A/N: I'm so, so, so sorry, I haven't updated this in more than a year… :( I'm pathetic, I know.

In the last chapter, that last sentence may have been way over dramatized. The "young man" refered to in there is, indeed Eorl.

And sorry, again.

Kára rubbed the sleep from her eyes as the first rays of sunlight crept into her room – the room she had always shared with her brother and mother. Looking around sleepily, she was surprised to see she was the only one still there.

Where were Wærfer and her mother?

Frowning, she climbed out of bed. Then she remembered – Léod was dead and Eorl was crazy.

"Hwele?" Sváva leaned her head closer to the woman who was speaking – Ragnbjörg, an elder woman who had worked for Léod before his death.

"Giese, it's true, Eorl is putting off King Léod's funeral!" It was dark outside, and the fire from the hearth in Sváva's home threw eerie shadow's on the old one's face. Kára, Wærfer and Ælfwine had joined Sváva, Myst, and the rest of their family for supper. Léod's death had cast a shroud of melancholy on the Éothéod. They were drawing together, pulling closer to each other.

Léod had just died two days ago, and Eorl had just been formally crowned that morning. Now, it seemed, his grief was getting to his head. Why would anyone put off their father's funeral? Kára wondered.

Wærfer and Ælfwynne had gone to see why Eorl was doing this. They had no formal advisors to the King, but perhaps they needed one; at least for kings as young as Eorl.

Kára pulled on her daytime dress and left the little dark back room where they slept. The main room of their house was bigger, but it seemed more confining to her. She hated how it reminded her of her father: his sword and shield hung on the wall above the fireplace, waiting for Wærfer to come of age and use them. For Kára, because she would never use them, they were just shining, metal reminders of the warrior father she had never really known.

Tearing her gaze from the weaponry, she looked down at the fire. The embers were in the "dying" stage of their life.

Death is just everywhere this morning, she thought. Then she went outside to where they kept the firewood. Grabbing an armful of firewood, she paused for just a second to admire the sunrise, and a second longer to note that further down the road, at the meeting-hall, a great many people were raising a fuss about something, before going back inside.

Because they had no windows, it was important to keep the fire going. It was something every man and woman of the Éothéod had been raised with from childhood, and had been driven so thoroughly into Kára's head from the day she was born, that the usually the first thing she noticed in a room was how high the fire was burning. Everyone attended to everyone else's fires – at least here, in the main dwellings of the Éothéod. She didn't know how it was done elsewhere. Here, at least, several of the fires were said the have embers in them from the time of the Mæst For, when keeping they didn't have time everyday to start new fires, so they kept pieces of the old ones alive.

Kára built up the fire, then sat down in front of it and waited. If this had been any other day, she would have gone about her normal morning chores. But today was special, because no one really knew what was going on.

She hoped Eorl wasn't really crazy.

After waiting for what must have been hours, she finally decided she would have to go and see for herself what was happening. She stood up, straightened her skirt resolutely, and strode outside.

Kára realized she had only been waiting a half-hour at most.

Oh well, she thought. She walked down the road to the meeting hall anyway.

The double doors were standing open, and the sound of annoyed voices floated out. She stepped inside and out of the light streaming through the door, letting her eyes adjust to the shady hall.

A great number of men and a fair amount of women were packed inside, sitting on benches in rows. Sigrún, Léod's widow, was standing in the front of the crowd, clearly trying to calm down the clamoring mass of people. Kára slipped into a seat in the last row. Her nerves thrilled with excitement. Maybe now she was going to find out why Léod's funeral was being delayed.

Maybe the reason was something horrible.

She hoped it wasn't, because the last thing King Eorl needed right now was a war. Or some other tragedy, she added as an afterthought. But if the reason was bad, no doubt one of the Éothéod's enemies had seen the death of a young king (Léod had only been forty-two, and in times of peace, they usually lived much longer) as the perfect opportunity to strike at them.

She tried to ignore her nerves as Sigrún finally got everyone calm and began to speak.

"I know many of you are outraged that my son, King Eorl, has postponed the late King Léod's funeral; before you speak more, let me explain to you why he has."

Kára found, as always, that Sigrún's voice mesmerized her. She spoke softly but with an air of such unimpeachable power that when she said something, you listened. As far as Kára knew, no one had ever interrupted or questioned her. Sigrún was, without any doubts, a lady.

"My husband Léod died when he feel from his wild horse, as I'm sure you all know. What is not known so widely is that the horse escaped afterward. King Eorl is going to marshal a hunt to catch this horse, Man-Bane he's named it. And then, before we mourn Léod's passing, the horse will be killed."

As soon as Sigrún stopped talking, a murmur went through the hall. Kára turned to her neighbor, a member of the King's Guard, and asked him if it was true.

"I don't know, bearn, this is news to me two," he answered her.

Sigrún stepped down from the raised dais at the front of the hall – swept was the word Kára thought of – down the center aisle, and left.

Glossary:

Hwele – What

Giese – Yes

Bearn – Child

Roughly, this means "Great Journey". I'm using it to refer to the movement of the Éothéod into the Upper Anduin Valley.