Reviews (24)

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They must have been so relieved to get out of that Stone City and be in the middle of a bit of green. Their situation is such that they would have been friends, I think. Despite their differences and age gaps and vastly different experience. Arwen and Eowyn are both outsiders. Aristocratic outsiders who doubtless know how to command difficult households, true - but they are natural allies in the war against lip-curling ladies. (A war neither Aragorn nor Faramir is equipped to fight.) I hope they spend many restful days in Ithilien. And Legolas can join the party, if he wants! Thank you, Linda. Glad you enjoyed the frivolity.

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I reckon Ithilien must have been a haven for Aragorn and Arwen. Somewhere they could drop the formality and wallow in a bit of being themselves. Under guard, certainly, but not under constant critical watch. I enjoyed writing a bit of Eowyn and Arwen. So very different in many ways - yet both outsiders and thrown together in circumstances that doubtless made them staunch allies. Thank you, perelleth.

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Thank you, harrowcat! Faramir was my favourite character when I first read LotR. He has such sterling qualities - it's good to see him once recognition sets in! I suspect he will have managed a willing Shieldmaiden quite competently. Possibly, too, a not-always-aware-of-it king. I can see him working in tandem with Arwen to get Aragorn some time away from his desk to let him play.

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They would have to seize every available moment for being themselves - because I think their state personae would weigh them down. And they are too duty driven to escape their fate, even here! I'm sure there would be plots, too - until people got used to the change and realised that the new regime was unified and determined. Faramir is young compared to Aragorn ... who was around in Gondor at the time of baby Boromir - but he is, well, the M-e equivalent of the Renaissance man. One who would be able to be friends with a 90-year old elf-reared Ranger. I don't think Denethor would have accepted Aragorn willingly. If at all. The change in government required Denethor's death. Shame in a way, because he had all the struggle to keep Gondor going and all the unpopular stuff - like taxes and army levies and so on - to sort out ... all so that the king could return in a blaze of gallant, battle-inspired glory. Still Aragorn is no Richard the Lionheart - dim-witted Hollywood king par excellence, gaining his reputation mainly by buzzing off and leaving the work to others.

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I'm glad you liked it! I haven't really thought in too much depth about the conspiracy - I'm just sure there would have been several before certain people became accustomed to the new regime! It would be rather good to see the four of them at Dol Amroth, wouldn't it ... no promises, though. I'm not sure whether the displays of affection would be quite so public in front of the disapproving Lords of Gondor and their even more disapproving Ladies. These four are quite self-disciplined (Eowyn perhaps less ... she's younger and more obviously emotional) and they could certainly control themselves in public. But I suspect the warmth of their feelings for each other would show even during the most formal of occasions. Two wet rangers - in those white shirts that cling and become see-through when wet ... tight breeches ... Nice images, huh! Good thing the sun was nice and warm to dry them off.

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A huge change - and much that went with it wouldn't, I would have thought, been much to most of their liking. Must have taken a decade, at least, before all the round pegs began to feel at home in their square holes and they began to feel at home.

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You know how, sometimes, someone makes a comment and that little floodgate in the brain opens and lets free a gush of words? Well ... An over-abundance of meckinock-inspired stories for 2007, it would seem. I would love to have the King and Queen of Gondor and the Prince and Princess of Ithilien go skinny-dipping together ... but there's just this little brake that keeps telling me that they just wouldn't. Not if they were surrounded by watching guards. Not if they might suddenly need to fight off attackers. They're too self-disciplined and too aware of how people would react. But, get them on that private cove below the castle at Dol Amroth and you wouldn't be able to stop them. It is fascinating that only one of them is truly at home there - and has been raised to rule Gondor (if only as the spare) - although the other three have qualities that make up for the lack.

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They had to trust each other, these four - although I suspect it was a while before Eowyn began to relax in Arwen's company. In fact, pregnancy might well be the thing that would bond the two of them. And I daresay it won't take Arwen too long to start a family. I'm sure she and Aragorn are working on it. They are in a remarkable situation, really. Three outsiders and a second son, and together they are putting in place the system that will establish a new age. And they won't have been liked. Once the glory passed - and that doesn't take long - all the niggling resentments would have swirled round them like autumn leaves, gathering in little heaps of rotting leaf litter and fermenting like compost. There are bound to have been conspiracies! Of course, Aragorn was king for a long time - after a few decades he will have become the status quo and the up and coming lordlings will have forgotten there was ever a world without him. Thank you, Redheredh. This was a very pleasant piece to write - and I'm glad you liked it.

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The story could grow, I suspect. It doesn't show signs of wanting to at the moment, but that's nothing to go by! But envisaging a trial ... Oh dear, that would involve really working on getting a much better grasp of the unseen side of Gondorian law and politics. Thank you, Fiondil. It was fun to write this - I do feel that the ... peculiarities of their situation would have made them much closer allies than would usually be the case for people in their positions. Three outsiders and a second son. Three warriors and an elf. Three well-educated people and the White Lady. Three accustomed to managing courts and a king used to being alone. Lots of generalisations. Their bonds are strong enough, I think, to make them easy in each other's company.

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No, they can never get away from it - never be free. I think Eowyn's dread of a cage must be echoed by Aragorn's. His cage is bigger - but the bars are thicker. Guards and courtiers and place-seeker - and virtually no-one left to whom they are just themselves. They would have mattered very much to each other, I think, because they share something that is beyond the handcuffs of position. And they would make a great team. Anyone who tries to stand against them is a fool. Unfortunately, there are likely to be a good few fools in the years between the end of the glory-days and the beginning of the establishment of Elessar's customs.

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Than you, LBJ! There's not a lot of Eomer, but somehow I could just see him saying this! And I can just see Faramir's response, too. Anyone who survived Denethor and had Boromir as his big brother is not going to be easily intimidated. Not even by the King of the Mark. I suspect Faramir is only too aware, too - if too polite ever to mention it - that Eomer has a soft heart, especially where his little sister is concerned. Not to mention that if he isn't yet married to Faramir's cousin, he soon will be. I'm glad you enjoyed the story, LBJ. I could almost feel myself basking in the sun!

Author's reply

Thank you, Linda. There isn't any more planned at present - but I find that sometimes a one-off story will start a whole train of thought that leads to more. So maybe. Men ... and competition! They couldn't resist the opportunity to compare their rangering skills. But I don't think they really wanted the bother of catching anything. Not this day. And Arwen - if elves know the begetting day of their offspring, I think she would be aware of pregnancy in others. Perhaps before they could be sure themselves. And that she would be uncertain about her own ability to conceive and raise children. After all, as Eowyn mused when I was last thinking about them ... 'Maybe looking perfect did not mean that you felt perfect.'

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Once the initial glory wore off - which probably didn't take long - there will have been a lot of people in Gondorian society deciding that they weren't keen on this influx of people from outside sitting at the very top of the social and political pile. The country people - farmers and peasants - probably will have remained more in love with the new regime ... as long as taxes didn't go up and the levy of soldiers for the army reduced ... because the land was safer from invasion. The merchant classes - travel was easier and the markets increased. More money around. They would mostly have been quite happy. But those who had ruled. Those with privileges. Now that's a different matter! Both Arwen and Eowyn are diluting the bloodlines of Numenor - in a way. Speaking of which ... I do witter on in replies at times ... I was wondering the other day about just how many people of pure Numenorean blood made it back to Middle-earth when Numenor foundered, and how many were already there. I can't imagine the seven ships managed to squeeze in more than a thousand each (probably far fewer) ... then we have something like 39 generations to produce Aragorn, who is supposed to be pure-blooded. And various Gondorian families who are close to pure-blooded. They must have been so interbred! Virtually every Northern Dunedan must have been able to trace his bloodlines back to Elendil. All four are very happy to be outside - away from the city and its inhabitants. But they know their duty! I think both Faramir and Aragorn could have coped with them all in the water - I don't know about the guards, though. And peace is too recent to have the guards too far away.

Author's reply

Thank you, ellie. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was fun to write - and I could almost feel the warmth of the sun. These four need each other I think. Arwen and Eowyn as much as Aragorn and Faramir. Faramir is the only real insider in Gondor - and I can just imagine how delighted the ladies of Gondor were to lose two matrimonial prizes to outsiders!

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Eowyn knows how to be a perfect lady ... in Rohirric terms. She just doesn't like snobbish, patronising, soft, vicious-tongued harpies who look on her inferior blood as a disgraceful diminution of the house of the Stewards. She hasn't given a single one of them a black eye ... yet. I'm glad you liked it, Lindelea! I think these four make good allies - they are all intelligent and strong - and, perhaps most importantly, work for the greater good. I particularly enjoy fleshing out Arwen and Eowyn, really - because they are under-exposed characters. I haven't, at the moment, any plans for taking the story further - but it might well happen. Sometimes, I find, a story will take on a life of its own and demand more screen time. I hope you're feeling better.

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Thank you, elliska! I reckon Arwen and Eowyn are two greatly underused characters (because they're not male, mainly) and I am tempted to write more of them. I haven't at the moment got any more on the boil with this - but it doesn't mean that I won't. Sometimes I find stories just ferment for a while and then decide to fountain up into something much bigger. I do think Aragorn establishing himself as the ruler of Gondor - not just being crowned as king ... that was the easy bit - would have been difficult and filled with all sorts of traps along the way. Lots of people wouldn't have been keen - dreading change or wanting change that favoured them over everyone else ... You know the sort of thing! Political intrigue and complex courts are definitely among your specialities - you write them brilliantly. The common people probably would have appreciated him more - as long as taxes didn't go up - because Aragorn and the absence of war in Gondor came together. Of course there would still have been farmboys needed for the army to fight off the hungry nations beyond the borders. The merchants ... improved trading opportunities. But the Lords ... and Ladies of Gondor. It would have taken a while to win them. Although Aragorn lived long enough to see the current crop buried and have their grandsons and great-grandsons grow up under his regime. Sometimes, the best way to establish a new government is to outlive all your opponents - and Aragorn certainly managed that.

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I think Arwen would have done her best to get Aragorn out of the city as often as she could. A Ranger imprisoned in embroidered velvet and sat on a throne wouldn't be a happy Ranger. (Even if he knew it was his duty!) But those days won't have come anywhere near often enough for the pair of them. I haven't got any more planned at the moment - although that doesn't mean more won't appear. When it's good and ready! I'm glad you liked it, BC.

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There isn't currently a plan to go further - but that doesn't mean there won't be more. Once the voices start talking, they often insist on imparting rather more than I thought they were going to! I do think the exhilaration that greeted the King's return wouldn't have lasted indefinitely. Marrying an elf wouldn't have helped ... in some ways - although marrying into any of the dynasties of the Lords of Gondor would also have caused problems by aligning him to one house or other. But there would have been a lot of people resisting any effort at change and others agitating for more - and a lot of greedy people watching carefully to exploit all and sundry. Poor Aragorn! His childhood in Imladris might have helped, and his experience as Thorongil will have enhanced his spidey-senses of distrust, but he could well have ended up out of his depth here. But Arwen is subtle, and Faramir is intelligent and knows Gondor, while Eowyn is honest and straightforward. Imrahil, too, is - to my mind - wily and experienced. Aragorn has good allies. But it wouldn't have been easy. By the time Faramir died, Aragorn WAS the status quo - and I daresay Eldarion inherited a stable Gondor, even if he still had trouble with the neighbours. Political machinations are fun, really. And all the peoples of Gondor are people. I like my hobbits intelligent and adult and dealing with Big People on equal terms! One day, I'm going to have to give into temptation to find out more about dwarven society and write more Dwarf.

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Thank you, Nessa! I am flattered and so pleased that you like my stories enough to save them. I love writing in Tolkien's world because it is such a complex place with so much potential and so many stories that were hinted at, but never written. Moreover, every time you step sideways and look at events through another pair of eyes, you see a different picture - and that makes it so exciting to play here. Complex characters, complex motivations - but, over all of them, a sense of honour and morality and a deep respect for the rights of others.

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Thank you! Aragorn's reign began in triumph - but it doesn't take long for people to start finding fault. Things changed - things not changed - people in power and those who want to be. I suspect he - and Faramir - might have found it more difficult to manage Gondor than Harad ... at least until people began to have a vested interest in maintaining the kingdom as the status quo. Glad you liked it!

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Frivolous is fun - somehow I can feel their delight in the warmth of the sun and the pleasure of being away from the big city. I do feel that after a few weeks of total excitement and glory, there would have been a reaction - and Gondor was a very old society with a very good opinion of itself and its glory. While Faramir would have been open to change, I suspect there would have been very many people of power who began to question the right of the new regime to exist. And Aragorn won't have imposed his presence with an iron fist - so not that kind of man. Sequel? Never say never ... Nothing planned at the moment, but once the voices start talking, there's no knowing what might happen!

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M'mm, yes. Wet Aragorn and Faramir is rather fun to imagine! And I can see that the two men wouldn't exactly be keen on seeing their ladies disport themselves in the water under the eyes of their guards! Different rules apply. It was fun to write something that was simply lazing about in the sun and being friends. I don't think the snooty highborn ladies would like either Eowyn or Arwen. Although they would probably be pretty cautious about showing their dislike. If they were sensible. Could make an interesting story - an all-female one, too, which would be a very interesting exercise!

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Thank you! Oh dear - there seems to be a trend of thought that says I can't leave this here!! I haven't got anything planned at the moment - but that doesn't mean I won't. Never say never, as James Bond put it. This was fun and relaxed and full of sunshine and companionship. A pleasure to write.

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Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it.