Orophin came at last to the top of the wall and took a deep breath of the free air that flowed over it. He could see down into the valley before the Deeping Wall, littered with the bodies of Men, Elves, Orcs and horses, but unlike the inside, on the outside the dead were mostly Orcs.

Here on the wall, few had yet come to tend the fallen, so the bodies were still thick and the way difficult. Orophin kept his eyes locked on the ground in front of him, not looking around him, only trying to find the path through the bodies that were before him. It happened sooner than he expected, without warning or sudden change; his gaze swept across a cloak of deep crimson, stained by blood and dirt. Orophin fell to his knees, crushed swiftly and completely by the weight of horror and grief. In Lothlórien, the Elves had always been the hunters, the Orcs always the outnumbered, the prey, the weak yet confident, the unsuspecting targets to pick off at the Elves' leisure. But here...here was different. Here, the Elves were the hunted, the weaker, the fewer, in a land devoid of elanor or mallorn, or leaping, singing water, without the golden touch of the blessed Sun, or the silver blanket of a pure Moon, or the melody of laughter, or the rest that comes without fear. Orophin wept for the world, for the hatred that overtook it, for those who would never feel ecstasy or hear true music, or experience something so sad and beautiful and glorious and joyful all at once that it brought them to tears because of the pure, untainted magnificence of it. Behind him, the Elf Legolas murmured in the tongue of his people, tears falling down his face as well.

At length, Orophin stood and gathered his courage. He walked the last few steps forward, and he was at his brother's side. Haldir's whitish hair, encrusted with blood and sludge, was splayed about his head, his eyes closed, his hand still gripping the handle of his long blade. For a long while no one moved; the earth stood frozen in time and space, Orophin's eyes locked on the lifeless face of his brother. But although he grieved for the life of his captain, his protector, his kin, he shed no tears. Those were better saved for times when one could be weak. Now Orophin had to be strong; whether he could or not was not a question, failure not worth considering, despair not paid any attention, but hatred and loneliness abounded. And there, surrounded by the dead, even with his kindred nearby and the day won, with all the weight that had been his brother's settling on him like the full weight of a dragon in the ancient days of their power, Orophin felt so lonely, yet so full of rage and hatred that he felt he was on fire. He bent and lifted his brother's body from the slime that abounded in the wretched place, ignoring the thick, slick blood that coated his arms and hands from the deep gashes in his brother's back and head.

Without a word to Legolas, who stood by silently watching, Orophin bore his brother back down the stairs to the courtyard, which was slowly clearing of dead. The air was becoming clear, the sun shining again, but Orophin did not glance to the side or around, his face terrible and full of hardly-masked rage, and no one tried to stop him.