(A/N: Since this chapter is going to exceed 20 pages, I decided to cut it into two so I could give you the first half sooner.)

It was another perfect day. Not a cloud in sight, and a gentle breeze that counteracted the glare of the afternoon sun. The boat bore them ever onwards, and though the current was swift, it was also gentle.

Elden had been lamenting the lack of a fishing rod all morning. By his reckoning they had been on the road for three months since leaving Imladris, which sounded right to Nellas's mind. During that time they had passed very few travelers on the road, but now they were beginning to see dozens of groups, from multiple wagon caravans to single pedestrians, almost all moving in the same direction they were: towards Gondor.

"Spring is a trading season, just like Fall." Elden had told her. "When the snows melt, people need to stock up on goods. Then in the fall, the trading season begins again when the crops are harvested."

He had even stopped a wagon and bought a strange, 5-stringed instrument from the seller while they were taking lunch on the shore. Instead of putting the scratchy cap over her ears and trying to pretend to be a human woman, Nellas had simply hid behind a bush and listened to the cheerful debate over the finer points of the instrument, which looked somewhat like a lute, yet smaller and more compact.

When she had asked him why he bought it, he smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and commenced to playing. He had been strumming off and on ever since, and the sound was actually not unpleasant.

"No more tears my heart is dry, I don't laugh and I don't cry, I don't think about you all the time but when I do I wonder why... you had to go out of my door, and leave just like you did before. I know I said that I was sure, but rich men can't imagine poor..."

He trailed off abruptly and stared down the river, as though trying to see something far off.

"Why do you always sing sad songs?" Nellas asked.

"Sad? You think so? Hmm. I never thought of it that way..." Elden replied. "Most of the good traveling songs I know were composed by lonely people. Humans have a melancholy streak in them, I suppose."

He looked down at his instrument for a moment, and then started up a new song, slower and more melodious.

"Rooound... Like a circle in a spiral... Like a wheel within a wheel... Never ending or beginning... On an ever spinning reel...

Like a tunnel that you follow... To a tunnel of it's own... Down a hollow to a cavern... Where the sun has never shone... Like a door that keeps revolving... In a half forgotten dream... Or the ripples from a pebble... Someone tosses in a stream..."

They floated along in a dream, and as Nellas watched him play, closing his eyes as he spoke the words from memory, she too was transported.

"Keys that jingle in your pocket... Words that jangle in your head... Why did summer go so quickly? Was it something that you said? Lovers walk along a shore... And leave their footprints in the sand...

Is the sound of distant drumming... Just the fingers of your hand? Pictures hanging in a hallway... And the fragment of this song... Half remembered names and faces... But to whom do they belong?"

Even so early in spring, the air had a breath of the summer to come. The banks were lined with white and purple flowers. A tingle ran up her spine at the smell that was wafting from them.

"When you knew that it was over... You were suddenly aware... That the autumn leaves were turning... To the color of her hair..."

It took her a moment to realize that he had stopped singing. She felt like she was floating back to the ground.

"Do you hear that?" He asked.

"Of course I did..." Nellas said, confused.

"No, not that, listen!"

She did, and what she heard caused her to twist round. A rushing, roaring noise. A lake's worth of water, crashing over the edge of a steep cliff.

"The Falls of Rauros!" She said. "But how are we this close?"

Elden did not waste any time, but attempted to steer them towards the bank. Progress was slow, as the water was too deep to push off the bottom, the current was not swift enough to let them steer easily, and the stick was too thin to serve as an oar.

"We may have to jump for it and swim." Elden said, checking the fastenings on his pack and throwing it on hastily before returning to their makeshift rudder.

"With all of our gear? We'll sink like stones."

"I said we MAY have to jump. We're not in trouble until we get to the big statues, I've seen this place before."

At these words they rounded a bend and the river widened dramatically. They were gradually making their way towards the western bank, but it was not fast enough. The stone visages of Isildur and Anárion towered over them, arms outstretched in warning. At the end they could see two clouds of foaming whiteness, divided by the unreachable isle of Tol Brandir, and a great stretch of land beyond, the floodplains of Nindalf that led down to the mountains into which Gondor was hewn. They were several miles away and closing fast. Even at this distance, Nellas knew the boat would not make it in time. Nen Hithoel was longer than it was wide, but that width was still several miles, and they had been cruising along close to the center of the river, where the current was gentler.

"Okay, I take it back. We are definitely going to have to jump." Elden said, cinching up the straps on his pack and double checking his pockets.

He pulled his ring out and slipped it on, apparently afraid the chain would break again. Nellas did the same. She looked at him one last time, and he was changed. His form was shrouded, though as an elf and a fellow ring-bearer, she could still see him. It was a black smoke that poured from his clothing and billowed in great plumes. When he turned to look at her, she saw the fire that burned in his eyes. Some would have been afraid, but she knew that fire itself was not evil. If it was properly kept and fed, it could be the most warm and helpful of servants. It was only when it was handled carelessly that others could get hurt. She had come to believe that this fire existed in both of them. It had kept them going through the long nights in the cold, when both of them had privately contemplated death as a preferable alternative to going another step. It was this fire that had delivered them from the clutches of Mrs. Bones. She had recognized it's glint when first she had him at her mercy all those sunlight afternoons ago in Imladris, and she had gravitated to it. Not blindly, like a moth, but like another lick of flame, joining to create an even greater inferno.

"Ready?"

She nodded, and as one they stood and leaped from the faithful craft. Nellas wriggled like a minnow, and was on the bank after only a few minutes, but Elden was having a bit more trouble. His load was just as large as hers, and he was not quite as strong as she. She ran along the bank of the river, watching with horror as he was dragged closer and closer to the falls. With only a few hundred yards to go, he managed to reach out and snag a tree root. She grabbed his pack and hauled him onto the shore, where he spent the next minute spitting up water.

"I have a confession to make." He said, between gasps.

"And what is that?"

"I never learned how to swim."

"How do you not know how to swim?" Nellas asked, puzzled.

To her it was almost as natural as breathing or walking.

"You forget I'm but a simple country bumpkin." He said with a grin, and she found herself grinning as well.

She looked back at the falls, but the boat was gone. She felt a slight pang. It had borne them faithfully for many miles without sinking, and it was a shame to see it destroyed. A realization came to her: this was the first time either of them had worn their rings since they sailed on from Lothlorien a few days ago. The world that it showed her eyes was different. Before she could see the barrier, the grey rain curtain that separated their world and the spirit world. Now it had been peeled back, and she could see the raw edges, chafing and fraying at one another. It felt like seeing double, with one version of the world perched just slightly behind the other, each phasing in and out gently, like the beat of some ancient heart.

Then she heard something else that distracted her from that thought, and she knew she was not imagining it, because Elden had heard it too: a horn.

It was being blown loud and long, as if in alarm. At the same time it sounded muffled. The noise wavered, as if coming up to them from the bottom of a well.

The silt and mud at the bank of the river was supported by deep roots, muck-weeds and evergreens that had grown here for hundreds of years. This faded rapidly into deep brown soil, with many trees. Farther out from the river, the land slopped upwards. They followed the gently winding trail in this direction, watching as strange shapes appeared all about them. Ghostly orcs dashed past, only to dissolve when they drew more than a few paces away.

"What are they, do you suppose?" Elden asked.

For the first time that she could remember, a note of fear crept into his voice. This in turn frightened her. As far as she had seen, there was very little that could genuinely scare Elden.

"Memories, I think." She said.

None of the creatures seemed to see them, and one even glided through her without any kind of sensation. Ahead of them, farther up the trail, was something that was not an orc. It looked almost like a child, with nut brown hair and a body that stood at least a foot and a half lower than his own. Like the orcs, it's outline was hazy and indistinct, and it cast no shadow as it moved through the patches of sunlight amidst the shade.

As they followed it, the cries of battle grew more distant, until at last they faded entirely, and the three of them were standing beside a great stone seat atop Amon Hen.

"The hill of seeing..." Nellas whispered.

The halfling, for Nellas realized that that was what it must be, turned and gazed off into the distance before fading from sight, just like the orcs. Nellas took the ring from her finger, and looked to where the apparition had been facing. Far away she could see the jagged peaks of Mordor, now devoid of Sauron's foul tower.

Immediately the noise of a distant horn stopped and the sound of bird song and wind rustling in the trees returned. She felt a little out of breath... not herself somehow. Elden removed his ring as well.

They stood there a long while, contemplating. It was Elden who broke the silence

"We should hunt. The lembas bread will run out soon."

The pot bubbled happily, sending the rich aroma of game wafting into her nose. She had developed a taste for meat, she realized, something almost unheard of in a forest elf. Elves could be carnivorous, but usually only did so out of the direst necessity. Then again, they hadn't any choice in the matter. The days of trekking through the leg-deepsnow past Morgoth's old realm had been the most brutal experience of her life so far, and it was only through Elden's seemingly mystical ability to trap game in any clime that they had gotten enough to eat. There was no time for honoring old traditions.

The cooking pot was the same one Elden has used back in Imladris. He was even stirring the same direction. She examined him as he contemplated the stew with a practiced eye, something she did often when he wasn't looking. And when he was.

Back then she had thought of him as a child, but her thinking had changed. Outwardly there was little change in his appearance, apart from the scar where the Rohirrim's arrow had cut his cheek, and the new one on his back from their encounter with bandits after crossing the Misty Mountains. It wasn't him that had changed, she realized, it was her. She knew him better now, how he thought, and how he felt. She knew now that his staid, sarcastic demeanor was a coping mechanism, and that his relatively slim figure disguised a muscular structure honed by long hardship. It always surprised her how strong he was when they embraced one another, feeling each muscle contract and expand where their skin met. His body temperature was slightly lower than hers. Whether this was endemic to his species or just peculiar to him, she knew not.

He looked up, and caught her staring.

"Something on your mind?"

She pursed her lips, thinking of a question that had been bugging her.

"Elden... what do you remember about the war?"

Elden removed the spoon from the pot and leaned it up against his pack, so as to avoid getting dirt on it.

"Very little. I was only eight winters old when it ended. I remember my father going out to fight, when the orcs threatened Edoras, and again when we were all evacuated to Helm's Deep. I remember the noise of their marching, even all the way down in the caves. I remember that when we came up on the fifth day, corpses littered the ground. The soil was soaked with blood, and the stench was... indescribable... I'd never smelled anything like it in my life, at least, not until I was older. What about you?"

Suddenly, Nellas felt very small.

"I... I heard about it. From a distance. I watched them march off to fight, but I chose to stay behind, and continue my studies. I feel ashamed. What would my parents say, were they here to see? That I didn't go and fight the enemy that took them from me?"

She felt his hand on hers.

"They would be proud of you, and happy that you lived. When my father returned, each time I pressed him for tales of battle, and at times he would even open his mouth, as if to begin, but he never did. When the war ended, he spoke no more of it, but I was fascinated. I had to know. So when the king's men came to press young men into service, I did not hide my face, as my father always told me. Even after Sauron was defeated, orcs still threatened our lands. Killing them was like cutting the weeds, it had to be done every year, or we would be overrun. And yet... killing them was not like cutting weeds. Not at all..."

She felt his hand slip away, and his face was suddenly far away. It was a look he wore often, when he thought she was elsewhere.

"They were disorganized. They had been fed by the black hand for so long, they had lost their skill at woodcraft and raided farms openly to sustain themselves. They had lost much of their equipment, their black armor and their cutting edges. We slaughtered them by the hundreds and the thousands, stacked their corpses and burned them."

His head turned back to meet her gaze.

"I expected to feel honor after it. I expected to feel the glory of defending my home and slaying my enemies, and yet... I didn't. I only felt dirty, and not even the roughest soap stone could scour that feeling from my skin."

"So you see..." he continued, sweeping a lock of her hair over her ear in that special way that always sent a tingle down her spine, "...you have nothing to be ashamed of, and that is why I love you."

The sound of those three words thrilled her. Enchanted her. She whispered them back to herself without thinking. I love you.

"Yes," he said, smiling, "I love you Nellas. I love you because you're so much better than me. So much kinder, so much gentler. Do you remember Surad and Durus?"

The memory passed over the sunlight of their love like a swollen raincloud. Fit to burst, but not quite there. Saving it's rain for another pasture.

"How could I forget?"

"Imagine that I had ignored you. Imagine what would have happened if I hadn't heeded your words, and spared them? We would never have found Ferny."

That night, as she lay with his arm draped over her, and listened to the steady rasp of his breathing, she thought of him. The columns of soldiers marching past the forest on the Great East Road had been her only glimpse of man's martial nature, but now it was laid bare in front of her. It was so different, their attitude. They glorified the sword, whereas elves were taught to view it as it was: a tragic tool, born of a dire necessity. More pity than pride was afforded their warrior heroes, for they knew what burdens they must carry the rest of their long lives. How much harder must it be, she thought, to carry those burdens and be made to think of them as points of pride?

Her life had been long and peaceful. His had been short and violent. Yet as she felt his warm breath moisten her bare shoulder, she knew that the future bore them ever onwards, and it did not have to dwell on such things. In time they could pass them by, and let the past be the past.

Soon, she too fell asleep, and in the darkness the rings gleamed.

"It's quite large."

"Yes, but what is it like?" Nellas persisted.

They were sitting by the roadside, waiting for someone to come along. Elden had insisted she wear her woolen cap over her ears. Were it not for her shapely figure she could have passed for a boy with little difficulty. She had kept her hair cut short for many weeks now, and she was starting to see the benefits of the arrangement.

"I don't know-" Elden said, impatiently. "The last time I was there was almost a decade ago. Many of the dwellings were empty and there was still much repair work to be done. From what little I have heard, it has changed much in the intervening years. You may find it to your liking, and then again, you may not. It is one of those things you have to see to truly comprehend. Could you have described Lothlorien to me?"

"I suppose not..."

"So it is with this. Ah, here comes someone now. Let's hope he's feeling charitable."

A caravan of wagons was heading down the road, each with a fabric covering stretched tight over iron hoops. The wheels looked like they had been shattered and reforged at least a dozen times, and the horses were in even worse condition. Still, Nellas was not picky about transportation at this point. She was rather tired of walking, although she did not like to complain in front of Elden. He was one of those people that rarely griped except in humor, and she felt compelled to emulate his example. A sour-faced man with one eye stared down from the lead wagon as he reined in his beast of burden.

"What 'ave we 'ere then? You lost, traveler?"

"Not at all, old sport!" Elden beamed, turning on his charm. "In fact, we were just wondering how much money it would take to convince you to give us a lift to Gondor!"

"I see..." The man said, scratching his chin with a horrendously unclean fingernail. "Well, just throw a few coins my way, and a few more when we get off, and we have an accord."

"Excellent!" Elden said, handing the main a pair of gold coins.

His bushy eyebrows raised significantly at the sight of the money.

"That's a lot to be clinking around in the pockets o' a scruffy lad such as yourself..." He said, eyeballing the coins carefully, doubtless to determine whether they were real.

He must passed muster with him, because suddenly his smile was back.

"For this much, I hardly suppose I can start asking questions though, can I?""

"Strictly forbidden." Elden replied, cheerfully, and the man seemed to find this amusing rather than insulting, because he roared with laughter and stung his horse cruelly with the crop, causing Nellas to flinch.

"Forbidden! Ah, you cheeky blaggard! A man after me own heart! Forbidden- indeed! Jump in then!"

They ran around to the back of the cart which was rapidly gaining momentum and hopped up, Nellas hauling Elden in by one arm. They found a place to sit between the barrels that were lashed down with ragged ropes. After a minute or two of bouncing along in silence, the driver passed a large flask back to Elden, who accepted it with a word of thanks. The two of them proceeded to get sensationally drunk on whatever foul liquor was contained within, Elden out of habit, and Nellas out of boredom. The booze whirled around pleasantly in her head, and she realized that it must also be what was sloshing around in the barrels beside them, and what one or all of the convoy drivers were sipping on.

What a strange way to travel. She thought, and grinned.

Elden lit his pipe, and they watched the parade of traffic go by. Their caravan seemed to be traveling at a swifter pace than most others they passed. The longer they rode, the thicker it became, until the driver was forced to pull off the broken stone and into the grass to go round them. Carpet merchants, blacksmiths, farmers, pilgrims and even the occasional family, all crammed onto two or three horses.

There were patrols of Gondor's soldiers too. Men on horseback with sharp lances and the white tree emblazoned on their armor kept a careful watch. Groups of five were posted every few miles, usually occupying the highest ground they could. Whenever they passed them, Elden looked distinctly uncomfortable and grabbed at his wrist absentmindedly, where she knew the Mark of Mandos lay.

"I hope we don't run into any Rohirrim..." Elden muttered.

"Oh don't worry, there's been so much traffic since the war ended, they don't have time." The one-eyed man said, having apparently overheard him. "The only reason soldiers stop people these days is to exact a bribe."

The Ered Nimrais, known to men as the Whitehorn Mountains, grew larger as the road drew alongside them. It took the better part of the day for them to round the feet of these mighty peaks, during which time the nameless alcohol wore off, leaving nothing but a dull ache behind. Suddenly, the final ridge was behind them, and she saw the city.

Elden was right. It was large. Larger than anything she had ever seen. The sheer immensity of it took her breath away. It made Lothlorien seem almost quaint...

The city proper was seven tiers of solid stone, shaped over the course of centuries. Arrayed about the walls outside Minas Tirith were three roads, one leading west, one leading east, and one leading south, to Osgiliath. Crowded in between these roads, taking up almost all the available space between the river and the walls were hundreds and hundreds of shacks. They were constructed of anything and everything. Rotted wooden planks, timbers from ships and wagons that had been scrapped, scraps of iron, and even dirt. Within this sprawl a vast mass of humanity bustled, jostled, shouted, laughed and screamed. Market stalls lined the routes. Smoke rose from a thousand fires, most of it coming from Osgiliath.

She had never seen so many humans in her life. It was overwhelming, bewildering, and it didn't smell all that pleasant either. Their cart bumped along, but instead of taking a right towards Minas Tirith, they swung left, towards the ruins of Osgiliath. The remnants of the once proud city in the shadow of Gondor stuck up like jagged teeth or broken shards of bone hastily buried. The new arrivals had taken it upon themselves to clear the rubble from the streets, and to board up the places where Mordor's relentless siege engines had broken through the masonry. The variety of humanity on display here made the tavern back in the Chetwoods where they had run into Ferny look like a quaint country tavern. People without a single coin to their name squatted in the muck. Men who wore the title "bandit" as a badge of honor stared at the endless stream of wagons that rolled through with dubious eyes.

The one-eyed man pulled up hard on the reins, causing the horse to snort and champ at the bit.

"Well, this is your stop, I believe. You want to make some money, boy?"

"How so?" Elden asked, his ears pricking up.

"I'm sorry, we really must be going..." Nellas said, trying to drag Elden away, but he shrugged her off.

"Well, I was going to offer you a few coins to help unload, but you're already pretty well off, it seems. Pretty rich for a pair of travelers too."

"I'm not rich, I'm just a... well... an 'acquisitions expert', if you will." Elden said, one of those troubling grins on his face.

The one-eyed man returned it.

"Aye, well, if that is true you will always be able to find work with me, young master. My name is Onidas."

"Elden." Elden said, extending his hand. "I may take you up on that offer, but not today. We have to find lodging in the city before sundown."

"That would be a wise choice," the man replied, taking the proffered hand and shaking it firmly, "but I don't think you'll have any luck, even with a pocket full of gold. The lower levels are full to bursting, and Maximus won't allow any more into the top tiers."

"Thanks for the tip."

The one-eyed man tipped his hat to them and jumped down to help his men secure the wagons and unhitch their steeds.

"Who is Maximus?" Nellas asked as they turned and walked back towards the river crossing.

"The Steward of Gondor. He is in power until the king returns, rather like the Lord Regent in Edoras."

This time as they waded through the press of bodies, the squalor was more intimate. More real. How could people live like this? Perhaps they had no choice.

A young boy in the clothes of a street urchin matched their pace, jogging along beside her, his eyes imploring.

"Can you spare a coin to buy a bit of bread, my lady?"

Nellas immediately began to reach her left hand into her pocket but Elden grasped her hand quickly. The lad realized that he wasn't going to get a response in the affirmative and disappeared back into the press of bodies. Nellas looked round at Elden in shock and disbelief.

"What- what did you do that for?!"

"There are at least a dozen people watching us, and I bet no less than half of them are thieves or worse. We can't afford to draw attention to ourselves."

She opened her mouth to protest further, but she found she had no retort. What he said made perfect sense, and now that she took the time to observe their surroundings. For some reason, even though she understood the motive, it deeply troubled her.

As they walked down the lane, a strange feeling fell over her. She felt lighter somehow, as though she could see past, beyond, and through everything, to what ultimately lay behind. It was different though, than putting the ring on. Instead of a smoky veil drawn back, the world became translucent, and she could see clearly, a thousand leagues in any direction she chose. She cast her gaze to the east, where she thought she saw a great, dark door waiting to be thrown open. The faint snatches of a song were coming from that direction, unhindered by the shouting and stamping of the crowd around them. The ground, the mountains, the buildings, they all hardly seemed real anymore, compared to that music, that terribly sad yet terribly beautiful music... It seemed similar to a tune Elden had been humming for days.

Then she shook her head, and the feeling had passed.