Older. For a moment all joy left Gilraen. The further you go from this place and the longer you stay gone the older you will grow and the sooner. The moment passed, joy returned. Her son stood before her a man.

When last they had parted, she needed not to bend her neck quite so steeply to meet his eyes. "Well, may I call you as I named you, finally?"

He laughed, saying, "I would be honored!" Then he bowed low into kneeling, and taking her hand kissed it and placed it against his temple. "Behold thy son who loves thee, and is pleased to greet thee proper for the first time, my mother, Gilraen wife of Arathorn." Looking up, jesting replaced his formality. "Unless you have your own secret identity to reveal."

"None other than that you have spoken already, Aragorn." With her free hand, she caressed his face, the unkempt beard prickling just as Arathorn's always had. He covered her hand with his own, the ring of Barahir gleaming in the sunlight, and drew himself up to his full height, if not yet his fullest. "You are your father's son," she said fondly. "Welcome home."

Though he made the barest flinch at that, glancing back towards the hall where Elrond remained within, his mood was undimmed. There together they spoke a while in the courtyard, until the sun began its slow sinking towards the horizon. Aragorn declined an offer to sit inside and talk for longer.

"I can barely stand in one place as it is. To sit me down now I think would require rope. With weights attached. And the chair nailed to a wall." He laughed at himself while Gilraen tried not to. "No, I shall take me for a walk in these fair woods while some sunlight lasts."

After kissing her brow, he trotted along his way, and never saw her standing conflicted with a strange reservation at his parting words, before growing cold and going inside.

***

"It is some form of Elf-magic." Gilraen went on without heeding the looks given her or those deliberately averted. "What keeps this valley ageless and unchanged, safe and protected. It must be some form of Elf-magic."

Elrohir gave a small shrug against the obvious tenseness of his frame. His focus left her as he idly spun the ring around his thumb. "I could not say."

"I know of the Three."

His hands stilled, and this time his shrug came more as a twist. Estel as a boy had occasionally done similarly, and when asked why, explained that he tried to get out of his skin that way. By the window, Elladan had not moved, though if he had lost interest, Gilraen would have lost his attendance.

"Come now, the both of you. If Elrond worried that I might learn as much, surely those particular texts would not have been among the rest for all these years."

Elrohir sat back with a smile and spoke without the restraint of before, "Ah, but whatever they may contain, my father cannot withhold books, never has. It is against his very nature to do so, I believe. Is that not interesting?"

"Not as interesting as magic rings."

Whirled at once, Elladan gave a sharp hiss for silence.

Gravely, his brother said, "Speak not of such things." Gilraen did her best not to smile, and may have appeared stricken thereby; for she had not been certain before then whether the Three were in fact rings, rather suspecting people, even Elrond himself.

Elrohir leaned across the table, taking her hands and saying softer, "It is not a subject for plain conversation, in these days."

"Please excuse me, I shall do as you advise." She waited that his bearing returned at ease before raising his left hand, thumb turned up. "If this too is one of those things not to be named, what might its talent be?"

Elrohir bowed his head with a groan. "It compels curious women to ask difficult questions on a regular basis."

"She asked if it were magic, not cursed," injected Elladan.

"And I asked your brother," said Gilraen, struggling to examine Elrohir's ring despite him shaking with laughter.

Elladan sniffed. "Well, I see that my welcome has expired. Good day."

Yet Gilraen saw him still straightening his face as he passed by the table. Elrohir too remained in good spirits after that initial warning. But they never spoke again on the subject.

***

Rings. Gilraen had never noticed so many rings. Most of the Elves in the dining hall wore at least one band of gold or silver. They shuffled and chattered amongst themselves, the precious metals glimmering here and there like stray fireflies. When all had seated themselves, her observations were limited to immediate company.

Elladan held a goblet with one unadorned hand as his brother beside him animated the other in the telling of some story; Elrohir himself had only the familiar bronze band; Lindir sitting across from him let not a single finger attend the feast undressed; Telmoth favored pearls, the only in view to have them in place of gems.

Gilraen relieved her cramping neck by considering the other side of the table a while. Glorfindel had no rings, or none that she could see underneath his strange bracelets of delicately linked gold covering the hand and attaching to the middle fingers; Elrond bore a ring of gold upon the first finger of his right hand, though at times it sparkled in the corner of her vision as peculiar for a slender and unjeweled ornament. The oddity kept her attention until she looked up expecting to have been caught at her game; but Elrond watched her son, quiet and intent.

For his part, Aragorn was failing where all others succeeded: not to stare upon the Lady Arwen. She marked the ring of Barahir once again, and unable to attract Aragorn's eye, followed the staggered cups until finding one closest to Arwen, before which her bare hands lay folded upon the table. Just then, the Lady reached aside to touch her father's arm. Gilraen focused forward. Aragorn did likewise and smiled at her quicker than expected of a guiltless man.

She made as small a motion as still noticeable towards Elrond at the head of the table. Since returning not long ago, Arwen had taken her place each supper at his left side. Presently father and daughter inclined over the table corner, dark heads barely touching while they spoke together and sat back smiling. As though the movement of one body, their hands closed the space between them and entwined.

Aragorn faced his mother again, wearing an expression she could not identify. He gave a single nod and his gaze did not find Arwen again that evening. Not until they moved later into the Hall of Fire, where the pattern repeated.

***

"I never spoke with Master Elrond of our talk," said Gilraen, for lack of something better, and instead of mentioning how poorly his adoration of the Lady Arwen had been concealed, poorer week by week.

Aragorn glanced up from his packing, and shaking his head, continued. "Nay mother, I know." After a moment, he laughed with little sound or humor. "That Elrond had been the first person to realize, after myself, I would not doubt. Nay, I have only myself to blame. And fate, mayhap." He sighed, yawned, and shook himself again.

If he slept at all last night, Gilraen would be amazed. He and Elrond had discussed these delicate matters just yesterday, leaving Aragorn nonetheless hopeful of Arwen's eventual hand in marriage, and Gilraen feeling compelled alternately to apologize for his cheek and apologize that Elrond had no say -- but of course he did, and of course Aragorn transgressed. Or not.

She paced the room as she had paced earlier that day in Elrond's study, unable to decide what to say or do, but decidedly unable to take after the Master himself. He seemed content to assuage her worries whilst revealing none of his own before changing the subject entirely.

If the advice of Elrond was to be heeded, naught should be thought of it at present. Gilraen wondered.

Only two years older than Aragorn now, she had wed Arathorn despite the counsel of her father. 'No man's child as yet.' She watched Aragorn, recalling what of his own conversation with Elrond he had related to her. Even now, his features were set as they had molded at the telling: resolute.

"It is not unreasonable, what he asks of you." Aragorn paused to eye her. She tied her shawl in a better knot for the third time. "Concerning the Lady Arwen and such, I mean. At least, I do not think so."

Her son shrugged in response, saying neither yes or no or both; but when passing her to fetch some items from a cabinet, he squeezed her hand, a comfort better than words.

Once all had been made ready, he slowed, as though each movement took an effort of consideration, or courage. He donned his belt after securing the sword, shouldered his pack after gauging its weight, reaching last and slowest for his cloak. Instead, his hand came to rest upon the hilt at his side. It remained there as the other returned his bag to the bed.

"First I shall go unburdened and give my farewells to the household." At the door, he stopped, half turned to where Gilraen remained behind.

Before he could, she spoke, "I only wish for you both to be happy."

He looked full away, then turned full back. "Arwen would know happiness with me." He said so as one who shared a secret of profound truth. His arm circled in a wordless gesture, the spread fingers returning to perch upon the sword hilt. "I know it, however that may be. I know it."

Graceful after years of practice, she nodded without hesitation, acknowledged without agreement, and sent him off promising to wait there for her own goodbye -- all in silent relief for his misunderstanding. Aragorn had not spoken alone from and of the heart, if he alone intended to.

After he left, she sat on the cold bed of his unlived-in room doomed to remain thus, hands clasped under bowed head. "So be it," she said softly to herself, "I only wish for you three to be happy."

***

Gilraen arrived the next morning, finding Elrond in his study as usual, where they exchanged happy greetings, unusual for the effort required. She had forgotten her journal riddled with notes and reminders, as she had in the past. If Elrond noticed, he did not offer her a blank parchment to substitute this time. Preoccupied. Gilraen understood all too well, and did not feel like writing in any case.

After seeming to remember her presence, Elrond sat initially without the volume he had held but not regarded by the window. Retrieving it, returning with it, opening it, he sat shoulder-sunken, shaking his head at the adjacent shelves full of dissimilar bindings. Gilraen inclined to glean the book lying open in his lap, both pages blank under pale hands. Hands she had held and even kissed before, but never recognized their wear, faint veins crossing less vague creases. Examining her own revealed little different.

There they remained, until the noonbells rang, when more out of habit than hunger they arose to attend the midday meal.

*******





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