The South Gate of Fisslet.
Watching Aragorn's receding figure, Allen led his son along the town's level stone-paved road, ready to return to Winterhold.
"That big brother already rules so many people. Why does he still want to travel? Wouldn't it be better to stay and manage his own lands?"
Albert's young voice rang out as he asked the question that had been troubling him.
He had begun receiving extensive instruction at the age of five, and his mother, the queen, and his father, the king, set examples for him every day.
Thus, Albert already had an extremely vague idea of what it meant to be a worthy king.
"My son, Aragorn is different from you. Compared with him, you are truly fortunate. Though Annúminas has gathered over ten thousand people and counts as a sizable power here in Middle-earth, far to the south, beside the sea, lies Gondor, with a population of over a hundred thousand. A long-lost throne awaits Aragorn there, a throne he must reclaim."
As he spoke, Allen gently ruffled his son's hair.
"That will not be easy, Albert. I once taught you that power, though it seems to grant control over life and death, is actually terribly fragile. It comes entirely from other people's recognition of those who rule them."
Albert nodded and said,
"Yes. To gain that recognition, you must strengthen yourself while observing other people's needs, or even manipulating those needs. If they conflict, you must do everything you can to choose what matters to you and abandon what doesn't. I remember all of that."
Hearing his son's answer, Allen shook his head and said, "You must also think more deeply and recognize what truly matters to you. Now, think a little harder. Why would Aragorn leave his lands unmanaged and travel to