Disclaimer: No characters belong to me. Sorry, I'm just playing with them. I'll put them back when I'm finished, promise.

Notes: Spoilerish for The Two Towers movie-verse wise. A little, not a lot, but if you haven't seen it… you might want to wait. Just maybe.

King of Men

My words were not chosen carefully, and they were not chosen to wound. I never truly chose them at all. But I stood there in that hall, watching those boys – they were so young, not more than children, I knew – pull on armor and pick up swords.

For the first time in nearly three thousand years, everything I had believed in, everything I had been raised to be since my birth failed me, and I feared for my life. It was like the blood in my veins froze.

I yelled. I yelled at you in my native tongue, not wanting the Men around us to understand. I did not think about my words. They made you angry, those words. These men, they would die, every one of them, and I told you as much. Anger lit your eyes, and you told me you'd die with them, as one of them. I couldn't bear that thought. It would be better if those soldiers of evil had cut me apart with their cold blades.

Hope sprang up inside me once again as the army of my own people marched up to the gates of the Deep. My heart lifted. Standing on the walls then, watching the approach, I was capable of joking, of being lighthearted, of daring to think that we would survive the night.

But again, my hope failed me, just as my skills failed me.

Yet you were there, strong, fighting on, no matter how many Men, how many Elves, how many Uruk-Hai fell around you. No matter how many times they brought you to your knees, you could rise and stand to fight on.

And it would always bring hope back to my despairing heart.

It seemed to last forever, but it all ended, eventually. Things had a way of doing so. And then we were standing on the walls of the Deep once again, the stones littered with the bodies, of our kin, and those of our enemies, watching the retreating army of Saruman, the storm that had plagued us through the night broken and the sun shining down upon us in our glory, though splattered with blood and tearstained that glory was.

I was tired, I was wet, soaked with rain and blood. You walked over and stood beside me, and you reached out and pushed my hair out of my face, and would have wiped away streaks of blood and dirt, but your hands were worse than my face.

Your hand lingered on my hair, and I smiled, and you laughed. It felt like the sunlight, your laughter, and it lifted my spirit.

I lifted my hand and laid it over the Evenstar that rested upon your chest. My stomach twisted when I did so, but I had returned the jewel to you, and I would stand aside if that were what you would ask of me.

"I am proud to fight alongside you," you said.

"And I am honored to fight on the side of the King of Men," I replied, and I felt it in my heart.

You leaned forward and you kissed me, your lips so soft, so warm, so dry against my own. Then you smiled.

There was hope in my heart once again, and the knowledge that you, the King of Men, could face down these legions of evil sent by the Dark Lord and his Pawns, and with those of us ever faithful to you by your side, you would defeat them all.