[The Silmarillion] Romimus

At the end of the Second Era, the final alliance formed by the Elf Supreme King Gilgalad and the human monarch Elendil declared war on Sauron, the Dark Lord. After 11 years of war, the elves and humans finally won. The One Ring was destroyed in a completely unexpected manner, and the Third Age began.

However, although Sauron's power is gone, it is far from peace. There are still many orcs and trolls on the plains and wastelands. In the forest, giant spiders and other terrible animals are everywhere. Sleep soundly in the cave.

But after the source of darkness was cut off, it was only a matter of time before those monsters were completely wiped out. The elves and humans—especially humans—still gradually grew stronger. However, the inheritance of the royal family has been stubbornly unbroken.

In 2944 of the Third Age, Gondor, Minas Tirith——

In the quiet corridor, the bright sun at three o'clock in the afternoon slantly slanted, and was divided into pieces by the pillars of the corridor and spread on the floor. From a distance, this long corridor looks like a row of golden and Black and white keys.

A woman holding a few thick books and several rolls of parchment appeared at the end of the corridor. Her back was straight, her eyes were looking straight ahead, her face was very quiet, and she could not see any emotion.She walked briskly down the corridor, alternating sunlight and shadows on her face.

"Miss Antonia!" However, a young boy easily broke the silence. He stepped on the keys on the floor and ran towards the girl cheerfully.

The woman was still expressionless, but she spoke in a low but sweet voice: "His Royal Highness Aragorn."

"I want to tell you a big news today!" Aragorn ran up to Antonia, took the book in her arms very naturally, and walked to her side.

"what?"

"Today my father hired a new teacher for me to teach me swordsmanship and archery. You must not guess who he is!" Aragorn couldn't hide his excitement.

Antonia didn't take it seriously: "Your Majesty has always cared and loved you, so naturally I will give His Majesty the best in everything. Even if His Majesty invites the general of Gondor to counsel you, I won't be surprised."

"No, Miss Antonia, you made a mistake this time." Aragorn said mysteriously, "My teacher this time, I can't afford it even if I have money. He is from Rivendell!"

"I see." Antonia still didn't show any excitement on her face. "It's nothing surprising. Lord Elrond of Rivendell has always been a staunch ally of Gondor."

"Oh." Seeing that Antonia didn't care, the young Aragorn was in a hurry, and almost blurted out the name of his swordsmanship teacher, but the words swirled around in his mouth, and finally swallowed them back, angrily Said: "This lord is a well-known figure in the entire Central Continent!"

"So what if you are famous? Could Your Majesty still invite Lord Elrond over here in person?"

"Miss Antonia! Can't you cooperate with me once?!"

"Okay, I can't guess, I admit defeat, please tell me who is the swordsmanship teacher who made you so full of praise."

"Hey, this is a secret."

"..." Antonia rolled her eyes in her heart.

"Anyway, you shall see him in a moment," said Aragorn.

Antonia said nothing, just raised her eyebrows in a little confusion.

"Uh, in fact, I accidentally mentioned you a few times when that lord was teaching me today." Aragorn touched his nose guiltily, "That lord seems to be very interested in your class, He also asked me if I could come and listen, I thought that since you spoke so well, there should be no problem, so I agreed..."

Antonia raised her eyebrows even higher.

"Are you joking, Your Highness?" she said. "How can an elf be interested in my history class?"

"You are too modest to say that, Miss Antonia!" cried Aragorn. "In any case, you are also the first wise man of Gondor!"

Antonia, the most recognized wise man in Gondor, and interestingly, she may not be a Gondorian at all.

Antonia's parentage is a mystery. 40 years ago, she came to Gondor alone. No one had seen or heard of her before. She settled down in Gondor silently. In the eyes of outsiders, she was cold and withdrawn, and she often spoke crazy words, although Those seemingly baseless crazy words all came true later, but no one took it seriously at the time, because Antonia's appearance was too young, and she looked no more than 60 years old for the Numenoreans.

For 26 years, Antonia looked no different from the sorceresses that can be seen everywhere on the street. Her only job was to help some superstitious people seek divination, but her business was not the best one. Because although her predictions are very accurate, when people ask her how to avoid those unfortunate fates, she is often helpless; people hope that she can cast spells to ask God for help, but Antonia bluntly said that God will not care about these trivial things little things.

Not only that, even if it is a prophecy, Antonia is not able to predict everything, such as...

"Miss Antonia, my son was born last month, I would like to ask you to divination about his future fate?"

"..." I dare not say anything else, it must be a death in the end.

"Miss Antonia, please tell me when will I meet my true love?"

"..." God knows!

"Miss Antonia, can you help me figure out how much money I can make from gambling this time? How much can I make?"

"……"Pooh.

This situation continued until 14 years ago.

One day 14 years ago, the Prime Minister of Gondor, Tegan, just returned from his trip. When he was riding up the avenues of the White City, Antonia suddenly rushed out from the crowd and ran in front of Tegon, warning him that in three days, the top of the White City might be killed. There is a big fire, let him pay attention to precautions.

Everyone thought Antonia was crazy, and Tegang didn't pay attention to her words at first.

Until three days later, a storm came to Minas Tiris without warning. That night, there was lightning and thunder, and a bolt of lightning directly hit the White Tower, the highest point of the White City. The fire ignited instantly, and even almost burned the palace. Holy White Tree in the courtyard.

After the fire was extinguished, the prime minister was terrified, and then remembered Antonia's warning three days ago, and quickly reported the matter to Arazon. Arazon sent someone to invite Antonia to the palace and talked with her in person.Afterwards he was amazed, for Antonia was very eloquent, and he had never before heard of such a learned figure in Gondor.

From that day on, Antonia became a guest of the Emperor, and she was not shy about expressing her opinions on various things, and the prophecies she uttered casually, together with the premonitions in those days before , without exception, all of them became reality, and the biggest achievement was that Antonia accurately predicted the time and scale of a half-orc raid. If it wasn't for her, Arathon might have died Battlefield, and Aragorn was only two years old at the time.

So far, the title of the first wise man of Gondor has firmly fallen on Antonia's head, and no one has any doubts. Arathorn also trusts Antonia more and more, and even has the idea of ​​​​appointing her as the national teacher, but Antony Ya bluntly said that she had no such intention and rejected Arathon's kindness. Although Arathon felt sorry, he had no choice but to give up. He just announced that Antonia could freely enter and leave the library of Minas Tiris from now on. There are many precious scrolls in it. Antonia accepted this grace from the once great but now sunken empire of Númenor.

In this way, another four years passed, and Aragorn was six years old. Arathorn began to look for a teacher for his son, who was also the future prince of Gondor. In terms of literature and history, he almost immediately thought of Anthony, the wise man of Gondor. Ya.

"By the way, have you ever seen an elf before, Miss Antonia?" Aragorn asked curiously.

Antonia paused, and seemed to be lost in thought for a moment: "...I have seen it before."

"Ah." Aragorn was a little disappointed, "I still want to see you surprised."

"Oh?"

"Because you have always been calm, as if you wouldn't panic if the sky fell."

"You will be slapped for speaking like this, Your Highness."

"Are you willing to hit me?"

"...but I'll give you twice as much homework."

"Well, but I daresay, even if you've seen elves before, you'll be surprised when you learn who this lord is."

There was a little smile in Antonia's eyes, and she glanced at Aragorn: "You underestimate me too, Your Highness."

Aragorn's eyes rolled: "Then how about we make a bet, Miss Antonia? If I win, the extra homework I got today won't count."

Antonia didn't take it seriously: "If I make any surprised movements or expressions, then I won't leave any homework today."

"It's a deal!" Aragorn's eyes lit up, and at the same time he secretly prayed: My lord, you must give me some strength!

The room at the end of the corridor is the small world of Antonia and Aragorn. In this classroom, the two have discussed countless wonderful and interesting topics together. Antonia never objected to Aragorn reading any books and articles that interested him. She knew and respected him, and Aragorn loved Antonia, perhaps second only to his mother Gilraine.

Because Aragorn couldn't make a move, Antonia opened the door of the room before him and walked in.

The light in the room was very abundant, even much brighter than usual, because a tall elf stood by the window, and the sunlight shone on his brilliant blond hair, instantly filling the room with brilliance.The elf happened to be looking at the door of the room when Antonia came in, and their eyes met in an instant.

The parchment slipped from Antonia's hands, and scattered all over the floor.

"Miss Antonia?" The elf seemed to be smiling, walked over from the window, bent down to help Antonia pick up the parchment, stacked it aside, and then stared at her without blinking.

"...Yes." Antonia murmured, her face turned red and then pale, she opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but she didn't say a word.

"Let me introduce myself," the elf seemed not aware of Antonia's discomfort, still staring at her intently, his eyes were as blue as the sky and the sea, and contained indescribable emotions and power, "My name is Glorfindel."

"I have known you for a long time." Antonia said in a low voice, "It's the first time I meet you. It's an honor to meet you."

"Well, meeting for the first time."

"Can you let me in, Miss Antonia?" Aragorn was secretly rejoicing because of Antonia's gaffe, but now he felt that the atmosphere was a bit wrong.

"Yes, I'm sorry, Your Highness." Antonia was shocked, and quickly turned around to take the book in Aragorn's hand, and made way for the door.

Glorfindel no longer stared at Antonia like that, he returned to the window, his expression returned to his natural look, and there was still a vague smile on the corner of his mouth.

But Antonia didn't seem to have fully recovered her senses, she stood there in a daze, looked at Glorfindel from time to time, but lowered her head suddenly when Glorfindel also looked at her.

A room of embarrassment.

"I told you that you will be surprised to see Lord Glorfindel, right?" Aragorn tried to break the silence, and said to Antonia jokingly.

"Yes..." Antonia forced a smile, "It's a bet."

"Oh, you still bet on me?" Glorfindel laughed, "If I guessed the content of the bet correctly, I would be really honored."

"Why does Lord Glorfindel make fun of me with this?" Antonia whispered, "I just didn't expect to see you in Gondor. I thought you should have returned after the Battle of the Last Alliance. to the West."

"Really? It seems that even the first wise man of Gondor has unexpected things."

"You're joking again." Antonia's voice trembled slightly, "Compared to you, I am not worthy of the word wise."

"You're the one who was joking, Miss Antonia." Glorfindel's expression remained unchanged. "When talking about you this morning, Aragorn was full of praise for you."

Antonia looked at Aragorn, who blushed and turned his head away.

"I heard from Aragon that the content of your lecture today is—" Glorfindel paused for a few seconds, "Romimos."

"...I don't think anyone knows this history better than you."

"That's right." Glorfindel nodded in agreement, "But I'm curious, Miss Antonia, what kind of unique opinion do you have about Romimus?"

"..."

"After all, you are the first wise man of Gondor, aren't you?"