Chapter 16

Ugh. Sports day. I ended up playing rounders, climbing, and then running the 1500 and the relay. I literally nearly died. Plus it was ridiculously hot as well.

Anyway, this is the third to last chapter! Aragorn and Legolas are back for this one, and then most of the emotional impact of what occurred last chapter will happen here, to a certain person... Things will become clear. Any response that I get from you guys really does make my day, remember!

Disclaimer: see chapter 1.

0-o-0-o-0

It took them a day to get out of Ithilien and onto the road to Osgiliath, stopping for the night amongst the woods with the injured Ranger continuing on to the city. Belhadron had taken watch once again, and this time perched up on a low branch of one of the trees. Again, his knees had been drawn up to his chest and held loosely there by encircled arms. His quiver had hung from one branch, his sword belt next to it. He had spent the night cleaning his weapons, and Rangers had fallen asleep to the surprisingly comforting sound of a whetstone against steel.

By the time they returned to Minas Tirith, it had been a week and a half since they had left. Faramir and Belhadron rode up to the sixth level together. Mablung had been with them until the fourth level, when he had suddenly reined in his horse as a pregnant woman stepped out onto the main street. Mablung had flung himself off his horse and rushed to his wife once Faramir had nodded permission, and the two of them had disappeared.

Faramir reined in his horse at the gate to the sixth level. Beregond stopped and looked back, about to ask, but Faramir held up his hand, asking for a minute. Belhadron touched Ascar on the neck and the stallion obediently stopped.

Faramir turned to the elf. "I just wanted to say thank you," he said. "For coming. I know it was not the easiest thing to do, to go back to battle."

"Why do you speak this?" asked Belhadron, his voice merely curious, and Faramir smiled softly.

"We should not have to fight anymore," said Faramir simply. "The war ended a year ago." Belhadron chuckled wryly.

"Are you certain?" he asked wryly. "It is easy to forget." Faramir laughed softly, but there was a tinge of sorrow in the sound.

"But thank you," said Belhadron. Ascar pawed impatiently, and Belhadron nudged his flanks with his heels, allowing him to begin to walk forwards again. "Though I think it will be a long time before we find fighting strange."

Faramir nodded. "I suppose it will be," he said, and he pushed his horse forwards under the archway to enter the sixth level of the city.

Aragorn and Legolas met them on the sixth level outside the stables, and both of them seemed to deflate with relief ever so slightly at seeing Faramir and Belhadron. Aragorn murmured something to Legolas, and then both of them stepped forwards as Faramir and Belhadron, Beregond behind them leading Mablung's horse, dismounted.

"Faramir," said Aragorn with a smile, clasping his arm. Legolas had briefly pulled Belhadron into an embrace and the two were talking softly in the rolling tongue of Silvan, a small smile on both their faces. "I've heard all the reports."

Faramir nodded. "It went well," he said. "I've left the other captains in Ithilien with close to a hundred men. They will continue to check the southern areas for any men that slipped through the gaps, but for now I think Ithilien is clear." He handed his horse over to a stable hand, gently patting the stallion's neck in a small thank you.

Aragorn nodded, and then his face sobered. "The Ranger who was wounded in the last skirmish," he said. "He returned to the city earlier today but the healers got to him too late, and he died about ten hours ago."

Faramir sighed, shaking his head slightly. "I thought it would come to that," he said honestly. "That wound was not something he would have been able to come back from very easily, if at all." He was slightly surprised that the Ranger had managed to cling on for the return journey to the city, but then he supposed he should not doubt the will of his men, after all they had done. "Has he family in the city? He was never under my command, so I don't know."

Aragorn shook his head. "I spoke to his captain. He has a sister in Dol Amroth. No wife or children and no other family. His captain is making arrangements for his body to be sent to her to be buried."

Faramir nodded again, with a slight sigh. As if that made it any easier to know someone was dead. It was strange, how they measured grief over someone by how much they left behind: friends, a family, a life left unlived. As if someone who left behind less was less worthy of being grieved, or being mourned.

Standing a little apart, Belhadron was telling Legolas broadly of what happened in Ithilien, and the blond elf noticed the slight tiredness in his voice, the way he rubbed at the dried blood on his hands. With a smile and a farewell to Aragorn, the two elves took their leave and headed up to the citadel, leaving Faramir and Aragorn standing still in the yard.

Faramir idly scraped some of the Ranger's dried blood off his hands, and then stilled, looking down at the red brown flecks. Aragorn looked over at him.

"It is not your fault," he said softly, and he stepped forwards towards the citadel, Faramir following.

Faramir grimaced slightly. "You and I both know that is not entirely true, my Lord," he said. "I gave the orders to take the Easterlings, when I knew our numbers were not wholly sufficient. I knew the risk that I was taking. It was an acceptable risk, otherwise I would not have taken it, but a risk nonetheless, and this time, it got a man killed." Though he had been in command of men for a long time now, though he had seen many of them die, still he carried the guilt of their deaths a little. Not all of it, because the world was not fair and he would not survive that weight, but enough.

Aragorn seemed to guess what he was thinking, because he shook his head. "I trust in your decisions," he said. "But a little over a year ago, we would have hardly thought of one death like this."

"The view is vastly different on the other side of war, and it will take a while to realise that. But remember that, whilst men may be responsible for many things, many evils and hurts, I do not think that war is something we came up with."

Faramir smiled despite himself. "I suppose we did not," he said softly. They reached the top of the steps up to the citadel, and Faramir smiled upon seeing Eowyn waiting under the shade of the White Tree. She moved forwards and reached out, taking one of his hands despite the dried blood smeared in places. Aragorn smiled.

"Take some rest," he said to Faramir. "I will speak to you this evening." He nodded and turned to walk away. Faramir turned to Eowyn with a smile.

"You are unhurt?" she asked.

"I am," he said, his voice a little weary. She squeezed his hand, and he returned the gesture. "I will be alright," he said, turning to look out over the peace of the Pelennor in the late afternoon. "The view just takes some getting used to."

0-o-0-o-0

Belhadron tugged his long dark hair out from where it had been trapped under the collar of his shirt, and turned to Legolas. "Better?"

"It always looks better without the bloodstains," said Legolas. He leant back in his chair as Belhadron brushed his fingers through his hair, wincing as they caught on a knot. "You didn't get hurt at all?"

Belhadron rolled his eyes. "Sometimes I get confused why people think I am protective of you," he said with a smirk. "I am sure you would know if I were hurt. You always do."

Legolas smiled, and inclined his head. "You once managed to hide an arrow wound from me for a day, if you remember." That had been another interesting time about two hundred years ago, when orcs from Dol Guldur hoped to use the distraction of Smaug to venture further north into Mirkwood.

Belhadron laughed. "That hardly counts. You were unconscious and then disorientated for most of that day anyway. And it was barely an arrow wound. Closer to a graze, I would say." They had ambushed a small party of orcs, but they themselves hadn't had large numbers and the terrain had been difficult, even for elves. An orc had flung itself at Legolas and though the elf had killed it, shooting it through the chest, he had been pushed over the small cliff they were fighting next to, knocking himself out on the way down, if only for a minute. In the grand scale of all the battles they had fought under those trees, this one was barely anything, unmemorable if not for their elven memories.

"So you like Ithilien?" asked Legolas. Belhadron nodded.

"It is young," he replied with a soft smile. "And all together different from home. I think that yours and Aragorn's plan could work well. We can't do anything at the moment, I don't think." They all needed some time to realise that the darkness was truly gone and not coming back.

"You're right," said Legolas. "But in a few years, maybe a decade at most, we could make it work. Do you think we can work with the men of Gondor?"

Belhadron hesitated. "It might take a little time," he said thoughtfully. "I spent a while convincing Faramir that I did not have…magic." Legolas laughed at that, for it had been not an uncommon belief amongst those of Laketown and Dale, and whilst Belhadron had had very little contact with them, as a Prince he had come to know them a little better, and had heard talk of such magic amongst the men.

"But he is a good man," said Belhadron with a smile. "He is learned, in a way that I was not expecting of men, and is a good captain." It was good to know that their history would not be easily forgotten when the elves had all but left these shores, even if it was mostly Noldor history, and Silvan elves barely featured.

Legolas nodded, and then a thought suddenly struck him. "What happened to that Ranger?" he asked. "The one who died? Aragorn told me when the news came up to the citadel, but he didn't know much details of the skirmish. Who was he?"

Belhadron shrugged. "He was stabbed in the chest, but his name I don't know," he said. The next moment he stopped suddenly, as if frozen. When he turned back to Legolas, his eyes were wide and filled with horror.

"I don't know," he whispered. "Ai Valar, a man died and I just…I cared and then I just…I just stopped." He ran one hand over his face, tugging slightly on his hair.

Legolas stood, coming to stand opposite him. "Belhadron-" he started to say, but the elf in question shook his head sharply.

"Don't," he said bitterly. He slumped against the wall. "Just…don't." He laughed bitterly. "Elbereth. Has everything left me so damn damaged that I don't even care when someone dies? For the sake of the Valar, Legolas, I was the one who pressed a bunched up cloak to his chest to try and stop the bleeding!" Belhadron ran a hand over his face, cursing under his breath in what Legolas thought sounded like Khuzdul.

"You did what you had to do," said Legolas, leaning on the back of the chair.

"That's just it," said Belhadron with a grimace. "It's over. We don't have to do that anymore."

"Fair enough," said Legolas. "Let me amend what I said. You did what you have learnt to do, because one year cannot undo a lifetime of training, Belhadron, and you know that. You did what we always did, which was to shut it out, and not think of it, because otherwise we risked it being all brought down around us."

Belhadron shook his head, and Legolas held back a sigh. "Don't feel guilt for what we have all learnt to survive," he pointed out. "I would much rather you stopped caring about a man's death now, when we have won and are still standing, than you cared and died a hundred years ago."

Belhadron glared at him, and Legolas' face softened. "We have been trained to forget those who died, mellon-nin," he said softly. "Because otherwise to keep fighting would have been impossible. Forget is the wrong word, I suppose, because I don't think we are ever going to forget, but we certainly did our best. We stopped thinking of it. And you cannot blame yourself for a survival technique."

Belhadron sighed, and he suddenly looked broken, the near perfect mask slipping from his face to fall to splinter into pieces on the floor. And Legolas watched without a measure of pity, because he knew that was just what everyone who had been through this war looked like, when they didn't care about maintaining the charade, and his pity was not deserving of them.

"It was easy," Belhadron murmured, his gaze falling onto the floor. "Surviving the war. It was surprisingly easy." He sighed heavily, and looked up to see Legolas watching him carefully. Despite himself, he grinned. "Do not look so worried," he said. "I am being melancholy. I will be alright."

"No, I know what you mean," Legolas said, a sad smile across his face. "Fighting, surviving the fighting, has always been surprisingly easy. We had a purpose, mellon-nin, and no time to think of much else. Dying in the war would have been easy as well: all it would have taken was a well-timed blow or arrow. It's surviving all of this that is going to be difficult."

Belhadron chuckled. "You make it sound so much more than it is," he said with a wry smile. "We don't have to survive anything anymore." But even as he said it, he knew it was not entirely true.

Legolas chuckled. "Maybe so," he said. "Maybe so." He pulled Belhadron's soft leather jacket off the back of the chair and handed it over. The dark-haired elf pulled it on with a wry smile.

"We always knew it would be something like this," he said. "And I should not be complaining that we triumphed." He shook his head. "We should go."

The two elves left the room, and the door swung shut behind them with a soft click. In the grate, the remains of the fire smouldered with a deep orange.

To Be Continued...

Two more chapters left! There is less of an obvious emotional damage and trauma in this story because I think elves especially would have become used to everything, and things such as this never become resolved over the course of a conversation, let alone a single story. Next chapter will be up on Tuesday. As always, reviews are always welcome.