This is a translation of part #15 of one of my longest finished German fanfiction series ( .de/s/5dee00850000161f3acd4c70/1). I am not a native speaker and apologize for any mistakes. The "Tales Untold"-series focuses much on Aragorn, Legolas and their respective relationships, but there's lots of other important plot lines coming into play.

The series combines the book verse with some circumstances from the movieverse, it ignores all three of the Hobbit movies though (I wrote most of this series before those movies even were a thing). It's slightly non-compliant in places but I'm always trying to keep close to canon.

"When we stand together" is set about 20 years after the War of the Ring.

Comments are more than welcome. I'm thirsting for them like so many others.

WHAT HAPPENED SO FAR:
Since shortly before the War of the Ring, Legolas was courting a young healer elf from Lórien named Tarisilya. They'd been in love for a thousand years already. Due to Thranduil's aversion to Galadriel and her people, the relationship was a secret. After the Battle of Helm's Deep, Legolas was assaulted by two Dunlendings. A protective wall that Tarisilya's healing abilities built in his mind helped him to keep on functioning.

During the war, Tarisilya's family sailed west which left her with bad depression. After the war, Aragorn healed both her from almost withering away and Arwen from a bad injury. In Imladris, Arwen's family further healed her, and Legolas and Tarisilya married. Tarisilya became pregnant but lost the baby in a battle. That tragedy and the crumbling shields in Legolas' mind had him spiral into anger, blind hate, and self-hate and -doubts.

Meanwhile, a group of enemies named Stewardaides in Gondor rather wanted to see Faramir rule Gondor. They kidnapped and tortured Arwen and were responsible for many deaths. With Erestor spying on the enemy, Glorfindel's son Thondrar joined the elf settlement in Ithilien that Legolas and other elves had built as Legolas' second in command.

During the Stewardaides' attacks, Aragorn, Arwen and Thondrar were all badly injured and Thondrar lost most use of his right arm. One of the settlement's elves died in the Dead Marshes because of the Stewardaides, three more were killed in Mordor. Legolas' demand that the Stewardaides taken prisoner should be killed and his public oath of revenge caused a deep rift between Aragorn and him.

Faramir and Éowyn meanwhile were manipulated by poison by the Stewardaides and their leader, a former friend of Faramir. While Elrond and Gandalf helped freeing Faramir's mind, Tarisilya - now pregnant again - got Legolas' father to help rid his son of his hate.

With Arwen also pregnant, Aragorn and she were taken prisoner by the Stewardaides. Legolas' people tried to attack some Stewardaides in Emyn Arnen. Legolas, Thranduil, Tauriel, and her husband were imprisoned, with Legolas being left by the Stewardaides in a life-threatening state.

With the help of Langhour (Aragorn's substitute with the Dúnedain) and Erestor, Glorfindel had the royal couple freed. Faramir set the elves in Emyn Arnen free and took the Stewardaides there prisoner. Legolas denounced his revenge and swore fealty to Aragorn to heal their friendship. Barhit fled to try and take revenge on Legolas by harming Tarisilya.

When Glorfindel, Erestor, and Langhour tried to stop Barhit, Erestor was killed by the enemy who was in turn killed by Glorfindel. Glorfindel and Thondrar found out that Glorfindel's late wife was the sister of Tarsilya's mother before Glorfindel left for Aman.

Due to another Stewardaides attack, the birth of Arwen's twin babies started early and with complications. Aragorn and Tarisilya barely managed to save all three of them. Langhour who had fallen in love with Arwen's handmaiden Ranír helped take the last of the Stewardaides prisoner. After the last of them unsuccessfully tried to kill Tarisilya, she, too gave birth while Thondrar discovered that his voice had hypnotic magical powers. With Legolas' son Cyron born, the bad crisis in Gondor finally ended and Elrond and the other Ring-bearers set sail to Aman.

20 years later, with Legolas and Tarisilya having just welcomed a second baby in their family, new attacks from Mordor shook Ithilien. Eldarion, Gimli and Éomer set out to find out more in Moria but were taken prisoner and tortured by goblins and Dunlendings there while their companion Langhour was killed. The enemies started to march on Edoras, and Elfwine called Gondor's armies for help. Arwen's twin brothers proposed a risky plan to Aragorn to dry out the Dead Marshes to be able to finally overthrow Morder for good but no decision was made about it yet.


"Oh, by the Valar, I'm so glad you're alright." Aragorn knelt down in front of Samwise, ignoring the disconcerted looks from a few soldiers and workers in the courtyard, and hugged him firmly, the moment, his old friend jumped out of his carriage. The relief was just too big, the worry of the last few hours dissolving that something might have happened to the small group of travelers on their way here. A way that had led through Rohan of all places where the beacons of a newly kindled crisis had been lit only just yesterday. At least one of the fears for persons close to him that had been weighing on Aragorn's mind for weeks, he'd suffered needlessly.

No, he hadn't been enthusiastic about his foster brothers' idea to ask Sam to come to Minas Tirith in these restless times from the start. Sure, the hobbit could tell them something about very specific experiences made in the war that, among other things, might be crucial for the destruction of a new threat from Mordor. A danger that seemed to make bigger waves by the day. But a letter would have been more than sufficient for that.

Unfortunately, Sam had long had started on his journey when Aragorn had learned that it was not only in Ithilien that orcs of the black country were making trouble again after almost two decades, but that even far more aggressive attacks from Moria had apparently hit straight in Edoras. Which was why Aragorn had immediately sent about half of his currently active soldiers towards his neighboring realm.

At that point, it would long have been too late to turn around. And in case of emergency, a hobbit who hadn't even had a sharp breadknife in his hand since the war, wouldn't have been any safer in one of the surrounding villages than in the capital, especially not with two even more helpless beings accompanying him.

"Don't worry, Your Majesty. You know best that halflings only rarely attract the Big Folks' attention. On our whole journey, no one even looked at us twice."

Backing away, Sam gratefully bowed to the grooms as they were starting to unharness the sturdy ponies from his carriage to get them to the stables on the sixth level and take care of them after the weeks-long drive. "Thank you. They don't need much. I'll personally make sure they're well later." Sam's office had noticeably cast out of him the old shyness of a simple gardener who had never had even left his home before the terrors of the War of the Ring. His appearance, too, had been adapted to that. Soil-covered linen had been replaced by a fine silken shirt, wild curls by a neatly trimmed do.

It was a necessary change that had without a doubt helped to get rid of the worst melancholy after his best friend's departure back then, too. But if you remembered Sam's formerly reserved nature, it was still unfamiliar, seeing him wave towards the open door of the carriage vigorously where his companions skittishly remained seated.

The two little ones were being overwhelmed by the busy ado in the Citadel courtyard and probably also confused by Aragon's slightly feral sight, his very old government robe, and a beard that hadn't been clipped in days. When Aragorn had last seen the children, they'd hardly even been able to talk yet; he would have been surprised if they'd recognized him.

At least Sam's big, green eyes were filled with the same loving mischief as ever when he finally just tugged his two Firstborn outside and gave them a good-natured slap on the back so that they would bow to Aragorn. "Come on now, say a proper hello to the King."

"Welcome to Minas Tirith." Aragorn put his hands respectively on each of the adolescent hobbits' arms and lowered his head for a brief moment. "I'm very happy to see you again. I just wish you had a more cheerful reason for your first stay in Gondor."

"We've seen the army on the road, milord." The girl – Elanor, as Aragorn remembered vaguely – folded her hands in front of the apron of her simple cotton dress. "Will there be war again now? Like back then? Does daddy need to go fighting again?" There were a few tears rolling down these full, red cheeks immediately that her mother had passed on to the little one.

"Never again. I'll do everything I can to make sure of that." Aragorn squeezed her shoulder even tighter. "But the times are indeed more restless than I would wish for, so long after Sauron's fall. Therefore, let us go inside so you can get some rest."

The fearsome whispers of the washerwomen and gardeners, the dull hammering of some sparring in the distance that there wasn't even really space left for on the soldier level anymore which became fuller by the day … These weren't surroundings for young people, no matter of which species.

"Good idea. Come on." Elanor put an arm around her brother, very happy to follow Aragorn's nod towards the stairs leading up to the White Tower. Though she was only a year older, the little one was towering over him quite a bit, but they'd both become tall for Hobbit standards.

Yes, Aragorn had definitely not been in the Shire for far too long. And he should better not forget that most of the beings living there so peacefully and comfortably had caught almost nothing of the war and its effects. When that conversation between his old friend and him would take place later, he'd have to make sure, the audience would be small.

By mannish standards, Sam's two eldest might already be halfway to living their own life, but before this unpleasant meeting earlier, their siblings and them had probably never ever laid eyes on a soldier.

"How is your wife doing?" Aragorn asked out of these thoughts, hoping that he wouldn't have to embarrass himself by having to guess how many kids Samwise and his beloved Rosie were having by now. From all he'd caught, the two of them were about to set a new record there.

"Pregnant again," Sam noted promptly with a slightly self-ironic grin. "They're all alive and well and driving the whole village crazy already. To be honest, I was very glad to receive your message, Your Majesty. I've been meaning to go on another little journey for a while now. What I didn't expect though was suddenly hearing that we were driving right into a warzone."

"For all of our sakes, I hope it isn't one." Just like his old Companion, Aragorn lowered his voice, slightly slowing down while one of his servants led the adolescents ahead, towards the reception room.

"We do not know what happened in Rohan yet, and the storm in Ithilien has hardly even begun." To not upset Sam any further, he arduously suppressed what was already trying to make his voice sound very choked and aggressive again.

It was bad enough that he had been driving himself crazy for days now, because something might indeed have happened to his son during his journey with Gimli, one of Aragorn's Dúnedain and the King of Rohan. He shouldn't infect others with that on top.

"If we're lucky, it's really just a few goblins and orcs who ran out of resources and who will be dealt a merciful death by the swords, arrows, and spears of Rohan before our soldiers will even have to get involved. Still, once you have got some rest, my soldiers can take you back immediately of course."

"No," Sam replied to his surprise, again with this new kind of determination in his voice. "If the black plague spreads again, it will find its way to the Shire one day too, Your Majesty. Last time, we were only lucky; I did never have any illusions about that. Once it had all been over, we had to learn from more than one source that Saruman had been planning to attack our lands, too. I guess you've heard about that as well."

Aragorn only nodded uneasily, but Sam wasn't even looking at him. He had talked himself into such a rage that he was quickly running out of air on the climb up the stairs that were exhausting for a small body like his.

"Ungrateful pack! For years, he'd used our goods and our weed to have a fine life, and then he wanted to stab us in the back like that. If that bastard hadn't met his end back then, many of my friends would no longer be alive. And something like that can always happen again. I'm one of the few of my people who are ready to accept that; that's the only reason why I didn't say no when they wanted to elect me mayor. I've seen enough of fighting to know that I never want it to happen on my doorstep. I want to do my part so that Mordor cannot rise once more."

"In this case: Thank you." Aragorn put a firm hand on Sam's arm once more when the hobbit turned around, looking east with his lips tight where thick storm clouds prevented a clear look at the plans of the dark creatures there, as so often.

"We'll talk about everything tomorrow, once you've recovered. Lord Elrond's son Elladan should be back here by then, too. He's just searched the area around the Black Gate and did a first few tests at the Dead Marshes, in case we really make the decision for this attack."

Sam's eyes were promptly shining in glee. It was nice that at least some things never changed.

"Hey, kids, did you hear that? You're going to meet elves of Rivendell after all! Lord Elrond's son of all people! You won't believe your eyes! The most beautiful, wisest, and strongest elves in all these realms!"

"You better not let Legolas or his father hear that, or there'll soon be a new war brewing between the elven realms on top of everything else."

Aragorn winked at his guest halfheartedly and led him through the big double doors at the end of the hallway. The hall with its many soft chairs and tables in a variety of sizes for visitors of all folks would hopefully ease the Hobbits' minds a little. "Get comfortable. The servants will let you know once you can move into your rooms. In the meantime, I'll have the kitchen prepare a huge meal for you. I know you have to be hungry," he added with a grin more honest this time, admonishingly staring at Sam's belly stretching his green vest out that had shrunk a little on the journey.

"Will you eat with us, milord?" Frodo asked curiously. "We would love that! Father always talks so much about you." Though the little one looked still distraught over what people were talking about in every street and village right now: Now that the first ice had melted, at least his liveliness matched the one of the hero of the War of the Ring after whom he'd been named.

Aragorn shook his head in regret though the adolescents' disappointed faces didn't exactly make that easy. "I'm afraid, there's not much time for entertainment on an evening like this. There's so much to do …"

"My old Gaffer always said, food might not solve your problems, but not eating only gives you more of them," Sam interrupted him, grabbing his hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world while Elanor took the other one. The halflings' trustful, unbiased affection for a King who was once more carrying the burden right now of which decision would prevent as much bloodshed as possible, was being wrapped around Aragorn's soul like a warm blanket on a winter night.

"If you possibly have to go back to war soon, you'll need your strength, Your Majesty."

"It's 'Strider' for you, Sam, still" Aragorn corrected him in a rough voice. "Or 'Aragorn'; whatever you prefer. And you're right as so often. I'll be there in a minute."


After the extensive feast, the little ones had basically fallen right from their chairs into their beds.

In the many years of his new purpose that he'd had so little love for in the beginning, Sam had gained enough experience to not keep the King from his duties any longer. No matter how much he'd have loved to sit by a fireplace together with Aragorn and his enchanting daughter Minuial who unfortunately seemed quite sad herself right now. There would hopefully still be enough time for that later.

Since he himself didn't feel like sleeping yet even a bit though, in spite of the moon long having risen, he rather sauntered through the streets of the city. He didn't have anywhere to go; as usual in his spare time, he preferred doing it like good old Bilbo had – may the Valar have mercy on his soul – and let his feet carry him as soon as he'd closed the door of the guest house behind him.

His own worries were apparently occupying his mind harder though than he'd even realized it himself so far. Shortly afterward, he found himself entering the low, long drawn out building that on his carriage, he'd only seen from the corner of his eyes but had heard all the more noise coming from it.

Noises of strain, of deadly metal, and a brutality that you only heard rarely in the Shire.

Now the barracks had become very quiet. There was hardly a silhouette clad in armor left in the yard for Sam to spot; the whole ring was almost alarmingly quiet. The two guards at the entrance who had probably not slept much in the last few weeks were bracing themselves on their swords' handles and didn't even seem to notice him when he scurried past them. The Big Folks' ignorance towards Halflings or Dwarves which was often so offensive, did sometimes indeed have its advantages.

Only Sam didn't even really know what had got into him for him to want to come here of all places … at least not until he spotted the well-known, tall silhouette of a she-elf in the only corner at the end of the hall still lit whose company he'd already been yearning for earlier, just like for her husband's.

Considering that he had never seen Legolas' wife with a weapon before, she was extremely immersed in a clumsy-looking training duel with another elf right now who was carrying a shield sporting a rare crest of Gondolin on his arm. Her almost floor-length hair, she'd tied up firmly; wearing resilient, tight breeches and armor fitted exactly to her curves, Sam would almost not even have recognized her. He didn't even dare make himself noticeable, given how focused Tarisilya was on her strikes turning harder and harder, on the swift twirls that she was dodging the other's sword with.

Sam didn't want this healer of all people whom he'd already feared for so much after the Battle of the Black Gate, in the sick camp of Cair Andros, to possibly hurt herself just because he'd startled her, so he rather steered far clear of the two fighters.

He could just have left, sure. But thanks to the curiosity accompanying him all his life, he saw, two even more slender silhouettes standing by the tables in the back where training weapons were obviously being stored, one of which he thought to recognize as well.

It had been far too many years since Aragorn and his wife had visited him in the Shire, together with Legolas and his family and Gimli. But Sam still remembered this beautiful time very fondly. It had been in these few weeks in untouched nature, with divine food aplenty, with much dance and music that the Queen had recovered from the last traces of her war injury and the twins' difficult birth.

And there'd also been a young woman with wild dark curls by the side of the royal family and its children who had still been so young back then, to assist them; a girl who had just been a few months pregnant back then. In the evenings, when the day's work had been done, that girl had left the village more than once to meet her beloved in the wilderness, one of Aragorn's Dúnedain …

Yes, there was no doubt. When the woman heard his waddling steps and spun around, visibly with a bad conscience, her face a bright red, she recognized him as well immediately. It was indeed Ranír, not only the handmaiden but also a close friend to the Queen.

And judging by the similar oval features and dark eyes of the girl next to her who wasn't quite grown up just yet, this had to be the child that she had had back then after her return to Minas Tirith.

What, unfortunately, looked even more familiar to Sam thanks to his own experiences though was this careworn, scared and at the same time so unbelievably wrathful expression on the faces of the two of them. In the war, the courage of despair had been all that had kept him from turning around on some days.

"You shouldn't take these," he explained, briefly gesturing at the slightly jagged, clunky swords that were apparently only being kept here still so that the bloodiest beginners wouldn't slice each other's belly open in their first few duels. "Not sharp enough."

The high-pitched clank of a much lighter weapon, forged in the woods of Lórien, that fell from an untrained hand, revealed that Tarisilya had indeed noticed him and the two women only now.

The melodic voice of her opposite shouting an extremely hefty curse because she'd almost startled enough for his blade to pierce her through, had Sam blush up to the tips of both ears.

"I'm sorry. Come on, I want you to meet someone." Trying to make up for her mistake with a huge smile, the she-elf linked arms with her companion and approached Sam, ignoring the two women for the moment who were looking very embarrassed now.

"My bodyguard and cousin Thondrar Glorfindelion … And I guess I don't have to introduce this hobbit first, Thondrar." With a respectful, deep nod that Sam would probably never get used to, no matter how old he got, the two elves paid him their respect before Tarisilya knelt down next to him for a far more personal embrace.

"Forgive me, I didn't know you had already arrived. Or I would long have come to see you. And Legolas hardly gets to leave our chambers right now either. The little one keeps us on our toes all day. First teeth, I'm sure you know how it is. It's especially painful for elflings, unfortunately. We'll see you for breakfast tomorrow, alright?"

Only when he nodded awkwardly, not quite sure yet what to think about her training on the sword that was in such a stark contrast to her loving-gentle character, she straightened up again.

And there it was right again, this foreign, hardened grimace, formed by too many years of dealing with death and loss too frequently. "If you want a weapon, Ranír, you can just ask the King. He would never deny you and your daughter any wish."

"Except for the one to be allowed to actually wield it," the woman growled in irritation.

"As long as something else is not absolutely necessary, only those should go to war who have been trained for it all their lives; that is correct."

Tarisilya exchanged a quick look with Sam, shrugging apologetically and letting her eyes wander to the door. She tilted her head in surprise when he shook his just as inconspicuously.

Unlike his kids, he wasn't an adolescent anymore, and he didn't have the stubborn ignorance that allowed most of his people in the Shire to live happily and carefree but was also limiting their perception quite a bit, too. More than 20 years ago, Sam had traded his simple life for knowledge about all the beauty in this world forever. With that came the burden of its dangers and fears as well. That was just how it was. If he wanted the borders of his home to keep on blocking those threats, he couldn't bury his head in the sand but had to leave his little realm every now and then, to make sure that evil didn't reach out its greasy paws west too far. Now that he'd actually brought himself to do that for once, hiding himself away in a silent cubbyhole wouldn't have made any sense.

Something very bad was weighing on this woman that he had once got to know as being so very kind and caring, and on her daughter, and Sam had never liked looking the other way when someone was feeling bad.

"Then why are you here? Your husband isn't even out there." The handmaiden angrily crossed her arms; in her anger, her chest was rising and falling clearly faster under her firmly laced-up corset.

"That is correct as well." Tarisilya put her sword in a brand-new-looking scabbard on her belt. "They're asking my husband to sit around idly in this city while out there, his best friend, his Ring Companion, and a young man might be dying right now that he's helped to raise from the hour he was born."

Sam saw the young girl startle clearly, saw tears glistening in her eyes in the weak light of the torches. Suddenly he was pretty sure that he didn't need anyone to explain to him who that Dúnadan was that Aragorn had spoken of earlier, who was accompanying that possibly missing research group revolving around the King of Rohan.

"Don't think you're the only one who knows how it is, having to stay behind alone." Tarisilya gently grabbed Ranír's upper arms when the woman's posture slumped a little. "Sometimes, that is the hardest thing of all. Staying in the fortress until they come back, so as to not increase their pain even more by endangering your life and health. Or your family's."

Her head tiredly fell against Thondrar's shoulder that was unnaturally broad on this left side when the other elf put an arm around her waist. "In the war, this waiting almost had me wither to the death myself. And still, it did only enter my mind a single time to ride out and try and protect my husband. Back then, I was simply lucky, and my bodyguard here had to pay the price for my cockiness. I love my children, my husband, and my cousin here far too much to risk having to leave them once again or drag them into misery with me."

"And what if they don't come back? How do you live with knowing you could've helped if only they'd let you?" While Ranír was now looking quite thoughtful after all, it was the younger woman who spoke up for the first time. The girl's sturdy leather clothes – rough breeches and high boots – didn't look as if she'd ever really wished to follow in her mother's footsteps at the court. More as if she had hardly been able to wait to succeed to her father's rank anyway and would now finally be seeing a chance to do so.

Tarisilya didn't have an answer to that. So she did the only thing she could think of, reluctantly whispering something to Thondrar and staying in the background together with Sam, with her arm wrapped around his slightly trembling shoulders, while her relative showed the girl and her mother what kind of short swords and light daggers were best suited for their narrow physique, and also which of them were sharp enough for something that they were all hoping of, it wouldn't be happening. But if it did, then they should at least be remotely ready.

"I'll join you if I may," Sam murmured when the warrior with the – for an elf slightly wild-looking golden hair – finally took his leave and Tarisilya made a move to start passing on the basics regarding fighting that her husband and her relative seemed to have taught her in the last few decades, to the two court ladies.

"There is nothing that I want less," he added when she raised an eyebrow at him in sadness. "But if this thing here should indeed glow blue again someday …" He took Sting from his belt, for the very first time since Frodo had given him the weapon to him back then, along with the Red Book of Westmarch, because there would have been no more use for it where he had been going. "And if my children are nearby then, or my friends … Then I want my hand to remember how to wield it."

"I'm afraid that you know more about that than me, Sam, in spite of taking such a long break. I'll talk to Aragorn tomorrow."

Tarisilya quickly tied her hair new and took her own sword from her belt again. "I'll tell him to have one of his soldiers instruct the three of you a little. I don't want even a single person in this city forced to feel helpless if the black storm rises once more."

Since they could all agree on that at least, they got to work.

It wasn't long before Tarisilya's husband surprisingly entered the hall. After exchanging a short, firm embrace with Sam, he sent his wife to join the pupils without even one word of discussion, to take over from her as a teacher in this lonely night hour of preparation.

In the she-elf's big green and brown eyes, Sam saw, as clearly as if he would be looking through them himself for a moment, how she was falling in love with her Prince again for probably for the thousandth time in her long life.


"These are the last of them. Lock the gate."

Elfwine gratefully patted his stallion's neck and led him into the first inner courtyard where the grooms had already prepared dozens of buckets of water for the returning riders. After constantly having hustled back and forth between Edoras and Helm's Deep in the last few days, his beloved animal's legs were swollen and sensitive; it was about time, it got a break.

"Still nothing," he answered in frustration when his mother approached him, with the same question on her lips as usual. "If they are coming our way, then they're traveling in such a way that our troops haven't been able to spot them so far. But we could at least reach even the last villages now. The people of the endangered areas who don't want to barricade themselves in the bunkers until it's all over are here. I think, there's enough of us." He jerkily nodded at the men he'd found on the way, both former soldiers and farmers, who started taking their things into the accommodations located deeply inside the mountain one by one, with their women and children by their side.

"We won't know that until they're here," Lothíriel crushed this hope mercilessly. In the last few days, the wrinkles around her eyes seemed to have become twice as deep; her black hair that she'd put up in the traditional firm bun of her people with simple wooden needles was streaked with even a little more grey than it had been not too long ago. The Queen could hardly have slept; she'd been too busy, giving far too many people a place in far too few shelters that were still very cold thanks to spring only just beginning, organizing blankets, clothes, and food, and answering all the citizens' questions that they couldn't ask any King right now, best as she could.

"As you know, they can travel at night best, and at night, they can see better than our kind. If it happens, it will happen soon. And if Gondor has sent riders, they will probably not arrive in time. We have just learned about all of this far too late."

She lovingly closed her hands around the head that the completely exhausted horse hung down heavily and breathed a kiss on its nose. "But we have prepared ourselves as well as possible. Now it's no longer in our hands. Your father would be proud of you. Let's hope he'll join us soon because you obviously don't believe me."

"Tell me again when we have successfully put the orcs and goblins to flight. Right now, I can mostly see men here who haven't wielded a sword in a decade. And children who don't understand why they had to give up their homes. And I'll probably have to explain to all these people very soon why their King will never come back."

Elfwine soaked a cloth in the bucket next to him, glad that the drops splashing upwards cooled his too-hot cheeks and hid the glistening in the corners of his eyes at the same time, and carefully wrapped it around his stallion's right foreleg.

"Daro, Rochmorn!" When his long-time companion tried to kick him reluctantly, he held him by his fetlock, unnerved. In his absentminded tiredness, he didn't grab it firmly enough though, and a hoof hitting his shin almost had him topple backward.

A least as sweaty and irritated as his animal, he straightened up, took off his helmet, and stared down at it for a few seconds before throwing it aside in frustration. "Rhachon le, yrch. Let them come. My sword has a lot to tell them."

Instead of scratching the uneven, stony ground with an unpleasant clank and driving the other horses in the yard crazy as well, the helmet was being stopped by small, strong hands and held in front of a considerable, grey beard behind which Elfwine could see a good-natured grin twitching. "I would say: Be careful, you still need that, Your Highness. But looking at this – when did you get that? For your tenth birthday? My people will forge a new one for you before the evening comes."

"I doubt that it will make a difference, but thank you."

The serene aura of Gimli's substitute in Aglarond helped Elfwine manage better than every of his mother's words, no matter how well-meant, to pull himself together, to signal the soldiers surrounding them with a short gesture that everything was alright and that they should focus on their preparations again.

They still didn't know anything, nothing at all. If Elfwine had now given the orcs and the men doubtlessly traveling with them the satisfaction of playing their game of slow demoralizing, and had already lost his nerves before he could even be sure about the losses this night would really bring, or about there being any victims already … Then he would really be in the wrong place here.

Unfortunately, his mother made no move to go see the representatives from the caves under the fortress. She had been making it very clear for a few days already that Elfwine did simply have no choice but to substitute for his father because, after their first initial skepticism towards his youth, people were rather looking up to a successor than to a Queen after all.

He quickly took the light bow he'd forgotten earlier that they used to greet their dwarvish friends with, and forced himself to smile. The last thing he could afford right now was putting off those with unfriendliness who wanted to be by his side.

The dwarves' self-imposed job had actually always only been to supply the men with weapons, building materials, and tools from their mines. Elfwine didn't take it for granted that they had also agreed to help in the imminent fight if necessary, in exchange for the Rohirrim willingly giving these caves to them back then after the war. You didn't annoy beings that could cut your head off with an ax and a single turn of their wrist.

"We know just as little as you do, Your Highness." His quite discouraged question though, the substitute answered with just as little hope in her deep voice. "The messenger that we sent to Moria never came back. I fear for his fate, and for the fate of our dear Lord Gimli."

"Rest assured that my father will do everything in his power to protect your leader."

Elfwine instinctively reached for a grooming brush laying ready by the buckets and started to free his horse of the worst traces from the last ride, using long, firm strokes across his neck, to conciliate with him. Which was also a good way of avoiding revealing to the Dwarf-woman how hard it was for him, to encourage her like this.

Not because he didn't believe his own words but because he did. Because he was only too aware that Éomer would rather throw himself on an orc blade than allow harm to come to one of the Ring Companions. The hope that they would ever see even one of the missing persons again was waning by the hour.

Elfwine had seldom felt so alone.

Rochmorn still resented him for the slightly rough treatment earlier and bit his upper arm to show his discontent. Which didn't keep him from nosing Elfwine's belt bag though.

"Not today, my friend. I fear the Hornburg's traditional supply shortage includes four-legged creatures."

More than a little surprised, Elfwine watched the dwarf settlement's substitute leader dig up half an apple from the bottom of her tunic and reach it out to the animal. "Thanks. Not only for that."

"Your father gave us a home when Moria was still in ruins. And in spite of us being unable to come up with even a single still functioning fighting troop to spare no less, to do our part in the battles of the war here or in Gondor. We never forgot that."

The Dwarf-woman patted his shoulder and then looked down at the slightly dented, tarnished helmet under her arm once more, straightening up. "This time we'll be a part of it. We have a few hours left before it gets dark. I'll go swing my hammer again before my feet go numb. Whatever is left of our material, the strength of our hands and our stocks is yours."

"Ours. As usual. I'll see you later." Elfwine returned the Dwarf-woman's gesture with a lot more strength than earlier and released his horse, sending it to the fenced space at the rear edge of the courtyard so that it could recover as well as possible together with the others.

Reluctantly, he entered the fortress by his mother's side to do the same for at least a few minutes. He couldn't let himself go now; he would need all of his energy soon.

It would be early enough to despair then.