| Subject: Choices and the truth |
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Aragorn and Namun
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Date Posted: 22:09:32 05/28/02 Tue
Namün’s eyes widened as she listened to Aragorn speak. Once again, he had arrived to defend her. She dreaded to think of what the consequences would be though.
As soon as he left, she stood up sharply, knocking her knife to the floor. She felt Mirwan’s accusing eyes on her, alight with malicious intent. Edging past her before the storm could break, she fled.
She arrived at Aragorns room, then stopped. She had no idea of what to say, how to act. When he had looked at her before, it had been a glance filled with anger. Anger at Mirwan, or at her as well she was not sure. She was not sure of anything. Exhaustion left her mind a tangled mess of threads, with no beginning and no end. Perhaps later she would be able to unravel them, but not right now. Not in this state.
Raising one trembling arm, she knocked timidly on the door.
It seemed they would never leave him in peace. "Go away!" he yelled. "Isn't it possible to sleep in this palace anymore?"
"Fine, I'll leave then." came the reply from outside
"Namun? No wait, I mean come in please."
Nervously, she pushed open the door, then waited in it's shadow for him to speak.
"Don't just stand there like..." he stopped about to say servant, "stranger. Please come closer. I'm sorry if I appear rude. The day has been infinately longer than I imagined it would be and Deollyn died on me."
Almost unwillingly, she came away from the reassuringly solid safety of the door, standing in the centre of the room like a small golden wraith.
“You couldn’t save him?” she asked, concern in her voice. “I’m sorry.”
"Not as sorry as I am, I assure you. He died for my faults." He srutinized her carefully. "Something has changed between us. You...fear me."
"It's not that I fear you." she tried to reassure him. "It's just-
I don't know what I think."
Suddenly worried that she was going to faint, she crossed quickly to a chair and sat down.
"Are you alright?"
"I'll be fine." she said weakly, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner. I'm sorry Mirwan got away with a simple fine but she had some powerful friends in court." He lashed out at the wall in frustration before adding quietly, "gods, I'm sorry for everything. This wasn't how it was meant to be."
"What else do you have to be sorry for?"
"Nothing...and everything. This is all my fault. The whole city turned rotten before my eyes and I ignored it. Maybe if I had not you would not bleed today. Maybe if I had not you would look at me as a man rather than the king I have failed to be."
She crossed to him and enfolded him in her arms, pulling his face in towards her body. When he was sitting, she could rest her head on top of his. Blinking back tears she murmured, "You are a man Aragorn, and you have not failed. You may have been late, but you still came. You came for me. That means more than any material goods. Your true wealth is in your heart."
Reluctantly he pulled her away. "Then I must be a poor man indeed. Namun there is something I must tell you...but...the consequences are too terrible to even contemplate. Even as it stands I think we should keep this distance between us."
"Whatever you wish, my lord. But please, anything you wish to tell me, do. All I ask is that you're honest with me."
"You ask of me the one thing that I would hold back. Very well, if the truth is what you require then you shall have it, though it breaks my heart to say it." He took a deep breathe. "Arwen returned tonight. She wants me to choose."
"Then choose you must." Her tears flowing unrestrained now, she looked into his eyes. "She's your wife, and I can never compete with that. But know that I love you, and nothing you can say will change that. I'm involved too deeply now, whether you return my feelings or not."
Breaking away from him, she faced the wall. She couldn't look at him as he made his decision.
He collapsed on the bed. If only she had been unreasonable but she had not and the choice lay before him once more.
"I don't know what to think any more," he mumered softly more to himself than to the woman who stood her across the room, her back to him. "Once this choice was easy now it consumes me. What my heart does or does not know is a mystery. But I know that I love you also. Yes Arwen is my wife and I love her dearly but she has abandoned me once more and I cannot take much more of the agony our separation is causing me. If I have to choose let my choice be you."
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