Post by Admin on Jan 9, 2021 20:10:02 GMT
Author: Twain Sight
Summary: This last rite for the dead, this final task, always falls to me. It is the simplest, the easiest – and yet the most difficult.
Rating: K
Disclaimer: This is not stealing! Borrowed! Borrowed without permission! But with every intention of giving it back again! And I will. . .once I’m done with it. . .
There are times that I regret my choice. Times when lingering in this world feels more like a burden than a blessing. Sometimes I think you were wiser than I, brother, when you chose to die.
You watched your children grow up around you, shared childish laughter, adolescent joys – and then you passed away before you could watch them grow old.
In a way, it was more selfish than my choice. You shared all the joy and life of youth, the brightest days, the happiest years. But you closed your eyes to the harder times; you didn’t see strength become weakness, manhood wilt to grey age, laughter fade to weariness. You didn’t have to watch them fade before your eyes or count the names of the fallen as your years stretched to lifetimes to centuries to millennia.
That duty fell to me: to play father to each new generation after the next, to train and guide them as young men, to council them as adults – to mourn for them when they fall and to start again with their sons and their sons’ sons.
A wise man once said that ‘no parent should have to bury their child’. I have never watched my blood-child give in to death’s embrace. But thirty-seven men, sons in all but blood, I have buried and commended to the Valar.
My blood-sons gave peace to the thirty-eighth. Over a fortnight ago, in a cold, unmarked grave; doomed to be forgotten, nothing but a soulless cairn.
The book looks strange on my desk. Odd, how such a simple object can inspire so much heart-ache, so many memories. This last rite for the dead, this final task, always falls to me. It is the simplest, the easiest – and yet the most difficult.
The pages, both left and right, are marked with names, each name had two dates. Thirty-seven names, seventy-four dates. I dip the pen’s silver tip in black ink and add the next line. The name is already there: Arathorn, the son of Arador, and on the same line, next to the day he became the Heir of Isildur, I write the day he left this world. In what distant heaven he now rests, I do not know. I can never know. I must trust Iluvater’s Blessing.
There is one name below my fallen son’s, that of his only child, Aragorn. The pen drowns in ink once more so I can write the day of his father’s death beside the boy’s name. I put the pen back in its stand and force myself to relax back in to the seat.
Aragorn – named for his distant ancestor, the only son of my brother’s child.
Heir of Isildur. Rightful born king of both Gondor and Arnor – and barely out of infancy.
I trace my eyes down the list of his forefathers, the words that mark the day of their ascension and the day they fell. The years of the Heirs are growing shorter. Arathorn’s father barely held the Chieftainship for twenty years; the son even fewer. The years almost caught up before he sired an Heir. But he was in his prime, falling in an ambush. I can think of only one explanation.
The Enemy guesses that His oldest foe still lives in his children. But He guesses only. If the truth were a certainty in His mind, the blow would have been far stronger.
No, He cannot be sure, merely suspicious, darkly curious. Like a mountain cat interested in a fallen deer – and sets its claws in its flesh to test for its life.
And He cannot discover the truth, not now. Even though He drew so near the victory. If Aragorn is discovered, a toddling child, then hope itself is lost to us.
So Aragorn must vanish – both he and his mother. They will come here, to what safety Imladris can offer, waning as it is. Even now they are on the road with my blood-sons and Arador’s younger son as guides.
I pass my hand over the ancient page, not knowing if my thought is a command or a prayer, a benediction or a plea. For I will not write the name of another fallen, nor another day of mourning. Aragorn, brother’s son – he will be king, will be Elessar, will accomplish what no other Heir has done before him.
No longer will my task be merely recording the names of the dead.
My list will end at thirty-nine, brother. No more names of kings in exile. No more numbers. Let this be the end; and let the end be a victory.
Summary: This last rite for the dead, this final task, always falls to me. It is the simplest, the easiest – and yet the most difficult.
Rating: K
Disclaimer: This is not stealing! Borrowed! Borrowed without permission! But with every intention of giving it back again! And I will. . .once I’m done with it. . .
There are times that I regret my choice. Times when lingering in this world feels more like a burden than a blessing. Sometimes I think you were wiser than I, brother, when you chose to die.
You watched your children grow up around you, shared childish laughter, adolescent joys – and then you passed away before you could watch them grow old.
In a way, it was more selfish than my choice. You shared all the joy and life of youth, the brightest days, the happiest years. But you closed your eyes to the harder times; you didn’t see strength become weakness, manhood wilt to grey age, laughter fade to weariness. You didn’t have to watch them fade before your eyes or count the names of the fallen as your years stretched to lifetimes to centuries to millennia.
That duty fell to me: to play father to each new generation after the next, to train and guide them as young men, to council them as adults – to mourn for them when they fall and to start again with their sons and their sons’ sons.
A wise man once said that ‘no parent should have to bury their child’. I have never watched my blood-child give in to death’s embrace. But thirty-seven men, sons in all but blood, I have buried and commended to the Valar.
My blood-sons gave peace to the thirty-eighth. Over a fortnight ago, in a cold, unmarked grave; doomed to be forgotten, nothing but a soulless cairn.
The book looks strange on my desk. Odd, how such a simple object can inspire so much heart-ache, so many memories. This last rite for the dead, this final task, always falls to me. It is the simplest, the easiest – and yet the most difficult.
The pages, both left and right, are marked with names, each name had two dates. Thirty-seven names, seventy-four dates. I dip the pen’s silver tip in black ink and add the next line. The name is already there: Arathorn, the son of Arador, and on the same line, next to the day he became the Heir of Isildur, I write the day he left this world. In what distant heaven he now rests, I do not know. I can never know. I must trust Iluvater’s Blessing.
There is one name below my fallen son’s, that of his only child, Aragorn. The pen drowns in ink once more so I can write the day of his father’s death beside the boy’s name. I put the pen back in its stand and force myself to relax back in to the seat.
Aragorn – named for his distant ancestor, the only son of my brother’s child.
Heir of Isildur. Rightful born king of both Gondor and Arnor – and barely out of infancy.
I trace my eyes down the list of his forefathers, the words that mark the day of their ascension and the day they fell. The years of the Heirs are growing shorter. Arathorn’s father barely held the Chieftainship for twenty years; the son even fewer. The years almost caught up before he sired an Heir. But he was in his prime, falling in an ambush. I can think of only one explanation.
The Enemy guesses that His oldest foe still lives in his children. But He guesses only. If the truth were a certainty in His mind, the blow would have been far stronger.
No, He cannot be sure, merely suspicious, darkly curious. Like a mountain cat interested in a fallen deer – and sets its claws in its flesh to test for its life.
And He cannot discover the truth, not now. Even though He drew so near the victory. If Aragorn is discovered, a toddling child, then hope itself is lost to us.
So Aragorn must vanish – both he and his mother. They will come here, to what safety Imladris can offer, waning as it is. Even now they are on the road with my blood-sons and Arador’s younger son as guides.
I pass my hand over the ancient page, not knowing if my thought is a command or a prayer, a benediction or a plea. For I will not write the name of another fallen, nor another day of mourning. Aragorn, brother’s son – he will be king, will be Elessar, will accomplish what no other Heir has done before him.
No longer will my task be merely recording the names of the dead.
My list will end at thirty-nine, brother. No more names of kings in exile. No more numbers. Let this be the end; and let the end be a victory.