Author's Notes: Certain aspects of characters' lives are more fun to conjecture than to know.

Dedication: This is for Ponytail Goddess who requested after reading A Beautiful Night for Dancing "a one-shot…where your characterized Haldir has some sort of romantic experience" though I suspect this is not quite what she had in mind; nevertheless, I hope she finds enjoyment in it.

A Difficult Conversation

"Have you ever been in love?"

Haldir raised his eyes from the crackling fire to his companion who lay sprawled on his back, hands tucked neatly behind his head. They had been journeying hard for some weeks and had purposefully lost themselves as only a ranger and one of the Galadhrim could do without losing their way in truth.

The particular patch of woodland in which they had sequestered themselves for the night was little used, and the path, such as it was, almost completely overgrown with pale foxglove and whortleberry shrubs. Close-growing rowans leaned over their fire, warming their leaves. Their thick, straight trunks sheltered the two travelers from the wind and created a warm bower that only let in the stray ribbon relinquished by the pearly moon.

The marchwarden returned his eyes to their foundering campfire and prodded a few of the more recalcitrant twigs back into the embers with his knifetip. "Do you mean the love a doting uncle bears for a niece? The love of brother for brother? Parents? Or…brothers-in-arms?"

"I have never heard you speak of any type of love. Either the ones you have named or otherwise."

Haldir shrugged one shoulder. "It does not often come up when other matters, more important, press close."

"You do not find love important?"

"Love's constancy is what makes it unimportant. We can acknowledge its presence without having to speak of it and turn our minds to matters that merit our attention such as the defense of the marches."

Aragorn shook his head, the leaves crackling beneath him. "Even when I ask you about a matter close to the heart, you manage to couch it in terms of duty."

"A soldier's only mistress is duty."

"Even a soldier loves."

A beat. "That is so."

Aragorn sat up and braced his elbows on his knees. "So, are you ever going to answer my query, or are we to debate the line between love and duty for the remainder of the night?"

"What ensnared me in this conversation in the first place? Whence came this talk of love from you, Estel? I admit my company is certainly pleasing, but to inspire love in the manner you speak of is—"

"Not you!" the ranger protested with a vehemence that made the elf cast him a look of feigned hurt. "I mean, well, not…not in that manner."

"Odd. Now you are the one flustered." Haldir's eyes narrowed, and he suddenly leaned intently forward as he scrutinized the ranger's face in the half-light. "You are flushing!"

Aragorn turned his face towards the cool shadows. "I am not," he grumbled. When the elf continued to stare at him accusingly, he met the silver eyes with an aggravated glare. "This is precisely why I delayed this subject for so long—if all I ever receive for a confidence is your mockery and deflections."

Relenting though not at all abashed, Haldir languidly reclined on his elbows and made a gracious motion for the ranger to continue, his face deliberately schooled. "So. You spoke of love."

The canny ranger watched him for a slow minute, waiting for a telltale sign that would prove this reversion to casual seriousness false, before speaking, "I meant the love that completes the spirit. That will last even beyond the circles of the world. The kind that, as a custom, ends with marriage."

Aragorn knew the rightful heat was creeping up his neck by now. As though for inspiration, he dropped his eyes to the ring on his forefinger. Its emerald, warmed by the fireglow, glittered up at him, sparked his courage.

"Do you believe there is a difference between friendship and love?"

"There is no difference. If you do not have one, you cannot have the other. Who, then, has the great fortune of 'completing your spirit' as you so dramatically name it?"

"She is…a friend. A charming friend."

"And a beautiful one I take it."

"Extraordinary." However this statement, rather than causing the young man's face to light up, darkened it. He frowned. "But, our match…would not sit well with many."

"In what way?"

"She is...too high above me. In station. In age. In…in all things."

"Ah."

Passing a hand across his face, the man followed his friend's gaze to the fire and stared into its depths for a few silent moments. The visions of the woman he had only glimpsed between the birch trees, to whom he had only spoken for moments, flashed across his memory brighter than the light of the fire, just as clearly as sixteen years ago. Decades of traveling in the wild, of facing great peril, of nearly losing his life more than once had not dulled what he felt as love. And the visceral ache that the thought of never seeing her again provoked was almost unbearable.

"You have not asked me who she is."

Another insouciant shrug. Aragorn took it to mean that the marchwarden did not want to pry too closely into his friend's heart.

"It is not my affair. Why should it matter who you choose to love? The heart's choosing is not one's own to make."

"Well, that is in part why I asked. Have you ever been in love?"

It was a very personal question, Aragorn knew. Though they had been friends for years, this was new ground. They had never broached the subject of love, of marriage, of what either hoped for the future. Aragorn, young-seeming, was already into his middle years and, though he knew he would live far beyond the usual count of lesser Men because of his heritage; nonetheless, he felt the pressure of time on his shoulders.

On the other hand, Haldir had uncounted ages before him and, though Aragorn had an inkling that, at least by elven standards, his older friend had long ago passed the usual age when elves pursued their passionate desire to court and wed that did not, by any means, obliterate the future possibility of it. It was also for the sake of sating his curiosity since the elf talked so seldom about anything other than what practicality ordained.

The captain of the Golden Wood's fences preferred to ignore what he considered the "frivolous matters" of the heart, those treasured snatches meant for times of peace and moments of harp-song—all too infrequent of late. Because of the honor-bound position he held in Lothlórien which often demanded all his time and faculties, Aragorn could not really blame the marchwarden for his choice. Being a well-settled bachelor this late in life, Haldir might never follow the marriage path.

When his friend remained staring at the fire as though pondering whether to answer, Aragorn began to muse aloud. "The only elf-woman I ever see you in company with for any length of time is either the Lady herself or one from your own ranks. Or is stitching you up. Speaking of which, is there any truth to those rumors about you and that lady healer?"

Haldir gave the man a sly and somehow simultaneously stern look. "Eremae and I love to aggravate each other. It keeps us young and frivolous. But, neither of us ever thinks of marriage between us. Or love. You ought not to listen to idle rankers' gossip on long and wearisome patrols."

"Well, then…" The ranger raised his eyebrows pointedly.

His expectancy crumbled slightly when the elf continued to stare abstractedly into the fire, his interlocked fingers resting against pursed lips, and his brows drawn down in a contemplative frown. A niggling thought that he might be treading overly tender ground flitted across Aragorn's mind. He pulled reluctantly back.

"Haldir, I…If it is a...If it is too painful you needn't tell me."

The thoughtful adamantine eyes left the fire. "Mmm? No…no, it is not painful. Merely…difficult to explain. I am not lonely. I am not alone. I do not languish in widowhood due to a lost love. The few heartbreaks of youth have long healed over. Between my brothers, my duty, and my…my friends, I do not lack love or heart's fulfillment in my life." He sighed, and the slight frown returned.

"But you are right if you think I do not imagine myself surrounded by small faces with my eyes or with my lover's hair. My bed is not made for marriage, the space beside mine not filled with a soft, rounded form to take in my arms every night for eternity. Some lives have strange fates. Or are meant for eternal bachelorhood and revel in it."

"Besides, what would Rameil say if you brought home a wife?" Taking his cue from the elf, Aragorn lightened the mood. Rameil was a fellow bachelor who shared rooms in the captain's quarters as his second-in-command. It had been an arrangement to both their likings for many years, and Aragorn could see how Haldir could not think his life empty.

A wry though earnest smile tilted the corner of the marchwarden's lips in reply. "What, indeed."