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The garden lay in that still hour before noon when the air was cool but the light was high. Aragorn passed beneath an arch of climbing roses, their pale petals stirring faintly in the breeze. His steps carried him along the narrow path, a familiar rhythm his feet knew by heart since boyhood. Here, tucked away between high hedges and the outer wall of Rivendell, lay the little garden he had claimed in his heart as his own.
It wasn't large: a mossy bench, a cluster of white lilies, and the steady murmur of the stream just beyond. In all his years, he had never found another soul here.
Which was why he stopped short at the sight before him.
An elderly hobbit sat comfortably upon the bench, a thick, leather-bound book balanced on his knee.
Aragorn hesitated, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I’ve never seen anyone here before,” he said at last. “I’ve always thought of this place as my own.”
Bilbo looked up, his eyes bright with a curious blend of mischief and warmth. He chuckled—a soft, rich sound. “Well, fancy that. I’ve thought the very same thing for years now. Seems we’ve been sharing it without knowing.”
He closed the book with a gentle thump, patting the spot beside him. “No sense in being strangers in our own corner of paradise. Sit, lad. There’s room enough for two.”
Aragorn inclined his head, the smile still in his eyes, and came forward to take the offered seat. The sunlight filtered through the leaves above, dappling them both in shifting gold.
Aragorn let his gaze fall to the book in Bilbo’s lap. Its leather cover was dark and unadorned, the title stamped in elegant silver Tengwar script: Calad uin Lû—Light of Time. He frowned slightly, trying to recall if he’d ever seen it among the shelves of Rivendell.
“I don’t know that one,” he said. “Where did you come across it?”
Bilbo brushed a speck of dust from the cover. “From Elrond’s private library,” he replied with a note of quiet pride, as if confessing to a small mischief. “He doesn’t lend these out to just anyone, mind you. But I’ve been told I’m ‘responsible enough’—” his eyes twinkled—“which I suspect is a polite way of saying they think I’m too slow these days to lose anything.”
Aragorn smiled faintly. “And what is it about?”
Bilbo ran a finger along the silver lettering. “It's an old Elvish meditation on how the passing of days is measured in light. Dawn to dusk, starlight to sunrise. But it goes beyond the surface concepts into questions about whether time shapes the light, or whether light gives meaning to time itself.”
Bilbo sighed heavily. “I suppose such themes are on my mind more than they used to be. When you’re young, time is a road that winds on forever — always another bend, another hill. But now…” He gave a small shake of his head. “Now I begin to see the end of the road from where I stand.”
He glanced up at the late morning sunlight. “The book says light is never still—it’s always moving, changing. Even in the stillest moment, it shifts a little. The Elves say that’s why no two dawns are the same, even if they fall on the same hills. Time works the same way. You think you’re standing still, but you’re not—you’re being carried along, quietly, without noticing.
It also says”—he tapped the book’s cover with one finger—“that light makes time visible. Without it, all the hours and years would be just empty shapes in the dark. I like that thought. It makes me wonder if the days I have left are brighter now, not because so few of them remain, but because I know to look at them while the light’s still falling upon them.”
Aragorn was silent a moment, his gaze resting on the lilies swaying gently beyond the bench. “Perhaps that is why the Elves speak of memory as they do,” he said at last. “Not as a shadow of what is gone, but as a light that still shines—carried within, even when the day has passed. If the hours are fewer ahead than behind, then their light is all the more precious. And light, once kindled, does not wholly fade.”
Bilbo gave a small, wry huff. “Ah, but for the Elves, the hours ahead are without number. That's where the interpretation of this book must differ. For us mortals, the light it speaks of is a limited treasure. Each day is a jewel we hold, knowing the chest will one day be empty. We savor these moments because we know they're not coming back.
But for the Elves, their road goes on forever. What is a single dawn to them? Or a century? I wonder if, because they have so much time, the light is not a precious, fleeting thing at all, but just a constant backdrop, an endless stream they can dip into at any point. The book also says time shapes the light. For us, that means time is a vessel we've filled with light—one that slowly drains as the years pass. But for the Elves, perhaps the light is the vessel itself, endlessly being renewed with each new dawn. Surely, one's understanding of how time gives meaning to light must feel very different when you have no shortage of time. The equation must inherently change when you alter the values, don't you think?”
Aragorn nodded. “I think you’re right,” he said, a thoughtful look on his face. “The conditions are different, and so the conclusion must be as well. For them, time is a continuous, unchanging flow. But for us, each day is a limited quantity, and we must make the most of it. The satisfaction, perhaps, comes from knowing that each day is valuable—temporary, yes, but no less significant because of it.” And here he smirked. “I’m told they find our way of living quite rushed.”
Bilbo gave an amused chuckle. "It's no wonder their stories are so long. They have all the time in the world to get to the point."
“That they do,” Aragorn said with a soft laugh, a faint smile on his lips as he remembered. “I recall many nights as a child, trying to stay awake during the late-night storytelling in the Hall of Fire. They would go on for hours, and I'm not sure I ever made it to the end.” He shook his head, smile deepening. “Poor Erestor; whenever he'd look over and find me sound asleep, he'd be so personally offended. I think he took it as a great affront to the art of Elvish storytelling itself.”
Bilbo sniggered. "Well, that's one thing that hasn't changed over the years," he admitted, patting the leather-bound book on his lap. "Erestor gives me that same disappointed look when he finds me dozing off during a particularly long late night epic. Some things, I suppose, are simply timeless."
Aragorn chuckled, stroking his chin. "Timeless indeed. So perhaps we have discovered another kind of light," he said, his eyes twinkling. "The light of Elvish disapproval. It shines on mortals of every age, it seems, and never fades."
A pleasant silence settled upon them, each lost in their own relaxed thoughts. Until a deep, resonant rumble echoed from Bilbo's middle, a sound quite out of place in the peaceful garden. Bilbo patted his stomach with a sigh of mock exasperation.
"Ah, well," he said, pushing himself up from the bench. "I suppose that's one light that always shines on time. The inner workings of a hobbit's stomach. It must be time for lunch." He gestured with his head toward the distant sounds from the main hall. "Shall we?"
Aragorn rose, inclining his head. “Lead the way, Master Hobbit.”
Together, they passed beneath the arch of climbing roses, the pale petals stirring one last time in the breeze as they left their private corner of paradise.