March 2946 of the Third Age gave way to the birth of two proud twins, a brother and a sister. A man and woman of noble birth, so regal and just, but yet a man and woman that their parents would never grow to know. Shortly after their birth, their mother would fade into obscurity and pass from all knowledge, even to those who are wise. Ithiliell was her name, and she was fair, like a cold winter night. A beauty of ages gone, and wise beyond her years. For in the birth of her children, she saw not hope for the world, but despair and fear. She could not raise children of such noble lineage in a world so dark, she would not. She abandoned her husband and her children. The children’s father, Arandur III son of Arandil III, was stricken with grief, and no longer took refuge in his once-home of Imladris. No longer did he consult his friend, Elrond Peredhel, on matters of great import. Like a brother was he, to those of the blood of Isildur, yet now forgotten he was, by one who he once cared for greatly. For looking upon Elrond's heavy solemn gaze was more than he could bear. Long in the past would Ithiliell sit upon the high benches of Imladris and await the coming of the Dunedain. Long now would Arandur sit there and look upon the valley, hopelessly lamenting of times passed. She was gone and none knew why, or perhaps they did, but would say naught. He retreated to Tornhad, within the Angle of Mitheithel with his children, teaching them all he could before he too was taken from them.
Before Ithiliell’s disappearance, she returned the Pendant of Nirnadel,an heirloom of Aranarion’s house, to Arandur. Nirnadel was the Last Princess of Cardolan, and where the male line of Cardolan ends. During the great plague and the ultimate fall of Cardolan, she fled to Rivendell, bearing child. She gave birth there, and persevered many harsh winters, and sad tidings of her lost husband and kin. The child that she birthed was a uniting and hopeful son, said by the elves to be the preserver of Nirnadel's blood. She died shortly after his birth, and he was watched tirelessly by the elves until he returned to his people. Her necklace passed down, through this son. It was a red gem she wore, wrought of silver and bearing a great majesty. It was Elven in make, a gift of Imladris, forged in the cold winter Nirnadel spent alone, by Gelilthor of Nargothrond. She who took pity on her plight, and admired her strength, and unto her she gave this great heirloom. This gem passed down to the heir of the line until the twin siblings, Earien and Aranarion were born. Arandur gave it to Ithiliell, as a token of love in their early years, and at the birth of the twins, it was passed from Ithiliell to Earien.
To Aranarion, went the famed sword Arachar. The sword of Thorondur, forged by Dwarves of the Blue Mountains, and Men of Arnor, for the middle son of King Earendur, however King Thorondur of Cardolan passed before he received it, and Turamarth, Thorondur’s son, was the first to claim it. During the wars with Angmar it was reforged, in the fashion of Barrow-blades, and imbued with ancient westernesse script. It glows red and white hot, and the lettering burns along the blade. It sits within an elven sheath, well adorned, and it remained in use for generations, to the eldest and heir of the Cardolan line.
With only such a short four winters behind the young twins, their father was struck by a poisoned orc arrow, and was met by the most unlikely of beings. A tall fair haired elf, lordly and wise, beautiful and kind. Nenaras it was, the elf-lord of the seas he loved. Nenaras felled the creatures that struck a mortal blow on Arandur, and brought him to his children in Tornhad. It was Nenaras who laid their father down on a soft bed, and it was Nenaras who eased his pain as he passed. The twins were in awe of him, and wept as their father let ring his last words. On his deathbed, he gave to his only son, the blade Arachar. And he spoke to him words that Aranarion now repeats before sleep takes him.
“My children, a new day dawns, and with it comes hope. Soon will an age come anew, an age of men. And with it will be our King. Serve him well, and serve your kin, for with the shadow, the hearts of men may struggle to find the light. Weep not for me now, I have ensured hope for our people.”
These were not the only words that uttered from his mouth ere he passed, for he called to Nenaras in his final hour. A friend he saw him as, though he knew him not. Nenaras gave him the chance to have peace with his children and he asked a great thing of Nenaras; he asked him to take his children, for nothing more remained for them in the Angle.
The twins were inconsolable, clinging to their father until his burial. It was not the rangers that would take the children in, their kin distant and close. It was the elf-lord Nenaras who saw in those children an immense loss, and a capacity for greatness. He did not hesitate in his adoption of the children. The twins were taken by Nenaras, far from the Angle, far from their old home. He took them to Minhiriath, deep into the wilds and by the sea. They found a great love for sailing and the crashing of the waves. This sound Aranarion would remember eternally. He taught them elvish songs, and games. They would play and be merry, and learn to love the creatures and living things of the world. He was a kind father to them, and he loved them dearly. Aranarion was taught how to wield the sword he now bore, so that he may respect the weapon in time. He learned what it meant to belong to two worlds, and be sundered from both. The twins were so alike, and yet so different, but were loved by Nenaras with no equal. Earien found love for elvish customs, and found the grace of Nenaras easy to mimic. Aranarion proved a harder nut to crack. He clung tightly to his father’s legacy, to the legacy of his forebears. He came to greatly love elven culture, and it formed him greatly, though a remembrance of his people he would always keep. The twins became mischievous with age, and learned above all: temperance and empathy. They were like elves in this regard, they became fey creatures, strange to men. Many peoples of Middle Earth did they meet in youth and with each they came to understand them differently. Nenaras was a queer elf, to be sure, and his queer teachings left permanent marks. The twins did not look down at the Woses of the forest, or turn their nose up at the hill-men of the wild, nor did they resent any beings they came to know in their travels with Nenaras.
Yet the greatest of their journeys would prove most formative. When the twins had but ten winters beneath them, and six with Nenaras, he had finally deemed them old enough to make the journey to Wilderland where he dwelt. Over the mountains they passed, into the fine and comfortable cottage of Nenaras. It was as if they had come into another world. Creatures frolicked without worry, and they lived in peace there. A beautiful peace, kept by the wife of Nenaras: Curuwin. She who dwelt there always, wild and untamed. She was kind hearted to all creatures in their domain, and their cottage was more comfortable a home than any may imagine. And though she was wild, and loved most of all her creatures, she was exceptionally kind to the children. The closest thing to a motherly figure they had ever known, and yet, even she did not fill the role. In this wild land, nothing was as they knew, not even those they came to love. It was as a world out of fairy tales of men; fairies and sprites, elves and creatures, growing ivy and trees, and a mystical place where time seemed to cease. But this was not the world of the twins. In the year they had spent there, they had grown, into Men of the West, seeming more out of place in this world. The twins loved it there greatly, but as they played and frolicked in fields of faerie, Curuwin gave to Nenaras words of wisdom, that he had never wished to hear. Painful words, yet true ones: “This is not their world. It cannot be, return them to their people.”. He painfully heeded this wisdom, and after a great supper of farewell, Nenaras took the children from Wilderland.
He brought them to Imladris, against their protests and fighting. He was not well loved there, and the sight of Nenaras with the twin heirs of Cardolan, boded ill for his reputation. Lord Elrond remembered their father, and his care for him. He did not deny the children when they came to his house, and he took them as his own. Nenaras bade them a bitter farewell, and left them in their world, where they belonged. It was difficult for them to transition, but they did, because they must. The twins were raised thus, in Imladris under Elrond, who proved to be a forgiving lord. For he understood greatly the loss and heartbreak of Arandur. Even after years gone, Aranarion remembered the same bench his mother would await his father upon the peaks of the falls. And he sat there, and he would sing, having now a new father and a new life. After time, they became renowned and crowd the twins gathered in the halls of fire, in performance. Their love for poetry, and for song was inherited with great strength from their foster-father of old. A song of their people they learned from him, a ballad of Anarion, and Isildur, the sons of Elendil.
The Sun Chases The Moon
The sun chases the moon
Children on endor's sand
King's blood long forgotten
Across the star shaped land
The moon chases the sun
As young men in fine cloth
Rebelling in the shadows
The heroes of Nimloth
The sun and the moon run together
To lands far away
Facing across the Great River
Their cities now lay
The sun chases the moon
To battle, with their king
Nothing shall part them
Ere the harper’s voice ring
The moon lost the sun
Separated by shroud
The sun has been hidden
By dark Mordor clouds
The moon walks alone
Bearing weregild and throne
A father and brother lost
Their likeness now stone
The moon leaves the sky
As the night shrinks away
What happened to the sun, oh moon?
The moon will not say
The moon rests his eyes
As Nimloth finds her home
Abreast in the tower of the sun
From it the moon shall roam
The moon chases the sun
Into the stars they play
Burden and belonging
The river washed away
Often would Nenaras smile telling this story. For the twins would be long asleep amidst the soft flowerbeds by the time they learned the fate of the moon, and these memories lingered long. It inspired the writing of Aranarion in his adulthood, but even as a child he would write with Earien. They wrote many songs together, and sang in tandem, they were nigh inseparable save for their interests. While Aranarion chased the history of the Dunedain, Earien sought for the great histories of the elves, and their craftwork. She was a skilled craftsman, and was enriched in history and poetry as Aranarion was. For him she crafted a wooden flute, with which he would play many tunes sad and sweet. In their years in Imladris, they often heard whispers of Nenaras, that he was a bad influence. This angered them terribly, until it did not. Until they began to believe those whispers, and grew to resent that Nenaras had abandoned them. But Nenaras did not truly abandon them, not in the slightest. He would watch them often, from the very same bench where Arandur and Ithiliell felt their lives unravel.
