A/N: As usual, nothing is mine, all is Tolkiens, except for the plotbunny, which is from a challenge on should say that this is an absolute novum and also an exception, since usually I do not very much like to write AU. I usually stick to missing moments or to stories, that could be canon, if watched from a certain point of view. The topic intrigued me, though, and an idea sprang into my mind, so here is my one brave stab at the genre of AU.

Verse I:

Through fire and fear

Through tears and toils

I have come to die

In the smoke of the dawning day

She would have smelled the smoke perhaps, the smoke as the first foreboding of this very day's star, being a herold of the battles that yet had to come. But she was long beyound noticing anything but the horizon, that would mean her death.

And on the horizon, as the new dawn spilled its red in rich, bloody brightness over the nightly sky, the smoke, that had long since begun to caress their noses, showed in the sky as well.

Minas Tirith, Citadel of Gondor, Hope of Men, was burning.

The ride of the Rohirrim slowed before the final hill, the thundering of the horses receding to the softer sounds of slow hoovfalls on the grass.The familiar sound of the horses imitated routine, but being among those, amongst whom she had been raised, among familiar faces, from which she had to hide her eyes, she felt utterly lost and alone.

Endless was the ascent onto the final hill, as they followed the horse of their king into battle. Golden was the armor of Theoden king, and green was his cloak, and golden and green were the banners, that waved in a wind that nobody of them could feel.

The air was heavy, ladden with fear and doom, and she could hear the breathing of the men around her. The hobbit sitting in the saddle before her was coughing, his hand, that was clutching her own, sweating and cold.

„It will soon be over", she whispered as if to take courage from the words, that spoke of death, and a shudder, touched her and the hobbit as well. Every step seemed more difficult than the rest, and endless was the hill before her. Only the next step she willed her horse to go, always the next step, a whole eternity of seconds under the bloody morning sky.

And then she had reached the top, and the world came to an end.

A proud city crowned by a white tower lay nestled against the stony hill, and it was in flames. The lower levels of the city were burning and fires also had arisen high up in the higher streets of Minas Tirith. The battle was going ill. The field spread out at the city's feet was swarming with a black mass that was the army of mordor, and smoke joined the clouds to darken the red sky, as if the night was never to be conquered again. The cries of the Nazgul flying over the field was thickening the air.

The wind carried to them the chants of the orks, the wild animalic cries, leaving her trembling and hopeless in the sea of gold and green. There was a horn, lonely and torn, somewhere in the ranks of the riders, that called to the city, and another took up the cry, and another, and another yet.

And the world held its breath for the first time this morning.

The voice of Theoden joined the horns, and he called out to his riders. And then, like a cleansing flood, the Rohirrim came down on the orcs, with sword and spear, to avenge and to shield in this final alliance.

And Eowyn was among them, wearing the disguise of Dernhelm, the Rider, and Merry was sitting in her saddle with her. The time for fear was over. To death they rode, to ruin, and to the day that would decide the fate of Middle Earth. A ray of sunlight bravely breached the clouds, and silver was the light, that shone back of the blade of the shieldmaid.

And so the world began to breathe again...