What's In A Name

Elessar leaned over his table and looked over his war maps. He had just sent another company of soldiers, fresh with supplies to aid Rohan in quashing the enemies advance from the east. Elfwine was carving a small horse with the widdling knife Elessar had given him and looking over the maps. “Father, our soldiers, won’t they have a hard time crossing the marshes with carts and wagons?” he said and pointed toward the large area where the trek would take them cross country. Elessar looked up from what he was looking at and smiled down at his son. “Aye lad, they will,” He said then smiled and tussled the boy’s hair. The boy giggled and Elessar picked him up and tickled his ribs for him. “How’d you get so smart!” He said and they laughed together as he set him down. “Now run along son and find some grand mischief to get into like all boys should!” He said and gave him a loving swat on the bottom to get him started.

Later that evening as he and Nauriel prepared for bed he had a distant, far away look about him as he washed his face in the wash basin. Nauriel was putting a special cream on her hands and arms to help her blood flow. She had improved alot since the poisoning but she still had some healing to do both physically and emotionally. Tonight however it was Elessar that seemed weary and listless and unusually quiet of late.

Nauriel's health was slowly improving from her White Snake Root poisoning which had nearly killed her. She would still become weak and tired more easily and suffered from terrible nightmares, but only Elessar knew that. As the Queen of Gondor she needed to remain strong. She had recently appeared in public for the first time since the poisoning, but was with Elessar and was heavily guarded. Elessar had never talked about what he had gone through during that time and she didn't push him to talk about it. She knew that he had enough on his mind as it was.

That evening Nauriel couldn't help but notice how quiet Elessar was. She knew that this fighting was getting to him emotionally, but she felt that there was something different going on. She finished rubbing the cream into her skin and put away the jar before turning and looking at her beloved husband.

"What's wrong?"

Elessar splashed water over his face. It was still fairly warm and he looked up from the basin and turned to face her. Sometimes this bond between us was damned inconvenient, he thought. He smiled at her but her expression of concern for him did not change. He took up the towel and moved up to sit on the side of the bed next to her. He didn’t speak immediately but after a few moments he just blurted it all out.

“Elfwine is 9 years old now...a good, smart boy. Do you think its time we tell him that we’re not his birth parents?” he asked questioningly as he looked over at her. Even as old as they were Nauriel was still very beautiful. She was still weak and pale from the poisoning but sometimes, when she smiled especially, she seemed hail.

Nauriel did not need the bond between them to see that something was weighing heavily on Elessar's mind. It was painted all over his eyes and evident in his eyes. Feeling tired, she sat down on the bed and after a moment her husband came over and sat down beside her. She looked at him as he began to speak about Elfwine and after a moment she reached over and took his hand into her own. She gave it a comforting squeeze and sighed a little.

"I have had the same thought as of late," she admitted. "He is old enough now to understand and I would rather him not hear it from anyone but us. My fear is that he will think that he is not apart of this family when he is and always has been. I want him to understand that we truly love him as if he were a blood member of this family."

Elessar leaned in toward Nauriel, and audibly took in her scent. Slowly, he shifted his eyes up to her face then leaned in and kissed her lightly on her neck. They hadn’t been ‘together; since before she had been poisoned. He knew she still would need more time but he wanted to let her know that he still needed and wanted her. He presumed she did anyway but he wanted to show her just the same.

“He is a strong-willed boy, at times but it doesn’t change that he deserves to know the truth. A man, regardless of what blood is in his veins, can be a good man. An honest man, a noble man,” Elessar said. In truth he had hoped Eldarion had been ‘more’ than he was. Not that he wasn’t a good man. He had hoped for something greater from him though he’d never say that aloud. In this day and age, good was usually good enough.

“I...worry...about our family as the days of this new age grow long. I hoped...I wished…” He would not say it aloud. Eldarion would be a good king he decided.

Nauriel enjoyed these more private and intimate moments she had with her husband. It was obvious to everyone that they were still deeply in love even after all these years. They didn't always agree and argued at times, but they knew how to compromise. She closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of his lips against her neck and his warm breath against her skin.

"Do not let Eldarion trouble you M'love. He is young still and inexperienced, but that will change with time. You and I lived in a very different world when we were his age and had to mature much faster as a result. He has...made some mistakes, but I feel he learned from them. Calista is a strong woman and will keep him in line I think. He is also a father now. He spends much more time with his family than out in taverns or getting into trouble with his friends. I think we should grant him more responsibilities and see how he grows."

As usual Nauriel spoke sense and just the sound of her voice drew his worries away like a fire does to the cold. How he loved this woman. She had given him everything he had and only asked in return for his love and his loyalty. Such a small price it seemed to him for what he had received.

“So eager were you to come with me that day long ago. You did not even really know who or what I was. And your thirst for adventure took you away from your life. How different our lives would be if you decided to remain in Gehenna,” He said softly as he kissed the bones of her jawline sweetly. He felt her warm breath in his ear and he smiled as he kissed her.

“I won’t say that it was love at first sight but I did feel something when I drew close to you,” he said. “I had made oaths to Arwen who knew by just how we were with one another, that even if she held me to those oaths she’d always have to share me with my love for you,” He added and drew his hand up then slid it just inside her robe to cup over her right breast. It was fairly cool compared to the warmth of his hand. Just feeling her heart beating brought him an unbelievable amount of comfort.

“So many years and just thinking about being with you makes my flesh burn and my heart a bonfire,” he whispered and finally kissed her lips. “Shall we speak to Elfwine together, tomorrow morning?” he said.

Nauriel shivered slightly at her husband's gentle touch. She loved him so much and knew that she would die for him just as she would have died for him in her youth. He made her feel stronger just with his presence and he always believed in her.

"My life would be much lonelier without you M'love and certainly more dull," she whispered back between kisses. "Yes, we will speak to him in the morning, but for now I want to feel your arms around me."

The following morning the couple rose and dressed and took their breakfast in their apartments. Once they had finished and the servants had cleared away the dishes they sent for Elfwine. Nauriel was feeling anxious and nervous, but tried not to let it show. This boy meant the world to her and she hoped that he would continue to see that even after he knew the truth.

Usually Elfwine spent hours with his tutors and on his studies but today, and to his delight, he was given a free day. So rare were free days he wasn’t even certain what he was going to do today. Ride his pony? Go see his sisters or his brother? Climb that really tall tree he had been meaning to climb? His deliberations though were cut short when his nanny had informed him that his parents were expecting him in their apartments. She barely got a chance to get his coat on before he ran out of his rooms and into the palace hall. Panting and smiling excitedly he moved up to the guards. They smiled down at him and opened the door and let him inside. The doors were closed behind him and he tried to calm himself as he moved toward the great room.

The great room was a massive room that could be easily converted into a dining room, lounge or sitting room. It had massive chandeliers that hung down from the ceiling, loungers, tables, chairs and some of the finest pieces of art and historical curiosities known to middle earth. He stopped short however when he saw his mother Nauriel and his father Elessar sitting in their large, high-backed chairs across from a smaller, but similar chair that he knew right away was for him.

As he slowed his steps he furiously tried to recall if he had done anything bad recently but couldn’t come up with anything. He curried his pony, put his toys away and ate his vegetables. Even those icky, round green ones he hated! He stopped when he saw them looking at him and he bowed as he was taught.

“Mother, father, as you have summoned me, so I have come,” he said formally. He couldn’t know what it was that they wanted but something about how they looked at him made him feel...uneasy was the only way he could describe it. “Good morning Elfwine, could we all sit and talk a while?” Elessar asked kindly and gestured to the chair across from them and nearest to Elfine. Yep, it was just like he thought he decided and tried not to grimace as he shifted to sit down on the chair.

As Elfwine entered the room she looked at him and couldn't believe how big he was getting. She felt as if it were just yesterday that she was holding him in her arms in this very room singing to him as he smiled up at her. All of her children had brought her joy, but losing the last one as they had had been extremely traumatic for her, especially knowing that she would never be able to conceive again. But then Elfwine had come into their lives and made her happy again. She couldn't imagine their family without him.

She watched him as he bowed and then sat in the chair across from them. She could tell that he knew something wasn't right and she knew this was probably going to be hard for him.

"I can't believe how big you are getting," she told him with a smile. "You have made your father and I so very happy and we are immensely proud of you. There is something though that we have not yet told you, but we feel that you are old enough now to know the truth." She paused and drew a breath before forcing herself to just say it. "The truth is is that you are not our child by birth. I found you when you were just a few weeks old just outside of the city. Your parents had been killed by raiders and you were barely alive. I made a sling and tucked you under my cloak and close to my body for warmth and rushed you back here to the palace. We did everything we could to locate any kin you might have had, but no one came forward to claim you. And so we decided to adopt you and make you a member of our family."

She decided to pause there and let Elessar speak up if he wished.

Elessar looked over at Nauriel as she spoke and felt, through the bond, how difficult this actually was for her. But even so the bond also carried a sense of resignment. She felt as strongly as he did that this need to happen. That Elfwine deserved the truth. He turned to face Elfwine. It was impossible to predict what the boy was going to do but Elessar could see the beginnings of understanding in the lad. Not completely though.

“As far as you will be able to remember Elfwine, and in all the ways it really matters, nothing has changed and nothing will change. We raised you from a babe and we love you Elfwine. We and all of your brothers and sisters,” Elessar said.

By his expression it was clear Elfwine didn’t quite understand what they had just said. Not his real parents? He remembered no others how...why...would they tell him that they weren’t his parents? He knew of families where a good wife married a new husband and a husband a wife. That urchins without a mother and father were adopted? He thought that was the right word, found a new mother and father to take care of them. But he could recall none of that. None at all and so he tilted his head and scratched at his nose as he looked at them. Nervously he bobbed his legs back and forth under the chair.

“Ofcourse you're my mother and father...momma?” He asked and his voice had raised an octave. A sign that he was becoming upset though he still managed to keep himself under control. It wasn't easy though, not with them both looking at him like they were.

Nauriel could sense that Elfwine was becoming upset, but they a had started this and they had to finish it. He would have figured it out at some point. It was better to tell him now than to have him resent them later on for not having told him. She stood up from her chair and knelt down in front of him and gently touched his face.

"We are your mother and father, but you were not born to us. You're birth parents are dead. But this is the only home you've known and the only home you will know. We love you as if you were born to us."

He looked into Nauriel’s eyes and he frowned at her words. He had memories of her playing with him, reading to him, talking to him. She was the only mother he had ever had. He looked down at his hands. These weren’t a nobles hands he thought. He had spent hours and hours with his father and mother telling him of the Dunedain, and the histories of those that shared that bloodline. Now though...it had all been a lie. And that’s what really stung deep into his heart. He wasn’t a noble, not by blood. Not even by title probably. He was just a boy playing at ‘being’ a nobles son. Tears fell from his eyes as he looked at his hands. And the more he looked at them, the more he saw nothing special about them. Because he wasn’t anyone special and that fact made his lower lip begin to tremble.

“Mother, may I be excused?” He said barely able to stop himself from crying. He glanced over at his father who was looking at him with a sad expression that he took as disapproving. If he could just make it outside. I if he could...if he...when she nodded and tilted back he flung himself from his chair and bolted for the door. The guard had it opening already and he zipped through and then it was shut again right after. Aragorn sighed looking defeated and sat back in his chair.

Nauriel's heart was breaking in her chest as she looked at Elfwine...a son whom she loved deeply. She had hurt him...shattered him. A mother should never hurt her son. She felt as if she had failed him and she suddenly wished she could take back everything she had told him. She watched as he bolted through the door and she sat down on the floor and began to cry.

Out on the streets of the city Asterin weaved her way through the crowded streets. The young girl was about 9 years of age with long, wavy blonde hair and blue eyes. She knew these streets well as she traveled through them daily. Her father was a soldier and had been sent to fight beyond the city walls. She hadn't seen him in close to a year. Her mother worked as an assistant seamstress but instead of using the money she made to buy food, she would use it to buy drinks instead. Asterin had been forced to take matters into her own hands. Every day she would sneak out a few coins from her mother's purse to buy food for herself. She never took much, just enough to keep herself from starving.

She was quite hungry and was dashing rather quickly. However, as she neared the vendor stalls she accidentally collided with someone, sending them both falling to the ground.