His Guard were momentarily bereft as Elessar wheeled his horse about on the track and rode back to the man who was chopping kindling before his holding, whistling as he worked.
When the sergeant reached them, the King was leaning forward on the horse’s neck.
“Where did you learn it?” he was asking.
The horse stamped and sidled beneath him.
“My Aylie, Sire,” the man replied and he beckoned forward the small girl, stood in the doorway of the home-place, who came to her father and stood beside him, her eyes fixed on the fretting horse.
“That’s a sweet song, little maid,” the King said. If the sergeant thought his soft voice a mite sad, the child did not heed it but looked finally at Elessar and smiled back as he asked, “Where did you learn it?”
“It’s John’s rocking song,” she said, swaying gently from side to side.
“My son, still in the cradle, Sire.”
The pride was thick in the man’s voice, but Elessar held the child’s gaze who added, “Mam sings it and sometimes she sings about daisies!” and she began to pipe a lullaby, an old song that Thorongil remembered too well.
The King had nodded quietly then, given the man a coin for the bairns, and turned his horse to rejoin his guard.
As they jogged off down the track the man had called urgently for his wife to come see. She appeared in the doorway, her infant son in her arms, just as the party were lost from sight.
Her daughter was full of the horses, but her husband amazed her by spinning a gold coin in the air, which he’d had from the King, no less! And the King had wanted to know about the lullaby she was always singing.
“What did you say, Ralf?” she asked bewildered.
“I sang the daisies song, Mam!”
“You did, didn’t you?” Her husband swung the small girl up onto his hip, then he looked at his wife and shrugged, “didn’t have anything to say.”
She came to him then and he placed the gold into her hand, where she turned it in her fingers and imagined that she felt it begin to take up the warmth of her touch.
“You should have told him about the soldier,” she chided,” ‘twas him taught Aylie. She heard him singing to his babe.”
-oo0oo-
Echo by Alex Quine
Summary: Aragorn catches an echo
Rated: G
Categories: LOTR FPS Pairing: Aragorn/Boromir
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 404 Read: 751
Published: 03 Jan 2011 Updated: 03 Jan 2011
Story Notes:
These characters belong to their copyright holders. I borrow them for entertainment, not profit.