Two weeks later…

"That tears it," declared Pippin. His usually jovial face was gray with an underlying fury festering beneath the surface as he assessed the condition he'd found his clothing in when he woke up. "I'm going to Aragorn and Legolas right now to have those guards of ours dismissed; really, I'd prefer to see them literally catapulted right out of the city, but I can settle for having them dismissed."

Diamond hurried over to her husband's side and comfortingly clasped his hand. "Please keep your voice down," she requested pleadingly, glancing over her shoulder at their son who was thankfully still sleeping. There had once been a time when she wouldn't have believed that Pippin and his two friends were capable of being both normal hobbits and fierce warriors; now she knew that the latter part had never really come out in their lives in the Shire only because the motivation hadn't been there. He was truly a sight to behold when the people he loved were being threatened. "You don't know if this has anything to do with what happened in the princess' bedchamber."

"Look around, Diamond," he said as he gestured wildly. "What do you remember seeing last night?"

She sighed. "We had the clothes that came back from the wash yesterday piled up on the chest at the end of our bed," she reported dutifully.

"And what do you see before you now?"

"All of the clothing that we left out isn't there; judging by the way our packs are bulging I'd say that they were put away in there," said Diamond. Pippin opened his mouth but she quickly cut him off. "But what of it? We aren't the only two people in the room, Pippin. Who's to say that our Faramir wasn't trying to be helpful?"

"This is our Faramir we're talking about," Pippin reminded her. "When was the last time he ever put any of his own clothes away, let alone someone else's? No, my dear; someone else came into our bedchamber while we slept and I can guess who that someone was."

"A servant," she supplied hopefully. He just shook his head and stared hard at her. "My husband, there are servants running around all over this place! They were just trying to make our lives a little easier, considering how things have been around here these last two weeks."

Pippin marched over to the foot of the bed and grabbed one of his packs, jerking it to him with such force that it ended up hitting him in the stomach. "I might believe that," he seemingly conceded, "if things like this haven't been happening to everyone, with no one stepping forward to claim responsibility for any of it."

"Yes, I know," she moaned wearily. "Rose told me about coming back to her bedchamber the other night to find that vase of fresh flowers –"

"Irilas," interrupted Pippin grimly.

"And poor Estella is already so nervous that she almost fainted when she found that tray of bread and honey sitting outside of hers and Merry's door last week," continued Diamond.

"Those were the foods that Legolas was eating when that horrible woman poisoned him the last time," Pippin informed her in an agitated tone.

Diamond visibly shuddered as she tried to block out the distinct possibility that a dangerous, possibly insane, person had been able to get into their bedchamber with them in there and guards supposedly posted outside. "And there have been piles of fresh diapers that's been left near Legolas and Aragorn's bedchamber every morning since the day after Laurelin got…" her voice trailed off. "Sometimes they have those flowers on top of them. Oh, Pippin, why does that or any of the other stuff like it have to mean that someone terrible's been about? Why can't it just mean that there's a nice person out there who's trying to be helpful?"

"Because a nice person would realize that now is not the time to be doing anonymous things around the royal quarters, even if they are nice," replied Pippin, his tone softening a bit when he saw how shaken she really was. "Think about it: there are guards posted outside of our doors as well as Elladan and Elrohir's and Legolas and Aragorn's. Their children have been sleeping in their bedchamber because they can't trust that the little ones are safe on their own anymore. Every time something unexplainable happens – like this – everyone from the Council to the servants who've never been in the royal quarters before gets questioned and questioned again. Anyone who isn't malicious or else totally dense would see that their 'good deeds' are doing nothing but scaring the people that they're supposed to be helping and confess."

"But why would anyone who wants to hurt all of us be doing things that are helpful?" wondered Diamond in a small voice.

"The message isn't in the deed but in the action," observed Pippin. He opened up his pack and reached in to find a clean shirt only to pull out a handful of irila petals. When he spoke again, his voice was much more quiet and filled with horror. "He wants us to know that he can get to any of us at any time he chooses; that right now the only reason why we haven't been attacked is because he's decided not to do it – yet."

Still holding the purplish-blue petals tightly in his fist, the hobbit marched over to the door and yanked it open, startling the guards on the other side in the process. "My lord!" gasped one of them in surprise. "I'm sorry; we weren't expecting you to do…oh no," he breathed when he saw what Pippin was clutching. "It didn't…it couldn't have…we were out here all night, Master Took."

"Is that so?" asked Pippin flatly. "Don't answer that; just go tell the Gamgees and Brandybucks to come here a few minutes before we have to leave. I don't want to be surprising them with this when we get to the king and prince's bedchamber in a half-hour."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

At times Aragorn thought that he was losing his mind and that morning was no exception. The hobbits had agreed to watch Eldarion, Laurelin, Gilraen, and Meren so that Thranduil and Gimli could have a little rest and what happened? The Tooks had gotten a little visit from the mysterious stalker sometime during the night. They'd told the others what had happened before making their way to the children; the Man could tell by the way that Rose and Sam had drawn their numerous children to them and by how the increasingly skittish Estella looked ready to bolt for the city's gate at a moment's notice. Merry's wife hadn't seemed all that thrilled about the prospect of minding the children in the first place and now that the danger was closer than ever she appeared to be downright petrified all of the time.

What bothered Aragorn most, though, was his apparent inability to do anything to ensure his family's safety. Laurelin still cried in her sleep no matter how much he tried to soothe her fears; ordering all of the guards he could conscionably spare from the defense of the city hadn't done anything to stop the hobbits and his brothers from being subtly threatened; and as he'd listened to Legolas and Pippin commiserate that morning he'd realized that he couldn't even make his own husband feel safe in their chambers. All Aragorn seemed to be able to do is bark out commands and go to Council meetings – like the one that he was in that moment – and none of those actions were putting a stop to the problems at hand.

He might have felt a little better if this meeting seemed to be making any progress; unfortunately, though, all it appeared to be doing was going in as many circles as the previous ones had. "We can always question the guards again," suggested Belecthor after Aragorn's call for any information was answered unsatisfactorily. The exhaustion was evident in his voice. "They have been cooperating most admirably."

"If you call saying I don't know, I haven't seen anything over and over again cooperating," sneered Malvegil with a roll of his eyes. "Honestly, my king, I've never seen such a high level of incompetence before; or are you not having them guard all of the entrances to the royal quarters?"

"It would be rather stupid of him if he hadn't," spoke up Legolas evenly. Only Aragorn, who knew him better than anyone, could tell that his husband was feeling very testy. "You aren't calling your king stupid, are you?"

"No, my prince," answered Malvegil sullenly. He looked like he wanted to say something else but then he crossed his arms and looked down.

Belecthor cleared his throat. "As I was saying," he asserted, "the guards have been cooperating quite well and seem to possess a keen understanding as to why we feel the need to question them over and over again. That won't last soon, I fear, if we don't start narrowing down the suspect list –"

"What are you saying?" snapped Eärnil furiously. "Do you think that they're starting to resent the fact that their king requires their full cooperation in finding the person who's been threatening his family?"

"I haven't sensed anything of the sort," replied Belecthor defensively. "I'm just saying that people in general will not tolerate being held in suspicion for an indefinite amount of time without sufficient evidence. They have done nothing to deserve this –"

Eärnil scoffed with so much force that he almost choked. "Nothing?" he interrupted scornfully. "How about failing so utterly at their jobs that they don't notice who's been leaving little girls body parts and creeping into hobbits' bedchambers while they sleep? Why do you want to accommodate them if they're feeling as if they've been treated unfairly? The whole lot of them should be grateful that they aren't facing a much more severe punishment – yet."

"No one feels more terrible about the breaches in security than the guards do!" Belecthor argued.

The other advisor snorted. "I'm sure that Princess Laurelin has been feeling quite awful about it too," he shot back sarcastically. "I've seen the poor girl; it looks like she hasn't slept in days."

"Enough." Aragorn's stern, commanding voice broke through their debate and drew everyone's attention to him. He gripped a pen to keep his hands from shaking; after all, his nerves might have been coming undone under the weight of all of his fears, worries, frustrations, and now the mention of how one of his children were suffering because he couldn't do his job, but why let the Council know about all of that? "Isn't it bad enough that you're wasting both your time and mine bickering amongst yourselves?"

"Sire –"

"I said enough," said Aragorn in a clipped tone. "We are getting nowhere as it is without you taking the time to drag my daughter into your disputes. Here is what I have to say on the matter: the guards can handle being questioned for the time being; if any of them feel that they're being mistreated, please direct them to address their concerns to me or else be quiet about it. However, Lord Belecthor is right – we cannot keep just questioning them blindly. We must find a way to solve this soon or else I'm afraid that we won't know anything until – until it may be too late."

The room fell silent as the gravity of what the king had just said hung over all of their heads. No one wanted to even entertain what could possibly constitute 'too late' in this situation. "Your majesty," spoke up Arvedui as he wrung his hands nervously, "maybe – maybe we're simply reading too much importance into this."

"What do you mean?" demanded Aragorn reservedly.

"No one will ever deny the hideous nature of what was left for Princess Laurelin to find," added the advisor hurriedly. "But nothing like that has happened since then. It's entirely possible that the presents were nothing more than someone's idea of a sick joke and the rest of it just a coincidence, the acts of some well-meaning, if thoughtless and perhaps overly enthusiastic, individual who now fears stepping forward because of all the ado raised over it."

"We all wish that was true, but I'm afraid that it isn't," said Legolas in a voice that was calm and yet spoke volumes about his weariness.

Aragorn looked at his husband. When Legolas looked back the Man was suddenly reminded of the week between Lady Nienor's attacks over a decade ago when the elf had stayed inside until he almost gave himself over to the grief of being cut off from the living earth. Was something like that going to happen again? Was this mysterious stalker going to corner his family into a self-made prison until their lives were almost a living death?

Then Legolas gave him a small supportive smile and Aragorn knew that at least one thing was different this time: he and his husband had a much deeper understanding of each other and their relationship. Instead of almost letting it tear them apart they were going to deal with the situation together. The realization madefeel suddenly bolstered. "Legolas is right," he declared in a finalizing tone. "Once might be interpreted as a coincidence but these little random acts have happened too often – and have the irila flower linking them to each other and to what happened in Laurelin's bedchamber – to dismiss as such. This person might not have done anything has horrifying as he first did – yet but I for one would rather catch whoever's responsible before he gets the chance to send one of my children an even more gruesome body part."

A chorus of murmurs filled with variations of "of course, your majesty" came from all around the table. "Good," Aragorn declared with a nod. "You all have your orders as to what you're supposed to do before our next meeting. I now dismiss you with my thanks and wish you good fortune as you continue on with your investigations. Remember – leave no stone unturned, no matter how implausible it may be."

Usually the advisors lingered on in the meeting hall for a bit afterwards, or else strolled out leisurely while chattering with their friends and colleagues, but not that day. The situation seemed to call for them to maintain an air of solemnity and purpose and with that in mind they all left the hall rather quickly until there were only two people left in their respective places: Aragorn and Legolas. The Man didn't say anything as he slowly rose from his seat and walked over to kneel down in front of Legolas. "I'm sorry, my love," he whispered.

"For what?" Legolas asked him with a good deal of love in his voice. "For not being able to read minds and someone just know who's been doing these things? Then I should be apologizing too, for I haven't stopped this stalker from scaring our family either. You've always been too hard on yourself, Aragorn. I for one can't see what else you could be doing."

"I just wish that there was something that I could do that to make you feel any better," lamented Aragorn. "I can't seem to do anything: not keep you safe, nor our children or the rest of our family…"

Legolas gently covered the Man's mouth with his fingers. "I think I'd be comforted if you'd let me hold you," he said.

"All right," agreed Aragorn softly. "But only if you let me hold you in return."

"That's usually how that sort of thing works," teased Legolas quietly as he wrapped his arms around his husband. The elf then let out a content sigh as he felt two strong arms reciprocate and the couple stayed like that for a long time.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

As Aragorn and Legolas comforted each other, the advisor Tanondor was hurrying to catch up with Eärnil in the corridor. "Eärnil," he called, halting as the Man in question stopped. "Might I have a moment of your time?"

"I promised my wife that I would make the time to have lunch with her before I had to carry out my assignments for the king," Eärnil replied distractedly. "This can really only take a moment."

"All I want to know is if I can meet with you sometime this evening," said Tanondor. "I have a theory about why no one's been able to catch this stalker yet, but I'm unsure as to how I could present it to the king. You are much closer to him than I and I would certainly appreciate your advice."

"You don't have to be close to the king to approach him with something like that," admonished Eärnil incredulously. "If you have any clue as to what's going on you should just tell him immediately, Tanondor!"

The other Man looked over his shoulder apprehensively. "Please keep your voice down," he requested in a hiss. "I can't do that because I don't have any proof and – well, and the king won't want to believe it even if I had an abundance of it. Not that I would blame him," he added regretfully. "I don't want to believe it."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"There's something that's not right about this," muttered Merry. He gave his chair a few absentminded rocks as he frowned thoughtfully at baby Gilraen in his arms.

"That's just dawned on you now?" wondered Pippin dryly.

Merry glowered at him. "You know what I mean," he stressed. "It's like there's a piece of the puzzle that's not fitting, and we're not allowed to see the piece or how it's supposed to fit into the rest of it. I can feel the answer hanging on the edge of my mind but I just can't figure it out."

"Don't go putting so much pressure on yourself, Mr. Merry," advised Sam. "No one's expecting you to come up with the solution to this mess."

"I did before," replied Merry glumly. "So what's so different about now?"

"There's a lot that's different and a lot that's the same – none of which any of you should be talking about now," Rose scolded them all as she jiggled Meren in her arms to keep her pouting from becoming crying. "The children are in the same room, for the Shire's sake! Let's talk about nice things right now and save the dark parts for a time when we've got some more privacy."

Sam, Merry, and Pippin all nodded silently, knowing that she was right and that it was useless to argue anyway. "Good," declared the female hobbit. She shook her head as if to rid it of all the ominous feelings and then smiled at Estella, who was hovering around anxiously at the edge of their group. "Estella, would you like to hold little Meren? I don't believe you've gotten a turn with either one of the babies."

"No, I –" Estella looked lost for a second. "I wouldn't know what to do."

"It's easy once you get the hang of it," offered Diamond kindly. "We can show you how right –"

"I'm not ready to," Estella practically begged. "Not now, please."

Across the room, Elanor listened to everything that her parents, aunts, and uncles were talking about. "I don't understand Aunt Estella sometimes," she confided to Eldarion and Frodo, who were sitting with her on the floor as the younger children played around them. "She used to like holding babies, even if she didn't get to do it very often. What in Middle-earth is wrong with her now?"

"Maybe she's coming to her senses," suggested Frodo, nibbling on one of his fingernails. "I don't see what the big deal is about babies anyway."

Elanor stared at him, annoyed. "I wish Findowyn was here," she groused. "Another girl would understand. I need more than a bunch of boys to talk to."

"Findowyn wouldn't get it," Eldarion told her knowledgably. "She doesn't go for that sort of thing. I bet she'd be more interested in hearing about my hunting knife again rather than in trying to hold one of my sisters."

Frodo's ears perked up. "A hunting knife?" he repeated. The young hobbit leaned forward eagerly. "It's not a real knife, is it?"

"You bet it is," grinned Eldarion proudly. "Papa gave it to me awhile ago so that I could learn how to take care of and respect my own weapons. It's so amazing, all curved and sharp and shiny – I could behead so many orcs in one single blow with that weapon."

"This I've got to see," declared Frodo. "Dad, dad! Can Eldarion and I go to his bedchamber for a second?"

"I don't think I've ever heard a more terrible idea," Sam told him in a deceptively light tone.

"But he's got this knife that I have to see!" protested Frodo with a whine. "We'll come right back, we promise!"

"No," said Sam firmly. "You two can just go stick your heads out the door and ask one of the guards to go to his bedchamber to get the toy for you."

"But I don't want anyone else to know where I keep it!" jumped in Eldarion. He wasn't just being difficult – Aragorn had warned him not to be too free in telling people where he kept his weapons when he wasn't using them. "Maybe I could just run and get it and bring it back here."

Sam looked from Frodo's enthusiastic face to Eldarion's hopeful one. The last two weeks hadn't given any of them too much to get excited about and he couldn't find it in his heart to refuse them this little bit of happiness. "Fine then," he gave in reluctantly. "But you take a guard with you and make sure that he stays with you until you're back here. I don't want to hear about you giving him the slip at any point."

"I won't, I won't, I swear!" whooped Eldarion elatedly. He let out one last "thanks!" and ran to the door.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"You can't be serious," said the guard, staring at Eldarion with a great deal of wariness.

The boy sighed. It had been a bit of a struggle to get one of the guards to agree to come with him to his bedchamber in the first place; only the threat of him going alone made one of them finally budge and Eldarion knew that he was going to get in trouble for it later. Well, if he was already in trouble a little more wouldn't make much of a difference. "I just want you to wait outside while I run in to get what I came to get," he said. "You've already checked around; what's the harm in walking outside a minute before I do?"

"If your parents find out…." The guard sighed in defeat. "Fine. Just don't take too much time."

"I won't!" Eldarion called cheerfully after him as the Man walked out of the door. When it closed he ran over to the bed and got down on his hands and knees. He felt the beams supporting his mattress, counting until he got to the fourth one in and frowned. He kept his knife tucked in between his mattress and that beam; usually he put his hand on it right away but today he couldn't seem to locate it.

Eldarion was concentrating on his search, but not so much that he missed the sound of a door opening behind him. He was about to yell at the guard for not giving him privacy when he realized that the bedchamber door wasn't behind him – it was to his right. The only door that was behind him was to his wardrobe and that had never opened on its own before. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and the young prince froze, not sure of what to do.

"Are you looking for something?" a person behind him asked. The voice sounded strange; like someone he'd heard before was deliberately making his voice sound different. "It's a fine knife, to be sure. Very deadly in the right hands – and perhaps in the wrong ones as well."

A surge of terror surged through Eldarion when he heard the sound of a blade being pulled from its scabbard, but that emotion wasn't quite as strong as his anger. It was the stalker – he was sure of it – and the same disgusting person who'd left that awful stuff for his little sister and had been threatening his family for much too long was now threatening him with the special knife that his father had given him. Common sense and self preservation gave way to righeous indignation as the young prince resolutely stood up. "Why you –" he barked out as he whipped around.

The boy briefly glimpsed a cloaked figure that brought up a forgotten memory before a great pain seized his body. A sea of red swam before his eyes; then that gave way as Eldarion fell into a black nothingness.

To be continued…