Born: 2931, Third Age of Middle-earth.
Died: Year 120, Fourth Age of Middle-earth, at the great age of 208.

Abbreviated timeline:

2933: Arathorn II slain. Gilraen takes Aragorn to Imladris (Rivendell). Elrond receives him as foster-son and gives him the name Estel (Hope); his ancestry is concealed.

(Time reference: 2941: The events narrated in The Hobbit take place. The One Ring is found, and Sauron returns in secret to Mordor.)

2951: Sauron declares himself openly and gathers power in Mordor.....Elrond reveals to 'Estel' his true name and ancestry, and delivers to him the shards of Narsil. Arwen, newly returned from Lórien, meets Aragorn in the woods of Imladris. Aragorn goes out into the Wild.

2951-3017: Aragorn undertakes his great journeys and errantries.

*3018-19: THE WAR OF THE RING. Aragorn joins the Company of the Ring at the Prancing Pony in Bree and the rest is the stuff of legends............

3019 - or Year 1, Fourth Age of Middle-earth: The Fall of Sauron. Aragorn is crowned King Elessar of Gondor and Arnor on May 1, and weds Arwen Evenstar at Midsummer.

Year 1-120, Fourth Age: Elessar reigns and brings lasting peace to his wide realm in Middle-earth, which flourishes. His death marks the passing from the time of legends to the time of history.

Notes:

Aragorn's complexity takes him beyond the role of hero-king that fate has set upon him. Perhaps it's all the nights spent sleeping alone in roadside ditches, but he's developed an odd, private sense of humour that only comes with too much solitude.

For all his kingly birth and noble purpose, he seems to delight in the anonymous life of a lonely Ranger of the North, almost reveling in the suspicious looks and distrust that his weatherstained and rogueish demeanor always earn him. He is known for telling a marvelous tale or two of outlandish parts when the mood strikes him, but always without revealing a single hint of who he might be and disappearing again into the Wild before anyone has a chance to ask.

     'Only [Butterbur] does not altogether like mysterious vagabonds of my sort.' Frodo gave him a puzzled look.
     'Well, I have rather a rascally look, have I not?' said Strider with a curl of his lip and a queer gleam in his eye.

Even when fate catches up with him at last, in the form off our hobbits fleeing desperately from peril towards greater peril, Aragorn does not immediately reveal himself as any sort of hero. Instead he chooses to play upon the hobbits' fears, terrifying them deliberately, until they realize they need any help they can get, even the dubious help of this shadowy vagabond, and agree to let him come along out of fear alone.

Once Aragorn's true identity and lineage are revealed, he seems no more willing to step into the light no matter how strongly his hero-king destiny pulls him. He defers to Gandalf, and keeps to the background, knowing the quickest way to defeat is to draw the attention of the Enemy. His intent is to survive long enough to see the final fight.

Which he does. By taking terrible risks, choosing paths that no other would dare to tread, and by outstrategizing an Enemy whose tactics are based solely in his overwhelming numbers. All deeds of a hero, and yet Aragorn does them only because they need to be done, not for glory or fame.

Not that he doesn't have motives. Of all the company, he stands with the most to gain: two kingdoms that span most of the known world and a beautiful woman to wed.....

.....Oh but that beautiful woman is a sore spot indeed. Arwen Undómiel, the Evenstar of her people, daughter of Elrond Half-Elven. Far too highly-born for Aragorn, a mere mortal, for all his noble lineage. Their union is forbidden--for if she should choose to stay with him she would give up her immortality and the privelege of sailing west to Valinor, the undying lands. She does choose Aragorn, with a great soul-rending wrench, but Elrond, unhappy with their choice, declares that she shall be the bride of no man less than King of Gondor and Arnor. Only if Aragorn succeeds in his quest to reclaim his kingdoms can he claim her hand. No small task; and no wonder he's so eager to help Frodo........

Arwen is the love of his life; the only love of his life. He has tenderness and concern to spare, but his heart is irrevocably claimed, on a near-impossible chance of success.

Success that ultimately comes not from him at all, but through the perseverance of Frodo and Sam and the obsessive greed of Gollum. In the end, Aragorn is merely the diversion, the toy that keeps the Enemy's lidless eye straining towards the west and blind to the tiny invasion crawling beneath his nose.

Kingship is something he wears well--and he rules with wisdom and strength for 120 years--but is it any truer a guise than those he wore in his long years of anonymous travel?

     'Now let us take our ease here for a little!' said Aragorn. 'We will sit on the edge of ruin and talk, as Gandalf says, while he is busy elsewhere. I feel a weariness such as I have seldom felt before.' He wrapped his grey cloak about him, hiding his mail-shirt, and stretched out his long legs. Then he lay back and sent from his lips a thin stream of smoke.
     'Look!' said Pippin. 'Strider the Ranger has come back!'
     'He has never been away.'

 
Text by Lisa Aurigemma, Evenstar of the Chimeras.