Author's Note:
Many thanks for those who left a review. They keep me going. Here's the new one, which I hope you like as well.
Chapter 3: To Count as Loss or GainThe prevalent stench of death was infinitely cunning. The sun shone warmly; they believe they had harvested much.
A deliberately bald, depraved honesty that filled fear into mortal hearts void of Eru's counsel; and now it survived solely on benevolent impudence, taunting, seducing, terrifying…and revealing fragmented visions of the doors that lay beyond this world. Its elusiveness was its gratification, its scent coercing nightmarish worship from the hearts of men. It shifted comfortably, a ghastly conglomerate inscribing its nuances, marring the experience of the sublime, titivating the gurgled clutter of terror.
They lay on their pallets, a penitential procession longing for merciful freedom only after the spirit wrestled with and severed the burdensome bond to Arda. Mandos was a mere thought, a superstitious folklore borne of the dilution of the tales of the Elder Days.
Eowyn of Rohan moved quickly among them; she smiled as much as she could to the wounded as did other healers, a conspiratorial expression calculated to ease the sting that arose from the continual watching of last breaths being drawn. Faces she recognised, faces made unrecognisable by battle scars…yet memory and sight were fallible; they all received unequalled ministrations from a tender hand.
A moan from the adjoining pallet drew her attention. Another yet unnamed rohirric warrior marked by his characteristic blond hair and heavy-set features, lying far in nocturnal fields. But not too far gone that it was within her power to save. The rib and the shoulder bled incessantly; he arched in pain and retched noisily a perfect circle of blood, attempting to scale the white summit unto light…unto painlessness.
Yet this man would live, Eowyn bent to inspect his wound, nodding grimly to herself. He merely needed tight bandages and a healer's watchful eye. For now, he lived trapped in his fever and injury, astray in night everlasting.
Their losses were great, but their morale high.
But for all that had transpired above, Eowyn of Rohan did not witness the transgression of Hornburg, nor the reckless defence that crumbled as the orcs fought further into the Deep but was rather left to envision the worst as the pounding grew louder. Still her desire to have had participated in the battle did not wane, if only she had not been discovered –
Theodred's sword still hugged her side, long after the deep bellow of the Horn had sounded. It moved as she walked, a comforting weight that bound her to the rohirric warriors.
"Eowyn." A singular word, a name, spoken with a timbre she knew so well.
"Eomer!" She flew into his arms. He had returned when she feared that he was lost forever, and now there was triumph, his head held high along with the White Rider. Eomer offered a tight security that did not corrode even when the Wormtongue's influence was strong.
"We have lost many, but Rohan has gained you." He heard her muffled voice floating from his shoulder. "For that, perhaps the loss has been already compensated."
"We have victory now." It was a cautious statement, one that made her pull back, to study subtle changes in his manner, wondering if she had indeed been living a dream in recent years.
"I hear no joy in that, brother." She looked at him, but found his distant eyes roaming the ranks of the injured.
"It is the first of many." He cared not to look at her, as though the distance placed between them guaranteed a momentary foray into a realm that was best left to wistful dreams nurtured selfishly in the dark of the night.
"Then it has begun." Her voice was sad, a fleeting confirmation of his previous thoughts.
"From the small circles of Middle-Earth to the vast stretch of the icy wastes. Aye, it has. Call it a warrior's insight; one does not need to belong to the Elven race nor to the gods to smell its foulness."
Eowyn sighed. There was still much to make about the Elf's words that were still so sonorous; his pledge of forthcoming untainted dawns hanging as a shimmering orb in the carnal darkness. Evil brewed; it still seemed dull in men's hearts while it pierced Elvish ones deeply. Yet she was certain that Legolas Greenleaf had perhaps merely chosen to spill words that befitted his princely status, as though he layered the crucible of men's failing hearts with an alien, unmatchable fidelity to the prevailing of the incorruptible. Perhaps it ignited in him a different sorrow; perhaps he mourned instead for the swift manner in which men's hearts easily leaned towards the existing circumstance.
"You carry Theodred's sword," Eomer's voice broke her thoughts. He frowned, looking over her hip in surprise. "And parts of his armour. You do not mean to tell me—"
"Do you remember the times I forayed into the wilderness with you carrying Father's sword, protesting that it was never too heavy for me?"
"Eowyn—"
"Can you remember?" She insisted, a small grin playing over her lips.
"All too well," he grumbled, remembering a fogless dusk that had brought a smattering of blackness. "You only retched once when your blade yielded black blood. Thereafter there was no orc that terrified you." Then his eyes went wide. "Nay, I am not certain I wish to know if you truly took the place at the battlements, dressed with Theod—"
"I remember the orc hunting days, brother, with pleasurable and exhilarating memories never more so after father's passing and mother's–"
"Eowyn!"
She glanced at his face, her mirth quelling instantly when she saw his worry.
"If you must know, I did nothing of that sort. The sword was meant…as a safeguard perhaps, had they torn through the caves. I would have slain them first, and then myself," she said softly. "Although I wished that I could have…"
Eomer was already shaking his head.
"I would be made fodder for orcs by father's own hand if he'd still lived and had heard of this," he muttered to himself, sighing loudly. The thought that he had been forcibly ejected from the grounds was neither sufficient nor honourable enough to assuage his guilt regarding her bearing of arms.
Had he then not thought of the danger then, before so readily plunging her into it because she had simply asked, or was it such that with the weight of the years he sometimes felt more and more of the father they had both lost? The Enemy had reached them; the union of the two towers had proven that much and Rohan stood only because they found themselves aided in a most timely fashion.
There was much Eowyn wanted to say, how she wished to stay under the Rohirric banner as they watched the sketch of light turn to darkness, how the vow he took long time past to stand afore her had been long fulfilled, how—
The fountain of words formed and rose erratically, choking at its head.
Eowyn knew that he thought her unsuspecting of the extent to which Mordor's evil hand was garrotting Middle Earth; it took little to see how he fought the dilemma of keeping her from this knowledge and the obvious deception of denying its growth. Swordplay had always been their bond, their common interest, but they reached an altogether different plane of reality when Rohan grew increasingly burdened by invasions.
Truth had won out.
"We shall not speak of what could have happened had you done otherwise. The sight would have terrified you, Eowyn. Think of thousands upon thousands – enough to make grown men shiver and weep. And they move to destroy Rohan. It is nothing you have seen, not the few that we have seen or have hunted throughout the years, but a violent, belligerent sea of blackness. Saruman's power had grown stronger than we had thought. And all this while, Rohan lingered, decayed by the Wormtongue!" Then he calmed considerably. "There are still many who need your help," he said, releasing her with reluctance. "Theoden calls for an assembly as soon as we have counted our loss. But for now, I must speak to my men."
"You are all I have, Eomer," she called out as he strode away.
It stopped his steady steps; she saw him waver, still, and finally stop, all in a short breath of time that was to her an unending length.
"I know," he said, not turning around and whispered to himself. "A proud head cannot be bent for long."
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"Master Elf? Is there something that you have need of?" She inquired quietly of him, a few paces behind the edge of the parapet of Meduseld on which he perched.
The Elf watched Tilion drive the last flower of Telperion through the darkened sky, an open censure of the Valar to the Enemy for his efforts to thwart the beauty created in Arda. And there she stood, the glistening complement of Earendil's silmaril; perhaps not as fair as the incomparable Lady of the Galadhrim with her foresight and wisdom, but even Galadriel lacked the stern alacrity and spirited fervour of the Shieldmaiden.
"There is nothing I lack, my lady. I and my friends thank you for your hospitality," he said finally. She saw the corners of his mouth turn up slightly, noticing his slight smiles.
"You are still sullen; grief is not washed away by the passing of days but there is tonight," she said in measured tones, and he perceiving that she still walked on tight ropes, speaking only when necessary to the Elves, sighed softly.
"There is perhaps no reason for me to be otherwise. But I take my leave of you Eowyn, and halt no further any bliss of yours."
He inclined his head as a gesture of parting and moved silently into the golden hall, swallowed into its ballooning celebration.
Hail, the glorious dead…
For this night, the glaring differences in the Elder and Younger Children of Iluvatar and a child of Aule were writ small, bound sanguine by their labours. Guided by the minstrels' gentle coaxing, an ancient rohirric folktune whorled out buoyantly from the strings of the instruments just as numerous tankards of ale were swigged in the golden hall of Meduseld clad in laughter and song. What used to be disciplined tongues were under inebriation made wild, a pilfered moment of rough-hewn pleasure tacked onto the scintillated raiment of frivolity and revelry.
Aye, tonight they would remember them, their glorious dead felled by the Enemy, strengthened not by the sweetness of sorrow that the occasion seemed to demand, but by a boisterous jubilation that they lived yet another day.
Yet he stayed aside, invisible in the shadowed corner save for his bright hair, allowing a small smile to play on his lips when he caught Gimli son of Gloin heartily accepting his eighth tankard of ale from the serving lass.
It was a majestic celebration of the perennial, a disturbing emblem of man, thought Legolas. Could he fault them for their magnetic impetuousness and their alluring spontaneity that had always been a cause for attrition between the two kindreds? If that be so, the Edain had then sufficient reason enough to fault the Eldar likewise for their descent into passivity.
He turned, jaw clenched, to look at the numerous crimson lamps, their lithe flames twisting merrily to yield comforting warmth.
"You wonder if things could necessarily have been different," a voice from the side observed, watching the celebrations afar just as the Elf was. "When your meditation takes this direction I fear I cannot offer counsel enough."
Azure eyes met the gaze of ageless blue, held and stared.
"Ai, Mithrandir," Legolas said after a long pause. "I know not what I ought to feel." He glanced sharply at the white wizard, and wished for a reply that might jolt awake the insensate and put to sleep the ambivalent.
"I am not the only one who steers the course of the future, Thranduilion. Your eyes beg me for an answer I cannot give." It seemed as if the wizard read his thoughts, and articulated his answer in the most direct way possible. Legolas looked at the staff, and then at the white garments, trying to ascertain the power of a Maia veiled by the adoption of bodily form. "Great evil descended into Arda and we fight it still. Many born of Middle-Earth know of life as far as the absence of death, and live as though their breath might be snatched from them at the next rising of Arien, and there are those who wait for circumstances to turn before choosing to rank themselves above the plants they grow in their gardens. For this reason I am in Arda – do you not already know the Wizard whom you call Mithrandir? I grant you, is it not enough that we may both fight together and be content no matter the result?"
But he had already seen the disturbed emotion flit across the Elf's face – and it was then he knew, that Legolas Greenleaf craved something that his heart would only articulate in the beauty of passing time.
"Tell me Mithrandir, would you repeat these words should evil triumph? Would you be content this way?"
The Istar sighed, the slightest bit mystified at the sudden outburst. In his ears, the loudness of the hall retreated until an insignificant muffle remained; the Elf's question strained its protesting quiver aimed at his throat.
Instead the wizard smiled.
"Just as the seas and lands were sundered in long time past at the command of Eru for the sake of his peoples, should there now be little reason to believe that his beloved children will be abandoned to this lingering, stale evil?"
"I do not know, Gandalf," the Elf replied sharply, his normally gentle manner filled with an undisguised ire that startled them both. "Perhaps you can call my sight defective, and sorely lacking in discernment among the Wise. Watch the Avari fall to shadow and necromancers nurse their hatred unto venomous torrents of destruction as the forests become infirm and mountains turn viperous." He said it more softly this time, not unheard by the Istar. "Middle-Earth is left now, more to the devices of the Enemy than the Valar, and the firstborn follow them."
"And yet you hope. That is distinction enough, my young one."
He sighed, an echo of the Istar's sentiment, the anger swift to go as it had arrived.
"Perhaps."
"The way west is enthralling and the firstborn go where their hearts bid them. The call of the sea is not ignored easily until you hear the gulls cry."
Silence greeted Gandalf's statement; he was doubtlessly overrun by the memory of the Lady Galadriel's prophetic warning.
"You grieve far too deeply, Legolas," the Istar motioned him to sit on a bench recently vacated by a group of Rohirrim. "I know your kind shore these griefs as part of their memory, weaving it until it becomes but a pattern in the miniature tapestry that mirrors Eru's great song. But your grief…," he drifted off and shook his head slowly, not knowing what to make of it, "You grieve more intensely than others, something that I have not seen in many a year…"
Yet Gandalf was not given to finish his sentence. The minstrel struck an experimental chord, and an effortless synchronised tune burst forth from the rest of the minstrels a beat later, a saturnalian inundation of the hall that drew shouts of delight among the Rohirrim. Evidently it was a tune that had not been heard since Theoden took his throne; many eagerly flocked to the centre of the hall, drawn to its bewitching melody, yearning to merge this infectious harmony with feet and bodies that had grown restless.
Legolas stood hesitantly, yet untouched by the cheering that rose notches as the song fabricated its own garment on increasingly rapid spins. He saw Aragorn reluctantly drawn into the dance by a band of Rohirrim, his initially stiff manner bleeding soon enough into carefree leaps impaling themselves upon the highly-strung tune. The revellers had now formed a circle – an ever-widening circle as more joined the riotous movements, moving in accordance to each beat of the drum, each riff of the refrain. Those who knew the dance flew over the steps, their stately, unchanging moves an encouragement for those who knew naught to gain the rhythms as the song progressed.
He moved backwards slowly, to blend with the shadows in the corner, intending to seek out his pallet –
An outstretched hand pulled him suddenly into the carousel, into a place beside Eowyn of Rohan, its tight grip leaving no room for argument, merely expressive remembrance. His wrist was still snugly bound in her left hand, and she kept it there a while longer as she bade him to follow her steps.
Indeed it was not a difficult dance; the coordination of limbs took him but a moment to master and he infused into its simple combination no small measure of gracefulness that drew admiring stares from those who cared to watch, uplifting the dance on his energy alone to a new pinnacle of vivacity.
Ai, such invincibility! It seemed that he soared and plummeted, advanced and withdrew in response to the ever quickening beat – the music played on even as the dancers faded into indistinct shapes, and he saw only the shieldmaiden beside him who paced him step for step. She laughed – it dimly occurred to him that he had not heard her laugh before; it was a breathless sound, a plea for a slightly more prolonged joy. Perhaps it was something he could give to her…it was his turn to hold her hand tightly in his; together they unravelled the mysteries of victory and pain without faltering, each spin, each turn unto laughter and forgetfulness until only the bewildering wonder of each other remained.
The whirling plane of speed and rush that had been so painstakingly conjured now dissolved as soon as it had started, waning into oblivion and memory by the thundering applause that followed after. They moved apart albeit belatedly, joining the scattered claps somewhat awkwardly.
Eowyn tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her head, still breathing hard. At length she heard a call that came from a corner of the hall.
"Sing for us, Legolas Thranduilion!" A velvety voice bade him do so, its ring of authority unmistakable even amid this festivity. The very noise that had seemed so rampant just a second before died down into a lonesome quiet; expectant countenances were turned in his direction. Legolas looked towards Aragorn, and it seemed as if the Ranger who now sat contentedly with a smoking pipe dared him to eat his fill of the evening, determined that he play a part in the jubilee before the dawn brought the return of taut brows and tired eyes.
Yet what could he sing of that they would feel with the same depth as he did? What was appropriate enough for such an occasion, when his heart was torn between the imperishable and the ephemeral?
But he already knew what tune longed to unfurl from his lips even as those doubtful questions ran through his mind.
And so he sang, without hesitation and without diffidence, reaching for a height never reached before by mortal song, drawing from their spirits an emotional depth previously asleep.
Cold and still my golden mother
Lies beneath the meadow, sleeping,
Hears my ancient songs no longer,
Cannot listen to my singing;
Only will the forest listen,
Sacred birches, sighing pine-trees,
Junipers endowed with kindness,
Alder-trees that love to bear me,
With the aspens and the willows.
With each rising note it was as though the very air vaulted into the enchanted; what he sang of in the high speech of Valinor none save the Istar could understand, yet in the hall ran all the ages of Arda through each sleekly crafted nuance, each enduring inflexion. A murmur of the constancy of the sun and the moon, a shout of warriors girded for battle, an anguished scream of noxious skies and discoloured days, a hopeless cry of the brief time when evil was toothless, a piercing wail of loss tempered by the beauty of every newborn thing – all were delicately woven like glimmering silver threads into his song, wondrously fair.
The crassness of the celebrations melted as soon as Legolas' first phrase floated out into something more transcendent and lavish than flesh would sustain; it became a dirge and a hollow cry that elucidated a numbed joy, for their victory had been blood bought by many. And as he sang it seemed as though the slain ones lent their voices to his own, Eru's ancient modalities trapped within the wings of the melody.
Waters seek a quiet haven
fter running long in rivers;
Fire subsides and sinks in slumber
At the dawning of the morning
Therefore I should end my singing,
As my song is growing weary,
For the pleasure of the evening,
For the joy of morn arising.*
He stood stock-still, watching carefully as he sang, how the tune caressed each listener and then drowned him in its inviting lore, passing no one by. The evocative song grew bright, riches added upon it and its élan escalated almost unbearably, even to the deliverer himself – never had he felt so effervescent, so surely carried by the lyrical and stylish anthem, propelled to its sheer precipice with not a shout but with a tendril of a whisper as the song finished its journey to sit as their coronet of weariness – just as his eyes fell into the chasm that wrought both undevourable fire and steely ice, lancing straight through the sombre ones of the Shieldmaiden of Rohan.
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*I've pilfered Legolas' song from the Kalevala itself – what better work to use since it is the very one that had inspired Tolkien?
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