Disclaimer: Italicised sentences are Tolkien's.

A/N: Enjoy!

All that is gold does not glitter...

She smiled upon him, Arwen, the Evenstar, her laugh like molten silver. Indeed no gold was wrought upon her form, but he treasured her more than all the riches of a dragon-hoard – for he had won her heart.

Gold was bright and lovely, but it tarnished and dimmed over time, and their love would never die.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken...

The flames leaped up, brilliant in the darkness, but the light of twilight and stars caught instead the flickering keen edge of a blade.

Renewed shall be blade that was broken...

At last he held it – Andúril, the Flame of the West, work of his brothers' hands. The torchlight swirled over the sharpened tip, glowing in the silver reflection of the well-forged blade.

The crownless again shall be king.

He needed no crown.

Aragorn, Estel, Elessar – the King he was at last, but the winged crown of Elendil sat not upon his brow. His clothes were ragged and torn, his face was careworn and weary; but the determined glitter of his deep grey eyes belied his great ancestry.

Any other king would not appear thus without some sign of their status, but Aragorn was not just any king. He was a lord of a nigh forgotten people – a leader reborn from the ashes of a long-dead fire. The embers had sprung to life.

With his lady at his side and the reforged blade firm in his grasp, the uncrowned king feared no evil. For new hope can be found at the dawn of the sun, and Estel, mortal amongst immortals, child of the childless, had become that light.