They look different in the daylight.

I have known them only in darkness, but their long coats and hoods and masked faces seem no less ominous in the light. If anything it is worse to see them this way, because I cannot blame their darkness on the absence of light, and instead I must realise that it is something else. Something that I have little experience with, because they are not creatures of darkness – they are men, I know that they are men – but they do not feel like men.

Oren has brought few of the khands with him; those few that are truly his own. These are the men that he returned to the city for… the ones he cared enough to extract from this mess. They are his own, each of them with the same honey gold skin and dark eyes, the same cowl and mask that covers everything but those strange eyes of theirs.

Last night I was fighting them, last night I saw a good number of them buried beneath a landslide and felt nothing but gladness. Now I am quite relieved to see them.

The Whitecloaks ready themselves, a few hands stray to the hilt of their blades, but Legolas holds one hand up and moves beyond them. Stands as a single and solitary figure at the top of the stairs, and although he is bloodstained, damaged and weary he still looks quite fine there. The sun finally breaks past the mountain and into the garden, lighting him golden and bright, and I move to stand just behind him, not so far away. I know that Hob and the Lady Briar follow me.

Oren reaches the step just below Legolas, stops, and his men do the same. Shadowed figures upon steps that cut through fields of green.

There is a very long silence, but it is not awkward. Oren reaches up, pulls down his mask, and his face softens just a fraction. The dawn light casts soft upon a young face that has seen far too much, and I notice again how few years he has, and how unexpectedly fair. He pushes his hood down as well. His hair is a sable sheen, tied carefully back, although a few strands have fallen free. Those strands of black hair across his brow and jaw do more to humanise him than anything else.

"You spared my life," he says. His voice thickly accented and smooth. "You stayed your hand when you bested me."

"You caught me when I fell," Legolas counters. "You owe no debt."

"After what I did?" he asks, soft and pushing at the same time. He and the elfling have locked eyes, and a part of me is curious as to who might blink first. It is unlikely to be the elfling; I am not entirely convinced that elves need to blink at all.

"What I did to you, I did for money, and I am shamed by it. I was honourable once… you have awakened the memory of it."

I feel something flinch inside. So much has happened – so much in such a short time – and I had forgotten.

Oren tortured Legolas.

Oren held him in chains deep in a mountain – the worst thing that can be done to a wood elf – and had him beaten, each blow written in red and purple upon his skin. I saw it, and I had forgotten. It is a testament to the life that I lead that such a recent thing can drop into memory, and I fight the urge to fidget, suddenly uncomfortable. Legolas stands fast.

The elfling wears the mask of a captain of his people, somewhere between my Legolas and the mad one. Experience and grace and age… the warrior, the prince. But there is also a glimmer of gold inside of Legolas that always shines through, no matter what mask he wears. It is not the first time I have observed that my friend can see the deepest heart of men. Not always, but when it matters most.

The khandish assassin sees that part of him, reads my friend so easily. It took me a long time to understand this elf – neither of us understood the other for an endless time – but something inside of these two speaks to the other. Oren nods, shifts his head only slightly to one side… a signal of some kind to his men.

They stand in no ranks, in no particular order, but I am certain that they are exactly where they mean to be. Still as elves, watching everything that we do, but at Oren's signal they shift as though a breeze has rippled through them. Barely anything at all, yet it breaks a spell.

As one they reach up, and each pulls down the masks that cover the lower half of their faces and their hoods. They breathe, shoulders droop slightly, and one or two stretch stiffened muscles. In an instant they change from mysterious and frightening ghosts and become simply tired men. They drop their guard, because if Oren has told them that they are safe then this is all that they need. I do not think I have seen such discipline and trust since I left the elves of the Greenwood… the laegrim of the wood take their cues from the elfling just the same. It is the same unshakable trust, the same dedication.

"Well," I step forward. I am done watching these two stare at one another; it is all far too dramatic for a sodden dwarf who has not had his breakfast. I can hear that I am brusque, a jarring lump of a creature after the dangerous grace I have just seen conversing, but I still have my softness. I shift my hand in an imperceptible movement as I come alongside the elfling… brush the cuff of his sleeve to say I am there. He flashes me the briefest look that says nothing to the outside world, but much to me.

"I suppose we should catch you up on a thing or two. Who would you count as your second, Master Blade?"

Oren gives me a look… he has given it to me before. It is a glimmer, barely anything, the same range of emotion as I would attribute to a log but I am quite used to reading emotion upon unreadable faces. I see it, and I really do think I am the only dwarf he has ever met. He seems to find me quite fascinating. He would probably be the first.

Oren makes the slightest movement of his hand – I am reminded of Thranduil, oddly – and one of his men steps forward.

He is taller, thinner, older. His hair is not as long, it brushes his jaw, but it is threaded through with grey and hangs loose. His eyes are that of a falcon, his face cragged and worn, but he was beautiful once. I can see it. He frightens me though. All of these men do.

"This is Jin," Oren says.

I wait for more, but that is all that we are getting. I blink at them, they both stare right back, and I sigh. Elvishness in a man. Whatever next.

"Larke will tell you all you need," I say, raising my voice just a fraction, enough for the Whitecloak to hear. He has been paying close attention and rises easily, slips through the throng and steps forward.

He is a good choice; the lad is a captain in the making. He is steady and silent enough to complement these odd men; strong willed and far cleverer than any of us excepting maybe Shutter. They give me the chills, these assassins, they truly do, but Larke seems implacable even in this situation. He and Jin look to one another, nod, walk off at a clipped pace to somewhere more removed where they will discuss the placement of their men. Hob claps Larke upon the shoulder as he passes but does not watch them go; he trusts the lad completely.

Oren takes the moment to send his men toward the water fountain. There are Whitecloaks sat there upon the stone wall, and most of them rise and move away, except one. Bless his gruff and ornery heart I do not recall his name – Ithir? Ithgir? – watches the new arrivals with unreadable eyes, and then offers a wrap of salted beef to the assassin closest to him. He is built like an outhouse, sturdy and lined, grey haired and experienced, but he scowls at the new additions in the way of soldiers. The Whitecloaks fought these men last night, but he cannot choose his battles or hardships. Right now, they are allies.

Men of poorer character might feel hate, cling to aggression, pick a fight to make a point of dominance, but not these… not the Whitecloaks of Gondor. The guards and the khands are different, could not be more different, but they are allied now – or at least, their captains are allied. They fight where they are told to fight, they bleed for the banner that they march beneath, and when their alliances match, then they are all the same.

The khand narrows his eyes in suspicion, the Whitecloak pops a strip of beef into his own mouth to show it is safe, and the assassin relaxes. Takes the food. Sinks upon the wall next to the man who has fed him. They do not speak or do anything else, do not look at one another. They take the moment whilst they can, safe that no matter what banner they have marched beneath, right now it is the same.

I feel an odd sense of weight upon me then, exhaustion coming upon me like storm clouds, but I have no time for it. Sig is there, tugging at my hand insistently. I look down and the lad is wide eyed and afraid, glancing at the assassins that have just joined our group. Shutter comes to me.

"He thinks they have come to take him away," he says lowly, just for me. "Thinks they will take him as they took the Prince. He is confused."

I scowl at him, because the thief probably could have explained this to the lad just as easily, but he shrugs and glances at the boy – a look that tells me that I am better suited for this. Because yes, a dwarf who has never known anything but sleeping in woods, the horrifying and intimate experience of bathing in brooks with the fish, and fighting battles that I cannot win is absolutely the best choice to reassure a child.

I cast my gaze around looking for someone better suited, but the only contenders are no better than I am… worse, in some cases. Most cases.

I crouch before the lad, meet his eyes, and ask him:

"What are you frightened of?"

"I am not frightened," he tells me, affronted, but his face betrays him. He is quite frightened. "These men are odd," he whispers, but he has much to learn of whispering; it carries far enough to have a few dark eyes turned in his direction. "You would be friends with them now?" he asks, and there is much in his voice… the slightest twist of betrayal. He does not understand.

"When you are grown," I tell him, "you will understand better. Now you must trust us, laddie. These men have become our allies for now, and you must not go anywhere with them or listen to them without coming to me or Shutter, Hob or Briar or if you absolutely must then the Prince, but you must trust in us. Things are sometimes confusing."

"Grown folk make no sense at all," he snorts, a moment of fire. I wonder at what the future holds for this lad, and I have no doubt at all that people will know his name one day. He truly is a wolf cub. "If you ask that I trust in you then I will, I have so far, but I think you make a poor decision."

"Unfortunately, young Sig," Shutter finally jumps in. "Unfortunately we cannot always choose our allies. Sometimes, no matter how hard we wish for it and how hard we work for it, what we wish to achieve is beyond us, and we must make strange bedfellows."

"These bedfellows have been trying to kill us," he points out. I have nothing to say to that. It is a good observation for a child so young, and I start to wonder on it myself.

"We have, little Whitecloak," Oren comes up. Sig shrinks back, but I can tell instantly that he likes being called a Whitecloak. He glares at Oren with hard little eyes, and a face that judges us all and sees us all far clearer than any adult. "Are you to join us?"

Oren and Sig face one another down – a street orphan and an assassin – but this is the best thing that Oren could have done. He speaks to the boy as though he is one of us, not a child, and Sig responds to it quite well. Too well, if you were to ask me, which no one has.

"If you hurt my friends, I will be very cross," the lad says. "They have given me a home and been so nice, and no one has ever been nice before, and I will live with Edgar on the sixth circle… I will even learn numbers so that I can live there, I wish for it that much, so if you ruin it I will be angry. My dog will also be angry, and he is a big dog."

Oren blinks at me.

"He is a big dog," I agree with a shrug. Oren crouches before the boy, holds his hand out.

"My people make promises," he says. His accent is musical and pretty, catching on the common tongue the way it does with Legolas… not quite right. "When we make a promise it is shameful if it is broken."

"All promises are that way," the boy scowls, and things are so simple and so clear to him.

"You are quite right," Oren smiles, the first real smile I have seen from him. It is a good smile, and whilst it is not warm or charming it makes him seem more like us. More real. "This is different, though. If I break an oath then I must change my name, can never see my family or go home ever again. I will have died in their eyes, and they will grieve for me but never speak my name again."

"That is… a trifle harsh," Shutter looks horrified, his brow rucked up terribly. Oren flits only a feather of a glance at him, but there is a lot to say in it. Shutter would break a blood oath to get himself out of paying for a meal.

Sig sticks his tiny hand out with a scowl, one that speaks loudly of how important this is to him. We sober, because he is very serious right now, and it is only right that we take him seriously.

"You will help me find Edgar," he says. "Because he is not here, and I cannot find him without help from grown folk. He will know what to do when we find him… he always knows. And you will also make sure that we get to live here, because me and Edgar and Moss… we have nothing else, and we have not been very happy before now but we will be happy here. I know that we will. If you swear your most important and serious oath, the trifle harsh one, then I will help you. Although I will not hurt anyone. Edgar will not want to be my new brother if I am to become like you."

He glances at me, at Shutter, at Legolas… something falters in him.

"I do not think I will be like any of you," he says honestly. "I will be brave like you, and I will help people just as you help them, but… not as you do. Not like this. I think you can all be very unkind and cruel, and I do not wish to grow into a man as you are men. Perhaps it is because you are not men."

I could weep. I could honestly drop to my knees right now and sob like a child out of shame, and even Oren seems taken aback for a moment. He nods though, cards his hand through his hair so that more of it falls loose, but his jaw is like granite. I think this child has affected the assassin as well.

"Then I swear," he says solemnly, shakes the boy's hand, and then it is done. Oren rises, glances at Legolas for a moment, but the elfling is studiously ignoring the lot of us although I know he has heard every word. If he feels shame the way I feel it, then I see none of it in him. The fact that he is as emotionless as the starlit sky right now says to me that it certainly affects him, that he is stung the same as we are.

"We should go," Hob clears his throat. He has stood a respectful distance away, but now none of us know what to say or how to act and so he steps in. "We go to the King, and then to the Tower."

"The Tower?" Oren asks carefully. I realise that he knows little of what we have found out, of what we plan, because much has happened in an extremely short period of time. Jin and Larke return to us as if summoned, and I do not think they realise that they walk in perfect step with one another.

"We are taking this man to the King?" I hear Briar murmur to Shutter, who has definitely not forgiven her quite yet because I feel him stiffen beside me at the sound of her voice. Her silence thus far speaks much of her guilt, but a woman like the Lady cannot remain at one side for long and she seems doubtful. I feel it as well. I cannot trust Oren, certainly not after only a day of alliance, and it is Aragorn for Eru's sake… I would risk nothing on his safety. Not one hair on my own head.

"You have a different thought?" Legolas asks, almost frightening me out of my skin, but I am well accustomed to Legolas appearing nearby when he was only recently far away. Briar looks to him thoughtfully, her eyes considering.

"There are more of us, now," she points out needlessly. "Our forces can be split."

"We were too few only a short while ago, splitting us now that we are of larger numbers puts us right back as we were," Hob points out.

"Aye, but we will be in the place that we need to be… both of them."

"You would be comfortable with the assassins undertaking such a thing without any of us?" Shutter frowns. "With no eyes or ears of our own ensuring things go just as we would have them?"

"No," Legolas shakes his head. I am surprised, although perhaps I should not be; he might see Oren differently to how we see him, but there is no trust. "We should remain together."

"We will arrive at the Tower too late to do anything at all!"

"We will arrive at the Tower when we arrive," Legolas repeats, iron in his voice.

"Our King is not your King," Briar fights, and I start to wonder why she is so insistent. Her eyes flash dark and hot, but the elfling is impassive beneath it and this only seems to irk her more. "You wish only to find your friend."

"You would accuse me of making decisions based upon emotion?" he asks her carefully, and his tone is measured and cool but there is a lot said without any words at all. She flushes, then seems all the more annoyed by it. She bares her teeth for just a moment but realises that he is not to be swayed, and that he has the support of our cluster, such as it is. Legolas has done nothing for us to doubt him, done nothing but fight and bleed and strive to keep us all walking through these dreadful few days. Briar has lost much of that support in her actions recently, no matter the reason behind them. She accepts her defeat with ill grace, but hides it behind stone. She nods, turns upon her heel, and retreats to where Sig has been taken away by one of the soldiers; distracted from this nonsense by the men who have taken him into their care.

It is not planned, but Legolas, Hob and I all turn to Shutter at the same time. Watch him expectantly until he sighs – turns his gaze to the skies for a moment and then follows her with a huff.

"Prepare yourselves," Hob raises his voice – making me jump again – and it breaks a spell that has fallen upon us. The Whitecloaks shift and stir, take a last drink, begin to rise and twist and stretch the stiffness that has seeped into their bones. Oren has kept himself out of our conversation, stood still and to a respectful distance as though he is naught but a statue or a coat stand, but now he turns toward us like a sapling in the wind and locks his honey eyes with the elfling. A wind catches wisps of ebony hair and I wish he would tie it back properly.

"We go to find the King," the elfling says, barely raising his voice, although they are not quite close enough to one another. We have all fallen away again, for a moment it is the two of them and none other stood here. "We will find him, and then we will go to end this, and if you raise a blade or even your voice at King Elessar then you will not feel the hand that ends you. I will slaughter every one of your men, and I will feel no remorse. You are mayflies to me… nothing."

"I believe you," Oren nods. "I have made an oath and I intend to keep it."

I think perhaps I should be more concerned over the elfling's recent habit of both threatening, and actually carrying out, fairly vivid forms of violence toward men, but a part of me is not that surprised if I am honest. His patience is wearing thin with the edain, especially after the last year we have lived, and it is certainly effective. We will speak of it later, I fully intend that we do, but for now I am simply weary enough to let him run loose – to some degree – and enjoy the passage granted by it.

Legolas glances at Sig, who has been hoisted upon the shoulders of a particularly large Whitecloak and is smiling brightly. Looks only for a heartbeat and then away, turns from Oren to say that he is dismissed, and it is perhaps one of the most cutting things he could do. In that movement he has put himself above the assassin in the difficult and convoluted hierarchy of our strange group. I have just a moment to wonder with some curiosity as to where I stand within it before Legolas hooks his fingers lightly into my sleeve… pulls me aside.

It is barely any pressure, barely a tug, but I follow because of it. Legolas has never seen me as anything but an equal, and sometimes I am reminded of how precious that is – how different things could have been, and how far we have come with one another.

We move slightly aside, but we have as much privacy as we can get. It feels right for a moment, just he and I, and it feels as though we are removed a thousand times from the preparations around us. The men ready themselves to leave, but for a moment Legolas and I are an island of calm. The elfling turns his back to the throng – a foolish way to stand if he were anything other than an elf – and I see his walls fall away in an instant. I am the only one that can see his face, just for a short time.

"Torturing men in front of children," I say, because I need to, and this is quite a perfect opportunity. "A common thing in the Greenwood?"

"Almárean would be just as disappointed as you are right now," he tells me, "but Almárean never truly understood. You will never truly understand. And it makes it no better but the boy will grow to be a far better man because of it. I must take solace in that small part. We will speak of it Gimli but not right now… you must watch the Lady Briar."

I am surprised, and I do not try to hide it. I say nothing though; I let him continue.

"Something is not right, I cannot put it to rights, and my head is… it is tangled right now. Too much has happened and I am too weary, too hurt, it is all too loud and I cannot focus. I must watch Oren, I cannot watch her as well. I am alike to him, but you always saw the edain far clearer than I have; you will see what I cannot."

"See better than an elf?" I jibe, because he is exposing himself raw to me right now and I must make a joke of it, if only to make it easier for him. I pause, he stands in silence, and after just the briefest moment I see him relax… a smile forms across his face. Like sunlight cast through bough and leaf he smiles, reaches out and rests his hand upon my shoulder for a moment. He takes strength in my presence, I lean a fraction of my weight into him, and then it is over. We do not need a Shadow granted link to speak without words, we never have.

He clears his throat, and I shift back to carrying my own weight.

"I will," I nod. "But one thing, Legolas. If Aragorn is unhappy that we have come to rescue him when he likely needs no rescue, and when his city is in peril, then this idea is entirely yours. Hob can be decommissioned, Shutter will scuttle back into the woodpile with Briar in tow and I am naught but a tired dwarf. You are significantly more likely to survive his wrath, and so you must throw yourself upon his anger for us. I will remember you fondly… Eru, if it is heroic enough a sacrifice then I might even make a statue in your memory."

Legolas laughs, a true laugh… bright and gossamer soft, and I feel as though a weight lifts from my shoulders at the sound of it. He gives me a look that says much, much of the fondness that he holds for me, and I reach out to clap him upon the shoulder.

"Come, my friend," I push him gently back toward our ridiculous army of children and thieves, constables and assassins, all gathered in a kitchen garden. "We have tarried long here, longer than we should have, and I think our breakfast might well become supper at this rate."

I keep my hand upon his shoulder as we move back toward our men, and so I can feel the tension returning to him. I hold it there just long enough to feel it; the rigidity and bowstring tightness of muscle and sinew return, and I am glad when we separate. I am suddenly anxious, far more than I was, because he has seen something and I have not, and I trust him. I hope that he is wrong, Eru I hope he is, but for now I wish only to remember his laugh, and so I drop my hand back to my side. He pulls himself tight, tall, gathered, and every man that he passes casts a glance in our direction.

It makes me feel out of place and strange for just a while; a sudden awareness of myself that washes across my heart and mind like a wave. They are in awe of him, because of course they are, but they are also afraid of him and they do not trust him entirely. They will follow him because Hob will follow him, and because he is a creature of legend and myth, but they do not relate to him any more than they can relate to the stars or moon. Walking beside Legolas, before men and beneath those whispering stares, I sometimes feel more alone than I ever could without another person around. They never know what to make of me, of us: of what we are, of our intentions. Legolas cuts a blinding figure wherever he goes because he is so odd, so different to all of us, but then there is me right next to him – a dwarf giving counsel to an elf, giving guidance, breaking through the ice and heavy years to bring forth those rare and wonderful laughs… an elf they will never know, but see from a distance.

This feeling… it never lasts, although I know that all of it is true. Every single part of it. It washes away and recedes, because it is this exact feeling that brought us together as brothers in the first. We were both alone amongst many, isolated within a crowd, odd beyond measure and never quite a part. Whether he walks at my side or I at his, we are alone together, and it is company enough. Strange company, aye, and infuriating and I cannot stand him some days, but that is the way of things with brothers.

"Gimli, take the lead if you will," he calls to me, his tone commanding and clipped, and it gets my back up instantly because it was not a request at all. "A dwarf will do far better in rabbit warrens such as these. Larke you are scout if your captain will indulge; Gimli will have us lost and wandering these tunnels for all of our days."

I can almost feel my father glaring at the side of my head for letting an elf speak to me that way, but I blink and breathe and quash it down.

Brother… I have just thought of him as a brother… I meant it a moment ago and I must remember.

"Come," I raise my voice slightly, but I know that it carries. If I know anything about myself, it is that I can be loud. I heft my axe and twist tightness out of my neck – although it is a tightness amongst a thousand and it makes barely a difference – but the men look to me and finally come to muster. They are ready, and I am as ready as I ever will be, and so Larke and I lead them onward – back into the tunnels beneath the mountain.

~{O}~

Aragorn's chambers are intentionally deep, intentionally awkward to come to, quite literally for this very reason. No one wishes for the King of Gondor to have armed men come upon his bed chambers in secrecy, but it is secrecy that we need.

We find our way through the lowers with some success, because Legolas might have the better eyes and ears but he says that the stone distorts and twists the sound into uselessness, whereas I can feel movement upon the stone. We avoid interaction with the intruders where we are able – I can keep us hidden and secret as they pass – but when it is not possible… this is when the elf and the assassin make themselves useful. They are shadows within the shadows, dispatching our enemies in lethal silence, and although it is extremely slow going, we do fairly well of it.

There is one particular walkway, however, that we must navigate to get to Aragorn's quarters. It is wide and brightly lit, very long, and utterly teeming with men who are not ours. There is no cover for us, no way to approach where we would not be cut down in an instant, no way that would give us the advantage. None at all. It is too long and open, too broad and brightly lit.

Sig has shown us yet another tunnel – very short – that the servants use to carry bread from the main servant's corridors into this one. It is a tiny thing – dog-legged off another servant's corridor – and it is older, rougher, lower although I can walk it quite easily. It is clearly well traversed as it is not dusty or dirty at all, but the men complain beneath their breath the whole way and Legolas is a singing thrill of irritation in my mind the whole way along it. We are cramped together like ticks – elbows where elbows should not be and sword scabbards poking into fairly intimate places – hidden behind a single tapestry that covers a door-less opening. We are trapped here though… if we were to exit then we will find ourselves in the centre of a crowd of heavily armed men, all of whom would be delighted to kill us, quite thoroughly.

I would feel smug that I am quite comfortable in this tunnel when my freakishly tall compatriots are twisted over like gargoyles, but it is ruined by what I see outside of the confines we find ourselves in.

I twitch the tapestry aside, just enough to glimpse the corridor without, and there are perhaps thirty men at the end of the wide corridor – a hundred feet away from us at most. They stand idle, unaware that we are here and guarding the ornate and beautiful wooden doors to Aragorn's quarters. They bears the scars of their attempt at entry, a horrible shame as it is quite the feat of craftsmanship, but for now they simply wait. They scratch at their nethers, stare blankly in deep thought, speak softly between them. Even so, they are many and I know from past experience that I should not take them for granted. They are hard looking men, nothing doughy or slow about them. Scarred and weathered and serious.

I let the tapestry fall, we are in the dark, but my eyes are suited well to the darkness.

"We have nothing but surprise," Hob murmurs, a bare breath of sound that I barely catch. "They are too far from us though; they will be prepared long before we reach them. I imagine they are seasoned and strong men, to be guarding the King's door."

"I have a thought," Sig shoves and squeezes his way forward, and we blink at him in surprise. Idiot child that he is he takes the stunned silence for assent, and he lunges forward out of the tunnel and into the corridor before we can stop him. Legolas hisses some utterly foul language that Shutter matches, thankfully drowned out by the shout of alarm from outside of the tunnel. He has appeared so suddenly that I hope desperately no one has seen where he has come from, but I watch what occurs between the sliver of a gap between the tapestry and the wall, my heart hammering in my throat so much that it hurts. It takes everything that I have to stay where I am, and it is only because Sig is an arm length away that I remain so. I could grab him from here, and so I stay my hand.

The boy shouts to gather attention, something puerile that I shall be having words with him about. Laughs, turns around… pulls down his trews and shows the throng of enemy soldiers his tiny little rear end. Wiggles it in the air as though to emphasise whatever point he is making.

I would laugh, Eru I feel a grin form upon my face whether I wished it there or not, but the child's sudden indecent exposure has the men at Aragorn's door shouting angrily, and running toward him. It is exactly what we need, exactly the distraction we required, and so we wait just a few heartbeats for them to come closer and then we pour from the wall with the most noise that we can make.

If a hoard of armed, shouting and muddy men fell out of a wall at me, I would certainly be quite shocked, and so the same is held true for our assailants. I see a bare-bottomed young adan boy yanked back into the safety of the hidden corridor, and this is enough for me to know that he is safe. I lose myself into the fight that breaks out in this hallway, feel the familiarity of it after hours of sneaking around and talking endlessly… and it is exactly what I need.

Legolas and I reach toward one another with our minds, instinctively this time. We do not consider it, we do not doubt it, because we both know that we are on borrowed time with this link of ours and I am damned if I do not take advantage of it whilst I still have it. It is harder, far harder, but we have learned the skill of it and our minds reach out… clasp hands across the distance between us. Elf and dwarf; leaf and stone.

I can see, I can anticipate and I can interpret the world the way I never have before. Legolas loses any fear he feels at being so deep beneath the ground; connects with the Song in a different way and become solid and powerful. We complement one another perfectly and I know for a fact that I laugh as I swing my axe… just the once, just enough for it to be unseemly. I do not care. If any one of these men could feel the intoxication of seeing and feeling as both an elf and dwarf at the same time, they would laugh through bloodshed as well.

~{O}~

Legolas dances with his blades. I can never describe it accurately.

Grace and lethal speed, he has an awareness of his surroundings that I have never known before and likely never will. I am slower, but where he will bend and bow I will force my way through with strength and solidity. These men are skilled – they are well trained, and despite that we have taken them by surprise they have recovered well. We do not have the easy time of it that I had expected, but after a moment of consideration I would think perhaps the men left behind here would be the best amongst them. They guard the King, after all.

They dodge me when I had not expected them to dodge, counter where I had imagined an easy victory, and so the fight lasts longer than I had expected. Significantly longer. Enough to have a thrill of worry in my gut that we might not be entirely victorious.

Just for a moment. A whisper in my mind.

The men we have brought are exceptional. The Whitecloaks who survived – for all I know – and a cluster of Khandish assassins; born and trained through their whole lives, just for this. A woman who has held a huge circle of the city by herself, through blade and kindness and bravery exactly where each was needed. A slippery thief who I wish I still disliked, darting from shadow to shadow with his cloak and cowl pulled over and hiding him fully, slitting throat and puncturing kidney wherever the shadows allow him. We are few, but – frankly – we are marvellous, and I have fought with the laegrim archers of the Greenwood and would class these men as exceptional. It is slow, for a moment I am concerned, but only for a moment.

We dispatch an entire corridor of men, and I do not think I will ever forget the shift of boots upon stone, or the soft and personal sounds of pain as I gave each man his rest. As I kill them.

Raw and real, each blow felt up my arm, and men make such horrible, horrible sounds when they are hurt. I think of Aragorn and steel myself, push it all away. I think of Minas Tirith and of Gondor, but it does not help. It hurts, all the same.

We fight in echoing corridors of stone, where there are no sounds but those of hurt and of struggle and – for some men – their last moments walking these lands. It is nasty and brutal, but eventually we are victorious. The silence falls again… all that I can hear is a ringing in my ears and the scuff of boots upon stone. There is one final cry as the last man dies and then there is nothing.

I wipe sweat from my brow with a hand smeared with blood that is not my own, and although I notice the way it shakes it is not the first time, and is unlikely to be the last.

This did not feel right. None of it feels right, not ever.

I stand upon quivering legs, blinking at the bodies that surround us, each one a brother or husband or son. I breathe heavily and take a moment to gather myself, but Legolas surges forth. He steps over the corpses that litter this hallway as though they are nothing and then reaches the doorway. The massive, impenetrable wooden door that Fallon's men have been unable to breach thus far. He strides forth with blades still dripping, and blood upon his face, pauses, thinks. Glances at me and wavers.

Reaches out and knocks, quite politely.

"Oh, you make a mockery of us," I snap loudly, and Legolas turns and hisses me to silence. He turns back to the door.

Legolas rests both of the palms of his hands flat upon the door, and the rest of us shuffle back although I do not think we mean to or really know why. He rests the side of his head to the solid wood, raps upon it one more time, and then I hear the workings of locks and intricate closures that none have been able to breach. Legolas steps back as the beautiful door swings open, and then there is Aragorn. My dear.. dear Aragorn. Stood right there. Scowling at Legolas with a circlet upon his head and a sword within his hand, pulling the huge door aside. The King of the city we are trying to save.

He glares at the elf that knew him as a child, far younger than Sig is now.

The elf who taught him archery and carried him to bed, soothed his fevers and suffered his foolish pranks… then helped him with them once he had grown a bit.

"I would imagine that you could have come here sooner," Aragorn scowls at Legolas. "Had you tried a trifle harder."

"We had much to do!" I call out before Legolas has a chance to throttle the King of Gondor into the afterlife. I shove him to one side as I pass, reach out and pull Aragorn to me in a tight embrace – one that he does not fight. He relaxes, lets out a breath that I do not think I was supposed to notice, and although I am certain my brothers are both still glaring at one another over my head, he returns the embrace. I pull away, clap him quite hard on the shoulder as I pass, stride into his chambers as though I live there.

"Good evening, Gimli," I hear – a soft and fair voice with a hint of amusement in it. I grin once I see the Queen, because Arwen is dressed for battle in boots and tunic and jerkin but she is also quite comfortably curled into a chair with a slim book in her hand. She returns the grin, her face brightening like the sunrise. She laughs and then I am being embraced again.

"He was quite worried, you know," she murmurs into the thatch of red frizz that my hair has become.

"Oh, I can gather that by the deepness of his scowl. But he usually takes it out on Legolas so we have a moment, and I am utterly famished."

I can hear arguing begin in sindarin behind me, and when Legolas and Aragorn speak to one another in their most comfortable tongue there is no point in trying to follow. It is rapid and hissed and all twisted together in some horrible laegrim dialect. They start to gesture furiously at one another, and so I wave the others in… all of the men stood there uncomfortably, watching this odd reunion.

"Come in, lads. They will be at it for a minute or two, and we might as well eat whilst we wait."

They file in, uncertain and tense and frowning, trailing a mix of blood and dust and mud all through Aragorn's nice rooms. Shutter closes the doors behind him, just to be safe, and then Sig pushes his way to the front of the group.

You brought a child?! I hear Aragorn exclaim in horror, and then they continue, a bit louder this time…

"Are there any honey cakes?" he asks fervently, smiles broadly at the Queen and then bows awkwardly as an afterthought. She laughs, delighted, opens her arms and the boy runs to her with a sound of joy.

We all relax a little, but I wish she had answered.

I do like those honey cakes.

TBC

nfd;nvl