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Title: Under Shadowless Skies (#792)
Author: Aenigmatic
Chapters: 8

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Archive: Tolkien
Category: Alternate Universe (AU)
Description: “So this is what happens in Ithilien without my knowledge,” Elessar Telcontar murmured thoughtfully, moving to the open window to stare toward the East. “And I discover it in the most unusual of manners, as a guest in your reconstruction efforts.” -------------------------------------------------------- Mordor's Fall unleashes a sleeping, ancient shadow, for Sauron is himself but a servant. A tale that begins at Rohan and stretches post ROTK. [Legolas and Eowyn centric]
Published: 08 Apr 2004
Updated: 04 Jul 2004
Warnings:
Type: Action/adventure
Characters: Eowyn; Legolas


Chapter 1 - Prologue

Prologue

Author's Note:

Note the pairing, folks. You have been warned. It's Legolas & Eowyn (although not as yet) and as AU as it can get. I know many are sticky about this, so I thought it best to say this first. I've chosen to make it movie-based rather than text-based although a bit of the books (both LOTR and Silmarillion) will come in too. But for now, little snippets of main scenes as well as fillers of scenes we didn't see. The prologue might be a bit confusing for those who have not read the Silmarillion but please do not let that deter you.

The premise is this: The brilliant Elf Feanor forged 3 Jewels, called the Silmarili in Valinor, but they were stolen by the Dark Lord Morgorth, and declaring war upon him, Feanor and his sons took an irrevocable Oath to make war on anyone who withheld the Silmarili (even if that meant slaying their own kin), until the jewels lay in their hands again. The last remaining son of Feanor called Maglor is the only one to survive the First Age after following his father into exile along with his brothers. By the time the First Age ends, much blood has been shed (among Men, Dwarves and Elves) and Maglor came close to repenting his oath even as he accompanied his brothers in the theft of the jewels. Their evil deeds in recovering them had led to the holy Silmarili burning their skin. Anyhow, Maglor threw his into the sea, and legend has it that he still wanders the shores of Middle-Earth, singing of his despair and regret and that he never did rejoin his kin.

Elrond and his brother Elros were taken captive during one of their sieges but Maglor took pity on them and released them. Tolkien writes that Maglor cherished them, and love grew between them for that short period. For some reason, I feel immensely sorry for him, so this subplot deals with his redemption and hopefully things will tie together nicely in the end.

Pieces of dialogue taken with liberty from Tolkien, bless that brilliant fellow.

I own nothing, except the twisted mind that tried to come up with this. That being said, I hope you like this. Please do read and leave your reviews!

**********

Prologue: Conversation



“You have grown to love the sea and its shores.”

“My lady…yes, I do.”

“The gulls sing overhead but their songs are sad.”

“They sing to me tales of Arda, my Lady. Such songs are tinged with great sorrow.”

“They extend me, dear one, sweeping forlorn hymns with their tails, washing afresh the bitterness of things past. You must know that my lamentation over Arda is constant, and my mourning imparts great tears to all races that till the soil.”

“There is much beauty in the aftermath of sorrow, but much ugliness in despair.”

“You are wrong, gentle soul. In the collective cries and cheerlessness, the peoples mirror the arpeggios of the Great Song, chords of exquisite beauty and unplumbed groaning. That sameness is splendour recreated. And grief allows them music and rhymes. Into Arda I brought mourning, yet for the grief that is poured out I mourn exceedingly greater. Your suffering pains me, sweet one. More so as I see the young and tender spirit of Nerdanel alive and always wounded, when one so great in talent and gift ebbs quietly away. I have long wept and still weep, for you, hoping that the same tears that coaxed the last fruit out of Yavanna's Laurelin will prevail upon you.”

“It is my penance, my Lady. It is a choice of mine. Time's admonishment is a harsh one. I do not dare hope to rejoin my kin nor repose in the blessed light of Aman nor look upon Taniquetil nor hear laughter in Valmar –”

“Oh, how the mighty fall, gentle soul! You subsist as a discoloured soul, and the brackish sea that undulates the rays of Anor and the fingers of Isil is your envy because light has nearly left you. Because only mourning and grief fill you.”

“Nay, lady, this exile suits me; I have stolen away, free from all convictions and reminders of evil and shadow. For the light you spoke of, it has left me. I am no longer of the kindred. The time for joy has long passed. I too, have forgotten much of happier days.”

“Oh…it does not have to be, foolish one! Exile is another path, that only some are chosen to take.”

“Am I not one of them? But there is peace now, my Lady, a costly peace that is earned after three ages. And of that I must find myself content. I had been seared with a throbbing conscience, and some wounds do not easily heal. Yet contentment is…is…not something I have known except…except –”

“Except for the brief time great love grew between you and the children of Earendil in the Havens of Sirion. I remember it well…indeed, I remember it with immense distress, for that pleasing time long past.”

“My Lady…please…your tears…I…cannot…your tears, how sweetly precious they are – your tears are my own!”

“Take no heed dear one. I cry and am downcast for you as I am for those waiting in the halls of Mandos.”

“What do I do, my lady?”

“Arda is much changed. There remains much that the Valar are ignorant of, of things to come or of things to change, but depend upon Eru's Great Music which does not stray out of time or thought. Tarry, gentle soul, and do not reckon hope dead. Oh exiled soul, you will cast your eyes on your kindred again and it will be without hate or fear, but with bittersweet tears and joy.”

“Do you promise?”

“Dear one, weep now, for there is much to hope. I know your hidden wishes and the peace that has long forsaken you will soon return. Tarry, I say.”

**********


Chapter 2 - When Darkness Falls

Chapter 1: When Darkness Falls

The break of day's claim of innocence and new beginnings had reset the tempo of night's anguish, but the fleeting rush of keenest joy was nonetheless eclipsed by the interminable shadow of death and decay that had befallen them. It was painted exactly the way Eowyn loved as she skirted the parapet of Meduseld, the fierce wantonness of Rohan's dawns that fused the dying and the newborn.

Perpetual it was, at least to Eowyn of Rohan, such that there was barely a recollection of a time where the tinkle of laughter edged out uncertainty. Now the suffocating shroud of lies in which Rohan was shelled into engendered slow, inexorable dips into insanity.

Theodred had died during the night, his face now blue and hard. Under the inflexible flow of Saruman's forces, riders of the Mark had reason to quail.

Oh Theodred, cousin…Rohan is poorer without you.

His father, Theoden king, had been for too long a time, the mere puppet of Grima son of Galmod, drooping and regressing under the woollen, poisoned malaise of indecision and obscurity.

Eomer, Third Marshal of Riddermark and beloved brother, banished from the lands with their able-bodied soldiers and horses.

Just as she thought the profound dramatics found in the downward spiral of events had spun full on its axis, the sudden uplift of the wind brought under its bulge three hasty figures that galloped on horseback, clad in shifting, fleshly colours of Arda, brandishing arms of sorts.

Phantom riders, or perhaps asylum seekers.

A company of three, no, four, comprised of who, she did not yet know. But in that short time they had dismounted and were disarmed by the doorwardens in front, leaving the old man only his staff.

Had they not realised that any purposeful meeting of sorts with a King who barely held his own was already a battle lost? It was not something she wished to see – the utter failure of Rohan and the humiliation of the house of Eorl in the Golden Hall, where faltering, lying words came from a puppet.

Someone spoke, cautious words of greetings and customary pleasantries.

Meduseld swayed under a sudden, tense silence…and a noise followed soon after, disturbing and loud, one that she could not ignore.

Eowyn ran, footfalls sharp, consumed only by the vision of the confrontation between the enigmatic Istar and the shadow of Rohan's once majestic King. The need to run and protect her King was strong, to shield him nonetheless within the sour, nomadic drift of mind that Wormtongue's deceit had created, all in the hope of sparing him further pain.

Strong arms gripped her from behind; they stopped her in mid-run. A remarkably striking man with weathered yet aquiline features withheld her progress, the silent and charismatic command in his eyes deafening.

Hold. Wait.

The forward momentum made them both spin an infinitesimal left, and then he steadied her, pulling her towards his own body for leverage, the sudden pressure of his hands on her upper arms forcing her to look upwards, to witness the fertility that bloomed from passing chaos. Then the rebirth occurred. The most extraordinary of renaissances under the synthesis of stress and powerlessness, coalescing before her eyes. Beneath the vigorous stream of the wizard's words and the provocative angle of his staff, the King bared his teeth after the stuttering of the tongue, reared his head backwards and slumped, as though that short action has stunned him. The solid hold on her arm no longer stayed her back. The motion, frozen in time, had melted, freeing her to run to the King, beholding the gradual return of acumen and the welding of his faculties as the snowy debility faded from physical sight. He was transformed, reborn with the new desire to act and the cauterising zeal to overwrite the previous resignation to hopelessness.
She felt a relief so great, an exultation so desperate that it splintered but for a moment the nerves of steel forged when she perceived so long ago that Rohan would crumble under the Wormtongue. “I know you,” he murmured and paused.

“I know your face, sister-daughter. Eowyn.” It was a soft cry of regret, of deep emotion that made the corners of her mouth turn hesitantly up. She brought him to a standing position and noticed for the first time, the visitors to Rohan.

A man, the white wizard, a dwarf, and an elf, as though the representatives of the peoples of Arda congregated under their hall.

Theoden was speaking. With an effort, she tore her gaze away. Then he seemed genuinely puzzled. “Where is Theodred?”

**********

There was a heaviness that had descended upon Edoras and it troubled him greatly. It was in times like these where Legolas Greenleaf sought the vast terrain for respite, the bond of the Eldar to Arda that he seemed to feel the strongest amid wretchedness and woe.

But in the shieldmaiden he found a flicker of something dissimilar to the morose landscape, housing the same fortitude he'd briefly glimpsed in the Eomer Eadig, the man who had identified himself as the Third Marshal of the Riddermark.

Eowyn, shieldmaiden of Rohan.

A name that arched his tongue and resonated softly in the sighing of the leaves. Carved of ice and steel, she stood fair and apart from the Rohirrim as she sang Theodred's elegy, a compellingly mystic but incomplete idea that drew him obstinately back to soothing memories of Anor's piercing rays upon crisp snow. A different spirit soldered by cool pity and detachment, of fiery stillness and galvanised movement, almost akin to that of the Eldar, simply merely lacking in the wisdom that age brought. Yet even the Elder children of Iluvatar lacked the vigour of mortality that she exerted so freely. Its blaze intrigued him, and in her he felt the brief union of both races, a stupefying entity that many would tremble at.

Legolas watched her with a curious gaze, unable to decipher past her vehement magnetism, fatigued and strangely alive at the stern intensity and fervour she seemed to pour into all that her hands touched.

But now she sat alone on a grassy mound facing the tomb, fingering the wild flowers that bloomed without care, lost in magnificent thought and the fever of –

“Lady Eowyn?” He bit back an involuntary smile at the sudden lack of grace that she had unwittingly displayed when she leapt upward at the sound of his voice, stumbling a little at the slightly twist of an ankle.

“Master Elf,” she laughed softly. “I did not hear you come.”

“Forgive my temerity, lady. You wish solitude, something that is in my power to not deny at the moment,” he observed.

“No, stay, please. Do not leave on my account.”

It was as she had expected – the brash, affectionate dwarf whom she had instantly taken to, the fount of wisdom that was the Istar, and the stunning, inscrutable ranger. Already he drew many around him, and to him with an indelible strength and confident fearlessness that proclaimed him champion among men.

But an Elf or even a dwarf, uneasy companions even though they were – in Rohan! The Rohirrim were unused to travellers, particularly those of any other race than of their own. More often than not the visitors slipped thinly through Rohan's borders unannounced and out of mind thereafter. Eowyn watched the Elf closely, recognising the same polite aloofness in him that she sometimes tended to exhibit, and heard with little surprise, more words that he spoke this day than in the past few days combined.

His reserved mien remained, but in him there seemed to be a soothing balm; perhaps it was his manner of speaking, or the generous outflow of sympathy that he conveyed, or an intuitiveness that bode well despite her limited interaction with those outside the race of men.

What does one say to an Elf?

Eowyn found that she could not care. The day had been too exhausting, and the maniacal fight against the rising shadows had only begun.

“What do you see, my Lady?' A question that ran with numerous answers on its tail. But she chose a different way.

“It is simply Eowyn, Master Elf,” she replied rather curtly, not turning to look his way. Weren't pleasantries better dashed away after the stifling formalities of last rites?

“What passes your vision?” He repeated the question steadily, unflinchingly in his gaze.

“Is there a certain answer that you appear to be looking for?”

He smiled briefly. “Tell me, Eowyn.”

She drew back with a sly smile, knowing that he had baited her.

“Very well.” The smile disappeared as sudden as it had come. “Shadowless skies and spaces, Master Elf. Theodred's passing –” She stopped short, knowing of no better expression, finally declining to speak further.

The grass was not crushed beneath his feet as he stepped onto the mound that she had nearly fallen off, perching neatly on its slope and moved his gaze outward, keeping her in the periphery of his vision. Abruptly he turned to face her, taking her hands loosely in his.

“Leap, Eowyn,” he urged gently, with more than a hint of solemnity in his voice. “Leap far and faithful, on the other side of the shadow!” He sighed at her apparent lack of response. “Arda's tapestry may be marred, Lady, but the shadows can – they must be! – pushed back. Do not confine yourself to the present! Think of the last hour, think of triumph, not defeat. And there will be space aplenty afterward, for the unending sweetness of dreams.”

She laughed now, devoid of mirth, disentangling her hands quickly, morphed once more into the breathtaking but sombre beauty of a rainy dawn.

“Perhaps, Master Elf.” Surely she did not need to tell him that in the gap of nearly half a millennia the fields of Calenardhon had been tightly squeezed by orcs of the White Mountains and the Dunlendings of the west, having fallen beyond hope had not Gandalf the White brought salvation to the Golden Hall. “There is much to fight for.”

But to risk a glance at him meant also to relinquish a gloom that made people in their misery content to dwell upon, yet she feared that it was merely opening a window of artifice, wherein she could obstinately build an individually faultless world far abstracted from reality. An Elf's promise of hope was to her still an inadequate emblem of faith.

“I am sorry for your loss.” His mouth twitched so minutely, so fleetingly that she could only imagine she saw that first open display of emotion.

She could only sigh, a curiously eloquent inflection of the fullness of grief turned momentarily into wonder.

“Darkness falls,” Legolas paused diplomatically as he perceived her cautiousness, restrained by the perspicacity and prudence found in heir of kings. He would leave her be, as she willed. “There is a matter that I must tend to. I bid you a good night, my Lady.”

“Eowyn,” she answered unthinkingly which spurred a moment of sharp scrutiny and silence on his part. He looked up sharply, and saw that she was unusual, a hybrid spirit of conflagrate steel and velvety sentiment.

“If you will call me Legolas.” He left, cloaked by colours of verdurous seasons, swallowed effortlessly into the violent spew of the sunset and she watching him, until she saw him no more.

**********


Chapter 3 - Onen i-estel Edain

Author's Note:

OK, OK, I know the scenes from the amazing Battle of Helm's Deep have been superbly written and re-written again by so many authors. I wondered if I should join the crowd and then realised that I couldn't resist. So here's my take on it, thrown in with our favourite pairing.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I had writing it.

**********
Chapter 2: Onen i-estel Edain

"In Isengard more treachery brews and behind us comes a storm of Mordor. Saruman has spied out this land." A quiet voice had said gravely. "Helm's deep is three days' ride away-"

"It is not to say-"

"We must ride unceasingly; even this is too slow for progress!"

"With due respect, Master Dwarf, we move as fast as the people can, without compromising their safety." Therein contained a minor reproach, which the dwarf did not take too well.

"I would have you know-"

"Gimli is right," Aragorn had timely intervened, whispering honest counsel. "We must make haste. With each passing hour spent in the open by night, Isengard's power and knowledge grow to overflowing. Their scouts populate the place, though we see nothing yet."

The calming tone of his voice had soothed the provoked. He carried the honourable mark of a king - the knowledge that freedom from strife could be also readily derived away from the point of the sword, and a warm gentleness at hand that he did not withhold. There was much to admire and love even as his presence was enough to bring contentment even if it were a temporal one; it seemed as if fearless constancy and precise wisdom were met in him.

Eowyn had overheard the grim proclamation, each word weighing deeply upon the burgeoning consciousness that bearing arms were necessary for those who could do so, even the women.

Progress was slow and the uneven tuffs they treaded upon hindered them further. The hope of redeeming a full day's journey had all but vanished, the prelude of the disastrous events to follow.

There had been much talk among the visitors with the King, but the stab of resentment knowing she had been relegated to the sidelines was a quiet suffering that she assumed no one could fully assimilate. The folly of men emerged clearly even as they called themselves wise. The ranger had only understood the manner of the cage in its most obvious form; he had rightly interpreted her racking fear of captivity for therein lay the same streak in him but he had not recognised - and would not know the mortifying and repulsive shame that came from the debilitating poverty of a quiet, untouched blade.

They were not oblivious to justice; it was in fact the damnable contrary, yet their apparent blindness had stripped her of a warrior's comfort. Could she exempt them from blame, and sing blithe songs of victory if they returned victorious against Saruman's forces while she ignored the stifling oppression before it threatened to burst?
No, it was not what she wanted, not a victory sniffed through a bard's recitation of wondrous turns of the tide and the devouring of foes at dinner feasts, not when she sat in the dusty hue of plagiarised glory.

As such she lay already in a pensive trance, numbed by inner petulant protests, locked in a cage of great loneliness.

Each day Eowyn had worked at exhausting herself either physically or mentally, until thought and grief receded into blurred lines and dark smudges. And now they journeyed as refugees towards the White Mountains, a golden snake of people in the fields as the sun and moon exchanged their positions, their scouts riding actively ahead in all directions, a fragilely constructed self-sufficient defence that soothed anxious hearts of men.

She found herself sighing, having expended a good portion of energy in melancholic thoughts.

A sudden shout scattered several complacently trotting horses.

Scouts of Saruman! The distance was closing rapidly, a winding, advancing snare that threw panic as a sheet of cold water upon faint-hearted.

The uneven rhythms of flying hooves faded with their shouts to regroup, leaving her with a quarter of the company to continue the journey.

Your place is not here, sister-daughter. Bring them to cover - you must do this, for me.

Infinite irony, infinite sorrow, quivering under duty.

**********

They would come tonight, an army bred with only the sole purpose of annihilation, as Aragorn had determined. And the women and children in the caves still wailed against the young lads of barely thirteen summers pulled into an impending battle without even the full strength to strike unerringly.

It was Theodred's full armour suit and the only sword left in the armoury of Helm's Deep that they had left hanging in the corner, a mark of respect for the slain prince of Rohan. It was the same suit that Eowyn considered donning; such an action seemed the most appropriate to honour what Theodred had been slain for - would it not have been unprofitable if it fell instead to disuse?

There was no epiphany of sorts, no tarrying, no indecision; the answer appeared to her an obvious one, a furtive action that she had to execute before such a sight became common knowledge. A quick glance about assured her that the armoury was empty and she seized the suit, hastening to unhook its clasps and buckles, yet not before the gentle pressure of five fingers stayed her trembling hands. Immediately, the slight weight eased just as she tensed, slowly turning to face an Elf's austere countenance.

Eowyn had not heard him approach. The blessedly soft footfalls of the Eldar were indeed an unfair advantage. Her hand moved away furiously from his, shifting to unbuckle the armour as though the previous move on his part had no significance. This time he took hold of her wrists and bent them downwards, restricting her movement.

"Unhand me. Please, Master Elf." The measured tones of her reply did not faze him; he knew her control over repressed rage had worn thin.

Legolas frowned, undeterred by her mule-headed persistence, unfailingly moved by the sheer chastity found in such single-minded aspiration.

"Not this way, Eowyn," He spoke slowly as he would to any child, when in truth he pondered over the words he wished to say to her. He drew back an inch and briefly bent his head, placing a hand over his heart in belated greeting, keeping his other hand firmly clasped around her wrist.

Her next words surprised him.

"You have no part here, Legolas." She did not - could not bother with preambles or implicit hints, no, not when defiance and desperation shone ever more radiant as the hours that determined Rohan's final fate ticked by.

"King Theoden does not say, but he is grateful for you, for the help you have given to the helpless and the aid you so readily give to the injured."

"Do you think so?" She would have clamped her ready mouth if words could have been retracted, for upon them bitterness leaned dangerously. There was much she had already let on, yet resolutely found no reason to welcome an Elf's intrusion, a lingering waft of the Rohirrim's distrust of other races found in her defensiveness.

"You wish to ride, not to victory, but to ruin," he murmured, troubled. "Such impetuousness can only devastate."

She stalled, cursing the sharpness of his gaze, picking up Theodred's shield that had toppled to the ground when his hand had stayed hers, and fought a tempest of wretched comprehension thrashing the urge to bear arms, an action that had appeared altogether too compelling a while ago.

"The Rohirrim put their lives down from birth as their guarantee of their victory, Legolas. I am no different just because I am a woman." Her answer was stern and forbidding.

"Nay, I would not think otherwise," he said as he turned his bright eyes on her, and then he was impossibly still, as though he now weighed deeply what was to follow. "There is little fear in you, Eowyn, and so much courage that you would ride to war fiercer than so many other men who recoil at the possibility of painful, violent death because you already consider your life given."

She felt the intensity of his Elvish sight so strongly present, unmasking much.

In a flash she understood that he saw her transparently; somehow the urge to find herself equal among men and the love of the blade's rigorous vascular demands had had already set her on the narrow path that led to - nothingness. Physical victory on the battlefields would mean nothing if she merely sought death as the end to her imagined ride of glory.

Suddenly Eowyn feared deeply, more than she feared the enemy that would stand before the Hornburg when night curved across the fields, that she could easily succumb to the Elf's persuasiveness because at the core lay the frightening thought that the resolve of the Shieldmaiden of Rohan had never been as unwavering as she had believed.

What was left to say, but a silent, concession that he was right, that she too, beneath it all, wished to be bereft of pretence as he did?

It dawned upon her then, that he had not intended to stop her to fight; he merely pointed out so eloquently that fearlessness for the wrong reasons was also a deficiency.

The Elf saw the flash of hurt yearning, a flit of emotions so brief mortal men so often dismissed inaccurately as imagination, and recognised it well, the same yearning and an aberration on his part that occasionally assailed and enchained the Prince of Mirkwood as part of a diminishing race that withdrew into its own clusters mourning the changing landscape of Arda.

Now, up close, the idyllic zeal of this shieldmaiden was scorching, a conspicuous twinkling of a blaze that he had not fully come into when they spoke on the mound facing Theodred's grave. He saw how much Aragorn affected her, despite the short length of days that had passed since Edoras, only to remember the same flame drove Estel's wanderlust and self-imposed path of exile.

There was much Legolas Greenleaf needed to think about.

Her wrist was suddenly free. It had been free for a while, yet she did not see the gentle release of his grasp when it happened. And now with a fluid, practiced upward swing of a warrior's arm he unhooked Theodred's sword himself, extending it to her with both hands, an audacious offering raised unto victories to come as though he could exchange this impermanent bondage for independence to come.

"From time to time Eru Iluvatar raises a conqueror among men, a sure defeater of the dark powers who begins on the small, and apparently insignificant scales," he smiled gravely. "Fight, Eowyn! Wrestle, with your strength! I do not know of anyone more greatly deserving of Theodred's weapon. You are your uncle's niece; the women and children have found a champion among them, the shieldmaiden of Rohan! They will live, because of you. And one day perhaps you will defend and champion men as well."

She was overwhelmed with the hope he placed in the unseen and things yet to come. Yet these words were to her in many ways, intimate.

Such blessed fairness and simple splendour in the Elf, such inspired, all-consuming sweetness exercised perfectly in his assertions! That he held her liberty of mind and body as almost - sacred rendered her speechless, and stirred hope of the redirection of her energies to living rather than destruction; she was filled spontaneously with a gratitude that he did not see her in the same patronising manner the way so many others did.

The sword fell from his hands into hers.

"I cannot -" she began, before bowing her head. There seemed nothing more to say, not when he spoke with such finality. "Thank you."

"Do not thank me, my lady," he answered softly and inclined his head, stepping away from her. "I have been taught much as you have."

**********

"A Eruchîn, ú-dano i faelas a hyn an uben tanatha le faelas!"

Both the eyes of Men and Elves followed the same course, sparing no thought to the rumbling heavens. An advancing black army bred to destroy coming within dreaded sight, the ground trembling beneath their feet, injuring manifold the sensibilities of those who already feared.

Onen i-estel Edain, Aragorn! Even the Eldar are given to despair. You have given us hope, where there was previously none.

Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell? Where was Gondor when our enemies closed in around us? Where was Gond? No, my Lord Aragorn, we are alone.

Theoden's words had left a bitter taste in their mouths.

"Your friends are with you, Aragorn."

And then he heard a grunt and a heave, from a point below the wall of the parapet.

"Let's hope they last the night."

Its curtness made the corners of his mouth turn slightly up.

Time was lost, painted forcefully away by the roar of the Uruks and their ceaseless attack. The edifice of memory tottered and swung away from his consciousness as arrows flew through the Deep, some missing their mark, some finding them. On the ground, fifty paces before him, orcs climbed upwards undeterred, each rung up the parallel ladders forcing upon Legolas a pressurised return of Estel's words.

It was his fight - no, their fight, the clang of numerous swords and the whistle of arrows a breathless exhalation of madness moving among the uneasy alliance of the races. He heard Aragorn cleave down another and then another, the heady plunges of the sword twisting against repugnant corruption.

Next to him, Gimli ducked a falling orc and volleying his axe hard into another, continuing his count, an energetic sport born of merriment amidst slaughter. Gradually, there was no distinguishing Man from Elf, or Elf from Dwarf, or Man from Dwarf, not when they laboured over the same cause.

A face extraordinary to his own struggle materialised; a brief image of the white lady of Rohan that intercepted battle scene emancipated his frozen limbs. Strangely stirred, he drew arrow after arrow aligned to a linear, tapered aim, pouring into them a savage rage as they departed from his bow. Still he did not see a narrow pathway on the ground spilt halfway and rapidly emerge.

The Uruks howled lowly, a rapid babble of their black speech as they shuffled away ? then he saw it and the sight sickened him; an unnaturally bright torch carried in the upraised arm of a running Uruk its sparks billowing a white fume outwards meant to disintegrate the Hornburg's fortification.

Togo hon dad, Legolas! Dago hon!

But he was already tilting the bow and taking swift aim, the arrows embedding themselves in the Uruk's neck. Unaltered however by the several shafts that protruded out, the Uruk passed only swifter into the small gap ? horror, shame, incredulity slid down the incline into him, for it seemed he heard the loud wail of Nienna and felt the dimming of Elbereth's stars before a part of Hornburg shattered under the massive blast.

It left the Prince of Mirkwood shaken, stumbling in his step but for a moment; an act so foul that he had not managed to stop turned him to despair where there was previously little.

The mastery of the battlefield had indeed been lost to the enemy; its previously unpredictable tide now churned against them. Yet it also renewed a vigour in him, parrying, whirling and thrusting, lost in the outpouring of vehement denial and the short-lived optimism of compensation.

Am Marad!

Who had shouted that? Unmistakably Aragorn - echoed by Haldir of Lorien?

The arrows in his quiver were spent.

A hesitant, unbelieving step backward turned into a full-bodied run for cover; both Elves and Men retreated, finding themselves at the Keep, not knowing the muddled steps they took back, passing into the season where hopelessness arose from reckless hate.

And then they rode with swords raised and hearts numbed behind Theoden and Aragorn, fully expecting their last ride constructed of a ludicrously minute parade of horses from the keep, screaming outward, for as long as the Horn of Helm Hammerhand sounded.

A ray of sunlight appeared, weakly casting an illuminating beam that heralded the arrival of dawn. It brought the finite and infinite into perspective, inverting once again the tide of the battle as the White Rider crested the hill steeply.

And then, it was over.

-----

A Eruchîn, ú-dano i faelas a hyn an uben tanatha le faelas!
- Show them no mercy, for you shall receive none

**********


Chapter 4 - To Count as Loss or Gain

Chapter 3: To Count as Loss or Gain

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The prevalent stench of death was infinitely cunning. The sun shone warmly; they believe they had harvested much.

A deliberately bald, depraved honesty that filled fear into mortal hearts void of Eru's counsel; and now it survived solely on benevolent impudence, taunting, seducing, terrifying;and revealing fragmented visions of the doors that lay beyond this world. Its elusiveness was its gratification, its scent coercing nightmarish worship from the hearts of men. It shifted comfortably, a ghastly conglomerate inscribing its nuances, marring the experience of the sublime, titivating the gurgled clutter of terror.

They lay on their pallets, a penitential procession longing for merciful freedom only after the spirit wrestled with and severed the burdensome bond to Arda. Mandos was a mere thought, a superstitious folklore borne of the dilution of the tales of the Elder Days.

Eowyn of Rohan moved quickly among them; she smiled as much as she could to the wounded as did other healers, a conspiratorial expression calculated to ease the sting that arose from the continual watching of last breaths being drawn. Faces she recognised, faces made unrecognisable by battle scars; yet memory and sight were fallible; they all received unequalled ministrations from a tender hand.

A moan from the adjoining pallet drew her attention. Another yet unnamed rohirric warrior marked by his characteristic blond hair and heavy-set features, lying far in nocturnal fields. But not too far gone that it was within her power to save. The rib and the shoulder bled incessantly; he arched in pain and retched noisily a perfect circle of blood, attempting to scale the white summit unto light; unto painlessness.

Yet this man would live, Eowyn bent to inspect his wound, nodding grimly to herself. He merely needed tight bandages and a healer's watchful eye. For now, he lived trapped in his fever and injury, astray in night everlasting.

Their losses were great, but their morale high.

But for all that had transpired above, Eowyn of Rohan did not witness the transgression of Hornburg, nor the reckless defence that crumbled as the orcs fought further into the Deep but was rather left to envision the worst as the pounding grew louder. Still her desire to have had participated in the battle did not wane, if only she had not been discovered.

Theodred's sword still hugged her side, long after the deep bellow of the Horn had sounded. It moved as she walked, a comforting weight that bound her to the rohirric warriors.

"Eowyn." A singular word, a name, spoken with a timbre she knew so well.

"Eomer!" She flew into his arms. He had returned when she feared that he was lost forever, and now there was triumph, his head held high along with the White Rider. Eomer offered a tight security that did not corrode even when the Wormtongue's influence was strong.

"We have lost many, but Rohan has gained you." He heard her muffled voice floating from his shoulder. "For that, perhaps the loss has been already compensated."

"We have victory now." It was a cautious statement, one that made her pull back, to study subtle changes in his manner, wondering if she had indeed been living a dream in recent years.

"I hear no joy in that, brother." She looked at him, but found his distant eyes roaming the ranks of the injured.
"It is the first of many." He cared not to look at her, as though the distance placed between them guaranteed a momentary foray into a realm that was best left to wistful dreams nurtured selfishly in the dark of the night.
"Then it has begun." Her voice was sad, a fleeting confirmation of his previous thoughts.

"From the small circles of Middle-Earth to the vast stretch of the icy wastes. Aye, it has. Call it a warrior's insight; one does not need to belong to the Elven race nor to the gods to smell its foulness."

Eowyn sighed. There was still much to make about the Elf's words that were still so sonorous; his pledge of forthcoming untainted dawns hanging as a shimmering orb in the carnal darkness. Evil brewed; it still seemed dull in men's hearts while it pierced Elvish ones deeply. Yet she was certain that Legolas Greenleaf had perhaps merely chosen to spill words that befitted his princely status, as though he layered the crucible of men's failing hearts with an alien, unmatchable fidelity to the prevailing of the incorruptible. Perhaps it ignited in him a different sorrow; perhaps he mourned instead for the swift manner in which men's hearts easily leaned towards the existing circumstance.

"You carry Theodred's sword," Eomer's voice broke her thoughts. He frowned, looking over her hip in surprise. "And parts of his armour. You do not mean to tell me—"

"Do you remember the times I forayed into the wilderness with you carrying Father's sword, protesting that it was never too heavy for me?"

"Eowyn..."

"Can you remember?" She insisted, a small grin playing over her lips.

"All too well," he grumbled, remembering a fogless dusk that had brought a smattering of blackness. "You only retched once when your blade yielded black blood. Thereafter there was no orc that terrified you." Then his eyes went wide. "Nay, I am not certain I wish to know if you truly took the place at the battlements, dressed with Theodred's..."

"I remember the orc hunting days, brother, with pleasurable and exhilarating memories never more so after father's passing and mother's--"

"Eowyn!"

She glanced at his face, her mirth quelling instantly when she saw his worry.

"If you must know, I did nothing of that sort. The sword was meant…as a safeguard perhaps, had they torn through the caves. I would have slain them first, and then myself," she said softly. "Although I wished that I could have--"

Eomer was already shaking his head.

"I would be made fodder for orcs by father's own hand if he'd still lived and had heard of this," he muttered to himself, sighing loudly. The thought that he had been forcibly ejected from the grounds was neither sufficient nor honourable enough to assuage his guilt regarding her bearing of arms.

Had he then not thought of the danger then, before so readily plunging her into it because she had simply asked, or was it such that with the weight of the years he sometimes felt more and more of the father they had both lost? The Enemy had reached them; the union of the two towers had proven that much and Rohan stood only because they found themselves aided in a most timely fashion.

There was much Eowyn wanted to say, how she wished to stay under the Rohirric banner as they watched the sketch of light turn to darkness, how the vow he took long time past to stand afore her had been long fulfilled, how...

The fountain of words formed and rose erratically, choking at its head.

Eowyn knew that he thought her unsuspecting of the extent to which Mordor's evil hand was garrotting Middle Earth; it took little to see how he fought the dilemma of keeping her from this knowledge and the obvious deception of denying its growth. Swordplay had always been their bond, their common interest, but they reached an altogether different plane of reality when Rohan grew increasingly burdened by invasions.

Truth had won out.

"We shall not speak of what could have happened had you done otherwise. The sight would have terrified you, Eowyn. Think of thousands upon thousands; enough to make grown men shiver and weep. And they move to destroy Rohan. It is nothing you have seen, not the few that we have seen or have hunted throughout the years, but a violent, belligerent sea of blackness. Saruman's power had grown stronger than we had thought. And all this while, Rohan lingered, decayed by the Wormtongue!" Then he calmed considerably. "There are still many who need your help," he said, releasing her with reluctance. "Theoden calls for an assembly as soon as we have counted our loss. But for now, I must speak to my men."

"You are all I have, Eomer," she called out as he strode away.

It stopped his steady steps; she saw him waver, still, and finally stop, all in a short breath of time that was to her an unending length.

"I know," he said, not turning around and whispered to himself. "A proud head cannot be bent for long."

**********

"Master Elf? Is there something that you have need of?" She inquired quietly of him, a few paces behind the edge of the parapet of Meduseld on which he perched.

The Elf watched Tilion drive the last flower of Telperion through the darkened sky, an open censure of the Valar to the Enemy for his efforts to thwart the beauty created in Arda. And there she stood, the glistening complement of Earendil's silmaril; perhaps not as fair as the incomparable Lady of the Galadhrim with her foresight and wisdom, but even Galadriel lacked the stern alacrity and spirited fervour of the Shieldmaiden.

"There is nothing I lack, my lady. I and my friends thank you for your hospitality," he said finally. She saw the corners of his mouth turn up slightly, noticing his slight smiles.

"You are still sullen; grief is not washed away by the passing of days but there is tonight," she said in measured tones, and he perceiving that she still walked on tight ropes, speaking only when necessary to the Elves, sighed softly.

"There is perhaps no reason for me to be otherwise. But I take my leave of you Eowyn, and halt no further any bliss of yours."

He inclined his head as a gesture of parting and moved silently into the golden hall, swallowed into its ballooning celebration.

Hail, the glorious dead...

For this night, the glaring differences in the Elder and Younger Children of Iluvatar and a child of Aule were writ small, bound sanguine by their labours. Guided by the minstrels' gentle coaxing, an ancient rohirric folktune whorled out buoyantly from the strings of the instruments just as numerous tankards of ale were swigged in the golden hall of Meduseld clad in laughter and song. What used to be disciplined tongues were under inebriation made wild, a pilfered moment of rough-hewn pleasure tacked onto the scintillated raiment of frivolity and revelry.

Aye, tonight they would remember them, their glorious dead felled by the Enemy, strengthened not by the sweetness of sorrow that the occasion seemed to demand, but by a boisterous jubilation that they lived yet another day.

Yet he stayed aside, invisible in the shadowed corner save for his bright hair, allowing a small smile to play on his lips when he caught Gimli son of Gloin heartily accepting his eighth tankard of ale from the serving lass.
It was a majestic celebration of the perennial, a disturbing emblem of man, thought Legolas. Could he fault them for their magnetic impetuousness and their alluring spontaneity that had always been a cause for attrition between the two kindreds? If that be so, the Edain had then sufficient reason enough to fault the Eldar likewise for their descent into passivity.

He turned, jaw clenched, to look at the numerous crimson lamps, their lithe flames twisting merrily to yield comforting warmth.

"You wonder if things could necessarily have been different," a voice from the side observed, watching the celebrations afar just as the Elf was. "When your meditation takes this direction I fear I cannot offer counsel enough."

Azure eyes met the gaze of ageless blue, held and stared.

"Ai, Mithrandir," Legolas said after a long pause. "I know not what I ought to feel." He glanced sharply at the white wizard, and wished for a reply that might jolt awake the insensate and put to sleep the ambivalent.

"I am not the only one who steers the course of the future, Thranduilion. Your eyes beg me for an answer I cannot give." It seemed as if the wizard read his thoughts, and articulated his answer in the most direct way possible. Legolas looked at the staff, and then at the white garments, trying to ascertain the power of a Maia veiled by the adoption of bodily form. "Great evil descended into Arda and we fight it still. Many born of Middle-Earth know of life as far as the absence of death, and live as though their breath might be snatched from them at the next rising of Arien, and there are those who wait for circumstances to turn before choosing to rank themselves above the plants they grow in their gardens. For this reason I am in Arda; do you not already know the Wizard whom you call Mithrandir? I grant you, is it not enough that we may both fight together and be content no matter the result?"

But he had already seen the disturbed emotion flit across the Elf's face; and it was then he knew, that Legolas Greenleaf craved something that his heart would only articulate in the beauty of passing time.

"Tell me Mithrandir, would you repeat these words should evil triumph? Would you be content this way?"

The Istar sighed, the slightest bit mystified at the sudden outburst. In his ears, the loudness of the hall retreated until an insignificant muffle remained; the Elf's question strained its protesting quiver aimed at his throat.

Instead the wizard smiled.

"Just as the seas and lands were sundered in long time past at the command of Eru for the sake of his peoples, should there now be little reason to believe that his beloved children will be abandoned to this lingering, stale evil?"

"I do not know, Gandalf," the Elf replied sharply, his normally gentle manner filled with an undisguised ire that startled them both. "Perhaps you can call my sight defective, and sorely lacking in discernment among the Wise. Watch the Avari fall to shadow and necromancers nurse their hatred unto venomous torrents of destruction as the forests become infirm and mountains turn viperous." He said it more softly this time, not unheard by the Istar. "Middle-Earth is left now, more to the devices of the Enemy than the Valar, and the firstborn follow them."

"And yet you hope. That is distinction enough, my young one."

He sighed, an echo of the Istar's sentiment, the anger swift to go as it had arrived.

"Perhaps."

"The way west is enthralling and the firstborn go where their hearts bid them. The call of the sea is not ignored easily until you hear the gulls cry."

Silence greeted Gandalf's statement; he was doubtlessly overrun by the memory of the Lady Galadriel's prophetic warning.

"You grieve far too deeply, Legolas," the Istar motioned him to sit on a bench recently vacated by a group of Rohirrim. "I know your kind shore these griefs as part of their memory, weaving it until it becomes but a pattern in the miniature tapestry that mirrors Eru's great song. But your grief...," he drifted off and shook his head slowly, not knowing what to make of it, "You grieve more intensely than others, something that I have not seen in many a year..."

Yet Gandalf was not given to finish his sentence. The minstrel struck an experimental chord, and an effortless synchronised tune burst forth from the rest of the minstrels a beat later, a saturnalian inundation of the hall that drew shouts of delight among the Rohirrim. Evidently it was a tune that had not been heard since Theoden took his throne; many eagerly flocked to the centre of the hall, drawn to its bewitching melody, yearning to merge this infectious harmony with feet and bodies that had grown restless.

Legolas stood hesitantly, yet untouched by the cheering that rose notches as the song fabricated its own garment on increasingly rapid spins. He saw Aragorn reluctantly drawn into the dance by a band of Rohirrim, his initially stiff manner bleeding soon enough into carefree leaps impaling themselves upon the highly-strung tune. The revellers had now formed a circle; an ever-widening circle as more joined the riotous movements, moving in accordance to each beat of the drum, each riff of the refrain. Those who knew the dance flew over the steps, their stately, unchanging moves an encouragement for those who knew naught to gain the rhythms as the song progressed.

He moved backwards slowly, to blend with the shadows in the corner, intending to seek out his pallet.
An outstretched hand pulled him suddenly into the carousel, into a place beside Eowyn of Rohan, its tight grip leaving no room for argument, merely expressive remembrance. His wrist was still snugly bound in her left hand, and she kept it there a while longer as she bade him to follow her steps.

Indeed it was not a difficult dance; the coordination of limbs took him but a moment to master and he infused into its simple combination no small measure of gracefulness that drew admiring stares from those who cared to watch, uplifting the dance on his energy alone to a new pinnacle of vivacity.

Ai, such invincibility! It seemed that he soared and plummeted, advanced and withdrew in response to the ever quickening beat; the music played on even as the dancers faded into indistinct shapes, and he saw only the shieldmaiden beside him who paced him step for step. She laughed; it dimly occurred to him that he had not heard her laugh before; it was a breathless sound, a plea for a slightly more prolonged joy. Perhaps it was something he could give to her; it was his turn to hold her hand tightly in his; together they unravelled the mysteries of victory and pain without faltering, each spin, each turn unto laughter and forgetfulness until only the bewildering wonder of each other remained.

The whirling plane of speed and rush that had been so painstakingly conjured now dissolved as soon as it had started, waning into oblivion and memory by the thundering applause that followed after. They moved apart albeit belatedly, joining the scattered claps somewhat awkwardly.

Eowyn tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her head, still breathing hard. At length she heard a call that came from a corner of the hall.

"Sing for us, Legolas Thranduilion!" A velvety voice bade him do so, its ring of authority unmistakable even amid this festivity. The very noise that had seemed so rampant just a second before died down into a lonesome quiet; expectant countenances were turned in his direction. Legolas looked towards Aragorn, and it seemed as if the Ranger who now sat contentedly with a smoking pipe dared him to eat his fill of the evening, determined that he play a part in the jubilee before the dawn brought the return of taut brows and tired eyes.

Yet what could he sing of that they would feel with the same depth as he did? What was appropriate enough for such an occasion, when his heart was torn between the imperishable and the ephemeral?

But he already knew what tune longed to unfurl from his lips even as those doubtful questions ran through his mind.

And so he sang, without hesitation and without diffidence, reaching for a height never reached before by mortal song, drawing from their spirits an emotional depth previously asleep.

Cold and still my golden mother
Lies beneath the meadow, sleeping,
Hears my ancient songs no longer,
Cannot listen to my singing;
Only will the forest listen,
Sacred birches, sighing pine-trees,
Junipers endowed with kindness,
Alder-trees that love to bear me,
With the aspens and the willows.

With each rising note it was as though the very air vaulted into the enchanted; what he sang of in the high speech of Valinor none save the Istar could understand, yet in the hall ran all the ages of Arda through each sleekly crafted nuance, each enduring inflexion. A murmur of the constancy of the sun and the moon, a shout of warriors girded for battle, an anguished scream of noxious skies and discoloured days, a hopeless cry of the brief time when evil was toothless, a piercing wail of loss tempered by the beauty of every newborn thing – all were delicately woven like glimmering silver threads into his song, wondrously fair.

The crassness of the celebrations melted as soon as Legolas' first phrase floated out into something more transcendent and lavish than flesh would sustain; it became a dirge and a hollow cry that elucidated a numbed joy, for their victory had been blood bought by many. And as he sang it seemed as though the slain ones lent their voices to his own, Eru's ancient modalities trapped within the wings of the melody.

Waters seek a quiet haven
fter running long in rivers;
Fire subsides and sinks in slumber
At the dawning of the morning
Therefore I should end my singing,
As my song is growing weary,
For the pleasure of the evening,
For the joy of morn arising.*

He stood stock-still, watching carefully as he sang, how the tune caressed each listener and then drowned him in its inviting lore, passing no one by. The evocative song grew bright, riches added upon it and its élan escalated almost unbearably, even to the deliverer himself – never had he felt so effervescent, so surely carried by the lyrical and stylish anthem, propelled to its sheer precipice with not a shout but with a tendril of a whisper as the song finished its journey to sit as their coronet of weariness – just as his eyes fell into the chasm that wrought both undevourable fire and steely ice, lancing straight through the sombre ones of the Shieldmaiden of Rohan.

----

*I've pilfered Legolas' song from the Kalevala itself – what better work to use since it is the very one that had inspired Tolkien?

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Chapter 5 - The Watch of Night and Day

Author's Note:

Thank you for the response and reviews! Loved them all. And now, more gap-fillers and more scenes I imagined *might* have just happened. Both movie-based when it comes to plot and sort-of text-based when it comes to dialogues. Unfortunately, that means no fun with characters like Elladan, Elrohir, Imrahil...etc. It's turning out longer than I thought it would have - seriously! I thought by now, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields would have been done.

Apologies for the delay in update - I had not written much more after the previous chapter and also wanted to craft each chapter to the best of my ability, so please do not yet give up on this even if the updates are crawling at best.

Chapter 4: The Watch of Night and Day

The dwarf's snore was perhaps loud enough to rust the chains that bound Morgorth in his void and sink all that remained of Middle Earth. Gimli did not stir, and surprisingly, neither did the rest.

They did not watch as sharply tonight, but he did, vigilant as he did every night.

The flickering light pulled a hypnotic play of dancing shadows upon those who slumbered, but it was the darkness of Edoras' walls and the wild Rohirric landscape's calm welcomed Legolas Greenleaf once again. The same hood shielded his light hair; it dulled even the radiance of his bright eyes. The threat from the East startled him anew as it did the first night he had stood outside, its vehement waves more toxic than a thousand Mirkwood arrows, more disquieting than Lothlorien's enchantments.

But to Estel, he had merely said that the Eye of the Enemy moved, never speaking of the increasing edginess and worry that sometimes gripped him, unable to put into words how he feared he had already lost the ability to wholly reconstruct beauty in the midst of annihilating darkness. Such was his unconfessed need and weakness - he could not yet speak of the gnawing wretchedness and of the entombing, despairing dream that burst its bulging seams. Strangely, he awaited the calling of the gulls with gladness, nursing Galadriel's prophecy with anticipation; perhaps it signalled only then that the time for him to sail had finally arrived, that he could relinquish all with nary a regret.

I lamath-en-nûr nín wenniel no nín, an oer vin firiel, a idhrinn vin pelol.

The Eldar had left for the West at the first sign of the necromancer's return, thrust out of a finished age, a leap that was surely most difficult to make. But how could he, when the tide of things now swayed towards the Edain, and he with them? The Eldar had not yet seen Estel- lean, taut and perhaps even gaunt, but fiery and wise, engulfed with violent life, the heir of Elendil and Isildur who would retake the throne of Gondor.

Or would he, having known the anonymous thrill of being an exiled Ranger from the North that granted him illimitable space?

Where he, an Elf, had hesitated, Aragorn had not the same sentiment when he had rashly wrenched the Palantir away from the halfling. And from that, the Istar's ride to Gondor accelerated the final turnings of the wheel that had been put into motion millennia ago. He thought of Eowyn of Rohan, and the heady impetuousness that seemed to govern her and the rest of the Rohirrim, overcompensating for the shallowness of experience with the identical kind of unrepressed rashness he had witnessed Estel demonstrate.

But for now, he found himself drawn to Men, staggering under the effort to obtain illumination about the breach of the two kindreds, laboriously piecing together only ill-jointed fragments of the incomplete, complex mosaic. The Edain and the Firstborn, were they truly different?

Legolas sighed, concluding that the elves were merely shrewd and discerning in one realm, unknowing and uncomprehending in another, knowing too little about the Younger children.

Suddenly strewn in the night breeze was a presence that now stood behind him; he did not need to turn to see its face. For the many nights that he had stood watch on Meduseld's parapet, and the Ranger had unfailingly accompanied him; together they were an assemblage of few words and unspoken fears.

"It will not be long now, Aragorn." There was no mistaking that he spoke of many things - what was till then the greatest, pending battle of the age that was surely not long in coming, and thereafter a hopeful peace restored?and perhaps the most unsettling to him...the gradual dominion of Men over Arda.

In the darkness they knew; they were all too aware of the night's duality, its two-faced script that inscribed the odyssey from the outward to the inward and slowed the ongoing passage of time into deterioration. He did not expect the Ranger to reply; the apparent impassivity of the night seemed already to amplify the intensity and acuteness of dismal sorrow.

But yet he did and his next words were startling.

"My friend, do not think such burden upon yourself." The Ranger's fleeting glance was almost bitter as he tilted his head towards the distant stars.

Surely he did not think...

"Legolas," he began, grasping for words. "You seek to comfort and think it is perhaps your duty to discern what is to come, even in part."

"Nay, I say these in truth, also in a bid to soothe the same misgivings that surely match yours."

"Tell me what it is."

The Elf shook his head.

"Or shall I speak to you as I did Brego? Man le trasta, Legolas, man cenich? Must I coax you unto obedience as I did a horse?" The Ranger asked mockingly, raising a brow.

"Do you hope to easily bait an Elf?" Legolas countered languidly - then it seemed as if the cool night's air chilled his spirits. "I think you already know, although it seems at first too preposterous even for you to give it voice. That such a reasoning and realisation could come to you," he gestured gently, "it crosses your mind as untrue simply because you do not think such could come to pass. But I tell you that you find yourself closer to the mark than you thought you were."

"And I thought it was Gandalf who remained as cryptic as ever!" Aragorn muttered quietly - the Elf could be exasperating, and as obtuse as the Istar when he chose to be.

It brought a small chuckle. He was glad for the humour he heard, even though it was unwittingly performed.

"Ai, Estel! The boy I knew in Rivendell is truly a king under a Ranger's cloak! Is not eighty-seven summers a long time, even for a Numenorean? I will not scorn it now as I have done in jest before. What honour is there when a kindred's length of days is pitted against another?" Legolas grinned now, glad for the implausible, unwitting light-heartedness that had started in heaviness.

With sudden warmth, he placed his hand on the Ranger's shoulder, not unlike the gladness that he was filled with when he returned Undomiel to whom it belonged.

"Your wisdom among your kind, Aragorn, is unparalleled." Mirth was fleeting, wiped clean by the countenance of sobriety. "Adan...yet your sight and your stubborn, pedantic hope in this instance surpasses even mine. It shames me, almost."

It was a dangerous incline he believed he had begun slipping downwards, a hidden foe as potent as a torrent of advancing orcs - but he had not paid sufficient heed to it, until its deafening demand for a voice.

"You speak of our harsh exchange in Helm's Deep."

"Aye. That, and more," he admitted freely, not surprised at Estel's directness; it was a quality so seldom balanced with compassion and intuition among the Edain, forged as a jewel, embedded only in the finest of Men. There seemed no reason to hide anything more after the lengths they had gone to establish such ground. "It bothers me overly, not because we behaved as fools - or rather I did - but that you have probably sketched the greatest quandary that beleaguers our kind, that being creatures who are not granted the Gift of Men, we are at times slow of heart to learn. And of this I can speak no more, until more is revealed to me."

They sat in comfortable silence, momentarily at peace with uncertainty. Aragorn was the first to break it.

"I crossed blades with Eowyn of Rohan some time before the journey to Helm's Deep," Aragorn said quietly, watching with interest the shuttered, terse look that hooded the Elf's normally clarion gaze, cloaked by a fine velvet of guilelessness.

"Did she?" He observed lightly with imperceptibly narrowed eyes...he burned to loose more from Aragorn's tongue, yet he waited.

"The Lady Eowyn fears a cage, not death."

"You are a jealous keeper of your words, Aragorn. Why do you tell me this?" He wondered aloud, meting out his response warily.

"Well met, Legolas. I had not intended to speak of this, mellon nin. But the fiery spirit is strong in her - the daughter of kings; she wields a blade as deadly as any male warrior would; her brother is as hot-headed, but not without sound counsel...have you not noticed?"

"You are drawn to her, Aragorn," he murmured instead, neither acceding nor disapproving, not revealing the passing incidents he had with her. Then more quietly, as though to himself, he said, "And she to you."

"She asks for something I cannot give, and sets a likeness for something I cannot fulfil."

"Arwen Undomiel would not have it any other way - she is...far too sundered from her kin to enjoy what the Uttermost West offers."

The tinge of frustration that struck them both was well hidden; they fell once more into the burst of unsettling silence.

"I saw you dance with her," Aragorn made the effort to resume their fine discussion about Rohan's Shieldmaiden, choosing to skip the brief, bittersweet remembrance of Arwen. It was with no small amount of surprise that Legolas caught the sly smile was found only in the corner of Estel's mouth.

"I learnt a new dance; I am honoured that she chose to teach it to me," The Elf opted for neutrality, not wishing to deepen their discourse.

Surely it took a man only of great sensibilities - a man raised among Elves - to be able to perceive a change in their manner. But it was now disconcerting, to see his friend afflicted so.

"I ask for your faith, Legolas. It will be our strength." He found it extraordinary - even patronisingly intolerable perhaps to hear his counsel repeated to him, astonished at the sybaritic, fickle transfer of sentiments that he himself had initially propagated. "I have given my hope to Men, Estel. Perhaps only to you, in the beginning, but I do believes that changes even as we speak."

Against all odds, he felt his sight contract and dim, his eyes welling. What had changed over the course of the past month that had caused his previously unwavering vision to take flight? Could it be the barely credible tale that a Halfling had chosen to destroy Sauron's ring? Or that the simple mission of reporting Gollum's escape had burgeoned into an unlikely quest that had teetered and slipped past the edge of a knife?

Legolas Greenleaf knew not what to think; such disorientation was as unfamiliar as a Dwarf's daily trade dealings. Suddenly he longed to touch the leaves of Mirkwood and stare at the sunlight splayed on its mighty green fronds until he was blinded.

The expanse before them had lightened, the deepening pink shades of an angry dawn a searing beauty whose sure hand pulled behind it the shying night.

"Which one of us is gifted with all?" Aragorn asked at last. "Even Galadriel's Mirror spins out things that may not pass - it shows us merely in part. Many things will not remain...what will remain?"

"A human child willed no tears to escape his lids when he fell over a root with the pack he carried on his back, and still persisted to declare that he was strong enough to bear his then-light burden - if your memory indeed serves you well, Aragorn," he insisted calmly, as though willing the resurfacing of a long-forgotten triviality.

"An age ago, Legolas."

The weight on your shoulders grows, but in that same measure so will the faculties you have been given strengthen, until the time you find they weigh no more than a stone.

It was doubtless they both remembered, savouring the lingering, hypnotic vestiges of the fleeing dark until light overflowed from the horizon, roaring out triumphantly its supremacy over the last, orphaned star.

"This remains, Aragorn Arathornion - mellon nin. Isildur's heir will not fail; my faith in Luthien's line remains."

**********

Passionately baptised by day, flawlessly softened by night, the time when Arda was caught between time's two harmonious movements.

A brooding figure sat a distance from the Watch Tower contemplating Anor's steady climb, a warm goblet held in his hands. He sat stock-still, encased with admiration for its effortless, consistent rotation around Arda, marvelling at the way the ground lit by degrees and shades, each colour tone deepening as each ray intensified.

Not noticing that another figure watched him, leaning against the wood of the Meduseld's outer court.

A small flame in the likeness of Anor's blinding glory appeared ? he thought his eyes deceived him ? until he saw with breathless disbelief the way its careless fire soon flowed downwards to consume the rest of the stacked wood, converted a harsh golden in the shape of a pyramid ablaze.

The beacons of Gondor...

Calenhad glowed remorselessly bright, dappled with the feeble mistiness of the curves of the beacon hills, an uncompromising call for aid. He took in its sight, until he felt lit and consumed by its fire, growing flushed just by thinking of the urgency of the matter; it propelled him to a scrambling of feet onto an upward rush past the broad steps of Meduseld.

His movement was a blur as he rushed past her ill-concealed spot, not noticing the pillar she stood behind, reaching with both hands to seize the closed gates of the great hall.

Its great doors burst open with an unceremonious clang, and he hastened his steps through the threshold, swept with the rough surf of acute anticipation, skidding to a gasping halt several paces from the throne.

"The beacons of Minas Tirith are lit!" He cried. Gondor's survival depended as much on Rohan's troops as much as it did on his attempt to persuade Rohan's King. "Gondor calls for aid!"

The hall had grown quiet; Eowyn of Rohan saw the expressionless faces of the Elf and the Dwarf, and the unbending, commanding countenance of one who dared defiance. He fascinated her deeply at this point ? intrigued her by his every movement, as though charisma had been made prisoner within his piquant face. And then she understood the pull of this Man to everyone who surrounded him, how they leaned towards his natural leadership and his unparalleled foresight among the Edain; it was at the tip of her tongue to loose Rohan's finest horses and warriors at his request - it was a desperation that almost mirrored his.

But she kept silent, knowing it was not her place to answer. She could not, in the short time of acquaintance made with him, recall any instant where Aragorn son of Arathorn was almost childishly anxious as time passed infinite, snapped to attention as a needle wheezed on its sharp point before it crashed horizontally onto its side.

Theoden had previously scorned Gondor's ability to honour their vows; would he now dishonour Rohan by refusing his aid in the same manner? Would Theoden require him, a long-lost emissary, a self-exiled King of Gondor beg for the fellowship of Men even in such dire times?

Her brother stood behind her, wound up as tightly as she was, awaiting their uncle's command.

"And Rohan will answer." Her uncle replied with sardonic triumph, a bitter and yet exultant reaffirmation of Rohan's honour left intact above Gondor's tattered soul - was there any praise to be garnered when one merely acted upon the fulfilment of one's vows when the other had not? "Muster the Rohirrim! Assemble the army at Dunharrow, as many men as can be found. You have two days."

"On the third, we ride for Gondor," he stated calmly. "And war."

They already followed him, a displaced ruler of Gondor.

**********
"Hwær cwóm helm? Hwær cwóm byrne? Hwær cwóm scir fyyr? Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað ," she whispered softly, relaxing her stern stance as she walked into the quiet stables, away from the bustle of the preparation for the ride to Dunharrow. "Peace, Brego. Your master's sword sang its vengeance against all orcs and other fell creatures of darkness that slew him. Ah, Theodred, lim-strang wæs geboren, bearn léod-cyninga, magorinc mearces, bunden in bryde tó laedenne, bunden in lufe tó ðegnunge ."

Windfola was a remarkable steed, as was Arod and Brego; they were living comfort when her memory was wont to fail. Already, the sharp angles and the gentle planes of Theodred's face grew dim, but still he would live even as Brego lived, brought back to life as his new master cleaves a thundering path through rough steppes not dissimilar to the one its former owner did before he passed.

She had not - could not mourn him properly, and now she wanted to, in her own way, as Eomer Eadig hunted the orcs that slew her cousin with his merciless eored.

There was perplexing courage to draw from memory and a certain ease drawn from unrestrained monologue; she took it gladly, passing to touch Arod's and Windfola's nose gently, trickling softly over him the same rohirric words.

"Oh Windfola, to Dunharrow we go, to the rohirric refuge hidden deep in the vales of Ered Nimrais. You do not worry that the ground you run on would suddenly tremble and split into a deep precipice that drains even the most courageous man."

It seemed never more so now that legend and myth coalesced into the white, blinding light that all of them now walked under, mystical sayings and tall tales that grew bones and leapt to sudden, overwhelming existence as living beings shedding their blood on Arda's soil - she felt it well as she knew herself a Shieldmaiden.

"Let not the mind wander where it should not." His quiet voice ricocheted of the thin walls, dying as an echo in her ears. Its nuance and subtle inflexion soon switched, almost shyly mischievous. "Not until sleep clears the cobwebs of today's worry and the 'cannots' become 'indeeds'."

Eowyn felt caught between the expanse of light and the quiet haunting melody that was him, wrapped in the sable waterfall that was Varda's stars in his eyes. But sometimes understanding what he said brought tottering confusion and induced ironic prodding.

"Do all the Elder Children speak near insensibly?"

Legolas Greenleaf laughed. "Have you been spending time with Gimli who waxes dwarven lyrical on unpalatable elvish philosophy? He tells me to speak plainly every chance he gets, as does another now." He moved forward until they stood side by side, reaching for Arod. "I came to lead Arod from the stables and did not expect to find you here with the horses."

"Does Theoden leave now?" She marvelled at the way the horse bowed to his whim; his kind had a deeper bond with these creatures than she had thought. Then again, they saw so little and understood far less; to her, it was humbling.

"Later, when the sun dips further. I merely wished to take Arod out for a while and will not ride too far. He is saddled and ready. Perhaps the quick rush of air in Calenardhon's rough country will do us both immense good," he replied, watching her curiously as she hurriedly moved to lead Windfola from his stall.

"May I ride with you, Legolas?" It was a request made on a whim and she had fully expected its denial.

He was not as surprised as he thought he might have been, mounting Arod in a dulcet spring so smooth it begged visual greediness.

"Am I any man's keeper?" He quipped. "Do you carry arms on your person?"

Eowyn smiled tightly, and then he saw it in a flash - Theodred's blade - that same blade that he had unhooked and handed to her now fastened securely at some point on Windfola's saddle, eclipsed easily by a folded cloth covering. She tried surreptitiously to copy his movement, that terribly slick leap onto Windfola that she nonetheless fell short of, seeing him trying to hide a grin at her effort.

And then they were off, dispatching the horses in sync that hoofed a cloud of dust in their wake, sleekly sailing past the flabbergasted Rohirrim caught in their preparation, past Gimli's huff and Aragorn's watchful eye, until they angled down Edoras' border into the fields unbound.

The wordless bloodthirst that grew stronger every minute the war of the Ring approached was strangely now her hope incarnate, bent inwards to spill the golden fields as red as dawn. Unutterable pain, nurtured anger - interlocked with bloodlust, a raging warrior waiting for fracture.

The Elf sensed the sinister bend of thoughts that assailed her, fragments of emotion that disturbed him. He pushed his steed harder, ahead, needing to be away from its darkness. She would not have it, twisting the reins and spurring Windfola alongside Arod, matching Legolas gallop for gallop. Around the varied mounds the horses took flight, acting out all that the mind's eye painted on imaginary canvases without script or premeditation.

For this short time, Rohan and its ancient borders were theirs; their dreams had narrowed to fresh grass and dried blades, drowning their already brimming mental coffers with inviolate, incoherent ecstasy.

----

*I lamath-en-nûr nín wenniel no nín, an oer vin firiel, a idhrinn vin pelol
- The voices of my people having departed before me, for our days are fading and our years are withering

* Hwær cwóm helm? Hwær cwóm byrne? Hwær cwóm scir fyyr? Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað
- Where is the helm? Where is the hauberk? Where is the red fire? Will shall be the sterner, heart the bolder, spirit the greater as our strength lessens

* Ah, Theodred , lim-strang wæs geboren, bearn léod-cyninga, magorinc mearces, bunden in bryde tó laedenne, bunden in lufe tó ðegnunge
- Ah, Theodred, strong-limbed he was born, this son of Kings, this warrior of Rohan, bound by birth to lead, bound by love to serve

**********


Chapter 6 - Paths Unchangeable

Author's Note:
It finally arrives – the one with action after the last chapter full of talking and nothing much else. It was exceptionally difficult to write, I must say. Yes I know it is L/E centric, but I can't resist doing a bit of Aragorn there especially before the Dimholt Road… Thank you for reading and your kind reviews.

Chapter 5: Paths Unchangeable

The two horses that rode on swift wings now stood stock still, as though they were as dazzled as their riders by the Rohan's magnificent fields.

“Tell me about Rohan, my Lady.”

She looked at him, surprised.

“How can it be…I meant…do you not know?” Her mouth grew slack with amazement; it felt foolish asking a question as an answer to his own question, unable to hide the very present curiosity within.

“I have smelled the Mallorns of the Golden Wood, yet cannot name the herbs that perfume Meduseld's hall; I recognise the sunlight splayed on Mirkwood's leaves and do not know the cold harshness of Forodwaith; I am part of a kindred that hallows light, but I have never beheld the Light of Aman, nor the silmarils. Shall I go on? Elves do not know everything, Eowyn.” He said wryly, easily yielding. “I only know things as well as a sketch.”

“Rohan is a land far younger than you.”

He waited patiently, noticing her sly observation.

“It belonged to Gondor, Legolas, given to Eorl of the North by the Steward Cirion when they answered his call for aid. Eternal friendship – the Oath of Eorl – between Rohan and Gondor was sworn. Should one break the Oath because another dishonoured it?”

“Nay,” he replied simply. “But I am proud to be called Rohan's ally because Theoden King honours the vow of loyalty.”

“I – thank you.”

It was a while before she continued.

“Superficial sight will tell you that Meduseld is not diminished in greatness, from the time it was built by Brego son of Eorl, but look carefully; you will see cracks on its walls and splintered wood.” She gave him a sidelong glance, hard and stern. “Rohan breaks, as do we all. It reminds us that we pass from Middle-Earth as easily as the wood splinters. And now we ride to Dunharrow. Perhaps it is truly the end, the doom of our time before the walls of Minas Tirith.”

“The end of all things? You ask the same questions that assail us all. Even Gandalf the white will not speak on this. Different gifts are given to the kindreds,” he said absently, wondering if he stared at the same green fields that Cirion and Eorl trod through.

“The gift of Eru,” she echoed flatly after a pause. Was it this same gift he spoke about that allowed men fall into oblivion and the resulting chaos that reshaped Arda according to the whims of the distant gods? But she knew these things to the Firstborn were sacred. “Let us speak no more of this, Legolas. Time does not allow it.”
“Aye,” he agreed immediately. “Theoden King honours the Oath and prepares to ride. We must return. Let us go, Eowyn.” He looked at her briefly before turning Arod around, loosing the horse into an easy trot that turned in no time into a frenetic gallop, feeling her once again match him pace for pace.

**********

It was discreet enough with the cover, Eowyn thought. Should there be any –

“You ride with us?”

It was him again, the Lord Aragorn whom she thought loved as well as the rest of the men had come to do so.

"Just to the encampment. It's tradition for the women of the court to farewell the men."

Was that nonchalant enough for him to accept? But to her dismay, he was already lifting the blanket that shielded Theodred's blade from view – the flash of knowing that passed his face spurred her to pull it down again.

The sword receded from common sight.

Eowyn spoke hastily, waving the uncomfortable issue of arms aside. "The men have found their captain; they will follow you into battle, even to death. You have given us hope." Yet it was a statement veiled and weighty with implication; she had already counted herself among them, journeying to battle, unto glorious death where fear diminished and became unthinkable at the moment before breath left the body.

Distantly she heard her brother's fiery voice deep as scorching coals heaped onto the dead – Now is the hour, Riders of Rohan, oaths you have taken! Now, fulfil them all! To Lord and Land!

The ride to Dunharrow was unusually silent even by Rohirric standards, each man lost in his thoughts. When they reached, the earth trembled beneath the encampments, and the air cackled with each sword sharpened and re-sharpened restlessly.

It seemed too short a time that they had before a hooded visitor entered the tent of the Rohirric King and thereafter summoned the Ranger. It was not a trick of the eyes that led her to a quietly snorting Brego who was being saddled not long after –

“Lord Aragorn, you leave us on the eve of battle – the war lies to the East! Why do you leave – where do you go that we – or I cannot follow? Will you now abandon the men?”

“Eowyn.” He threw his whispered plea into her name, but his hand did not cease readying his saddle.

“I passed these lands in my youth; I do not desire adventure as strongly as I did. Eowyn, do you not know that I do not willingly choose the paths of peril?” Aragorn questioned her heavily, passing a hand over his brow. “It is not a gracious burden. Were I led by my whims, my heart would bring me back to Imladris.”

The destruction of the carefully built illusion deflated her into silence, a real terror so underplayed by men even after their hard collisions with pain, reached solely by the route of mending already shattered dreams. Now there lay a gaping wound; yet she persisted doggedly, tearing it wider.

“You ride into the Dwimorberg. None who venture there ever return!”

“Aye.”

There seemed no more to say – they were silent a few moments; she watched him ready Brego, seeing the silver gleam of Anduril that their visitor had bestowed upon him with each slight movement.

The irregular interplay of moonlight and firelight cast her with a ghostly light and actively roused his greater sensibilities; for a while, her splendour and his unspoken need combined, became to him nourishment. It was an invisible script played out – one that Aragorn knew was unavoidable.

“Why have you come, Eowyn?” The Ranger asked with eyes ablaze, needing to know the answer that she was about to give, knowing that his own hope for Arwen Undomiel waned – a commanding word from her and he would have crumbled and relented. He would have sought her out and thereafter put to rest any possibility of union between him and the Evenstar before Mordor's vengeance was fully unleashed.

Then he would fade, with Eowyn, with the peoples of Middle-Earth, along with the last standing kingdom of the Dunedain, as the stems of roses fell headless from Gondor's famed gardens.

It seemed a time both immeasurable and instantaneous that he wished as she did – now was this time – that they could have indeed taken alternate paths to freedom, unbound by duty, that he had not been given the Elessar that contained within it the life of the Undomiel. Yet to choose this path would evermore dissolve the frail bridge of alliance and friendship that connected the two kindreds that cracked with each oncoming age.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost…from ashes a fire shall awaken, a light from the shadows shall spring, the crownless again shall be king…

It was a decision as political as it was emotional, filled perhaps with a certain iniquity, forged and shattered with the softest of breaths, a different and unsung song of this age.

The riddle's true answer did not lie in discovering the wandering Strider's veiled identity and the return of Gondor's King; many did not know that its ironic answer it lay instead in forking, forbidden paths that he could not take, and they had not conceived that this finely sculpted path of duty so lauded from birth had sooner diverged from this particularly wilder one route he now sought.

Aiya Earendil! Could it not be any different?

His apparent fate lay at the Black gates of Mordor; it could not remain camouflaged, nondescript among men.

“Do you not know?” She asked with a breaking voice. All seemed in this short time insufficient without him; the inexhaustible stairways of breathless anticipation that he brought to them buckled and collapsed.

Yet for that straightforward question, therein always lay leagues of sentimental clutter, the possibility of misinterpretation and futile discord. In that question Aragorn had been given the choice to acknowledge what he felt and dreamt, leaving with him also the interpretation of her question.

It was a tempting path that he could nonetheless not tread – there seemed no way that he could let her love him – now it only made him want to curse the inalterable. Yet he hoped insanely it was a misplaced love that she had – perhaps her love resembled the same love countrymen had for their King and land?

Men and Elves – two kindreds breached by distrust and past betrayals – it now lay in his hands to heal, as only a king would.

What else was left for him to tell her?

“I cannot give you what you seek – it is but a shadow and a thought that you love.”

And there it was – an answer he had furnished so eloquently, even deceitfully, in the last hope that she would turn away. Another word, and he would have faltered…and would have carried in each retreating step the breaking of Men.

“I will not ask for your love, Aragorn. Even a fool knows better where to step, although a fool would give you his all freely,” she whispered brokenly. “I merely wished to ride with you – into the unknown – to honour you…as…my King.”

He heaved a barely perceptible sigh of relief, taking her words for what they were supposed to mean, not thinking about what she wished them to mean.

It was too delicate a wound to puncture deeper.

“It is time, Eowyn. For me.” The statement came as punctually as the matter at hand, thought the Ranger with no small sense of bitterness.

Coming to awareness that there was a burgeoning gathering of soldiers behind her, she turned slowly, seeing faces that were truculent, fearful and disappointed. They murmured ceaselessly – he walks the paths of the dead, and is to us no more…does our victory at the Hornburg mean little to him…? Or does he leave because there is no hope? – disbelieving questions of the ignorant.

“He leaves because he must. And where he goes we do not follow.” Theoden had stepped behind the gathering, a note of finality to his voice. “And I will say no more.”

He hunched slightly, turning away, as did the reluctantly dispersing crowd, men who aged a hundred fold under the miasma of gloom.

They could carry on, she knew, but it felt as if they would ride with no limbs.

“You grieve. There is perhaps still hope left. Aragorn goes, for the sake of all.”

Another voice – one that was now dearly familiar – Legolas! He motioned to Gimli who sat atop Arod impatiently several paces away, beseeching a moment.

“You leave too. And perhaps fall with Lord Aragorn.” She was greatly dismayed that he and Gimli would follow the Ranger into the unknown, ever fearless.

He drew back slightly, frowning.

“You must understand, Eowyn. I bade my father goodbye, not farewell when I left for Imladris. But over this journey I came to accept that I may never walk among the trees of Mirkwood nor see any of my kin again,” he paused, finding anomalous difficulty in his words, for saying them aloud seemed to pronounce a certain finality that cannot be withdrawn. “There is for me nothing left to lose.”

“Then you have heard the words that the Lord Aragorn and I exchanged.”

The Elf frowned, not liking the turn of the conversation.

“There is nothing I would say that will be of benefit to you or Aragorn, Eowyn.”

“Time grows short, Legolas.”

Was it not better that they parted now, on terms that were still somewhat cordial? She wished to keep her extraordinary memories of the past weeks as they were now.

“Then perhaps our paths are from here onwards sundered. Farewell, Eowyn – Elf-friend,” he said softly, edging nearer until he took her face in his hands – and at that moment she saw – they both saw the strangled hope in his own chest, her forgotten dreams and charred pasts that were as tears of dripping wax tapered to a stump; knowing that they hoped for a future that might have already been extinguished. “I think we understand each other at last, my Lady. Anar kaluva tielyanna. Aurë entuluva.”

Eowyn relished the strange, soothing words that swelled with power, knowing instinctively that it to be a customary farewell of some sort.

“Tell me its meaning, Legolas.”

“It is old Elvish,” he said softly. “The sun shall shine upon your path, Eowyn…and day shall come again.” The Elf drew back a pace as soon as she spoke, staring wistfully at her before he turned away. With a last look in her direction, he smiled sadly. “We may yet meet under shadowless skies on this side of Arda, or maybe beyond, crafted with care by Eru, in all the glorious ages to come.”

She called out to him, yet he did not turn.

“Then remember the Rohirrim beside whom you fought with – dare I ask that you remember them almost as one of your own, Legolas? Remember me too, when you swing your blade and loose your arrows,” she boldly entreated and stepped back.

And she watched them leave – a Man, a Dwarf and an Elf, into the narrow pass of the mountain and into the interlocking valleys beyond, swallowed by the mists.

The Rohirrim were now left on their own, bereft of these three hunters who had, in such short time, become indispensable. But now they were gone; their hardened soldiers were suddenly as fledglings, flung from their nests into helplessness.

Tomorrow, they would ride deep to Gondor, and to war – and she would be with them.


**********

Courage Merry, courage for our friends…Arise! Riders of Theoden! Ride for ruin!

Aye, death, nameless warriors riding for death that was sooner inexplicably linked with asphyxiating passion rather than turgid cold. They both would – as misfits of battle – ride together. One, a woman who was preferred in the healing rooms, and the other, whose length of arm was too short to slay with confidence.

Death!

They thundered through the orcish army without breaking speed; spears were hurled, arrows were loosed, screams mingled with the haphazard gallop of horses and the lumbering trudge of trolls; decimated limbs decorated all battlefields and this was no different.

The Rohirrim scarcely dared to hope…yet it appeared as though Mordor's forces were dwindling – wave after wave of orcs that resembled a roiling black sea settled and quieted somewhat, but joy was short-lived.
Men riding on huge beasts thundered towards them, the impaling tusks of the mammoths flinging all in their path. With horror, Eowyn drew two blades, pushing the horse ahead towards the lumbering animals.

“Take the reins! Pull left!”

The Hobbit demonstrated surprisingly, a sufficiently adept handling of the horse, and they swerved left together, narrowing avoiding the wide swing of a Mumak's tusk, carving a path underneath the creature's belly. Severing its hamstrings, she sought once more Windfola's sure grip on the ground, its unfaltering gallop lavish as they raced outwards in the opposite direction, weaving around the falling orcs and the flying arrows.

They passed a staggering Mumak, and were hurled off Windfola as the beast fell sideways. Without her horse she felt painfully exposed –

Oh Eru…Merry! Surely he was not lost!

To her right a sudden parched wind blew as a deafening howl filled the air – all whipped around in that direction, and watched with dread, chilled to the bone. A hideously unnameable creature, at first necessarily small and confined by distance, its circular path now shrinking into a monstrously straight trajectory towards Theoden. With talons and claws outstretched it slammed into him with a swiftness too great to measure, lifting off into the air again with unquenchable rage as the horse and its rider spun and toppled along the ground before slowly returning to its previous path.

Between the tumbling horse and the ground Theoden was lodged, broken and panting.

Oh gods…

She could not bear the passing of things, when the legs of time reduced itself to intolerable slowness borne of incredulity and disbelief.

The fell beast clambered towards the white horse that Theoden was pinned under, carrying the Black Captain – the Marshal that commanded with its piercing wail all of Mordor's forces.

Eowyn shivered briefly, staring agape at its deliberate crawl, sensing how it hemmed in darkness as a shield, as a ring of shadow that it so favoured. She fought the urge to cower – even a warrior's fear was sometimes all consuming.

Yet those who saw that lone figure who stood bravely in the sunlight that pierced the grey clouds thought the Valar would have surely themselves applauded the small warrior who now faced the acrid presence.

I will smite you if you touch him.

The creature that carried the black Lord moved.

Stand not between a Nazgul and his prey.

Beyond the reach of human eyes, the black spectre barred even weightless light – Eowyn stared paralysed and unmoving, sensing for the first time with stunned wonder the lost colours of this fallen man who now rode emotionless on a Dwimmorlaik. As any man who depleted a great amount of energy pulling another from the swallowing quicksand, she wrung from its high-pitched wail the distant sound of the last plea of a king bound through greed to a ring.

Forth, Eorlingas!

In its stare, abundant coils of the black breath released; it emanated the incense of evil, chanting a rhythm calculated to quail men's weak hearts. He was adorned with vileness and as cold as the grinding ice, yet she was colder, and as stern and palpable as steel against a substanceless form no longer held together by sinews and bones.

Her blade was swung in a furious motion – even without her realising it – it seemed to act on its own accord – a hard, downward swipe that connected steel with resilient scaly hide, leaving the Lord of the Nazgul with an incapacitated beast.

She snapped to attention as the shuddering Dwimmorlaik collapsed in a heap, leaving a faceless entity standing. Arms outspread, the apparition that spoke with a serpent's hiss stood tall and terrible, crowned with the torrid, surging strength and power of the wakeful Eye – and in the spectre's hand lay a black spiked iron poised to swing.

Quick diagonal swishes – facile flicks of the Nazgul's wrist brought the black iron jolting the ground – she had ducked easily the first time the heavy weight had been swung; it got progressively harder to dodge his blows…

The black iron's last strike wrecked the roughly-hewn shield that Eowyn had picked up, fracturing bone. Her neck was grabbed suddenly in a grasp as rigid and unyielding as the iron that had struck her, and great fear she now deeply understood…yet what was that remembrance that had also emerged when the Witchking's hand touched living flesh…? An island that stood with grandeur and sunk under Ulmo's waves in the middle of the sea, a honeyed web that divulged false allure, dank pits that were constructed beneath the earth first chillingly silent and then inhumanly wheezing with rage, narrowed to a ring forged by a wizened hand, worn with gluttony of the gleeful soul.

And then she saw the fading of skin and sinew as day gravely faded, and the paleness of eyes as gazes turned sightless…and the shifting of allegiances as elemental as the marring of Arda.

You fool! No living man can kill me!

The pressure lifted. The Nazgul's right arm retracted as a piercing shriek emanated from the gaping hole where an unseen face must have contorted in pain, clutched closely to himself, stumbling, falling into the pit of his own sorcery.

Merry!

Taunted by the stab in the back – a creature that was neither Man nor Elf but a Halfling – a Halfling's hand had reversed it all – and now at the point that she thought was past changing –

Be gone, thief of the night!

Yet no living man was she, and her golden locks that were bunched restrictively under the helmet fell free as she deliberately pulled it over her head –

It was her face she wanted the black captain to see; it was the triumph of mortal strength that she wished to celebrate, even though it would mean the last sight to pass her eyes would be a minute's scrap of overwhelming foulness.

Against the numbing pain, she found it in herself to thrust into the hollowness her last blow of vengeance and redemption and foulness as epic as Morgorth's blackness erupted. Theodred's sword held and stayed, as though pulled magnetically ever inwards; all Eowyn felt was the drain of all vigour, not knowing that she through her loss, administered freedom to his years of bondage and gorged out darkness so his sight might be regained –

Past imprisoned worship, through the soil of the ground and upwards into thinning air, ice abruptly pierced ice; it seemed as though the tight braid woven of the arch of time and its marred tapestry momentarily loosened and shrivelled – ever so slowly a crevice was nudged open – until a loud rush of wind churned from its depths and gushed through the widening vein like a heavy rain cloud that came apart at its seams.

Under an extraordinary nebulosity a spirit fled its grating confines of twilight at long last.

Shadow and its flaming darkness crumbled flamboyantly on itself, shrinking into the ever-growing spaciousness of the nameless void, wreathing, sucked bone-dry unto barely subsisting legend.

It burned alive, until it became mere cinders – and so did she, falling hard onto her knees and clutching her numbed, heavy hand that seemed to weigh as cumbersome sacks of salt.

Strength barely remained when a cresting wave of grief broke over her. But she feebly summoned life to fill her legs nonetheless to inch a pace, for as long as Theoden lived. Errant strands of golden hair flowed from her head, and it seemed fitting that its golden hue crowned the dying King.

“I know your face.” The corner of the Rohirric King's mouth lifted slightly; he struggled to channel air into his lungs. “Eowyn…Eowyn…my eyes darken. Let me go.”

There was no name that she could place on the misery that spasmodically contracted her belly.

“No,” she interrupted hastily. Did not Legolas Greenleaf entreat her to hope for a time renewed? Eowyn harnessed its gentle power until voice was regained. “No. I am going to save you.”

With growing alarm she saw his eyes slowly shut, a shadow regained where a shadow had just been vanquished – without the Elven insight into the cycles of life that peaked and dipped with each phrase of Eru's music she found herself dissatisfied, and inadequately accepting of it. Instead, all that mattered was the unfairness, and the injustice of it all!

“You already have, Eowyn,” Theoden murmured gently, breaking her thoughts. “In many ways.”

Did he not know Rohan's dependence upon its King? Had he so soon forgotten his flight from Saruman's nightmarish dreams?

It would be a while before he spoke again.

“You know this cannot be, Eowyn. I tire.” He spoke now in gasps, slowing to a verbal crawl. “And now I join my fathers in whose company I need not feel ashamed…”

What did he say that she truly did not know?

She held his hand to her cheek, now unmoving and limp, damp with her tears.

“I had hoped so dearly…that…that there might have been another way.”

The strength that had appeared now drained as she leaned over his still form, throat dry and bereft of breath, hating the unsated bloodlust and its guarantee of bereavement. What accomplishment it had seemed to fell the Nazgul now bit the dust.

There was little more she knew thereafter, gripped by fatigue so strong – a chaining weariness of life that had drifted past hope. The tide of the battle of Pelennor turned as surely as Arda turned on its axis, an impermanent imprint on Arda's permanent canvas. Among the dead, two motionless bodies entwined tightly, one living and the other dead.

**********

* Anar kaluva tielyanna. Aurë entuluva.
-The sun shall shine upon your path. Day will come again.

* All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost…from ashes a fire shall awaken, a light from the shadows shall spring, the crownless again shall be king…
- From ‘The Riddle of Strider'


Chapter 7 - Unexpected Changes

Author's Note:

And…ladies and gentlemen…I present…Faramir…and a revisionist version of LOTR's chapter The Steward and the King. All the characters have…issues...Hee hee hee ;-P

Chapter 6: Unexpected Changes

“Gimli, do we not visit our friends in the Houses of Healing?”

With narrowed eyes, the Dwarf watched the Elf approach, joyed by the uncharacteristic impatience that Legolas Greenleaf was showing. He smiled briefly, and the Elf looked curiously askance.

“Aye, laddie.” The Dwarf paused from the arduous task of sharpening his axe. “That we are. Let us go then, while the healers still permit.”

Elf and Dwarf walked together among the thronging mess of Minas Tirith, not oblivious to the gaping stares that followed their every step to the Houses of Healing.

The White Lady of Rohan lay unmoving as a rosebud filled with snow, a watery basin of Athelas sitting by her side. Aragorn stood, masked by the shadows of the corner, bleak and vexed. Suddenly he moved swiftly, bending over her with a gentleness so opposed to his initial strides. His hand slipped from the tip of her head in a gesture as thickly sleek as molten brass; as though the heavens heard, they closed in heavily, as though sympathetically acquainted with Athelas in the healing hands of a King. The skies split and lightning flashed free, unaccustomed to a King gracing its grounds; a torrential outpouring encircled Gondor, hefty droplets hitting the hard and dry ground of Pelennor in columns of white.

“She lays near death.”

Legolas marvelled at the grim yet defiant of Gondor's new ruler – aided by the insight and the haughty souls of the Eldar, he wondered if the unending wrestle against the seemingly impossible indeed characterised the mark of Elessar Telcontar's rule. At that moment, he wanted to sing, a ritual of pleasure that was the rebellious counterpart of Aragorn's proclamation.

As the rain slowed to a slothful drizzle, the Elf opened his mouth, and the melody came haltingly at first, for he was suddenly seized by a burgeoning panic, flinching, knowing that he already did not fully trust in the power of song. But daring and exaggeratedly elaborate after its initial blossom on shaky ground, the dams burst in a cadenza again, hinged on a singular plea…and all who stood in the confines of the chamber were gladdened, for the doubts in them were strong and genuine.

A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, le nallon
Sí di-nguruthos! A tiro nin, Fanuilos!

Legolas felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Gimli thereafter striding away, realising with surprise that he knew not when Aragorn had taken his leave. The heaviness of the past weeks broke him; the Elf hunched over the still form, and started speaking.

Call to her…

“Eowyn… A tiro nin…Tolo dan nan galad…” he whispered fretfully, passing a warm hand over her brow as Aragorn had done. Suddenly frustrated, he pressed his fingers to his head, splaying them apart, moving to cover his face. “Awake, Eowyn, all darkness is washed clean!”

Then his tongue loosened, as though his words breathed animation into the dying, willing the unmoving form to gulp the lingering freshness of Kingsfoil.

Legolas spoke to her as one spoke to living men, leaping easily over the breach into memory…from the chilled memory of Dunharrow…to the sharp sting of the sea's call when they raided the Cosairs…and finally to Pelennor. All that he saw in his mind's eye took the shape of words – a broken branch, a withered, curling leaf. They shrank, made barren by the cursed of the cursed in Dunharrow.

Frost embroidered on the mountain as thick as deceptive speech, each step dancing closer to the edge of sanity. An elfling stood, hand outstretched, a curled, dried leaf gently descending, coming to delicate rest on his palm. It lit, burning paper bright and flamed a sheer crimson, disappearing into smoke and ash. In a flash he knew it was him – smiling at his sire –

Legolas pulled from his mind disparate fragments together, caught in lacquered, ecstatic moments, seared by memory. He jerked back into the tangible by the clang of armour below.

It was time. But this room still lay silent, the White Lady unmoving. Eowyn of Rohan lay as one counted among the dead – and there seemed naught else he could do.

“Ned Minas Tirith le beriathar aen.”

With a deep sigh, the Elf stood, and readied himself for the march to the Black Gates.

**********

Eowyn awoke with a start, fists clenched and dissatisfied, with her head turned east. She detested suddenly the fact that she still lived; it would have seemed a fitting – and childish – punishment on those who had not valued her worth as a shieldmaiden.

A vague and woeful melody turned repeatedly, as a corporeal breath that sighed unceasingly. What was there to do, but sit obediently as they set her arm in a linen sling, enduring their half-hearted quips intended to bring her good cheer?

The Warden worried about her state of unrest and finally brought her to walk in the Gardens of the Houses of Healing.

“You will meet the Steward of Gondor, the Lord Faramir, my Lady. Perhaps he, as a prisoner of the healers too, will share your very own sentiments,” he had told her kindly.

So meet Gondor's Steward she did, on a day when the round blue sky impaled the even the darkest hearts of men and lovers of meadows hummed with tender joy.

“Does not the Black Gate lie beyond these fields, my Lord?”

“What do you wish for my Lady?” This perplexing woman who was bred among men of war stirred his curiosity. “If it lies within my power, I would do it.”

“I would have you command the Warden, to let me go.”

“I myself am in the Warden's keeping, and still heed his counsel,” he trailed off uncertainly, as though struck by the unbending pride that whistled thinly through her words. A pride that was her remaining possession, a pride that kept her pale face resolute. “Would you not heed his counsel?”

“I wish to ride, my Lord, with my brother Eomer – and for Theoden King, who died for honour and peace.”

Seeing no sign of the melting of the bitter frost in her, he took his hands in hers gently, all too aware of the inappropriateness of the gesture.

“Lady, the Captains are gone away. It is indeed too late. We must, at this time, face with great patience the hours of waiting.”

“Must we really?” Eowyn sighed, resigned. “We shall leave this for now, my Lord.”

He concurred, and no more was said.

Yet as the day lengthened she grew even more restless; she saw Lord Faramir occasionally when he visited her with a flattery that she grew used to. And it came to pass that all would change.

They stood together once more in the gardens when time halted and all light failed. Encircling, vagrant wisps of black breath rushed through chambers and antechambers, making all feeble with fear as the city walls quivered – wind blew hard in the arms of noise, filling the space that light vacated, bringing in its breath harsh cancellations of the prime of springs and foretellings of the dimmest of winter.

As soon as it appeared, the astounding phenomenon receded quickly.

“It reminded me of…Numenor,” Faramir finally spoke, finding his voice still hushed with wonder.

“Of Numernor?”

“Aye. Of the Land that was second most West of the Blessed Realm, washed into memory by dark waves over its green hills. And onwards, ever onwards…I often dream of it.”

She turned and stooped over the blooms that had sprouted over the heels of the bench, not wishing to see his face. What was there, in the face of the Steward, that also held a foretelling of doom?

“Darkness inescapable,” Eowyn murmured, fingering a blossom in the garden, breaking its head in a sudden motion. It fell, with a soundless thud, onto the soft, green grass, next to her bare feet. “Just like Numenor, as you have said.”

“Does it not look like we stand at the end of days? Great evil has befallen, and yet my limbs are light, and my heart sings. Ease my care, Eowyn –” he enthused happily. “For it may be the end of days, yet darkness cannot endure when I have found what I hope I cannot ever lose.”

“Lord Faramir…”

“Eowyn of Rohan, I say to you that you are beautiful…as fair and bright as the flowers on our hills, but never one as sorrowful as I have seen till now” She watched him in amazement, not knowing what to utter but his name.
What did he speak of?

Of parallel dreams that would converge –would she but reply the affirmative.

Faramir faltered too, yet he was more filled than her – there seemed to lie within him now a great resource of poetics that she could not abide, not when she thought he was spurred onto such musings by an all-consuming yet temporary joy that came from the departure of Shadow.

“We both…you and I…we passed under the wings of the Shadow –” It was his turn to shake his head in amazement, “but we were pulled back by the same hand.”

The hand of the King, Eowyn thought dolefully. The heavily sensual hands that innocently touched to heal – for her.

Her heart leapt in her breast at his declaration, a shock that faded as soon as it appeared. Yet his words were as daggers that slit her skin as the Morgul wound had broken her arm; in a cynical manner she suspected that it merely meant a confinement of another sort, a political cage that laid the foundation of bilateral ties and alleviated the signing of future treaties. It was not a path she would willingly pursue on eager feet – an uncanny, foolish selfishness that she wished to preserve even at this advanced stage of the war that demanded absolute altruism, for it meant to her a personal preservation of herself – even if no one else seemed to understand, even if she was berated for such pettiness.

Without warning Eowyn's tears spilled, loving the gracious way in which he delivered his suit, aching that her reciprocation would result in a union equal only in name.

“My Lady…I…” The Steward was not to say the least, confounded that she wept, not knowing the obscure reason to her obvious display of distress.

That this dread had assailed her, Eowyn still found that she did not know what to say.

He was an honest man, upright in all ways, and a valiant fighter. What, in theory, had she – or Rohan – or Gondor, for that matter – to lose?

“My Lord Faramir – ‘tis folly indeed, if I am to rightly understand what you meant,” she shook her head and paced the garden; its beauty seemed to grow unto unnatural brightness and oddly serrated colours, and no longer moved in harmony with the softly soothing calm of the breeze. “My Lord…I would ease your distress I could…”

“But you do, my Lady!” He interrupted harshly, sinking down upon the bench. “It has been days – each day more golden than the other, each that holds unnameable promise…”

She knew of the lands he would possess once he returned to Minas Tirith. Whispers among the ladies brought the word that Ithilien was to be his.

Ithilien. It rang true and sweet as honey, a cascading perfume that richly vibrated with allure.

“I wished to be loved by another,” she said, grasping at a reason she could throw, yet even then she saw that her effort was futile.

“Another?” Faramir echoed in disbelief, and his face changed, from the malleable form of confusion to the impenetrable hardness of carved stone. “You desire the Lord Aragorn and his love that he cannot give.” She heard the tinge of bitterness in his voice, a beseech for pity, and the delusion that men and women fell under when they believed themselves in love – and the jealousy of a lover spurned that assailed them thereafter. “He is high, and all the laudable glory he carries will be yours too, should you have him. Aragorn then, is to you admirable…I do not think…you…” he made a wild gesture, “yet do you not realise that he is merely to you – you a young soldier who falls at the feet of a great captain?”

And then she remembered clearly what the Ranger had said to her the night he left before Dunharrow – and with rawness she repeated them to him.

“It is but a shadow and a thought that you love.”

She did not think she would ever forget the hurt that appeared on his face, thinking that perhaps it was this same expression that she had worn on that night.


Fading…as she was, fading into the light of common day. Glories, as bright, friendless stars in the night they were, carried neither heat nor light. Eowyn looked down – her arm was still filled with pain, as her heart was – but now the colours of the garden had returned to normal, slotted into a thousand extraordinary shades that was Minas Tirith. Turning, she touched instead the sceptre of its kindness before it crumpled to dust.

The Steward spoke plainly, but she had not. Perhaps she owed him the same –

“Eowyn…look at me!” Faramir urged, his hands tight around her shoulders, his voice loosening, as a bind loosened, into gentleness. “You have won yourself renown – yet I pitied you before when I saw your sorrow. But with the passing of such golden days, you have grown in my heart…” He paused, as though grasping at straws. “Can you…will you not love me – or sing…and rejoice by my side of this victory? Is this suit of mine then doomed to fail?”
Faramir's words were sun-lit, nonetheless crystallised under the fragile, settling air. He promised her a house, a colony of her own to rule alongside him – and another chance at forgetting all that had previously transpired. But for now she saw that he grew upset – at her indecision, and at his inability to convince her otherwise. His effervescent joy merely increased her sorrow.

“Do you not wish for a life with me?” With a start she realised Faramir still spoke; he seemed genuinely confused, unused to a persistence still unrewarded. “Had it not been days that I have –”

“No, my Lord. Words desert me now when I wish to say –”

He surprised her by his next words, tinged with a dramatic and unkind frustration that roused her anger.

“Do you then wish to return to Rohan? What lies there that Ithilien does not match –what is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among the dogs?”

Eowyn bristled.

“You see me then, as a wild Shieldmaiden of the North that needs taming. I do not desire to be a queen, my Lord. Perhaps not even the Lady of Ithilien having heard you spoken so,” she declared appalled, stirred in the same way a thousand doves were released to flight.

“Forgive me…Eowyn…I am – I am sorry. I did not guard my words,” he apologised immediately, contrite and equally appalled at himself.

“My Lord Faramir,” she said gently, and there was an unexpected candidness in her manner, which shamed the Steward greatly. “Rohan is to me, still the more familiar of the cages.”

Eowyn knew then, that this house was to her hence, the blessed of dwellings – it was the day that she broke the chain that bound her to another kind of duty. Over the new, she had chosen the old – a return to the tradition of Rohan's shieldmaidenhood.

“Goodbye, my Lord Faramir,” She drew back and dipped slightly, the Rohirric protocol asserting itself in her physique.
She would return to Rohan, to Edoras with her brother as soon as the Warden granted her release from the Houses of Healing, having made the decision – which she did not herself yet understand fully – to walk back to the familiar cage she had been in previously.

**********

It was as though the waste of past worlds was forgotten when Aragorn was crowned Elessar Telcontar. The white city had been made ready for celebrations, filled with the untainted light that now shone brightly through its windows – bells chimed, banners were raised, and the best of minstrels released their epic tales in melody. In the day, people rejoiced under the sun; at night they sang under the sapling White Tree of Minas Tirith.

Arda exhaled with a long, oval breath. Unbeknownst to the company that made merry through the days, Mordor's collapse brought a groan deep from the earth.

Far in the west out of the raging seas, a dull-looking gem emerged, yet the clinging mud loosened quickly as it rose in a lingering manner from the deeps of the ocean. With each shrug of its muddy, perennial cloak, its dimensionally unwavering, fractal light of a fused silver-gold emerged from each delicate cut of its side, until all the sea roiled with unnatural brilliance, aloft with awe.

Waves crested and crashed against the shore carried the fiendishly bright canvas of a painter of light – where there was once tranquillity there was now turbulence; where there was once a dark chill there now swelled unbearable heat.

Reflected in the sky a comet trail stretched as far as the eye could see, and at its tail a sudden spark of brightness rivalling Arien's vessel and her unbodied form.

Along the shores where the waves boiled, pain seared the feet of one who stood in and sang to the beloved sea so long; he jumped back in unbridled fright and incredulity, murmuring a prayer for deliverance.

Far into the East where the first Elves and Men awoke, a dust bowl shook and fell away as strange, brilliant flowers lit, burned and extinguished with scarlet plumage and fiery blossoms – a riveting cry to Earendil's unmoving, unfeeling star.

A recall of perfection and glorious days, briefly reconstructing a lost era, remodelled as a fey beginning.

The emaciated crater shrunk rapidly, struggling against the irresistible force of the pressure, a palpably weakening landform against the vastness of Arda's cracking subterranean chambers. Fissured deeply by the burst of leaping silver water, the moist surface cooled greatly as though unseen lips pursed tightly together blew a cooling mist.
Voluminously shrouded by a tarrying steam, the area bubbled and stilled repeatedly. The entirety of silence descended after the tumultuous swirl of phantasms, coloured by a gentle tint of a new dawn.

Deep from the Void, a disfigured eye opened, free of its nailing grave and epitaph.

Deep from Cuivienen, answering, manifold blinks of forgotten fidelity came from another opening eye, then another, and another, roused from millennia-long slumber.

Far removed from all Circles of Arda, the Great Song of Illuvatar grew discordant – a memory replete with undecipherable horror.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, le nallon
Sí di-nguruthos! A tiro nin, Fanuilos!
- O Elbereth Starkindler from firmanent gazing afar, to thee I cry
Here beneath death-horror! O look towards me, Everwhite!

* Tolo dan nan galad
- Come back to the light

* Ned Minas Tirith le beriathar aen
- In Minas Tirith you will be safe

**********


Chapter 8 - Semblance of Normalcy

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading and your reviews, everyone. Apologies for the tardy arrival of this chapter – I've been busy, and with Euro2004 running non-stop it ain't that good a thing. ;-D
Silliness ensuing, I think…just for a bit.

Chapter 7: Semblance of Normalcy

Some time after the War of the Ring

**********

“Baw…!”

Oh Eru, he was slipping!

Screaming inwardly in frustration, he tugged at the reins of the horse – breathlessly garbed with the now distant determination to succeed – adjusting what he believed was a wayward saddle, only to realise it was indeed securely fastened. Where there was usually posture-perfect stance, he now swayed atop his seat, pressing on with stubbornness as his only girdle.

A loud shout bounced from the far end of the field with what felt like the intensity of a quake; he shook his head in an attempt to clear the sudden blurring vision and drown out the unpleasant, ringing echo. There was laughter; he had faintly heard its coarse sound circling in the morning mist.

The musty, cool air seemed to swallow the sluggishly emerging light, enlarging the gold glory of the new dawn. In a cloud of dust, soil and grass, he tumbled ungracefully to the earth among the weeds and wild flowers, scattering the nearby bevy of butterflies, stunned into momentary silence.

A horse's protesting neigh floated towards him, accompanied by a round of applause.

Yet to be found in such a state fittingly demanded unreasonable behaviour and stroppy reaction. The Elf muttered an expletive without batting an eyelash, petulantly unmoving from his awkward heap on the ground.
Recognition flooded his face and he saw the same mirrored in the Dwarf's. It was a defeat he grudgingly conceded, knowing that his undoing was merely the consequence of a foolishness he had sworn some time ago to abstain from. Now a pounding headache threatened to chain him like a felon to the bed, indisposed for the day, yet the thought of its welcoming comfort was now infinitely pleasing and perhaps, hard-earned.

A rough, stubby hand sliced the pale light of dawn and stretched towards him. It spoke reassuring strength when his own was exhausted.

“Aye, laddie,” A gruff voice turned even gruffer with great amusement, with the slightest hint of mockery. “Your feeble senses have forsaken you after they sniff out but one mug of ale! You will be the roar of the tavern for some time.”

Legolas Greenleaf sighed, admitting to himself that all efforts of the preservation of elven dignity was truly in vain. Grabbing the out-stretched, sturdy hand, he hauled himself up to a sitting position in the feeblest of attempts, albeit with no small amount of dizziness. He looked up, thankful to see the tavern folk already pottering about their own duties, suppressing a groan at the mortification that was just beginning to turn his face a dull pink.

“Soft elven sensibilities,” the Dwarf laughingly snorted and sat cordially beside him, muttering several other jibes in a tongue the Elf thankfully could no longer comprehend.

To Legolas' own faint but pleasant surprise, he found that he was not as annoyed as he thought he would have been at the Dwarf's scoff; ambitious pettiness no longer infested even the shallows of their unfaltering camaraderie; the sorry result of this particular wager was after all, self-inflicted. Shoving deep-rooted vainglory, excruciating headache, and sorely tested pride aside, he realised after substantial reckoning that to remain disagreeably engaged for long with Gimli was already, nearly impossible.

That absent thought satisfied him greatly, only to recede a little as the Dwarf continued his full-bodied chuckle.

“So you lost the wager,” Gimli noted matter-of-factly, and lit his thin pipe in a flourish, taking slight care to puff the smoke away from the Elf's face.

“So I have, Gimli,” Legolas slowly acknowledged. “What about it then?”

“Hearty entertainment it is!”

The battered Elf said nothing, and for a moment, they nursed their own thoughts under the warming rays of the rising sun.

“Come on, laddie…let me hoist you up.”

The unlikely pair cut a comic picture as they struggled into the compound, unceremoniously collapsing onto the grounds of the Dwarf's own dwelling, one from insensibility, the other from waning strength that came from supporting an inebriated Firstborn.

A knock on the front door made Gimli grunt in relief and straighten to his full height. Nodding in satisfaction when he turned to see the Elf now unconscious, swinging open the door with an easy force that came from a hand too suddenly relieved of dead weight.

A young messenger, ill at ease and still ruddy of countenance, stood stiffly at the entrance.

“Master Dwarf – Gimli son of Gloin, King Elessar Telcontar and his Queen have arrived in South Ithilien; they request the pleasure of your presence as soon as you are able.”

“I come,” Gimli nodded thoughtfully. There was no room left for argument. “The foolish Elf stays put.” It was while before he spoke again, when they passed the noisy streets and into a quieter opening that led to the guest dwellings.

“Had not we agreed to meet at time later than this? Why the urgent hurry?” Gimli probed curiously, a hand unconsciously shifting to the familiar position of where his axe normally hung, only to find it helplessly empty.

“Master Dwarf, King Elessar Telcontar would not say. He requires –” the messenger began, rudely cut off by a hoarse shout.

“Gimli!” A voice interrupted, turning from a disembodied fixture borne by wind into the familiar shape of a briskly walking man. The Dwarf grunted wordlessly to himself, seeing the same expression of amusement in the face of the Prince of Ithilien.

“I assume that Legolas is not coming?” Faramir inquired with a laugh, falling easily into step beside the Dwarf and the messenger.

“Not when his wits are lost, that senseless Elf! I swear my arm will remain sore after I lifted his dead weight past the doorway! By Aule, I would be surprised if he manages to wake in the next week…”

“I just received the news that Elessar has arrived,” Faramir said, sobering a little.

“It was also my question, but there was no time to –” Gimli's voice died on his lips as they entered the royal dwelling in Ithilien with seamless movement.

It was quiet – strangely quiet as it was not long ago when they sat in the throne room of the White City held under the Stewardship of Denethor, without soul and life.

“Gimli! Faramir! Come, my friends!”

They turned around, to see a legend of Kings walking towards them – Aragorn – Elessar Telcontar, who wore royalty as raiment and carried friendship as dearly and unchangingly as he had even before he took his throne.

“Where is Legolas?” Aragorn's question had made Dwarf and Man eye each other slyly, before the retelling came in disjointed spurts.

“Surely Narvinyë was not the cause!”

“Ah, but it is!”

“The Lord Faramir convinced the vain Elf that the ale was brewed suitably even for delicate tongues, wagering that even he could mount and rise a horse in a straight line after several tankards.”

“And?” Aragorn asked incredulously with narrowed eyes, subtly raising a hand to cup his chin, hoping that his action sufficiently concealed an emerging grin.

“And drink he did!” Gimli scoffed, “and mid-way his foolishness peaked, and so he still mounted a horse, intending to ride and shoot with Elven accuracy. It came – wondrously executed – as far as him falling off Arod!”

“…indeed?”

“'Twould be unbelievable to all except to those who see it with their own eyes!” The Dwarf smugly replied through his beard. “Faramir insisted on buying the ale, omitting that it was part Dwarven in strength.”

“You give yourself little credit, Gimli,” Faramir objected merrily with an outstretched hand that gestured mock gratitude. “And I merely added onto it by suggesting the stronger alternative - Dwarven ale.”

"And he never knew!"

“So this is what happens in Ithilien without my knowledge,” Elessar Telcontar murmured thoughtfully, moving to the open window to stare toward the East. “And I discover it in the most unusual of manners, as a guest in your reconstruction efforts.”

“The sun is scarce up the sky, and he slumbers! Oh, he will never hear the end of it!”

“I wager he disremembers all when he wakes.”

“Until we tell him so.”

“And what more opportune moment than at the time when he is perfectly lucid?”

Aragorn turned back to them, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter at their lively discourse – arrogantly and impossibly charming. For the moment that they were mired in humour and keen visual imagination, the assault of weariness dropped from the face of Arda.

“A drunken Elf is hazardous and unreasonable.”

Arwen Undomiel stood at the threshold of the door, an indulgently wistful smile that signalled the brief reminiscences of long departed kin. She moved towards her husband, taking his hand in hers.

“Have you told them of your plans?” She reminded her husband, and he frowned immediately at the mention of duty.

“Nay,” he shook his head wearily. “I loathed to break the spirit of merriment because its brevity adds to its sweetness.”

“What is it, Aragorn?” Gimli asked sharply, all trace of humour wiped from his face.

“The Easterlings…” Aragorn's voice betrayed the depth of his own incredulousness at his findings. “They…cannot be found. Men of Gondor have only begun to ride out from Minas Tirith. The Balchoth who attacked Gondor under the orders of Dol Guldur, dwelling near east of the plains of Gogoroth have vanished. Broken chariots, destroyed wagons…only these were recovered after the army of Gondor scoured the black land of Mordor.”

“They fell when the Dark Lord fell!”

“Nay, Gimli. Even the Variags of Khand have suffered this similar fate – and not all had fallen when Mordor fell. Several tribes of Khand have come and pledged allegiance to Gondor and they are accounted for. But the majority did not, and we have found remnants – in the similar way of the Balchoth…it simply demands further inquiry.”

“Perhaps King Eomer of Rohan might know more,” Faramir interjected heavily. “The Balchoth overran the plains of Calenardhon, but defeated by Eotheod near half a millennia past. It seems futile to come to any conclusion prematurely, however. We need not yet worry too much about the East. Harad has been and will be for some time, Gondor's focus.”

“It does not worry me any less,” Aragorn shook his head. “that Southrons are so freely given to every sway of promise as they did readily to me –”

“And the Umbarian treaty is already in order. Eomer of Rohan assures it with his betrothal to the Princess Lothiriel of Dol Amroth,” Arwen chided gently. “Faramir is soon to be wedded to the noble lady Ijaba…” she paused as she tested the foreign name on her tongue, nodding towards the Prince of Ithilien. “Do not worry overly, meleth –”

“It is both our fortunes that it is more than just a political alliance,” Faramir put in, recalling the memory of Elessar Telcontar engineering an uneasy political alliance out of a blossoming attraction.

“We require the assistance of Eomer King of Rohan, Faramir. I have sent him a letter requesting his presence in Gondor for us to work this out together, should he agree. There is the growing probability that you will see the Lady Eowyn once more,” Aragorn glanced at Faramir, who nodded in understanding.

There seemed no end to establishing peace; its difficult progress only worsened under unresolved conflicts, buried hurts that eventually resurfaced sharper than the sharpest of swords. In their faces, uncertainty moaned its name loudly.

“Is not the time for bitterness past?” he smiled at the company almost sadly. “The Lady Eowyn will not have herself broken easily…and my eyes now hold themselves only on the Lady Ijaba.”

**********

Smoothing a hand over the leather that protected her forearm, Eowyn glanced sideways, satisfying herself with the enraptured gazes of the crowd – a rarefied allure that lay at the core of banality – before finally turning her own eyes upward.

A swift, white bird soared on the air currents and glided over the plains of Calenardhon in a trajectory inspired by Bema himself, the focal point of an ever-growing crowd. Crossing an impossible distance, its body appeared to invert itself as its arc of flight abruptly reversed, its outstretched wings retracting suddenly, gravity tipping its own body into a dizzying dive as a shooting star flared the night sky.

A flock of mallards on a small pond rushed to disperse, but for a young mallard it was however, too late. In a collision of fluttering wings, sharp talons and soft flesh, both the feathered target and the peregrine dropped to the ground as the crowd burst into smattering applause.

Their voices mounting, they spoke among themselves excitedly, without pause for breath and thought, their chatter clinging like the unforgiving plague, an ugly duet.

“Aethelric's skills are great and impressive!”

“Great? Is that all you can say?” One snorted in derision, in a cinch of bushy eyebrows, pointing determinedly in the direction of the fallen mallard and the peregrine's proud hold on it. “Had I such a bird and a prey, my husband and children would have our stomachs full a sennight!”

“A sennight? –”

“Nay, had I forgotten that you do so have a bigger household to feed…” A scornful voice reminded the other somewhat stiffly, the slightest hint of mock distress drowned suddenly by a loud bellow emitting from the lingering, apathetic livestock.

“A smaller but unhappier house…” The other woman dryly retorted, pleased at her comeback, and at the turn of the conversation that seemed to have tipped in her favour.

Eowyn stooped to retrieve the wild mallard, speeding her movements as she returned the peregrine to its perch on her arm, before turning with brisk strides after the disagreeably engaged women.

“Hedda! Beornwyn! I overheard you talking…and I thought…well,” She called hurriedly, nearly skidding to a giddying stop, adding meaningfully and emphasising her next words, “This catch is yours to share. There will be many others that Aethelric will hunt.”

They turned to her with sour faces that morphed quickly into dawning surprise. Eowyn wanted to laugh at their incredulous eyes, adorned by the sparkle of surfacing glee. The women received her gift with too great an awe to stomach and she turned away before pursing her lips in repressed laughter.

“Such a gift, your Highness!” Hedda looked in disbelief at the limp mallard that she now carried.

“Oh your Highness…oh…--”

Eowyn was being thanked in the most profuse manner of speech, dramatically created with the wheeze of heaving bosoms and shrill exclamations of gratitude. She found her hands suddenly clasped tightly to each woman's heart, counting the seemingly long minutes until the sky changed from its sapphire blue to a fiery indigo-red.

The darkening sky reminded them of the duties of the home that had yet to be fulfilled, and with a last chorus of gratitude for such generosity, they departed.

A soft mutter reached her ears.

“Aye, I see you have extricated yourself most skilfully from foolish company,” her brother said irritably with a sharp raise of his eyebrows, regarding her with comic dread. “So far it seems that you are by far the country's most sensible woman with whom I have the pleasure of acquaintance.”

“Really?” She laughed, loving his rare sarcasm that surfaced at the oddest times. “As tempting as it may be, do try to refrain from unruly behaviour, Eomer.”

“Unruly?” His eyebrows shot upwards and remained in a reasonable show of feigned innocence. “I know not what you speak of…perhaps it is at this point in time I should ask what misconceptions you have about me,” he quipped in an attempt to remain light-hearted.

“Nothing more than what people talk about,” She brushed the matter aside, ignoring his increasingly startled look. “They are naught but idle talk…why should you even give heed to them?”

“Eowyn! And pray,” he exclaimed indignantly. “What of the rumours that you hear?”

“It does a king little good to listen to all everything that is spoken – your days will be passed in greater peace…” she said softly, grinning at the annoyance that was beginning to surface on his face. “But let me take this back to the subject at hand – the one that we were so jesting about before we lost the thought.”

“Eowyn…” he started, demanding her acquiescence but she held up a merry hand.

“I believe you paid me both a compliment and an insult, Eomer and for that, I thank you…as you can see, for you have just given me more than a kind word,” she replied bemusedly, mounting Windfola comfortably. “But it is a disappointment that your future queen has now to endure the status of the second-most sensible woman. The princess Lothiriel of Dol Amroth will be an unhappy woman if you insist upon continuing in this manner.”

“We shall see, Eowyn,” he sighed darkly and moved to stand by the side of her horse, bending down to adjust her slanted saddle before looking back up at her. “The betrothal stands but everything else is yet some time away.”

“Eomer,” she turned to him, and he was amazed at the hint of solemn admonishment in her expression that had so quickly replaced the earlier cocky exuberance, “Did you not already consider this – after having debated with everyone from Eothain to young Eldred in the most cunning of fashion?”

A frown creased his brow.

“A cunning fashion? What do you mean?”

“Nothing hidden within that, Eomer. I merely wonder why you seem overly eager for the union, having decided on it after lengthy discussions with your advisors and the other Marshals of the Mark.”

They shared a growing look of understanding, before Eomer turned his lips up briefly at the Rohirric lattice of the twisted assemblage of grass, blooming flowers and rolling hills.

“Walk with me, Eowyn.” He motioned towards the mounds that partially hid the tombs of Theodred and Theoden. “Aethelric will not mind the slight delay, methinks.”

She descended with the ease of a rider and they moved slowly through the gentle breeze, until they reached the lifeless stones that preserved the residue of the pulses of life as long as memory remained faithful. She stooped to brush a wilted leaf that had descended on Theoden's epitaph, not wanting even natural elements to tarnish the gilded pinnacle of mourning that stretched intemperate and extravagant.

“I do not think I should even ask for the purpose behind your impending marriage. I think I already know the reason.”

The bricks of reconstructed peace they were laying were still fragile. Yet it seemed unthinkable that this same Eomer – quietly catastrophic even – with whom she recalled carefree hours of hunting and romping, should now trespass the boundary of this familiarity that she had absently but surely held fast to through the years.
Unencumbered by the customary courtly protocol, she knew he appreciated the frankness in their conversation.

“Rohan needs political stability as much as its King needs an eventual heir. Elessar Telcontar wastes no time as the new ruler of Gondor. Already he sends mediators, healers and town planners into Harad and the East, rebuilding their towns, consolidating old allies and gathering new ones. Treaties are signed with such haste that I wonder if both parties realise the effort in keeping the peace,” Eomer interrupted firmly, stooping with her, gazing hard at the cold stones that tried to stir memory and emotions. “Theoden and Theodred – fresh in their graves, aye, we need these badly. Already my memory of a childhood with Theodred grows dim, and I fear the inevitable – that it will be the same with Theoden.”

“You sound resigned –”

“Tell me if there is another way, Eowyn.”

“Nay! With Faramir…it was…different…I…I cannot say…” she shook her head, “I do not know.” Aghast, she found herself growing in agitation, when the panic of loss of reason and sense obliterated immediate reality. Her own reaction set her a masquerade that she was yet unable to solve; it stirred an agitation and restlessness that still beset her each time she thought of her rejection of Faramir's proposal.

“It is neither madness nor mockery.” Eomer reassured and smiled ruefully. “Perhaps for a lady it is more easily forgiven when she rejects a suitor.”

She shrugged.

“It lies in the past now.” Standing up abruptly, she gave a last glance towards the graves before turning towards Windfola. “I wonder why the Princess of Dol Amroth chose to accept the offer of marriage.”

The twinkle of mischief was back, burying the doleful discourse.

“Correspondence has only been with her father, Eowyn,” he said exasperatedly. “He accepted on her behalf. There is nothing remotely romantic in this, I believe.”

“I will not – cannot – fault you for this – even if this is solely done for the reasons you stated,” Eowyn said, raising limp hands from her sides in a helpless fashion. There was little to make of it now; she was now determined to purge the trial of the past in order to enjoy the full fruition of the present bliss – and to nurture the undying hope of being caught in great things to come when it was still within desire and recall. A path away from Ithilien was a track she had chosen to carve for herself, in that moment of obstinate illumination in the Houses of Healing, and now, it seemed fitting that he received the same opportunity to choose what he wished to do. “How can I,” she reiterated in a kinder way, “rebuke you for a decision in which you have made so as not to compromise Rohan's future? So noble, Eomer…I just fear…and wonder at the irrevocability and inevitability of this decision – that perhaps happiness may not be within your reach.”

He nodded towards the bird, whose wings flapped more each passing minute. “Aethelric grows impatient.”

A shout accompanied the breathless sounds characteristic of a hurried messenger.

“My liege!”

They turned in surprise.

“My liege…a pressing missive from King Elessar Telcontar awaits.”

**********

*Narvinyë – month of the new sun, roughly corresponding to the New Year
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