A shade? The Ranger’s eyes, soft despite those evils they had seen, shone with humility.
“The skies cannot look upon themselves to see what light they would shed,” he reminded, “but those that would gaze high upon them would question never their splendor – for they have seen it. And long have they felt it.”
And under their guidance, shared naught but tremendous love.
Tall and humble beneath the carven arches of the hall, he seemed not marked by age save for the greys on his head. They shone, lit like candlewicks as he stepped into the sunlight, her waning drip of noon slanting warm through the windows. The guards dared not budge. Between these wisened men both, great as their plans that roll as seas, they felt in the air that profound weight of memory forged through battles; yet, Strider’s sword belonged in their possession. They watched on as the Ranger bowed his head, young in his body, but weathered in soul.
It wore grievously on his bones. “Memories may be deceiving, my liege. More can you tell in a Ranger’s eyes than the wear on his shoulders or the steel of his blade. Time has touched me.”
Dust settled silent. Théoden, just as wordless.
Here, bowing, stood the son of Arathorn, Isildur’s heir, crownless. From under the high arched ceilings and the glow of spilled evening light, he saw now the grays that weaved through the hair on his head. Faded was the cloth of his cloak, and his skin, worn and darkened. But he had hardly aged. Still an image of the past. Still a memory. Yet in his eyes, dimmer now, starlit gray, the tale of wars and deaths lingered, and all the endless, numbered nights spent in the oblivion of shadows.
Time has touched me, the words drifted. Further away now. Gone.
“And what hope,” Théoden began, “do we have against Time.”
Maybe he could read the king by a glance, know his history by the curl of his fingers, know the battles and the funerals and the glories by the bat of an eye, the creases around his mouth. Théoden reached out. He pressed a hand to the Ranger’s shoulder. “Rest, Aragorn, sword of Rohan,” he said, easing. “We shall ride in the coming days.”
Like the days he did with his father. With Thengel. To war. But not now, tonight. He called for Háma, then, and the doorward came to his lord’s side. “I would see your sword returned,” the king said. “You will have a home here.”