Hello everyone!
Massive thanks to all who read and especially all who reviewed my most recent works, "The Unwanted Guest" and "Sons at Home." You welcomed me back so warmly - thank you for keeping the fandom thriving, even as we all come a d go and come and go. Grateful for this safe space with all of you 3
This fic was written in the week between the two fics abovementioned and shortly after the latter was posted, thanks to your kindness and encouragements. I value your time and attention, and I think you know by now how you move me. I just hope my works make you feel a bit of joy and offer some diversion in these difficult times :)
This is a three-part story and is already completed, but will be posted every weekend for pacing. I do not have any more fics on reserve after this, but we all know there are no goodbye's in this wonderful fandom so who knows what the future holds? :)
As for myself - I wish you all a good read and a great weekend! C&C's are always welcome!
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"Not Alone"
In the aftermath of the Battle for Helm's Deep, the sole survivor among the elves is suddenly burdened by what to do with the bodies of his slain people. Legolas' friends refuse to let him bear it alone.
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Even with a violent, gaping wound on it's side, Rohan's mighty, forbidding fortress stood tall and imposing. A few careful fixes and it would once again be fit to stand and outlive them all.
The construction of the Deeping Wall, in particular, had been of such superiority that the damage from blasting fire of the previous night's siege was localized. The wall had exploded where the blast occurred, but it not compromise the integrity of the rest of the structure.
Or so Eomer's engineers assured him, before he came over to study the damage for himself. He was there with them now, among a dozen or so Rohirric builders swarming about the yawning gap in the wall, assessing the damage, making temporary fixes and planning for permanent repairs.
"And improvements!" bellowed one distinct voice.
There was a dwarf in their company. He – Gimli Son of Gloin, Eomer remembered was its name - was already there when Eomer came upon the group in one of his assessing walks around the Hornburg. And from the familiarity with which Eomer's people regarded this Gimli – he'd been there a while.
The dwarf expressed eloquent displeasure at the structural flaws of the fortress. His people were renowned builders, he said. If only he'd been informed of the culvert before the battle he would have been able to do something about it, he went on. And on. And on, until he reached the height of his vexation -
"Your people - not to mention my own friends! - were nearly killed by this oversight!" he exclaimed, before turning to the more technical aspects of what they needed to do to have a more secure water source and waste outlet.
The engineers were listening raptly, but Eomer huffed an impatient sigh. He was a busy man. As Third Marshall of the Mark and second in rank only to the King of Rohan, Eomer was currently tasked with getting the fortress back in proper order. He and his Eored were last to arrive at the tail end of the battle and though the journey here was an exhausting scramble, they were still the best-rested of the soldiers. Thus, as their exhausted and hurting comrades nursed wounds and took to food and well-earned rest, Eomer and his men worked on reestablishing security, and commanded a host of non-combatants on procuring supplies and the grim task of scavenging from and putting away the dead. His visit here, at the site of the breach in the wall, was just a small part of the rounds he was making to personally determine priority actions and to check on the status of the work at hand.
Eomer nevertheless held his tongue. The least he could do for one of the battle's great champions - who had stood by Eomer's people before he himself could - was lend an ear.
The lecture was cut short by the dwarf's own, sudden bellow.
"Take care with that!" he said to someone behind Eomer, prompting the entire party to look in the direction he was pointing. There was a pair of young civilian boys nearby, bearing between them a heavy, round device the likes of which Eomer had never seen before.
"Lay it upon the ground – carefully! – and back away," Gimli commanded.
The boys did as they were told, and Gimli approached the device with caution. Eomer and the others with them followed.
"The blasting fire at the Deeping Wall was caused by an incendiary device," Gimli said grimly.
"We have been finding fragments of such a weapon at the blast site," one of the men said. "But this one is intact, and matches eyewitness descriptions of how the devices placed at the culvert looked. If these things are littered carelessly about the battlefield, my lord, we could have another blast in our hands."
"Where did you find this?" Eomer asked the boys urgently.
"Amongst the supplies left behind when the orc filth fled," one of them replied nervously. "There are several others."
Eomer's heart jumped in his chest. He'd heard the reports; the Deeping Wall was breached with just a couple of these things, explosive once lit by a flame. The damage could have been much worse, if more of them had been put to use. He turned to his lieutenants, who were walking with him on his tour.
"Go with these children and find the things," he commanded. "Leave them in situ and secure the area around it with our men, not civilians. Do not touch them, do not move them, and do not leave them alone until I give the order. And send a runner about, make sure everyone knows that if more of these are found, they are not to he meddled with."
The soldiers and the two boys nodded and promptly ran off to accomplish their tasks. Eomer turned his attention back to the menacing round weapon. The dwarf and one of the engineers had crouched before it on one side, muttering excitedly to themselves. Eomer joined them, and Gimli shifted to give him room.
"It is perhaps, not wholly intact," said the engineer, pointing to a small slot on the rugged surface of the explosive ball. From it hung a thin rope, and the rope was shot through and pinned against the surface of the ball by a gold-fletched arrow. One side was singed by a flame that had been snuffed out, the other preserved.
The tip of the arrowhead was the thin line between them.
The tip of the arrowhead was, apparently, the thin line that had separated preservation, and another explosion that would have put another hole in the Hornburg.
"Huh," said the Son of Gloin.
Eomer looked at the diminishing figures of the two boys who had found it, leading his soldiers to the rest of the abandoned supplies in the distance. And then he looked up at the fortress that loomed over them. It was a very long way.
Eomer whistled in appreciation. "That is a heck of a shot."
"Well the pointy-ear who made it is sometimes justified in his insufferable arrogance," grumbled Gimli. He shifted his weight, and grimaced.
It was an elf who made the shot, then. Eomer muttered a prayer up to the gods – he put a hand over his heart, his lips, then sent it above. Whoever owned that eagle-eye was likely dead by now. The elven casualties of the battle numbered in the hundreds, and his men were still gathering the bodies and counting, last he checked. As far as Eomer knew, none of them had survived. It was another life debt he would never be able to repay.
"They are a very brave people," said Eomer. "Worthy of praise. I've debriefed soldiers to gather a proper accounting of the battle, and was told the elves gave covering fire and held the rear upon the command to retreat into the Keep." He raised his fingers to touch the strangely delicate fletching of the arrow. "They bought time and saved many lives at the cost of their own. This, however, I am learning of only now – that they saved my people in other ways."
Something bothered him, though, about the arrow. He frowned in thought, and realized that of all the elven bodies he'd beheld since the grim work of cleaning up began, this shaft differed from all else that he'd seen on the corpses.
"Legolas of the Woodland Realm," he said with some surprise. A shaft like this had once been shoved in his face, after all.
"You would die before your stroke fell..." the elf had told him seemingly a lifetime ago, in defense of Gimli, the very dwarf before Eomer now.
"I was wondering what that fool elf broke ranks for," Gimli said. "The Wall had been breached and a retreat was called. He'd seen something and fell out of line – set off a few shots at the gods knew what. Now I know."
"The initial reports I received said he'd failed to take down the orc that lit the fuse on the first blast," Eomer said contemplatively. "was he really the same elf to make a shot like this?"
Gimli bristled. "Failed is a most unacceptable word, horsemaster. That was an uruk berserker that had borne the torch – immune to pain and fearless of death, they would fight until they simply fell dead. They are of such rarity that this battle of ten thousand orcs only had a handful of them. From an impossible distance and against its bloodthirsty speed, Legolas shot it on the neck twice. That alone will tell you, nothing from mortal hands could have felled the beast from afar. Nothing."
Eomer accepted the rebuke with a hand to his heart. "I meant no offense, Master Dwarf. I am already deep in life debt to any elf who stood here when I could not. I was inquiring only in the interest of clarity – for I am quickly learning I owe more than I know, and more to some than to others."
Indeed, if the device before them had been set off, who knows how many more lives would have been claimed if the orcs had a wider entrance for their invasion, or multiple points for it. The daylight arrival of Eomer's reinforcements would have been too little, too late.
Gimli nodded in acceptance of the apology, and went on to explain – "I suppose in realizing he could not drop the beast that bore the weapon, he turned against the weapon instead. Sometimes, Master Elf surprisesindeed – that there are brains to go with those gifted hands after all."
He snickered at his own cleverness, and Eomer returned it with an uncertain grimace. For a dwarf who would defend his dead friend so fervently, he could be so irreverent too.
"We will surely remember him for all his merits," Eomer said cautiously.
Gimli's brows furrowed. "His reckless behavior cost him two bolts about the chest – and I a few bruises from dragging him punching and kicking off the field and into the healer's hands. His misadventure didn't cost him his life, hardy creature that he is. He'd bled some, but was tended and planted back on his feet for the final assault. We needed anyone able to fight, you see, when we thought it was the end. You fought together, I recall! Surely you didn't think he was dead?"
All of them are, Eomer thought, to his defense. But what did he know of elves? The warrior he'd fought alongside near the end of the siege had seemed flawless, not someone hastily patched together.
"I am to review the injured and casualty lists next," Eomer said. "I assumed..."
"You assumed incorrectly," Gimli snapped. He seemed to take offense by this most of all, that Legolas of the Woodland realm would be thought of as dead.
Eomer rose to his feet. If there was one elf left alive in the fortress, he needed to consult with him immediately on the most respectful approach to a pragmatic disposal of hundreds of the elven dead.
"I need to speak with him," Eomer said. "Between us, Master Dwarf, the injury he'd taken and forced exit from the field had saved his life. None of his people have been recovered alive, all of them found in the exterior of the Keep, dying in its valiant defense. Our people want to honor them properly."
The dwarf's intelligent gaze clouded, but he did not look surprised. He was perceptive, Eomer realized, and had probably come to the same conclusion by now.
"Legolas knows what has befallen his people," Gimli said. "He is no stranger to death. But he needs rest."
"I would not impose upon him if the need was not dire."
Gimli looked about him, at the engineers and builders awaiting his input, at their still-precarious security if a regrouped enemy should attack anew. He looked torn, Eomer thought, between the needs of his friend or their dangerous circumstances.
"I beg you to be gentle in your approach, horsemaster." Gimli sighed. "As I cannot be with him yet. Legolas is at the healing halls where I delivered him for tending, after our War Council."
He looked up at the mid-afternoon sun, casting long shadows around them. The battle has been finished for many hours now.
"He should still be there," he said grimly, "if Aragorn was smart enough to sit on him."
# # #
Perhaps he was smart enough, but Aragorn Son of Arathorn had other problems. As a particularly gifted healer, he had his hands full long after the fighting.
He'd led one battle to victory, but was somehow still on his feet to fight another – ensuring the injured would survive, and that the dying would go in peace. Both were especially challenging not only from the sheer volume of men who needed aid, but also from the scarcity of supplies. There was more healing power and talent in the room than medicine or bandages, and Aragorn was in high demand. He flitted from one bedside to the next, responding from one call to another.
It was how Eomer found him, when he arrived at the healing halls after overseeing perimeter security measures and controlled detonations of the orcish incendiary devices... three of which had been rendered dysfunctional by Legolas of the Woodland Realm's gold-fletched arrows.
There was a flare of jealousy in Eomer's otherwise grateful heart, of how these strangers should be able to contribute to his people's well-being in ways he could not... Legolas with his arrows and the impossible shots he'd paid for in blood; Gimli's expertise and enthusiasm for a good build, and having to choose the greater good over the needs of his friends; and now Aragorn, whose warring skills were second only to his prowess in healing.
Who are these people?!
He certainly did not expect this, from the motley crew he had encountered in the plains just days ago.
"Do not trust to hope," he remembered telling them, "It has forsaken these lands."
And yet here they were, battered but victorious. How wrong he had been.
Aragorn rose from the bedside of an injured soldier, and staggered. Eomer rushed forward and caught him by the arms, steadied him. Uncertain if Aragorn could stay standing, Eomer kept his hold on the man, who'd abandoned armor for a healer's apron. He'd also thrust his loose, unkempt hair into an equally unkempt tail, keeping the strands away from his face. He looked so different in this incarnation.
"Eomer," Aragorn said, and his weary features brightened in delightful recognition. His eyes did not track properly, the Rohan commander noted, almost certainly from exhaustion but also perhaps something else.
"That blasting fire had wrecked havoc on my ears," Aragorn explained, when Eomer raised an eyebrow at him. "Affects balance."
"The prescription for which, I assume," said Eomer, "is rest."
"When there is time," Aragorn said confidently. "There will be soon."
They were overheard, for other healers lingered about - Eomer's people, who looked as if they'd had this same conversation with the stubborn man before. One shrugged in helpless resignation; the other actually rolled her eyes.
"I'd heard the reports," Eomer said sternly, "You arrived here injured, led the charge, and are now here, somehow still on your feet. Even my king was prevailed upon to rest for a few hours after War Council. Surely you are not more devoted to the people of Rohan than Theoden himself."
Aragorn's lip curled in appreciation of the clever point. "Surely I am not." He winced, and looked behind him at the more-or-less well-ordered hall.
"I suppose it would be wise to catch a few hours," Aragorn said. "We do leave for Isengard soon, and the wizard Saruman is hardly expected to make things easy."
Eomer nodded gravely. There was so much left to do here, but also so much to do everywhere else, all at once. He was in the War Council after the battle, where there was a debriefing of events and a formulation of next steps. It was decided a few hours of rest and regrouping would do them all some good, but then they would be off to confront treacherous Saruman. Afterwards, who knew where the information gleaned would lead them?
"And you're no good to anyone half-alive," Eomer added.
Aragorn's eye lit up in some memory unknown to Eomer. "Ah, you've reminded me of something I must look into, my lord. But before that – what brings you here and how can I help?"
"I mean to speak with the chief healer on an accounting of the injured and the dead," Eomer said, "and on the matter of further procurement of supplies. But first I am here in search of the elf, Legolas of the Woodland Realm."
Aragorn's brows rose in surprise. "Then we are headed in the same direction. Follow me."
They exited the treatment room and passed several others down the corridors and into another. They stopped at the entrance to a dim space lined end to end by cots or cloths piled on the floor as makeshift beds, all occupied by recovering soldiers either asleep or quietly resting. Aragorn did not usher Eomer in to enter right away.
"Legolas had taken injury to the chest," he said quietly, vaguely motioning at his own. "Nothing vital was hit. The shooter from the ground during the siege did not have much strength or accuracy from a distance. The bolts were tamponade against bleeding too. With their careful and prompt removal, the injury is not serious, especially for one of the Eldar. But I would rather not visit further stress upon him, if it can be helped."
"It cannot be helped," Eomer admitted.
Aragorn sighed. "It might not be my business to ask, my lord, but it would ease my mind to know what you intend to subject him to."
"I have five hundred elf corpses I do not know what to do with."
Eomer could think of no better way to say it, especially to a fellow commander.
Aragorn pressed at the bridge of his nose, and he took a deep breath. "He's been a warrior for more than our lifetimes combined, and death, even on a mass scale, wouldn't be new. But grief for his people will always be a dangerous thing. This elf in particular hates speaking of it. I grew up among the Eldar and if it is on memorial customs that you need his counsel, I can give you answers. So can of course, the knowledgeable Gandalf the White. But we are not their folk, and it is not a burden we can rightfully take from him, much as we may desire to." Aragorn took in a shaky breath. "Much... as I deserve to."
Eomer's brows furrowed in confusion.
"His people died under my command," Aragorn said quietly, and his eyes glazed in sadness and memory, "We called for a retreat into the Keep and the elves were at the rear. The rest of us started barricading, but left the doors open just enough for them to follow. We positioned our remaining archers to lay covering fire so the elves could run into safety. But the deluge of our enemies was too fast and too strong, and we were unable to give them the kind of covering fire the Eldar were able to give us. The doors needed to be shut, or the whole Keep would be overwhelmed.
"Their commanding officer called the order," Aragorn said with a wince. "He called me a fool to emphasize the point – his last words... which is unfair to him, and me. But he did it for my absolution, I think. So that I would not have their blood on my hands at the closing of the doors. But the gods know, he only beat me to it by a hair. I would have closed those doors on them even without it. When the barricades were raised, there were still elves alive beyond it. They were alive for some time, because the doors were not pounded on for a long while. We all but heard them fight, and die."
Eomer nodded in understanding. The memory scarred, he could tell. "It was the right tactical decision. You know that. And there are many forms of bravery on any given battlefield – the one who sacrifices has as much courage as the one who receives the gift and burden of it."
"But 500 elves... good gods."
"It is a burden Rohan shares," Eomer said, "for their deaths have purchased for us, all of the chances we now have. 500 elves saved an entire people, Aragorn. And if that sacrifice – that gift - is a burden, then it is lighter when shared by so many. We are honored you had the courage to close the doors, even with its steep price."
"Ah but I am not brave," Aragorn countered. "You see... if Legolas had been among them... I do not think I would have had the stomach to do it. He is like a brother to me. By accident of fate I was spared that choice and am somehow, undeservedly, absolved again. Attachments in this day and age are... are such dangerous things."
"Yet your love for your friends have brought you this far," said Eomer, "and mine for my King and my people have returned me here. When the odds are poor, sometimes that is all that is left and when the gods will it – it is more than enough."
Aragorn took a fortifying breath, and pressed his lips together determinedly. "At any rate what am I doing seeking comfort, when I should be the one to give it. It is good that I am here, my lord, and we can speak of it to him together."
Aragorn made his way forward. Eomer followed his soundless steps to the very end of the room, where there was a pile of blankets against the wall and beside a window, kept slightly apart from the rest. Its occupant was covered in a sheet from head to toe, curled on his side and facing away from them.
"Legolas," Aragorn said quietly, crouching beside the head. With the patient unresponsive, Aragorn reached for the shoulder and said with a quiet, worried urgency, "Legolas."
The occupant turned – and it was distinctly not a golden elf.
"Lord Aragorn," said the old Rohan soldier sleepily.
Aragorn sighed. "I apologize for disturbing you, but would you by any chance, know of where the previous occupant of this bed might have run off to?"
The man shook his head, and Aragorn pushed to his feet. He rubbed the back of his neck wearily. "I should be more surprised, but mostly I am disappointed."
He and Eomer headed toward the exit together, Aragorn throwing glances about at the other sleeping soldiers in the vain hope that his friend would be among them. They stepped out the doors without success.
"I trust him to know his own capabilities," Aragorn said hesitantly. "But he is hurting and has lost many of his people in this is foreign place."
"I will send runners out to locate him," Eomer said. "At any rate I really do need to find him for his counsel."
"I too, shall search-"
"I think not," Eomer protested, "You need rest-!"
But the decision was ultimately taken from the both of them. A harried healer came bustling out of one of the treatment rooms branched out about the hall.
"Lord Aragorn!" she said urgently, "One of the soldiers has taken a bad turn, please! You must come!"
Eomer saw in Aragorn's eyes, the same torn-ness that had visited Gimli's gaze when faced with the conflict of doing his work or seeking to comfort his friend.
"Save my soldier," Eomer implored him, "And I swear on my name that I will have a care for your brother's heart."
The work, Eomer suspected, was always going to prevail... it was often the way for great men. But just as the dead elven commander had absolved Aragorn of the guilt of closing the doors, Eomer knew that his words made it easier for Aragorn to make an impossible choice.
"I will hold you to it, horsemaster," said Aragorn with a grim nod, before running to where duty called.
TO BE CONTINUED...