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Only a matter of days after saying goodbye to Elfwine and the party from Rohan, it was Eldarion and Túrien's turn to depart Minas Tirith. Because of the importance of this journey to Harad, and much to Aragorn's chagrin, preparing the delegation to set out was a highly ordered affair. The lords and ladies of Gondor assembled in the Great Citadel atop the city to formally send off the kings and their company. Black and white banners were everywhere to be seen. Aragorn would have much preferred to leave quietly through one of the city's minor gates to avoid all this. Leave it Faramir to have arisen even earlier than his lord that morning to prevent just such a thing.

When at last the lord of Pinnath Gelin finished delivering his speech of well-wishes for the negotiations (every word of which Aragorn found incredibly ironic given how vocally Pinnath Gelin had opposed treating with the Haradrim at earlier councils), there remained only personal farewells to be said before taking their leave. One wondered how well a husband could truly farewell his wife and children before the eyes of all of Gondor's nobility though. That was why Aragorn, Eldarion and Túrien had said their real goodbyes to Arwen, Eruthiawen and Almárëa earlier in privacy. Still, appearances had to be maintained for the court.

Drawing down from the steps of the White Tower of Ecthelion, Arwen dipped in a stately curtsy to her king. The queen was resplendent in an off-the-shoulder gown of richest blue velvet, delicate white beadwork sewn so carefully along the cuffs and collar that they could easily have been mistaken for thread. The royal diadem set into her long black hair twinkled up at its silver and pearl counterpart on Aragorn's brow. Even the ever-poised lords of Gondor never failed to soften at the sight of the Star of the White City. Aragorn was even fonder still though of Arwen in moments between the two of them alone. As he bowed and pressed a kiss to her soft hand, he thought back to their private farewell in their chambers before daybreak.

oOo

The soft pre-dawn glow filling the room offered to lull Aragorn back to sleep, but he knew he must soon rise. Besides, Arwen was with him, and he would not squander any moments which just they two might share. Rolling over in bed, he found his wife already awake and watching him. Sleeping in the manner of mortals was not something that Arwen had always done, especially not in her life as a daughter of elf-kind. When she had first come to him in Minas Tirith, Aragorn discovered his bride to be both joyful and restless. No longer was the elvish reverie enough for her to fully replenish herself, but neither did a human's sleep come easily. It had taken time, and many long nights spent lying awake in Aragorn's arms after he had nodded off before she learned to sleep and dream as he did. To this day though Arwen remained an extraordinarily early riser; earlier even than her Dúnedain husband.

"Mae athollen (Welcome back)," she whispered, speaking in Sindarin as was their preference when they were alone. "What did you dream of last night?"

"Good morning, my love. I fear that there is little to tell from my dreams though, for all the time I spent wandering in them. They escape my mind already. What of your own?"

Arwen stretched long and languid, the sheets falling away from her smooth arms and graceful form. Aragorn could not resist the temptation offered by the rivers of dark hair spread across Arwen's pillow. Reaching across, he took up a lock of her hair and let it play between his fingers, combing the soft tresses tenderly.

Arwen smiled, watching him. "Some nights I wonder if perchance the waking dreams of the Eldar are entwining themselves into the fabric of my mortal rest. I remember and command myself fully in my sleep, as an elf does, and yet my dreams are human in feel. It is a strange thing, and sometimes I can be fooled into believing that I am awake while still wandering the paths of my mind."

"Do these strange dreams...unsettle you?" Aragorn asked, ever alert to the unique life that his beloved led, and all of the untold cross-currents between two peoples that it made her subject to.

"No, they do not." Turning onto her back, Arwen sighed. For a moment the two of them lay abed, listening to the birds nesting on the rooftops outside sing to greet the rising sun. "I had thought perhaps not to tell you this...but you are half of my heart, and I have no secrets from you, Estel. Sometimes, in my half-waking dreams, I meet my father, my mother, my mother's mother and father...everyone whom I shall never again see in this world. Sometimes we speak to one another, of things past and present, and all that ought to have been said and done, and other nights we simply walk in one another's presence." Arwen turned her face back to Aragorn, and smiled softly. "My dreams do not unsettle me, but sometimes they do grieve me. Sometimes I wish that they would not come, so that my joy at the life you and I have built together would not be cast in the nightly shadow of those whom I chose to leave."

Aragorn had never imagined to ask Arwen if she ever, even briefly, regretted the choice she had made for him. The thought crossed his mind to ask now, but he did not. Such a question would be a sad insult to Arwen's courage and strength of heart. Instead he did the only thing he could to soothe his wife's lingering grief; rose up on one elbow and leaned over to kiss her. They lingered there together for some time, until the sun had very nearly risen. When at last they parted and rose to begin the day, last night's dreams were safely tucked away.

Arwen went to her vanity and set to work brushing her hair while Aragorn threw water on his face and dressed. As he put on sturdy breeches suited for a day in the saddle Arwen watched him in the mirror.

"I shall have to put my foot down about your constant absences from my side one of these days, especially now that you have begun taking our children away with you."

With a soft chuckle Aragorn came to stand behind Arwen, laying his hands atop her shoulders. Looking at their reflections together in the mirror, he wished he could have shown such a vision to himself during his younger days of wandering as a ranger, uncertain and full of doubt.

"This shall be the last time I leave you, at least for this year. I pro-"

Arwen held up a hand, stopping him in mid-sentence. "No, do not promise. What is it that you are always telling the girls, especially Túrien, about making promises that they cannot be sure to keep?"

"And so the teacher's own lesson rebounds upon them! Very well then, instead I will make this promise to you; I promise upon my life that I will keep careful watch over Eldarion and Túrien in Harad. As much as I dare to hope that the Haradrim's talk of peace is genuine, I still regard them with caution, and will do so until the day I am proven otherwise."

Arwen's shoulders relaxed, and she laid a hand on of one of Aragorn's. "I know our children could be no safer anywhere in all of Middle-Earth with you watching over them." Then Arwen's face in the mirror lifted in a playful expression. "Take care not to linger too long? Not only shall the girls and I miss you, but we are keeping poor Faramir and his family bound to Minas Tirith most burdensomely. Every day you are away is a day that our steward and his White Lady cannot return to their beloved home in Ithilien."

At that Aragorn laughed. "Indeed! If we keep them here much longer, they are liable to return to find that Legolas has loosed sparrows in their parlour and squirrels in their pantry in protest of their absence!"

That set Arwen to laughing too, and Aragorn bent to kiss her once more before returning to his preparations for the journey to Harad. He continued to watch Arwen as she brushed and pinned her raven-black hair. If he had any say in the matter, this would be the last time they were parted this year. He made the promise to himself, with every intention in the world that he would hold to it. The Evenstar was not easy to be parted from, especially for her husband.

oOo

When Aragorn mounted Brego, Eldarion and Túrien on their horses Greyhame and Goldwine sat at the ready behind him. The two young people were perceptibly excited, exchanging numerous glances and shifting in the saddle. Their horses, especially Túrien's Rohirrim-bred mare picked up on their riders' anticipation and flicked their tails to and fro. Éomer would be accompanied to Harad by two dozen of his best Riders, and likewise Captain Bergil had assigned a guard of six and thirty for the king, prince and princess of Gondor. Elphir, Prince of Dol Amroth and son of the late Prince Imrahil would also be joining them, as he had spent some time observing the Haradrim while fighting alongside Faramir's rangers in Ithilien during the War of the Ring.

"Come back soon Ada!"

Aragorn had been beginning to wonder when Almárëa would let her tenuous hold on royal restraint slip away. The littlest princess called out from the top step of the White Tower, a little bobbing figure in turquoise skirts trying to get his attention one last time before he left. Eruthiawen moved as if to shush her sister, but it was too late; the eyes of all the Gondorian nobility had already swiveled to Almárëa in bemusement.

Raising a hand in farewell, Aragorn smiled and called back to his daughter. "I will, before the leaves turn and fall. Farewell, my dear ones!"

With half of his family waving from the stairs and half ready to follow him east, the king of Gondor turned his horse to the top of the long, winding road that led all the way down from the Great Citadel to the main city gates. A breeze lifted the flags of the standard-bearers. It was hot and heavy with summer, but also with the scent of adventure. As much as he hated to be parted from Arwen, a new adventure was something that Aragorn had been craving for a long, long time. Urging Brego forward he set off, the ranger within surging closer to the surface with every fall of the old horse's hooves.

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The first part of their journey to Harmindon took them through sweet and familiar woods in Ithilien. When they passed Éowyn and Faramir's settlement, the people of Ithilien came out to greet them on the road and offer them fruits freshly picked from the orchards. Although they did not have time to linger if they wished to meet the Haradrim chieftains by midsummer, they gladly accepted the peoples' gifts and wishes for safe travel. One young woman, not much older than Túrien, boldly darted forward from the back of the crowd gathered along the road. She had white myrtle flowers in her golden-brown hair, and offered Eldarion a wreath woven from the blooms. Eldarion caught the wreath in hand as he passed, provoking merciless teasing from Túrien for the next several hours although he did not wear it.

"You know Eldarion," she commented casually long after the settlement was behind them. "Myrtle flowers have a special meaning associated with them."

"Túrien..." warned Eldarion.

"They're symbols of love, particularly of the marital variety. Methinks if you turned around and went back now you could still have yourself a future queen by summer's end."

"Túriennnn!"

Eldarion's face heated right up to his ears. It did not help at all that several of the soldiers riding around them were unsubtly trying to smother grins beneath their helmets. Even their father's shoulders might have been twitching up and down as he rode in front of them in barely contained laughter. Éomer turned to wink back at Eldarion.

"She's not wrong you know. Now that you're of age, nothing is stopping you from finding someone to court, Eldarion. Why, I'm told that your father met your mother at the tender age of twenty."

"True, my friend, but we did not wed until many, many years after that," interjected Aragorn, admitting defeat and allowing himself to address the topic at hand. He fastened a meaningful look on Túrien. "Túrien, I'm sure Eldarion would be very grateful if you could refrain from commenting every time he happens to interact with a young lady. There may come a day when you will wish for equal courtesy from your brother and sisters."

"Yes Adar," was what Túrien said aloud. "Not likely," was what she murmured under her breath, with yet another evil grin in Eldarion's direction. Eldarion resigned himself to this being a very long trip indeed.

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The further south they got, the drier and browner the land became. The lush green forests of Ithilien shrunk down into shrubbery, and the sunsets took on more of a red, fiery hue. After making the crossing at the river Poros, they would pass into the region known as South Gondor. Eldarion had never been there before, but knew of it from Faramir and Elboron as an oddly beautiful land. Cliffs and valleys of stratified rocks stood in sharp relief against wide open skies, and the sharp, waxy plants which grew there would burst into bright blooms of color at night or after a rainfall. This was the land which the Haradrim wished to reclaim as Harondor. From what little Eldarion knew of the Haradrim, and of South Gondor, he imagined that such a place might suit such a people. That was, if they could peaceably reoccupy it without posing a threat to Gondor's southern borders at Ithilien, Pelargir and Dol Amroth.

One evening after they had set camp, Túrien approached Eldarion and asked to practice sparring with him. Eldarion hadn't even known until recently that his youngster sister knew how to wield a blade, and seeing Hadhafang hanging at her belt as she rode had been strange. Still, he was willing, and he and Túrien paced out a makeshift training ring beside the fire while Aragorn and Éomer sat nearby, listening as Elphir recounted what he knew of the Haradrim.

"Harad's tribes are organized into those of Near and Far Harad," Elphir was saying "with those of Far Harad being darker in complexion and taller in build than the Haradrim of Near Harad. Far Harad I have heard tell of being divided into so-called kingdoms, but these kingdoms are small, constantly at war with one another, and less worthy of the name than even the tribes of Near Harad."

"And to what extent do the politics of Far Harad and Near Harad – Eldarion you are holding back far too much! – hold sway over one another?" asked Aragorn.

Elphir thought for a moment, making way for the ringing of steel on steel to fill the campsite. Eldarion was taller and broader than Túrien, but Túrien was proving herself to be quicker on her feet. Whether that was due to Eldarion holding back for his sister's sake, or simply Túrien's smaller frame, the princess was all too keen to take advantage of the difference. She had no choice but to; Eldarion was certainly strong enough to knock her flat if it came to a physical match.

Apparently coming to a conclusion, Elphir continued. "If there is any influence, it is chiefly in the sense of military position. The tribes of Near and Far Harad often fight amongst themselves, but even more often they fight one another. I fear that, even if the chieftains of Near Harad, whom you met at the Sea of Rhûn, can be negotiated with to reach an accord, it is most unlikely that the 'kingdoms' of Far Harad will honor it."

Éomer frowned, chewing the edge of his mustache. The firelight against the gathering twilight on the hills highlighted yet another newly acquired set of lines in his face. "I like it not. We are to treat for peace with the chieftains of some tribes, while watching for a dagger in our backs from the chieftains of others?"

"As Arwen and I discussed before agreeing to send Túrien with us, Chieftains Na'Man, Tufayl and Bakr would be amiss if they haven't considered the need for our protection from unfriendly tribes while we are in Harmindon."

"Aragorn, have you considered – Eldarion! Aragorn, are you certain you want your daughter fighting like this? That will surely bruise... – considered that we may be walking into a trap? If this is a ploy by the Haradrim to get two enemy kings and the next in line to Gondor's throne in one place and vulnerable, I'd say it's been a smashing success thus far."

"On that theory, Lord Éomer, I am afraid I must disagree," said Elphir. "The Haradrim have their own code of honour; different than most Men of the West keep, to be sure, but a code nonetheless. Although we will undoubtedly be at risk from unfriendly tribes and chieftains once we enter Harad, the chieftains who invited us, Na'Man in particular who is our host in Harmindon, will not sleep until they see us sent safely on our way back to Minas Tirith."

Éomer was not appeased. "And if our negotiations should go poorly? What of after they send us on our way out of Harmindon, thus appeasing their code? Who's to say what can happen on the road that they might turn a blind eye to, and call it unfortunate when we never return?"

"If even one of us were to escape and make it back to Minas Tirith, then the location of Harmindon, so long jealously guarded by the Haradrim, will be known to a western world primed to avenge their royal houses," said Aragorn wearily. "The chieftains made this invitation in good faith, Éomer, and I accepted it in the same. Peace cannot even begin to be considered between Gondor, Rohan and Harad if we cannot trust the Haradrim to host a single visit to their lands. Keep your sword tip up, Túrien."

Éomer sighed. "You are brave, Aragorn, and braver still for bringing your children here with you. I admire you for it, but I cannot help but fear that your courage will be ill-rewarded." When there was only silence forthcoming, the king of Rohan slapped his thigh and stood. "We have trusted to hope before though, and seen it realized. I will retire for tonight, and leave you to enjoy the evening air. Goodnight Lord Aragorn, Elphir."

"Goodnight Lord Éomer. I wish you a restful night," Aragorn replied. Éomer was just about to turn away when a pained yelp from across the fire brought the lords' heads swivelling.

"Túrien! You cannot strike a man there, especially not in sparring! Apologize to your brother at once!"

Éomer however was now laughing. "If any of us are to survive this visit, it will likely be the Lady Túrien! I pity any man, be they Gondorian, Rohirrim or Haradrim, who runs afoul of her!"

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