the line of elros ◈ chieftains of the dúnedain ◈ headcanon disclaimer
Arahael was the elder son of Aranarth, and the second Chieftain of the Dúnedain. He was born and raised in Imladris alongside his brother Idhrion, who was his constant companion. The brothers competed for the affections of the maiden Avorniel, but not even her choice to wed Arahael instead of Idhrion could shake their unbreakable bond.
The birth of Arahael and Avorniel’s son Aranuir, delivered by Lord Elrond himself, established a tradition of the Chieftain’s heirs spending their formative years in Imladris. Aranuir was a serious man, vigilantly guarding Eriador against the dangers of the wild, and only his spouse Bellassamdir could make him smile. Bellassamdir’s cheer warmed the hearts of the Dúnedain even on their darkest nights, and they passed this good humor to their son Aravir.
Aravir was a man of quick wit and cunning action, matched in his cleverness by his wife, the smith Daerís. Though of an unassuming stature, Daerís was a skilled metalworker and forged many blades for her husband.
Their son Aragorn determined to free the Eriador of all evil, embarking on a quest to drive out the remaining orcs and trolls and win the allegiance of rogue men to his side. For eight years he worked tirelessly in this endeavor, but his life was cut short when he was killed by wolves, always a peril in these lands, but not one he had thought to guard against.
He was succeeded by his son Araglas, who had not anticipated to come into his inheritance for many more decades. To help him lead, Araglas depended first on his mother Galadil, a sharp-minded woman in the confidence of Elrond, and then his wife Aeneth, who balanced his mother’s ruthless practicality with pity and piety, traits she passed on to her son Arahad I.
Written for the April 8th, 2017 general prompt of Legendarium Ladies April, ‘If They Were Women.’ @bailesu on Tumblr and I had a conversation about this once, speculating that perhaps the reason Amlaith’s siblings broke away after Eärendur’s death could potentially be explained if Amlaith was a woman, one who felt that under Númenórean law she had the right to inherit the throne from her father, and her brothers weren’t happy about this. During this conversation we also discovered that most of the names of the Chieftains of the Dúnedain appear to be gender-neutral. I focused on one of the Chieftains I head-canon on being a woman here, but I did reference Amlaith, too.
[CN/TW: Depiction of hemophobia]
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There had been an expectation—Aravir’s own, she suspected—that when she became Chieftain of the Dúnedain, when she spent far more of her days in the wilds than in any house, certain things would stop bothering her. Her own mother had been so stalwart, after all, and the Elves did not feel the ravages of the elements as Men did. So Aravir had expected that these things would bother her less than they did: sleeping under open sky, eating meat charred black at the fire and utterly unseasoned, tending to her wounded after skirmishes with Orcs or human brigands. The others lived through these things with nary a complaint, stern faces showing only the barest hint of discomfort. Isildur’s scion could do no less. Aravir could do no less.
The wound her cousin had taken, a gash on her left leg, needed stitches, though Aravir could look at it and tell that it would not be life-threatening to wait a few hours for a proper surgeon to attend to it. All the same, they’d make better time returning to the settlement if the wound was properly attended to, and though Aravir had never received the totality of a healer’s training (she could well remember Elrond pressing his hand to her head and murmuring that they all had their weak points), Aravir could stitch straight.
“Hold still, Beldis,” she muttered, avoiding her cousin’s gaze. “Once I’ve stitched you up and bandaged your leg, we’ll head back for the settlement.”
Beldis laughed weakly. “Oh? From the look on your face, I had thought it would have to be chopped off.”
Aravir forced a smile. “Nothing that serious.”
Mercifully, Beldis didn’t pry any more deeply than that, but silence and cooperation meant that Aravir had to concentrate on the wound. On the—
Wearing gloves was out of the question. Aravir’s straight stitching turned sloppy when she had something between her fingers and the needle. Her hands had to be bare, or Beldis would be making the significantly slower, more laborious, more dangerous walk back to the settlement with an open, unstitched wound. There was no one else here who could do this; of their party, Aravir was the only one with any real knowledge of healing.
That pervasive copper odor clung to the roof of Aravir’s mouth as she made a closer inspection of Beldis’s wound. A sick lurch in her stomach, a sick heat in her throat, told Aravir to swallow hard, to take a deep breath and try to steady herself as best she could. Bright red wet clung to her fingertips, and her skin began to crawl, crawl, crawl.
At times like this, Aravir remembered being very small, and hearing the story of Amlaith from Elrond for the first time.
Amlaith, firstborn child of Eärendur who was the last king of a united Arnor. Eärendur did not think much of the capabilities of either of his sons, but Arnor had discontinued the Númenórean practice of allowing the firstborn daughter to inherit the Scepter if she had no older brothers. Eärendur did not think much of his sons, and though he discounted his daughter also, Amlaith thought she could be King, and certain of her father’s lords were of the same mind.
When Eärendur died, there was a reckoning, and that reckoning split Arnor in three. Amlaith ruled over Arthedain, and it was a diminished kingdom in comparison to the might and glory of Arnor, but in Arthedain alone was the dignity of the Dúnedain left undiminished. Amlaith’s brothers and their descendants let Rhudaur and Cardolan fall to ruin, but from Amlaith’s line would eventually come the hope of the Dúnedain.
It was a lovely story when told in full, and it never failed to lighten Amlaith’s heart, either as an uncertain child or an uncertain adult. But she could feel everyone looking at her now, waiting, and another story came to mind, far more clearly than the one Elrond had told to cheer up a young girl, so long ago.
Aravir had studied Númenórean genealogies extensively during her fosterage in Rivendell. It was only fitting that she do so; there were revelations aplenty to be found in the past, especially in the lives of her dead kin. The lines of the House of Elros, both the House of Andúnië and the line of the King.
Tar-Vanimeldë was the last Ruling Queen of Númenor. History remembered her as a joke made in decidedly bad taste: a Queen uninterested in ruling, who let her husband usurp her throne. The joke lost what little savor it had when one reached the part where Herucalmo usurped the throne from Tar-Alcarin after Vanimeldë’s death, and Alcarin spent nigh twenty years in exile in what was now Gondor.
There was no Ruling Queen after Vanimeldë. Míriel would have been the fourth, but she was overthrown. But that was not to say there were no firstborn daughters between Vanimeldë and Míriel. Alcarin’s first child had been his daughter, Lómendil, and she had never been Queen, but spent the majority of her life after her father’s ascension in the same colony—now Gondor—that Alcarin had whiled away exile in.
A handful of firstborn daughters could be found in the charts after Lómendil. They abdicated, or fell ill, or, in one case, died under mysterious circumstances. That was how it went. It just took one weak Queen, too easily usurped, and this was what happened afterwards.
Aravir drew another deep breath, and began to run her needle through flesh, schooling her face into the stern mask her people would expect. There would be shaking later, there would be scrubbing her hands and forearms until her flesh was pink and raw. When no one could see her, there would be that, and it took every ounce of self-control she possessed to keep ‘later’ from becoming ‘now.’ For now, Aravir was no Queen, no King, only a Chieftain, but she would be strong, nonetheless. The future deserved no less from her than that.
“Two eggs this time,” said Korst. She picked up the smaller egg and turned it in her talons. “Ridgeback or Guardian?”
Aravir shook his head. “This was a bad idea.” He backed away from the nest and tucked his talons underneath the bulk of his body, looking anywhere but the moss-lined cavity.
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Korst mournfully as she set the egg down, leaning against its larger sibling. “And she’s happy now, I wrote to the clan where she lives and their healers say she should be able to live a long life.”
“I shouldn’t have touched the egg at all,” growled Aravir, and Korst sighed.
“Why don’t you get some scrolls and read something to them, then? You can do that without touching them, and it is good for the hatchlings to know their father’s voice.”
Reluctantly, Aravir nodded, and Korst smiled. Her gold-plated horns glittered in the candlelight as she curled herself protectively around the nest.
Nacadi struck out with a flash of talons, scoring them down Korst’s already bloodied face. The ridgeback snarled and pulled back, but before Nacadi could land another blow vines burst from the ground and wrapped around her legs and wings, pulling her towards the ground.
Aravir, his eyes cold behind his skull helmet, stepped forwards. Nacadi’s eyes widened, but she was looking beyond the guardian, her eyes fixed on something over his shoulder.
“Zephyr, don’t you recognize me?” Aslesa asked as she came closer to her mate. He lowered his head and took a step back, hissing. The paladin’s shoulders dropped slightly, and her next words were addressed to the Shade. “Leave him alone,” she growled. Zephyr struck out at her, his shadow-sticky claws striking for her eyes, and Aslesa dived onto the gritty earth of the floor and rolled out of the way. Zephyr’s talons struck the floor, but instead of striking again he sat back on his haunches, clawing at his head.
“Zephyr? Are you- can you hear me?” asked Aslesa hopefully- and then Zephyr’s head jerked up and his eyes rolled black, and the voice of the Shade spoke through him.
Aslesa faltered, her wings spreading indecisively. She stepped forwards, and the Shade snarled. “I will kill you,” she said quietly, with a sharp edge of danger in her voice.
Laughing, the Shade said, “N̛͘o͢,͢͡ ͢͢yo̸u͘͡ ͏w̢o҉̴̴n͠'̀͡t.”
“You’re right,” sighed Aslesa, and the sword fell from her claws. And before the Shade within Zephyr could react, she had crossed the gap between them in a swift movement and had wrapped her arms around him.
w̵̛͘h̷͞a͢͡t ̵̧͜a̵r͏e̶̴ ̛́҉y̶͝ǫu͡ ̨͢D̛O̷I̷N͞G? shrilled the Shade, its voice muffled by Aslesa’s wings as they wrapped around. It didn’t understand why it couldn’t move, why it was growing weaker and weaker like a trapped and fluttering moth in the paladin’s talons-
“I love you, Zephyr,” Aslesa said softly, and she began to sob into the other skydancer’s feathery shoulder.
“SEKAI,” shrieked Nacadi, tearing her jaws free of Aravir’s vines. Her eyes burned with hatred, and drops of sizzling Shade fell from her teeth. She lashed, trying to reach the translucent form of the glowing nocturne.
Sekai sighed, averting her eyes. “Nacadi, I’m- I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving you. I’m sorry for not coming back.”
As suddenly as she had began to thrash, Nacadi settled, and her eyes grew wide. Korst thought she saw tears welling in the wildclaw’s large brown eyes, and she tilted her head curiously, for the tears were black.
“n̨o ̶͝͏n͜o̶͢ n͞o͢͢,” hissed the Shade with what sounded like dismay or perhaps panic. The black tears poured down Nacadi’s face, faster and faster, and Sekai drew closer and leaned against the wildclaw’s shoulder. Where they hit the rocky cave floor, the tears sizzled and melted into shadow.
“The Shade is leaving her,” said Sekai softly. “It’s safe to free her now.”
Aravir nodded and twitched his claws, and the vines melted into dust and dried leaves that spun away on the drafts whistling through the destroyed tunnels. And then he and Korst looked past where Auster, free of darkness, was staggering to his feet with Tybal’s help, and they saw Aslesa, still holding onto Zephyr as though he were an anchor in stormy seas.
“Why are you crying?” asked Zephyr, blinking, and Aslesa pulled backwards with wide eyes. He stood in front of her, shuffling his claws awkwardly and trying to get a better look at her face.
“You’re- you’re all right!” Aslesa exclaimed with delight, and Zephyr nodded and smiled.
“Looks like it.” He looked around the ruins of the cave and whistled under his breath. His mouth cracked into a dazzling smile, but his eyes were weary as he murmured to Aslesa, “This’ll make for some interesting nightmares.”
And so it came to pass that the caves were grown over with ivy, and in time that too sank into the side of the mountain and vanished. And there was never found another trace of the ancient fortress of the shade-mages, and nothing remained but a legend whispered in the night.
Acorn: What would your character do if they lived forever?
Aravir often thinks about this when the nights are long, and most often he thinks of it when Korst’s comforting presence is not beside him. And he thinks of many things- he thinks he could save the world, some nights, and other nights he thinks that it would be better to merely watch, outside the flow of time. Not to interfere, merely to look on and help where he can.But every night, he decides- if he could live forever, he would see every sunrise, and every sunset. He would seek out every small beauty in the world and he would savor it.
Snowdrop: Describe a time they felt hope.
When his daughter Oleander (now owned by @alma-ren) was hatched, Aravir felt truly happy for the first time in many years, holding the hatchling who seemed to shine brighter than the sun.
And when the cuts on his knuckles healed as she gripped them with her tiny claws, he dared to hope for just a moment that she had been blessed by a gift far greater than his own- until the hatchling flopped over, her heart fluttering and her eyes closed.
“One egg,” said Korst, stroking the outside of the single egg in the nest. Already, the egg was developing a knobbly, pale shell as it absorbed the magic running through the land beneath it, but Korst still took care to keep her long claws away from the pliable eggshell.
She glanced at her mate, and saw that his eyes were wide and awed. “One egg,” he agreed. “An egg.” With shaking talons, Aravir reached out for the egg and then snatched his hands away.
“You can touch it,” said Korst gently, but Aravir shook his head.
“Too much necrotic magic on my claws,” he said softly. “I’d better wait until the shell finishes forming.”
All through that night, Aravir sat at the side of the nest with a sad smile on his face, guarding his child from aught that might come creeping in the darkness. And all through the night, he wondered at the miracle of life.
(AN: Yes, the hatchling will be for sale. Let’s just hope it doesn’t have one of the two ugly-ass terts in Korst and Aravir’s range~)
once, there was a young guardian who loved scrolls and magic, and longed to go to the great battlefields of Sornieth and see the glory he had only read about. and he did, and the ferocity and the glory and the bravery of those who never backed down set his heart to ringing, and he knew that he had found his Charge.
and then the guardian saw too much. in pursuit of glory and war and a hero’s death, he saw bodies laying bloody and unburied, and a dying dragon clutched at his arm and begged for water, and to send a letter home- and the guardian feared death. he feared death as much as he coveted the fierce glory of the battlefield, and so he became a walking contradiction.
he became a guardian of war, afraid of death, and he became a nature dragon who played with bones and blight and ashes. he covered skulls with moss and made them speak of the future, and he surrounded himself with death in an attempt to fight off that last great fear.
and someone came who was full of life, and full of honor and glory and all things fierce and beautiful, and he fell in love.
and the falling in love was the hardest part, for even now he knows one day he will be faced with a foe too great, a spirit too strong, and the hard fierce part of him that seeks valiant battle and glorious death will not let him turn away, and then he will die. he will die, just as surely as the seasons turn, and the knowledge lies heavy in his bones.
Enamor me! Preferably with Korst and Aravir, but any will do c;
((I rarely write fluffy things so I hope this works))
“I think the world’s ending,” said Korst with a smile in her voice. Aravir opened his eyes and looked up at the ridgeback, blinking until her face became clear.
“That’s old news, Korst,” he rumbled up at her with a grin, and Korst shook her head. The golden plating on her spines gleamed in the candlelight.
She smiled, “I didn’t know you knew how to sleep. You’re virtually a Snapper, always up in the dead of the night.”
Aravir hadn’t been sleeping, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. He sat up, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it.
Her smile changed the shape of her snout, inviting him to share the joke. He’d missed that wry humour, so easy to fall into when nothing else was. He wanted to know how he could make her smile like that again. Aravir looked quickly away, and waved his talons to call a small, moss-covered skeleton to him. He ran a claw over its back as he said,
“What did Aslesa want?”
“She wanted to know if I was ready to leave. There’s been reports of Shade infestations at the border of the Scarred Wasteland.” She paused and added, “You interested in coming? I was going to take Radiance and Aslesa, but we could always use some backup- and there’s no shortage of bones in the Wasteland.”
“All right then,” said Aravir as he got to his feet. The old scars along his side twinged, but the feeling of discomfort was washed away when he saw Korst’s quick twist of a smile.
He smiled back and asked her, “Did you know you smile as well as you fight?”
With a quick chuckle, Korst turned away and flicked a wing at him. “You’re not getting anywhere with flattery,” she said with a hint of laughter in her voice.
