"Slowly, Ilya." Elladan only just managed to catch Tarisilya when she tried to slip from the Dúnadan's horse a little too quickly, after a grateful nod towards the man, and her legs almost gave in. "Come on, we'll drive …"

"No." With her teeth clenched, she braced herself on the side of the cart, making her way alongside it to the cargo area where two of Aragorn's people who had joined them so surprisingly, were carefully putting Thranduil's motionless silhouette down on several blankets. They meant well but Tarisilya couldn't risk such a long journey. Even if the alternative was another challenge which she didn't know of yet if she could master it.

"I need to ride, together with him. Unhitch Manyala. I'll be there in a minute."

"Ilya, you're hardly able to think straight, not to mention …" Now Elrohir, too, took her by her shoulders in determination before she could make a move to run to the coachbox herself because none of the others reacted to her request.

"My hands are working just fine, that's all that counts. With the cart, there's no way we'd be fast enough." Her concern growing by the second, she let her eyes wander over Thranduil's shape which was worryingly pale under a few layers of blood and dirt. "He needs to get to the Houses of Healing, as quickly as possible. He won't make it otherwise. Here, I don't have everything that I need. Legolas can't lose anyone else …"

"I'll find someone to take you there," Elrond's son said with a resigned, unhappy sigh.

"Thanks." She pressed her lips to his temple for a brief moment before swinging herself onto the cart. In the last hours of seeking purchase in an ocean of skeletons and blood, the four of them had lost all exaggerated, respectful fear of contact usually prevailing between representatives of different elven realms.

It wasn't half as bad as expected, and at the same time, it was worse than she'd been able to tell from a distance before. The main arteries were intact. She wouldn't be as helpless as with Beregond not too long ago when all she had been able to do was relieve his pain on his last way.

But the impact of the missile and its sharp, poisoned edges had definitely damaged the larynx as well. The lips, jaw, and tunic of her father-in-law were bathed in blood.

And when the King fought his way out of his unconsciousness under Tarisilya's careful touch, as not even a deadly injury could stop him from wanting to be in control of the situation, she saw fear shine in his eyes for the very first time since she knew him. That was the worst.

"Don't." She rested her hand on his forehead, letting her fingertips graze his lips gently until he closed them again. "I'm here. We'll ride to Minas Tirith. No."

She hated having to do this, but she really had no choice but to rudely keep the mouth of his Majesty of Eryn Lasgalen shut with her hand though she would probably be thrown into his dungeon for that later. "Don't even breathe through your mouth. Or you can only kick your peoples' behinds by letter from now on. I'll help you. Trust me."

A barely perceptible nod against her hand. His body sank back onto the makeshift den, his breathing too shallow and too quick, but his pulse was strong. That was all she could expect right now.

That was all she could do here right now. "Elrohir, where is that escort?"

But it was Elladan already standing next to the cargo area again. After tonight, Tarisilya did no longer have to look for the absence of an askew little scar from the war that his brother sported under his eye to keep them apart. But the expression on his pointed features was similarly skeptical.

"Tarisilya, you cannot … Look around you! This place is teeming with orcs. The soldiers are our only protection."

"Manyala is faster than them. We only need companions so that the King won't fall from my horse on the way at some point."

"May the Valar save us from that. No one in these realms would ever live in peace again."

A tender smile curled on Tarisilya's lips when Thondrar came to stand next to Elrohir, still bracing himself on Faramir, but with his sword in his hand again already. "I'll take Elladan's horse and make sure, no one gets in your way. I hope, by now the news have even reached the Mearas that I'm the last representative of the House of the Golden Flower on Middle-earth. You'll be riding with one of Prince Faramir's people, Ilya, just so we're clear. You've asked enough of yourself for one day."

"The King is coming with me," Faramir answered her question before she had to ask it.

The Steward took a guilty look back over his shoulder at the battlefield, at the rows of the additional warriors who chased the creatures of the black hand back into the ruins of Mordor one by one. It wasn't hard to see that he would have preferred staying here amidst the turmoil, that he would actually have loved to be in a fight this one time because it might be the last crucial one in this place.

But then he waved two of his Rangers close. "We're leaving. Keep your eyes open."

"Please ride as closely by our side as possible. I need to keep an eye on ada." Tarisilya calmingly caressed Manyala's crest when the Steward swung himself into her saddle, letting her know that it was alright, that she was not allowed to give the man trouble, no matter how little she liked it, carrying anyone but Tarisilya.

Then she let another Ranger, one wearing the red and brown uniform of Ithilien this time, help her onto the back of the next unknown horse. Clenching one hand tightly around the horn, she allowed herself a long moment of breathing deeply as the horse trotted off, with her eyes closed.

She would never have to look at the ruins of the horror of Sauron again in her life.


Though Manyala had tried really hard to break all of her former speed records, getting back to Minas Tirith had still taken far too long for Tarisilya's taste. Covering the last feet up the city rings felt like pulling a tooth.

Especially since they were the first to return which soon caused more and more of the people who'd stayed behind to come running from their houses in spite of the early hour and try to ask them worried questions that they didn't have answers to yet.

As soon as the man sitting behind her who had fortunately been quite silent the whole time, finally stopped his horse in front of the Houses of Healing, Tarisilya dismounted, not feeling that exhausted anymore after having a little water and a few bites of bread on the way, and hurled dirt-stiffened cloak away from her.

"Follow me. Careful with the King. Don't even think about leaving, Thondrar. You lay down immediately or I swear I'll have you tied to the bed. Get moving!"

With flying fingers, she started to unfasten the stiff, restrictive armor on her upper body and her arms, carelessly dropping her helmet in the next best corner as well while she hurried up the stairs towards the room on the ground floor that her most important utensils lay in, a place that Ioreth had been nice enough kept empty for her all these years, for the most critical treatments. Having that damn thing on her head had already rendered her unable to think clearly at the Marshes the whole time; and right now, she needed her wake mind and her mobility more than ever. She was no longer an Installation Crew Member in the Drying of the Marches now, and she would never be one again.

She had of course caught it when the soldiers at the gate had murmured to Faramir that there was another group of riders with injured approaching the city, not far behind them; and Tarisilya didn't even need to hear the royal family's solemn, cheerful hymn and the dashing march of Rohan sounding from the walls first, to have quite a good idea about who it was, being in such a bad condition there that they'd put them on one of her treatment beds next. But if she'd started to worry about that now, too, she would have been so distracted that she could as well have left Thranduil in Ioreth's care. Then she could just have untied that bandage around his throat here and now and stricken up a farewell song.

Just as expected, she'd indeed only just patched the King up far enough for him to not bleed out under her hands anymore when she could hear Tauriel's voice outside in the hallway. The former soldier continuously gritted out instructions to her companions while a few of Thranduil's soldiers, surprisingly gently and cautiously, brought the Crown Prince inside the room first who was at least still somewhat able to stay on his feet, bracing himself on two of the elves.

Then they carried Tarisilya's old friend from Rohan inside.

"By all the …"

"He's somewhat stable, not least thanks to Eldarion's help. But he needs you, Your Highness." Tauriel used the time that the elven warriors needed to lead the patients to two of the free beds as carefully as possible, to free herself from her armor as well, looking back and forth between the injured, agitatedly, indecisively.

And she was also looking outside again and again, to where even more elves approached, together with the last member of their rescue squad. "A deep stab wound and a bad fall, but I've already stitched him up. He'll make it," she answered the impatient question in Tarisilya's eyes. "I'll take care of him. Trust me."

"There's hardly anyone I trust more." Tarisilya turned away from the door with clenched teeth and bent over Éomer's deathly pale shape, disfigured by countless fractures, wounds, and blood.

Somehow, she would have to handle trusting others with her husband's life right now.

After all, Elrohir and Elladan would also be there to help out anytime if it became necessary. Right now, the two of them were staying a little apart from the worst ado in here, making sure that in a few decades, Tarisilya wouldn't have to bring Glorfindel's son back to him with physical and mental scars even worse than the bad traces that living by her side had left on her cousin already.

That was something she couldn't be of any help with at the moment. Not while her top priority had to be preventing, by a number of potions to compensate for a life-threatening blood loss, by bandages, stitches, and one or two unpleasant procedures, that there would indeed be a patient dying on her soon.

She wished she'd at least had Arwen by her side who could have sat by Legolas' side in her stead. But Tauriel had informed her, with words colored by respect for the Queen's strength, that the other she-elf had ridden straight to the Black Gate. Tarisilya could hardly begrudge her friend for personally wanting to make sure that not only her son but her husband, too, would return from this fight.

This last crisis today was one that Tarisilya would have to manage alone.

"By the Valar … Ioreth, the shoulder. The hand." She cursed when she pried the first layers of Éomer's clothes off which were so badly stained with dirt and blood that they were almost petrified, first revealing that his side was discolored black and blue … and then the ruin that had once been his right arm.

"One day I'll kill him myself, damnit. Everything that I've repaired back then was in vain. This is a damn debris field. We have to re-break the bones in the places most affected, Ioreth. Get me one of the twins. And get my husband in here, damn it! Do people here still not know me better than to think, I'm fainting like a court lady at the sight of blood? I can't treat everyone at once but I need to see where I'm needed the most at least!"

Only when the rigorous, grey-haired healer nodded guiltily and hurried outside, she turned back towards Éomer with her fabric knife, to uncover the rest of his arm that no longer seemed to be made of any firm matter. Taking a look under the bandage around his wrist almost had her eyes bulge from their sockets, given the crude stitches and a clumsily ligated artery. While the barbaric treatment had stopped the black poison from Mordor that she could both smell and see spreading inside the badly damaged flesh, from bringing about even more than it already had: Thanks to that almost deeply black discolored hand swelling further and further, she would probably have to remove these threads with a damn fishhook in a moment.

"The Crown Prince should consider becoming a butcher instead of a soldier," she murmured slightly unkindly, hurrying to the fireside to pour out the first of the potions Ioreth had prepared. Before she could even begin treating any of these wounds, she had to give the King enough strength back to even make it through the first few minutes.

"Show me how to do better." She startled when Eldarion's bright voice suddenly raised over the other healers' restless murmurs.

She hadn't even noticed that he was still being comparatively orientated. A moment ago, he had rather looked like it was sheer willpower that had kept him upright, only so that they hadn't been forced, with the citizens of his own city watching, to carry him to the accommodations where he had already been learning the ways of healing himself for so many long years, under his father's watch. He had hardly even been moving since the soldiers had compassionately helped him get rid of these foreign clothes as quickly as possible, in spite of the swellings on his arm. And when another healer that Ioreth had called here had started to examine him, a light blanket covering his bare body, he had hardly looked up either.

But now he looked Tarisilya straight in the eye.

"Alright."

Tarisilya added a handful of powdered hillside herb to Ioreth's famous vegetable broth, in case the King would possibly would wake up in the course of the treatment, and went back to the bed with the brimful cup.

"Alright?" Eldarion sounded surprised. After all, Tarisilya had told him more than once that Aragorn was far better suited to teach him than she was, seeing as raising her children and her duties in the settlement and in these Houses would hardly have left her any time for it anyway.

Not to mention that she hadn't felt like talking herself hoarse for someone whose reckless levity had never quite allowed him to accept that healing the sick was a task at least as honorable as bleeding on the battlefield. As horrible as it was that the Crown Prince had had to endure such torture by the hand of their enemies that had marked his body and his soul so badly: Tarisilya had a feeling, it had finally made him understand something very important.

Because if it hadn't, she wouldn't be able to feel even the smallest hope that she could save Éomer right now. "Alright," she repeated calmly.

Eldarion would never be as good as her; for that, there was just not enough elvish blood in him after all. But since the boy was obviously trying to stop finding excuses for not gaining at least remotely as much skill and wisdom as his father in all kinds of arts, she wouldn't be in his way.

Going back to being an apprentice for a while would hopefully also help him to suppress what Tarisilya had seen on him earlier, what she could smell on him there, what was so obvious from the pained way, he had sunk down onto the mattress. This particular kind of injury wasn't her specialty; in that regard, she couldn't help him any further than with a thin compress, soaked with herbs that weren't too irritating but instead fought swellings and abrasions all the quicker. At least she managed to take a second to wrap the cloth around Eldarion's loins herself, with careful hands, while Ioreth poured the first healing potion down Éomer's throat. That would suffice; the bleeding had almost stopped already.

From a physical viewpoint, it was more important that someone would properly take care of Eldarion's arm soon, or Tarisilya would indeed spend the rest of her life in these realms doing nothing but healing two patients with bones mended in crippled ways, dead nerves and loose tendons at once. Aragorn would be the one having to help Eldarion repair the mental damage later.

"The re-breaking thing goes for you too. I can't leave that like this." She let her fingertips graze his shoulder with a sigh that had swollen to twice its normal size. "You can start deciding if you rather want pain-relieving tea or deep sleep. Sword training is off-limits for the moment."

"I can live with that," Eldarion replied, to her further surprise. "There'll hopefully no longer be a reason to raise a weapon in these lands in the immediate future."

"We all hope so." Still tense, Tarisilya looked east through the high windows. It was hard to tell from here but the perpetual clouds over the ruins of Mordor seemed to have dissolved a little.

She turned away in determination. That wasn't her battlefield, not anymore.

She was back where she belonged now. And if she read the foggy discoloration of Legolas' eyes right when she allowed herself a single, short moment by his bedside, this building had indeed just become her home again for an unforeseeable time.

That Ioreth had not closed the door completely again on purpose when she had come back, Tarisilya realized only when Minuial suddenly pushed herself inside the room, unauthorized and visibly with a bad conscience about it, but she didn't let anyone stop her from kneeling down by Eldarion's bedside, her legs trembling.

Tarisilya didn't send her away. Minuial had already had to witness their arrival from her window earlier, with terrified, wide eyes, without anyone being able to spare even a second for a word of comfort. She should at least be able to support her brother for a brief moment.

When Eldarion touched her cheek with his hand trembling just as badly, the tears started to fall immediately. The Princess didn't get out even one word.

"I didn't think you would still be here, Mini," her brother murmured, his own voice choked. "I was sure you would ride out with the others."

"Well, one of us has to keep an eye on the good of the realm." It came somewhere between a sob and a snort, and they were colored by something between admonishment and careful relief.

"You were always far better at that than me, yes. I wish I would have realized that sooner. Then all of this would probably never have happened." Lost deeply in his grief again already, Eldarion turned away, tiredly burying his face in the pillow.

"That wasn't your fault. They've planned all of this long ago. You can't … Eldarion, please …"

Minuial was clinging to his hand so tightly that she would soon render that one unusable as well, therefore, Tarisilya had to lead her away from the bed a little.

And not only for Eldarion's sake. Given all the fear prevailing in here right now, at least in the few minutes she would need to prepare the imminent dangerous procedures, she wanted to care for the only thing in her life that had as much significance as her love for her husband, even more than the one for her calling.

"Mini, get Cyron and Élnen here, please. As long as things are so bad in here, stay in the hallway with them. I'll come to get you later, alright? But I want you to be close by. And bring a flute."

She smiled softly when she thrust the pain-relieving tea that Eldarion had asked for into his hand and saw the delighted glistening in his eyes. She rested her hand on his forehead for a moment while he was gulping the brew down, with the same disgusted grimace as back then when he'd been a child. Some things never changed. "We can all use some more harmonic sounds right now."

"What a great idea." Ioreth hardly managed to hide her triumphing grin behind the high collar of her white dress. "This is one for the books. So even little elvish Princesses can grow up someday. And they say the time of miracles is over."

Tarisilya decided not to remind the woman that she was ten times her age. In all her years in these houses, she had grown so fond of Ioreth's energy, calmness, and competence that she could forgive the vigorous Gondorian a thing or two.

Even on her deathbed, someday, the woman would probably still give people instructions about how to treat some of the patients in the rooms next door. Secondborn simply had their little quirks, just like Firstborn did, but their virtues did almost always outweigh those.

The close friendship with them was the best thing, Tarisilya had been allowed to enjoy in her life in these realms. In spite of all the scars that both she and her husband had earned on Middle-earth, she would always be deeply grateful for that.


The cold air of the mountains that the white walls had once been carved into once. Minas Tirith.

Washerwomen cautiously whispering in the yard. Quiet laughter. It wasn't only the Quest of Emyn Muil - the fight at the Black Gate was over as well.

A slightly too loud remark from a soldier about an imminent departure for Rohan to help the neighboring realm fight off the forces of Moria after the Helm's Deep Wreckage, ever until even the last of black creatures unwilling to live in peace with the Free Folks would be wiped out. Therefore, not much time had passed since the encounter with the Dunlendings.

An unpleasant twinge in his side from too-taut skin; a burning underneath it, right there where an organ was no longer a hundred percent intact. Tauriel's stitches, not Tarisilya's. So there had been even more injured people, even more losses than they'd hoped.

Weakness but no heaviness in his limbs. A slightly metallic aftertaste on his tongue. Hillside herb, ginger, cinnamon; only broth after that. No dangerous infections.

A single visitor by his bedside, breathing deeply but not evenly. Wax and soil, and the subtle, sharp hint of Athelas on top that was always surrounding Tarisilya, too. A copper memory of blood. Not even the quietest rustling of clothes from a silhouette defined in most situations by calmness and legendary control. Aragorn.

Legolas only opened his eyes a single time, just until he could hear his friend next to him stir and lean over to him, before he closed them again. There were things he had to know to find peace before he could ask the King to leave him alone, so needed his attention. But he wouldn't have needed to open his lids to know that no ray of light could reach his pupils. His other senses were already back to being enhanced.

"I'm here, mellon. We won."

"What did we lose?" Legolas asked flatly.

"Three dozen warriors who gave their lives with courage and pride before the walls of Mordor have collapsed for good. I'm sending prayers to the Valar, so that they might see to their souls, the way they have held their protective hand over our families in this crisis."

Aragorn's hand firmly grabbed his shoulder, an audible smile curled on his lips when Legolas relaxed a lot, sinking down into the mattress a bit deeper. "Sometimes I think ada was right when he said that we all have more luck than brains."

So it had been worth it at least. That was the smallest bit of comfort in the growing bitterness starting to weigh on his soul already. The damage that had been done was bad enough already. "Eldarion?"

Aragorn let go of him again and stroked the stubble on his jaw with a sigh. "Still quite battered, but he's hanging in there. How did you know it was him?"

Under the light cover, Legolas' hands turned to fists. In his mind, he was immediately back in that damn cave, plagued by the biggest fear he'd ever felt since the war when he had realized that an arrow from his own realm would pierce the Crown Prince' heart in a second. The memory of the world was still present enough in his mind to see it clearly before him but he knew only too well that it wouldn't be long before they would blur, leaving his soul with nothing but abstract colors and shapes. Ever until, if he was lucky, Tarisilya might make it to help him this time, too. Given how long it had taken last time until he had recovered, and with this fall now on top, he had to doubt it.

But not even that counted in the end. He'd done his job, that was most important.

"When I came closer, I saw the cloth they had disguised him with. This sort of Dunlendings would never hide their face from their enemies. They know no shame."

"Indeed, they don't." Aragorn gave a harsh, hate-filled laugh.

Legolas didn't need to ask. This unbridled wrath and limitless disdain that Aragorn was only rarely facing any being with, told him all he needed to know. And he hadn't been expecting anything else, from the moment he had learned who it was that had Eldarion in their clutches. At that point, it had already been far too late to do anything.

Now they could only try to be there for the boy like Tarisilya had been there for him back then, so the Prince, too, would hopefully be able to ban into the backmost, darkest part of his soul what they'd done to him, tortured by it only in rare nightmares. And if the Valar were merciful, on such nights, he'd be in the embrace of an understanding woman or a loving man who would help him cope even with these last memories.

"I'll be there for him best as I can."

"You already did, mellon." Aragorn unexpectedly came to sit on the bed, his breathing that had momentarily been too quick and choked replaced by a tremble of nervousness only very faintly noticeably, of impatience to get rid of what was occupying his mind so much that it was him sitting here and not Legolas' wife.

Something that didn't even need to be said anyway. "You would have done the same for Cyron."

"Without thinking about it for even one second. Still." Salt infused the air, falling on his skin in the shape of a few lonely drops when Aragorn firmly grabbed his shoulders once more.

"You literally took an arrow to your chest to protect my son. I want you to know, Legolas … Whatever evil spirit it was that has almost divided us so long ago: I never want to waste another word on it as long as I live. I hereby release you from every promise you ever gave to me and to this land and especially of the Pledges of Emyn Arnen. In return, I swear to you as your King and your Companion that no harm shall ever come to you, your family, or your people ever again as long as you decide to live in my realm … in this realm of Men that has almost destroyed you more than once."

"It did not, Estel. It saved me." Ignoring the sting in his side, Legolas slowly sat up. For the first time since this terrible awakening in complete darkness, he seriously cursed that he wasn't even able to look into his friend's eyes when he was telling him what might be the most important words ever spoken between them.

"Although your words are once more proving your unwavering strength and the pureness of your heart, I will not accept your oath. Because it shall no longer be the restraints of duty and tradition connecting us. Let us break these chains forever and let nothing but the friendship and love between us unite our lives until death might part us forever."

"Friendship and love, mellon. Now and forever." Aragorn bent over towards him to press a tender kiss to his forehead.

He laughed quietly, surprised, because Legolas preferred the gesture of hugging instead which was far more common for men. With his head resting on Legolas' shoulder, he held him close for long seconds, keeping him against him as tightly as the healing arrow wound allowed. But then he make sure that Legolas lay down again by unambiguously pushing against his sternum.

"Rest now. Ilya will come to see you in a moment. The twins and she are very confident that they can give you back your eyesight, so don't burden your mind with the darkness yet. You have to gain a little more strength first before I can allow your children to jump around on your bed."

For once, Legolas actually had no objections.