Heavy of Heart by StarSpray

Heavy of Heart

TA 3007
Winter

As Aragorn dozed in a sheltered hollow beneath a tall and ancient fir tree, wrapped in his thickest cloak against the night’s frost, he dreamed. In the dream he stood upon a hilltop, facing west where the sun was setting in a blaze of glorious color. In the darkening sky above it Gil-Estel shone like a beacon. Before him stretching away down the hill and toward the west was a path, lined with clean white stones like the markers that led to Rivendell. But behind him, Aragorn knew without turning, the horizon was dark, and not with the night. A shadow loomed, raising ever higher so that neither starlight nor moonbeam could pierce it. The wind at his back was frigid. But before him stood Gilraen his mother, and she seemed to him lighter and happier than he had ever seen her before, as though the griefs that had weighed upon her since Arathorn’s death had been lifted away. She smiled at him, but did not speak before she turned and walked away down the hill, where Aragorn could not follow. In the distance he heard a nightingale’s trill. Behind him the wind howled like wolves.

He woke to starlight above him, peeping through the bare branches of the trees. Menelmacar strode across the heavens with his shining belt; in the north the Sickle swung. All around him was still; not even the slightest breeze whispered through the silent wood. When he raised a hand to his face Aragorn found his cheeks wet with tears that were still falling; his throat was tight with grief.

This is our last parting, she had told him when he had last been to see her, voice soft and eyes very sad, more grey than black in her hair, and ever-deepening lines around her eyes. He had not wanted to believe it, and yet as he huddled alone in the wilds, seeking a creature that he might never find, he knew that when he returned at last to Eriador he would find naught of his mother but a lonely grass-covered grave.

He bowed his head to his knees, and did not sleep again that night. When the sun rose at last, pale in the east, he dried his tears and rose. The darkness was still gathering, but he yet believed there was light beyond it, and he would see it through.