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When I think about my father now, even to me, he seems more legend than man; he who sailed to beg mercy on our wrongs and never returned, as if to make of his life an incomplete refrain to an old story. And there remain in my mind, these little fragments here and there, of him as the leader of a hounded people, and by then I was almost his equal -- but there were other times that I have to strive in order to remember now, when even allowing for civil unrest, we lived in comparative peace... and I was a child, and Miriel -- and Pharazon.
The hardest thing to accept now, this is -- that I used to play tag with Pharazon.
You almost forgot that, later; you had to, when he became the tyrant your people will remember him as -- but if you had feared for you and yours, you feared for him, and whatever fate might await him, for his sake too. Until slowly, you began to forget you had known him as anything else than a monster -- but now, this too is gone.
Ar-Pharazon is gone, and you are here, despite the very odds -- only you wonder, gone where; and now that the horror of those years is far away, you can afford to fear the answer, and hope for the best.
But my father, my father hadn't always been a legend; hadn't always been a tale of sorrow. He used to hold me on his knee and teach me the stars -- among other things. He taught me all I know. Even as I rule today, I rule on his principles, though he never taught me to govern, never knew I'd become King. Myself -- the first King of Gondor and Arnor and the Last Lord of Andunie. Or was that my father?
He is gone now, I think, whatever the end of his long ago journey. Ah -- what difference can there be to me anymore? It should feel easier, being able to put the past behind so decisively. But I cannot do so, and who could? I wonder if he had a grave.
Did my father do well in sailing? I cannot say. I am a ruler and have judged many men for breaking laws with noble intentions, and sometimes the intentions truly are pure, and sometimes they are a mistake. He never wished to break the ban; his aim was noble, but was it did needful, what did he achieve? -- and I shall only know that when I see him next.
I haven't really wondered when that will be, not in recent years. It is strange how you can not notice that you have forgotten what it is not to live in fear -- and then, when the world changes, forget what it is to be watchful for danger in every waking hour.
Still, sometimes I wish I could talk with my father about this country I'm building, just once.