Hello everyone!

THANK YOU to all who read and especially all who reviewed the first chapter of Not Alone. Replies have already been sent out to those who had signed in and thank you guys again, and thanks also to Earthdragon, Idril. and vanadium57. All off you are too kind! I value your time and thoughts, and am touched by your generosity with both. At so many points along my reading of your encouraging and insightful comments, I wanted to just toss out my target timelines and post the whole story already, hahaha, but here we are - one week later as promised. I hope you like what you read. Please let me know what you think - C&Cs are always welcome! Without further ado:

2

Eomer's own multitude of duties first called him to his King's side.

He'd sent runners to find the elf and was about to embark upon the same search when he was accosted by one of his uncle's men, and summoned to Theoden's chambers. All other work would have to wait.

He was announced at the doors and allowed inside, where he was left alone with the King of Rohan. Theoden, even after having just risen from rest and even as he nursed battle injury, stood tall. He was standing by one of the windows of the King's chambers and motioned Eomer forward.

Eomer bowed to his King, which Theoden received with a pained wince.

"Rise, nephew," he said, even as he reached to clasp at Eomer's shoulders to pull him up. Eomer was taller than his lord, and Eomer did not like that. He stepped back, so that he would not loom. He lowered his shoulders in an effort to make himself smaller.

Theoden watched him with a warm, strangely lonely fondness. Eomer remembered now, that they've not been alone together in a long time.

"Much has happened between us," Theoden murmured. "I do not deserve you."

"My King –" Eomer protested, but Theoden would not have it. He could be morose, but obtusely kingly all the same. He raised his hand to cease further discussion, and Eomer almost smiled.

"I am glad you are here," Theoden said. "You and Eowyn... you are invaluable to our people, and to me."

Eomer looked about the room in search of his sister, who last he'd seen was looking after their injured Uncle.

"I'd dispatched her to organize care for the widows and orphans," Theoden explained, "and of course, for their consolation. She is their queen in all but name, and she has both the fortitude and tenderness for such a difficult task." He chuckled softly. "The magnitude of her caring was also overwhelming this old man – her light is too bright not to be shared."

"She is indeed capable of many things," Eomer said with a tentative smile. "She's certainly looked after you well. You look rested. Strong. It gladdens me that you are returned to us whole. For a long time I'd feared..."

Theoden clasped him about the shoulders again, and pulled him close. "Tireless you've been for our cause, and yet I fear I've wronged you most of all. People will say I was not at fault, but the rot of evil entered my soul because there were cracks upon it. I was angry, and afraid. I still am. There is much to atone for."

"If the wise King feels thus I am sure he is right," Eomer said gently, "But speaking for myself, I am owed nothing by you. Your burden is great, anyone would strain. Many would have broken. I only wish I could spare you some of it."

They pulled away from each other, and Theoden beheld him with shining eyes. "You have always been a son to me. The world may fall away around us but I will stand tall, just because you are by my side."

Theoden took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, and his eyes turned to steel as his sharp mind turned toward the work at hand.

"I called you here for my pleasure but also for a specific task," Theoden said, and he motioned for the window.

The view from the King's chambers was expansive and on an ordinary day, magnificent, especially with the setting sun. Today, on the heels of a battle, it was... punishing. No wonder Theoden was castigating himself.

Before them sprawled a charred, scarred landscape littered with the detritus of a great battle – remnants of the once-living included – all cast in a dull purple-red. Even if they had emerged victorious from the fighting, piles and lines of the dead felt like condemnation.

It was damning.

And while victory against all odds called for at least some celebration, there would be no such thing until there was an accounting of its cost.

They first had to honor the dead.

Eomer's men and the civilians whom they organized to assist were scattered about the land to a miscellany of tasks. Earlier, there were spearmen who expedited the passing of their injured enemies alongside rescuers who retrieved their injured allies from the field to rush to the healers. Now the main object was neither security nor rescue but rather, recovery of the honorable dead, and cleaning and scavenging anything that could possibly be valuable to their cause.

In large, burning piles set in the distance, there were dead orcs. Nearer to the fortress were two mass graves being dug out and beside them, two distinctly separate collections of bodies laid out more respectfully on neat lines on the ground. On one side: the soldiers of Rohan in their rust red tones. On the other, with armor gleaming, were rows upon rows of dead elves.

Eomer squinted – most of the civilian workers set to the grim task of cleaning up were digging the graves. Others hovered near the bodies, scavenging for goods or mourning loved ones. But the bodies of the elves were manned by a scant few figures: the golden head of Legolas of the Woodland Realm among them.

"You know by now who Aragorn Son of Arathorn is," Theoden said. "Or perhaps more accurately – who he might be, if things go our way."

"Yes."

"I should have known the company he kept would be just as notable," said Theoden. "Our own spies failed us in this, but that elf," he pointed at Legolas, "finally introduced himself properly to me a few hours ago. He is Prince of the Woodland Realm."

Eomer's brows rose. The Woodland Realm was an expansive and notoriously dangerous and reclusive kingdom. Little was known about it, but anyone who knew their geography and history also knew about the mighty Elvenking who ruled it.

"Thranduil's son?"

"The only one," Theoden said.

Eomer watched Legolas move, and remembered how Aragorn had introduced them in the field – "Aragorn Son of Arathorn... Gimli Son of Gloin... and Legolas of the Woodland Realm..." Had the lapse been by intention?

"To what end would he reveal this now?" Eomer asked.

"He came to me wanting to take responsibility for the bodies of the elven soldiers," Theoden answered. "They were not his people, he said, but as a Prince among the elvenfolk and the only one among them left, he staked his claim by blood and authority."

Eomer winced. "I was hoping to break it to him gently, and inquire on the proper burial arrangements. I see now that he'd beaten me to it. What does he want done?"

"I promised him all assistance he requires," Theoden said. "I would have given him my left arm if he asked – as much as we owe their people. But he did not ask for much: a man of letters by his side, for one. He wanted an accounting of all of their dead. He wanted a separate mass grave to give them the option of retrieval and reburial in their own lands later. I told them wherever they are buried, I will always consider as elven land, but that we would accommodate reburials in the future if they asked. He requested the soldiers be buried in honor with their bows – he said they were archers of note and at any rate, the draw would be too heavy for human hands. But he said he is giving us leave to take the armor and all blades to fill our own thin stocks while we are at war – he vowed he would take responsibility for the decision before the elven leaders. But he did ask that we return them at the end of the fighting if the elves make the request. I agreed to it all."

Eomer nodded approvingly at the reasonable instructions, and watched Legolas move on the field. The elf had just finished up with one corpse and moved to another, kneeling beside it. First, he reached over the face and Eomer guessed, closed the eyes. And then he felt at the dead elf's body and appeared to be searching for something.

"Some of them he knows," Theoden explained into Eomer's unspoken question, "others he has to search marks for, to get their names."

Legolas, apparently finding what he needed, spoke with the man of letters briefly. The borrowed Rohan aide promptly logged the exchange on a long piece of parchment. Legolas then gave the signal for two other Rohan men to come forward before stepping away. The men carefully divested the dead of salvageable armor and knives, but left the bow and arranged it over the chest. Legolas stood back and prayed with his head lowered, before moving onto the next set of remains. Eomer noted the elf was working with only one functional arm – the other was strapped tight to the chest by a white sling that looked like a bright triangle in the shadowed land.

"I've been watching him for some time," Theoden said. "They've not stopped, and the sun is setting now."

Eomer did a mental count as Legolas tended the next dead elf – each encounter was less than one-to-sixty, and he suspected it would be faster for the elves already known to Legolas. As fast and efficient as they were though, five hundred bodies would still take them late into the night.

"Burying the bodies into the grave itself will be left to our people," Theoden said – "it was a task he had to assign, especially as he is expected to ride with our party to Isengard in a few hours. But he asked to be the one to stack the stones on the Earth over it. I called you here to ensure the Prince of the Woodland Realm will not find Rohan wanting in anything. All that he asks, he is to be given. Their people have paid much, and what we can give in return – so little."

"I will make arrangements," Eomer promised.

"He stands alone..." Theoden murmured.

The words tickled in Eomer's ear, and he remembered coming upon the siege of his home and his king and Gandalf saying the same thing.

"Not alone," Eomer had countered determinedly then, and he said so again, now. "And all my duties permitting and if you can spare me – I wish to stand with him a while."

Theodenn clasped him warmly by the shoulders. "I expected nothing less."

# # #

From Theoden's chambers, Eomer ordered runners to inform Aragorn Son of Arathorn, Gimli the Dwarf, and even Gandalf the White, on where their elf had gone. He then immediately set out for the fields where the dead lay.

The elf and the men assigned to him were just as Eomer had seen them from Theoden's rooms: hard and efficiently at work. But as he got closer, walking from the gates down the causeway and onto the unpaved ground, the busy ant-like figures from afar looked more and more human, more tired. And the closer Eomer came to where they worked on the bodies, the magnitude of the task at hand loomed larger and larger in painful contrast.

The men Legolas was with - they did not have his stamina, nor his stomach for the work. Few would. They swayed and staggered, and as Eomer came closer to them there were tracks of sickness on the ground. But as men of Rohan, they too had an intimate knowledge of death and they rallied. Everyone in that filthy field of victory had to.

The air was thick from the smell of blood, rot, smoke, and burning orc. The ground was charred, bloodied, muddied, uneven and strewn with detritus – body parts included. But the work all around them went on, uninterrupted.

All the men, women and children whom Eomer passed gave him grave nods of greeting and respect but otherwise kept working, and they let him go on about his own business as they did theirs. With everyone pulling their weight, Eomer knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that in just a few more hours, the flatlands around the fortress would be clean, somehow.

Eomer stopped near Legolas and the men in his company – the one writing down names and details of visible injury, the two who gathered the scavenged weapons, and two more they rotated with bringing the goods to a waiting cart that was quickly becoming heavy with fine elvish weaponry.

Eomer's people turned to him expectantly, but he nodded at them to continue on with their work while he watched. The elf barely spared him a glance. Eomer observed first, so that he would know where to assist.

The work had taken on a grim rhythm – Legolas would kneel, close the lifeless eyes of the dead, search for identification, give the details of the name and the nature of injury to the man of letters, and then step back for the scavenging of valuable armor and weaponry, save for the precious bows.

Legolas rose to his feet and murmured his prayers, and finished all business with a dead elf before giving his attention to Eomer.

Eomer put a hand over his heart, and lowered his head in a small bow. "I am sorry for the loss of your folk, Prince Legolas. And I speak for my people when I say – we owe you a debt of gratitude we can never repay. Just as my King said – wherever your honorable dead make their final resting place here, it is a part of Rohan that is yours."

Legolas returned the bow and nod as much as he was able; Eomer could see now, that the sling and bandages on his person were tight for compression, not merely to protect whatever wound lay beneath.

"They were not my people," said the elf quietly. "They have a far greater liege than me. But I am all that they have and so – I am theirs." He looked away from Eomer, toward Rohan's own rows of losses. "I too am sorry for your dead, Marshal. I... I wish we could have done more."

"You've done plenty," Eomer assured him gruffly, for he looked so profoundly unhappy... from the loss of his fellow elves of course, but Eomer suspected that "failure" from the blasting fire might have a lot to do with it too.

"And the gods know - you've paid too much," Eomer added.

Legolas just shook his head, and he looked away from Eomer at the rows of bodies he was yet to work on. For a moment he looked like he swayed, but had caught it so quickly Eomer wondered if he had only imagined it.

"I am to render all due assistance," Eomer said. "Anything at all that you might need or want, I can provide."

"I'm afraid there are some things only I can do," Legolas said. "But if you can find my companions some relievers..." he motioned vaguely at the tiring Rohan men he was with.

They all protested at once.

"There is no need-"

"It is our honor –"

"We are with you 'til the end-"

Legolas raised his hands at them to call for silence, a request quickly heeded. "I am grateful for your service and I admire your spirit, but men will tire - that is just the way of things. And we cannot stop or slow, as I am needed on the road to Isengard tomorrow." He turned to walk toward the next body. "We've tarried enough as it is. If you will excuse me, Marshal..."

Eomer was thus dismissed, but he followed Legolas to the next inert form quietly, and stood silently while his mind worked. Their destination tomorrow to speak with the traitorous Saruman in Isengard, was 75 miles away. It was a good half day or so on horseback from Helm's Deep, over untamed lands made even more dangerous by the possibility of enemy elements still lurking about.

Only experienced soldiers and horsemen on beasts trained for enduring long distances were allowed in the traveling party. Even then the journey promised to be difficult and required the utmost vigilance, and one of their assets was the elf's superior senses. Legolas was an indispensable part of the group for these skills, but Eomer thought, with the revelation of his identity, Legolas would also be of considerable diplomatic use. As a Prince among his people, he should be there if the elves needed speaking for before the wizard. The group needed him not only to be there, but to be at his best.

But he was hurt and tiring, and there were still hundreds of bodies between now and rest. Eomer did not even know if Legolas could finish here by the time they had to leave at dawn, much less have a few hours to lie down and rest before departure.

Eomer whistled for one of the young men working near them, and the boy swiftly abandoned what he was doing to answer the summons. He recognized the boy, who was the son of a soldier.

"Guthlaf, is it?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Your family is well and your lady mother can spare you?"

"Of course, my lord."

"Very well." Eomer pointed at the four men who rotated duties of removing salvageable armor and blades from the dead elves. "I want you to bring me four able-bodied men, just like them. Even if you have to haul them from their beds."

"Yes, my lord!"

"Bring also water and bread for sustenance," Eomer added, "and three youths like yourself to bear up better torchlight with spares enough to last the night."

"Yes, my lord!"

"And you know Widhild, the schoolmistress?" asked Eomer, "She is good with letters. Bring her as well. Go!"

The boy did as instructed, and Eomer turned to Legolas next. He let Legolas finish his prayers, and again slid into the small space of time Legolas had walking between the finished body and the next one.

"As for you, Master Elf," he said authoritatively, "Things would be more expedient if you did not have to keep kneeling and rising, and without your full strength too. Stay standing and do your prayers there. Now tell me what to do, and I will do it."

Legolas looked at him warily – afraid to offend perhaps, but also with weariness screaming from his eyes and the knowledge that he needed help. Before he could decline the offered assistance, Eomer knelt in front of the next dead elven soldier, and started doing what he had seen Legolas do.

He reached for the dead, empty eyes and closed them. This soldier had died in pain though, and his face was contorted... By instinct, Eomer found himself moving the muscles there just so too, to something more serene. The face was still pliable thankfully, and Eomer massaged t gently from furrowed brows down to grimaced cheeks and snarling mouth until it softened. He realized Legolas must have been doing the same, for the forms they passed did not have tortured features.

"I know you seek their names for the record," Eomer said.

"With the Galadhrim, often it is inscribed just inside of the vambrace," Legolas said quietly, and Eomer found it just as described in this body. He turned the arm guard about, and from where he stood Legolas read it in careful Westron pronunciation, for the letters man to write how he saw fit. Even if it was technically inaccurate, the phonetic spelling would still be of use for records keeping, especially in circumstances like this where Legolas was hardly expected to write the names of the dead in Elvish too, on top of all his other work. He prayed quickly and they moved on, while the letters man noted the observable injuries and the other men removed the armor and the blades.

"If the name is not on the vambrace," Legolas said, as was the case with the next body, "Look on the top interior of the chest plate. Their weapons would not be marked in any way so as to keep from affecting performance even in the most minute manner. But parts of the armor would be tailored to the body, and named in some fashion to ensure it goes to the right person."

Eomer closed the eyes and found the markings, then showed them to Legolas before moving to the next dead elf. Legolas stayed behind to dictate the name to the letters man, prayed, and moved on to the next body. By the time he got there, Eomer had already closed the soldier's eyes, fixed his face, and was ready with a name. It went on and on, and time was indeed saved in the grim assembly line.

They started moving quicker; so quick that there would be two bodies between them and the two men tasked with divesting the dead soldiers of salvageable goods and folding their bows over their chests in honorable repose.

The gap in efficiency was quickly addressed by the return of the child Guthlaf with the new men he had gathered, according to Eomer's instructions. The new arrivals watched the proceedings and then immediately understood their work.

They were making good time, and any lag in vigor was addressed by the arrival of refreshments of water and bread, and the work went on. When the letters man tired, the stern-faced schoolmistress Widhild stepped forward without missing a beat too.

On and on they went, body after body, while the sun set and the night darkened. The grim monotony changed only upon another set of new arrivals.

"If your people can stand the touch of a Dwarf," Gimli said gruffly, "I would bring these hands to your service."

Legolas' head snapped up – it had been lowered so long, Eomer realized – and the taut, tired face actually broke into a small smile at the sight of Gloin's son and behind him, Aragorn and Gandalf too.

"Sit for a spell, Thranduilion," Gandalf commanded. "There are others now, who can do this task."

Legolas, still speechless, hesitated. He stood rooted to his spot, seemingly unsure of what to do now that he had a chance for reprieve.

Gandalf shouldered past him authoritatively, the gruff manner inviting no arguments. He took over the work for the next body in line. The wizard waved his hands at Eomer impatiently, to hurry with finding a name.

Eomer complied, and then watched as Aragorn stood beside the still-rooted elf and say with quiet insistence, "Your friends are with you, Legolas."

The elf took a deep, shaky breath, and only then did Eomer feel compulsion to look away because the otherworldly blue eyes had turned glassy.

"Then maybe..." Legolas murmured, "only for a spell."

Legolas stepped away from the rows of bodies, toward the side of the depository of dead elves. He sank to his rump on the ground and watched with a bewildered expression, as his friends started organizing two groups to do the same work from opposite ends of the field of the elven dead.

Gandalf and Aragorn, able to read Elvish, took on Legolas' work. The letters man volunteered to assist Aragorn in clear fear of the wizard, but the schoolmistress Widhild was nonplussed and took up service to Gandalf. Eomer continued about his scope of work for the wizard too, to spare his old shell from all the kneeling and rising – even as he suspected that wily wizard was probably stronger than the whole lot of them. Gimli, as much as he was willing to touch the elvish corpses, was assigned the task of gathering the salvageable items from the bodies and carrying them to the wagons.

After a brief rest – too brief, Eomer thought but it was not his place to say – Legolas pushed to his feet and found a place with Aragorn; the man would do what Eomer had been doing, while Legolas did the reading and dictating of names.

They worked into the night. Form after broken form, gaze after empty gaze. By the time they reached the last body it was late in the night and it had almost stiffened, but they got to it just in time.

They seemed to know this one.

Not only had there been no need to seek his name, but they had deliberately skipped him earlier and took care to ensure he would be the last.

"It's what he would want," Legolas said quietly.

"He commanded them," Aragorn explained. "He would let the others come first."

When they finally returned to this last elf, it was both Legolas and Aragorn who tended his body - a King of Men and a Prince of the Elves, both on their knees in service to the honorable dead.

"Haldir of Lothlorien," Legolas said to the letters man, who knew to take some ceremony with the name, and finished writing it with a flourish.

Aragorn and Legolas started divesting the body of armor and sword, but the elf's hand spasmed at the blade in momentary hesitation, before continuing on.

"Keep it with him," Eomer found himself saying, and shifted uneasily when all the lonely and tired gazes turned his way.

"Rohan is not so diminished that it would take from he who led them in our defense," Eomer said. "Leave him his blade, and let all who see him know his stature."

Aragorn looked expectantly at Legolas, who nodded in acceptance, but said nothing.

They finished with time to spare for a few hours of rest, before having to leave for Isengard at daylight.

At the conclusion of the work they all stood around each other uncertainly, and Eomer wondered if there was some proper ceremony for it. He, like the others, looked at Legolas expectantly.

He wouldn't meet any of their gazes and he opened his mouth, hesitated, and finally said only: "Hannon-le."

As soft as his voice was, it hung in the air – like a gray cloud before rainfall, weighted by unhappiness.

Legolas gave them a deep bow of gratitude, then turned away and trudged back to the Keep.

Aragorn followed him, then the dwarf and the rest of them.

One by one, they all left the dead behind.

TO BE CONCLUDED IN THE NEXT CHAPTER! 'Til then, have a great weekend!