It had been many turns of the sun since Elrond had seen his youngest. The seasons turned and returned, but the passing of time meant nothing to him. To Estel’s mother, Gilraen, the parting was inevitable, because she knew who her son was. She had been destined to lose him from the moment of his birth. It had been her choice to make the journey to Rivendell, having carried and birth her son in secret. It was Estel’s only chance of growing up, say nothing of fulfilling his destiny.

Arathorn had been taken to the grave too soon for another child to be conceived, and had never known of his son. War had parted them.

Elrond remembered the day clearly. A young girl had walked into Rivendell, carrying nothing but a small babe, and had turned quite a few heads. She was striking to look at, but that was not the reason for the interest. Few men ever came to the elven city, much less a lone maiden, and unarmed. Elrond knew who she was, Gilraen, wife of the King. Her being here meant Arathorn was dead, and she would never conceive again.

Estel’s existence was known to many, but his true identity was known by fewer people than Elrond had fingers on one hand, and none of them were Estel himself. Elrond sighed. He knew what he had to do. His sons were due home in a few days, and he had to prepare himself for the task ahead. He knew what the outcome would be. Estel would leave in anger, probably never to return, never to exchange pleasant words, never to share the closeness they had enjoyed thus far. He loved his sons. Estel he loved more dearly, for his existence was to be but one life span, and not immortal. And in a few days he would lose him. He had foreseen it.

The day came all too quickly and upon his sons’ return, Elrond greeted the twins warmly. He gazed with unconcealed delight at the now grown man before him.

“Estel,” he breathed.

“Adar,” came the reply before the boy embraced him.

“He has grown fine and strong, adar,” Elrohir noted with pride.

“And his skills exceed our own,” Elladan added, with a slight petulant tone, but he was smiling broadly.

The pleasure in his voice was clear. He had loved the challenge. “He followed a rabbit from tracks four days old and found it, even when we had both told him that a trail that cold would reveal nothing.”

“You did that?” Elrond asked.

“Yes, adar, Estel replied. “And we ate it. I wanted the pelt for gloves for my mother. . .but an eagle took it in the night,” he continued sadly. He lifted his eyes and saw her. Smiling, he crossed to her and embraced her. “Mother, I have missed you.”

“As have I, my boy,” Gilraen smiled against his shoulder. Her small boy was a grown man, raised protected in the care of elves. She did not ask where he had been, or what he had done. She could guess from the bow and quiver at his back, and the hunting knife at his hip. He wore a leaf against his chest that she did not recognise, deciding that it was probably from across the mountains, a gift from the elves she knew lived there. Besides, her son seemed in a hurry to tell her of his adventure.

“I am sorry I lost your gloves mother, but you should have seen the size of eagle!” he blurted out, suddenly animated. “It was bigger than this!” he held his arms out wide to demonstrate. “Anything smaller and I might have fought for their return, but I was awed by its majesty. And there were dwarves on the road, and a hobbit also. We watched them from a distance. They were no threat.” Estel missed the amusement on Elrond’s face. “They were coming through the High Pass and I might have killed them all, except Elladan reminded me that for them to be in the pass to begin with they would have had to have come through Rivendell. So, I suppose you must have seem them, adar?” Estel did not wait for an answer before he launched into his next tale.

“They had a wizard with them, mother. I have never met a wizard. I wanted to then, but Elrohir was being a scaredy-cat, saying that we should not waylay them because they might have been on an important quest. Anyway, he said he had something far more interesting planned. And he did. We went hunting for orcs. We stirred them up . . .only a little," he added as his mother’s face turned white and a glare-induced gasp from the twins filled the room.

Elladan tried to rescue the situation. “Ah, he exaggerates, adar.”

“Yes, adar,” Elrohir rejoined. “There were only forty of them . . .”

“And I took an arrow to my leg,” Estel broke in with much flourish, as if it were just another day. Gilraen quailed at the thought.

“I healed it myself, with athelas and hot water, just as adar taught me. And that’s not all; oh yes, we killed all the orcs. But anyway, the first time I saw those horrid creatures was in Mirkwood.”

Elrond froze. There was no love lost between Mirkwood and Imladris. His eyes again went to the twins, who were now beginning to shrink into their boots.

“Oh, mother, if you had been there. I would never have believed a baby could be so small.”

“A baby?” Gilraen breathed.

“Yes, mother. She was dead, the elf maiden, and the baby was still moving. So I cut her open just as adar had done with the mare . . .”

Elrond lost all grace and fell into a chair, his head sinking into his hand, colour in his cheeks a mere memory.

“We were not long from these walls when it happened and we had ridden all the way out to East Bight. The attack started just as we began our return,” Estel continued.

Elladan covered both cheeks with his hands in horror, while Elrohir turned to the wall and pressed his head against it. For once the brothers were in agreement. They were as good as dead, now. Yep, Mandos fodder for sure.

Elrond’s hand fell from his face and he looked up at them. “You took a five-year-old child into the forbidden lands? Worse, through Mirkwood?” Before either of them could recover a little dignity, Estel got there first.

“But, adar, you should have been there. I cut her open and saved the king’s son. And King Thranduil gave me this brooch as a sign that I was sword-brother to his son. If we hadn’t been there, the baby would have died. Adar, he is the only other child I have seen. Who do people not have children any more, adar?”

Elrond swallowed and rose to his feet. “There are many differing reasons, but most concern themselves with dark horizons and evil designs.”

“I am not sure I understand,” Estel replied.

Elrond smiled a little, but said no more on the matter. “You were very brave, my son.” He turned to the twins, and addressed them. They stood, waiting for the wrath of their father, but it did not come. “Estel is very precious to me, even to us all. You defied my will, but even as you have done so, ties have been re-forged between feuding Houses, and I am proud of what you have achieved. Go and rest. Mayhap Gilraen will enjoy a more pleasant account of her son’s doings in the world than that which she has had thus far.”

The twins nodded.

Gilraen cupped her son’s cheek and smiled. “You have grown into a fine young man, my son. I believe you are ready.”

Estel gazed at her, uncertainty clouding his grey eyes. “Ready for what?” He followed her gaze as it shifted to Elrond. “Adar?”

“Aragorn,” Elrond suddenly said,

Estel stared at him. “I do not understand.”

“Search your mind and heart. It will be there,” Elrond answered him. “It is your true name. You are Aragorn, son of Arathorn the second of Arnor, and through Gilraen, your mother, the royal line of Gondor and Arnor was remade. I cannot keep this from you any longer. You are a grown man, in body and in mind mature. Your skills in healing are not an accident, they are within you from the days of Earendil, my father. In truth, you are my brother’s son‘s son, a long line unbroken of king of Númenor.”

Estel could do nothing but stare, speechless, not knowing what to say even if he could find his voice. He was confused, broken, as if kicked, chewed up and spat back out as something so fowl even a warg would not eat him. “You . . .are not my father . . .”

Elrond’s resolve almost broke then, and he almost wished he could take back all that he had said, but it was time for Estel to be put aside and Aragorn to step forward. The time was now, the tide was turning and could not be held back. “Come, I must tell you everything.”

Aragorn was certain that he should have been crushed. The being he had called adar all his life was not his father, but the feelings did not come. He had always know he was not an elf, the ears, for one, were a dead give away, but nothing had prepared him for this. He had always thought that Adar and his mother were . . .

Even tohugh it was now obviously not the case, still nothing would change his respect for the Lord of Imladris. All through the hours they spent together, going through all the details, the why’s and wherefores, nothing had truly changed.

“Adar . . .Lord Elrond . . .” Aragorn took a deep breath and let it go. “You will always be a father to me. I have known no other. All that you have told me will never change that. My love, my respect, my honour is yours and always shall be. I do not want the crown of Gondor. I will bear the name Aragorn, if that is your wish, but to me Estel will always be your son.”

Elrond drew his close for a moment. “Estel will always be the youngest son to my heart,” he admitted. “The last child raised in Imladris, I could not bare to raise another. You must forge peace, for you are our last hope for Middle Earth. There is no other.” He regarded the boy, now a fine looking man. “I ask you to take the time to think carefully on your decision to refuse the crown. Journey across middle earth, let the world show you its suffering and what is left after Sauron’s ravaging. ”

Aragorn nodded. “I will do that, ad-Lord Elrond.” He swallowed. “But I will not change my mind.” He turned his gaze to the waterfalls of Rivendell, in deep thought. “Tell me the truth.”

“Always, Aragorn,” Elrond replied.

“Is there something going on between you and my mother?”

Elrond held his gaze for as long as he dared before turning away. “Yes,” he replied. “Though it was not planned. She came here alone, on foot, with nought but a babe in her arms and your father’s ring. I could not turn her away. You are not only kin, but you were, even before I set eyes on you, the king. What happened between Gilraen and I . . .was both unexpected and unsought.”

“But you have a wife, in Valinor.”

“An elf may take more than one wife,”" Elrond replied, matter-of-factly. “Celebrian was lost to me for more than four hundred years.”

“Do you love my mother? As much as you love Celebrian?”

“I have done honour to them both equally, without shame,” Elrond told him.

“You plighted troth,” Aragorn realised.

“You are angry,” Elrond noted softly.

Aragorn half turned to regard him gently. “No,” he replied. “Your care of and for her pleases me.” A movement among the trees below him caught his eye and he turned away. “Who is that?”

“Who?” Elrond asked and crossed to his side to look down. He, too, saw a robed figure moving through the trees towards the palace.

“She is beautiful,” Aragorn noted. “I have never seen her before. I shall amend that, right now.”

Elrond cringed inwardly, but before he could speak Aragorn was bounding down the steps and disappearing into the trees. His eyes drifted shut. “Elbereth, give me strength,” he whispered.

“Adar?” Elladan asked as he approached. He looked down and smiled. “Ah, so Estel finally meets our sister. He will fall in love with her, you know that, adar. Everyone falls in love with Arwen.”

“Yes,” Elrond replied resignedly. “But she will not plight troth with Aragorn. I will not permit it. My daughter will marry none but the king of Gondor. I forbid anything less.”

Elladan smiled confidently. “We shall see, adar. We shall see.”