Aiër

by emon14

Shëanon embarks on a quest that will change her life forever and must come to terms with her heritage, her abilities, and the desires of her heart. Tenth Walker. Legolas/OC

39. Chapter 32 Part 2

Aiër Chapter 31 Part 2

Shëanon was sitting on the floor in one of the stalls in the long stables that held the horses of the guards of the Citadel, cross-legged in the straw. Bright sunlight was filtering in through the open doors and the slatted windows, and though there were some stable hands about, it was, for the most part, quiet.

Beside her on the ground was a large wooden bucket that she'd filled with carrots and apples, and as she'd expected, they'd been very well received. Hasufel had been so happy to see her that he'd practically knocked her over when she'd arrived, outstretching his neck to bump and nuzzle her enthusiastically with his nose, but it hadn't taken long for him to stick his face eagerly into the bucket. She'd brushed him, checked his hooves, and finally slumped down into the hay beside his water trough, idly feeding him his treats.

She'd been there for a couple of hours, at least. Resting as she was on the ground, no one could see her if they strode into the stable, which…. wasn't exactly the reason why she was sitting there, but it wasn't not the reason, either.

It wasn't that she was hiding, she tried to assure herself.

She just didn't want anyone to find her.

Shëanon bit her lip and watched as Hasufel munched his carrot.

When she'd left the Houses of Healing and had taken up residence in her new room in the King's House, she'd tried to—to set aside her worries. At first, she had attempted to take her meals with her companions, seated at their long table in the bright white hall of Merethrond, but she'd found it increasingly difficult to smile and share in the pleasantries and laughter of Merry and Pippin and Gimli, and the grins she'd forced hadn't seemed to fool anyone. Indeed, her brothers had watched her like hawks, and Aragorn frowned every time he looked at her, and Gandalf appeared so somber and knowing when he set his gaze upon her that Shëanon had taken to fleeing in the opposite direction when she saw him coming, for she feared what he might say to her were he to find her alone.

Frodo and Sam she had started to avoid, also. The sight of them made her feel nervous and on edge, as though she were right back in the Orc camp—and truly she often found she could not bear to look directly at Aragorn or Elladan or Elrohir at all, either, for sometimes seeing them she saw instead their dead bodies on the floor of Sauron's throne room, and felt that she would be sick.

But worst of all was Legolas.

Shëanon grimaced and shifted in the hay.

For weeks he had been attentive and caring without fail. At meals he sat beside her, taking it upon himself to load her plate with more food than even the hobbits could eat, pouring her tea he insisted she drink, and yet making no comment nor protestation when she often rose with her food scarcely touched and the tea gone cold. He stood so frequently outside her bedroom door at night that she worried he wasn't sleeping at all, sometimes waiting with one or both of her brothers, but sometimes standing guard alone. When Shëanon began screaming from her nightmares, he burst into the room at once to wake her, building her another fire if the one in her hearth was burned out but never commenting about her obvious terror in the dark, and never asking her about the dreams that afflicted her.

Every time, he had asked her if she wished his help to sleep, and every time, sweaty and trembling in the wake of the nightmare, besieged by guilt and shame, she had refused his offer. Often, she would not even meet his gaze. She couldn't stand to look into his eyes and behold the depth of worry she was causing him, for he was clearly worried indeed. It was plain to her that Legolas was deeply troubled. He spoke little to her and to the others, and his bearing was sober and tense, and in the scant moments when he held her after her nightmares, she could feel the stress and concern pouring off of him.

So Shëanon had stopped sleeping. She had begun skipping meals and avoiding her friends. She had taken to sitting up awake at night so that she would have no nightmares to trouble Legolas. In her exhaustion, she paced back and forth in her chamber, wringing her hands and trying to chase away the pull of sleep. Sometimes she did not go to her room at night at all, but rather paced circles around the great library or the gardens of the Citadel.

Sometimes, she crept into Aragorn's study in the middle of the night or during the height of the day when he was not there and succumbed to her weariness curled up slumped on the divan before the fireplace, waking with a start every few minutes, afraid of what she would see if she fell too deeply asleep and dreading that she might cry out and bring Legolas running.

She remembered the dreams she had shared with him in Rohan, and the prospect of accidentally showing him one of her horrible night terrors made her stomach twist with panic and revulsion. Her nightmares had only gotten worse after the first one she'd suffered in the Houses of Healing. In them, she was often returned to her chains in her cell in Barad-dûr while the Orcs lunged at her, intent on eating her, and in her sleep she could feel their gnashing teeth piercing her skin. Sometimes she dreamed that she was again lost on the plains of Gorgoroth, but in the nightmares she found her way to the Black Gate and could see Legolas and Aragorn and her brothers in the distance, and as she ran toward them the Nazgûl found her, or the Men from the tower, or a whole band of Orcs came upon her unawares and dragged her screaming back to Sauron while she shrieked and struggled and tried in desperation to reach her family. Sometimes she dreamed that the images Sauron had shown her indeed came to pass, and she found herself helpless as he slew Aragorn and Legolas, and Elladan and Elrohir, and the hobbits, and Gimli… And all the while her father and Gandalf and Galadriel lurked in the corners of the nightmares, the rings upon their hands gleaming, their eyes sightless and their skin gaunt, like waking corpses—like wraiths.

Sometimes she dreamed that she was falling and falling from the clutches of the fell beasts of the Nazgûl, dropped from high in the air and hurtling toward the ground.

Sometimes she again dreamed that Sauron was whipping her and burning her skin and prying into her mind. Sometimes Legolas was being tortured, but sometimes he was watching her torture with that same look of disgust on his face she had seen in Barad-dûr.

Sometimes she dreamed that she was grappling with the man from the tower, only instead of killing him, he disarmed her and raised an alarm, and did terrible things to her…

No, she had decided with a certainty, Shëanon could not risk Legolas seeing these dreams. She could not ever tell him about any of it. She could not even risk being too long in his presence, for though he had no power to read her thoughts, she had the awful feeling he could somehow see in her face what torments were in her nightmares, and indeed perhaps what horrors had truly befallen her in Mordor.

She fed Hasufel an apple and closed her eyes.

She was so tired.

Nervously, she laid her hand over her heart and drew a deep breath. Her heart was beating steadily beneath her palm, her chest rising and falling slowly. She swallowed.

Something had been very wrong with her in the preceding weeks. Even when she had not been tormented by her nightmares, she had begun to experience terrible bouts of dread that came upon her at odd moments. It had first happened on the day she had left the Houses of Healing. Legolas had taken her into the garden that lay beyond them, where Merry, Pippin, and Gimli had been sitting in the cool shade beneath a tall tree. At their arrival, the two hobbits had leapt to their feet and cheered, lifting tankards of ale and exclaiming so loudly that birds in the branches above them had flown off in a rush.

"There she is!" cried Pippin.

"Our lady!" Merry had bowed.

"Looking much recovered, isn't she, Merry?"

"Fit as a fiddle!"

Shëanon had looked at them in astonishment, and then at Legolas, who had offered her a small smile.

"What's all this?" she'd asked. On a blanket before the hobbits had been such a spread of food that she'd had to wonder if they'd taken several trips each from the kitchens just to carry it.

Pippin had hastily set a cup in her hand.

"This," he'd said very importantly, "is a party."

She'd skeptically accepted the mead he'd given her and had gingerly moved to sit in the soft grass beside Legolas. The wind on their faces had been clear and clean, and the sun had been warm, and bees and butterflies had been flitting between the budding flowers all about them.

"What are we celebrating?" she'd asked.

"You," Legolas had murmured.

"Me?"

"You're the last one to leave the Houses of Healing," Merry had grinned.

"I was first," Pippin had said.

"And then me," Merry had clanked his cup against Pippin's and had taken a drink.

"Then Sam."

"Then Frodo."

"And now you," Legolas had said quietly.

Shëanon had looked upon the spread of food and drink with her face burning, and then at each of her friends.

"Did everyone else receive a party, also?" she'd asked.

Merry had winked at her.

"We might have raised a glass or two to their good health."

"Or three or four," Pippin had nodded.

"And several pipes and plates of food, I'm sure," she'd laughed, and for a moment, she'd felt lighter of heart than she had in weeks.

They'd sat for a time picking at the spread that the hobbits had provided while Gimli and Merry and Pippin had smoked their pipes. Gimli had begun to regale them with stories of Dwarvish parties, which according to him always included at least six different kinds of meat and ten varieties of ale, but when Merry and Pippin had launched into an account of Bilbo Baggins' birthday party, she'd suddenly felt a sharp pain in her chest and had almost spilled her drink.

"Gandalf made us wash all the dishes—"

"Quite the overreaction, in my opinion—"

"That firework was the talk of the whole Shire—"

"Should've been thanking us, if you ask me—"

Shëanon had suddenly heard them as though from a distance, though still they'd been sitting right across from her. She'd felt very hot, then, her skin breaking out into a cold sweat, and her heart had seemed to pound as though she'd just run a sprint. Though she'd been out in the fresh, fragrant air, she'd suddenly felt that she couldn't breathe. An awful feeling had stricken her so deeply that for a moment she'd feared she'd have a vision, thinking of the times in Moria and at Dunharrow, but nothing had happened. Instead, the moments had passed, but the uneasy feeling had not left her.

She'd abruptly felt, viscerally, the way she had felt upon the plains of Gorgoroth, choking on the putrid ash, struggling to draw breath, and waiting to be seized by the Nazgûl—

"Aiër?"

She'd started and had glanced up to find Legolas watching her closely, and to her embarrassment, she'd realized that Merry and Pippin and Gimli had stopped speaking to look at her, too.

Her mouth had gone dry.

"Forgive me," she'd stammered. "I think I must be—wearier than I thought—"

"You've gone white, lassie," Gimli had frowned.

The breathless feeling had gotten even worse.

"Perhaps I—perhaps I should go lie down," she'd bitten out. "Thank you—for the party—"

Then as Merry and Pippin had looked at her in utter bewilderment, she'd hurried to her feet and had walked as quickly as she'd felt she could get away with from the garden.

Now, in the stable, Shëanon cringed to think of it. Once she'd turned the corner and had been convinced her companions had no longer been able to see her, she'd all but run back to the room in the Houses of Healing she had only just left, and when she'd heard Legolas call after her, she'd run faster. She'd locked herself in her room, and then locked herself into the adjoining washroom, where she'd crouched to sit on the floor against the door, laying her head upon her knees and struggling to take deep breaths. Her hands had been shaking, and the pressure in her chest had been so severe that she'd felt she was being crushed.

It had been worse than how she'd felt that day, sitting by the stream and crying in Rohan. Though she'd known herself to be safe in Minas Tirith—though she'd known Sauron was vanquished, and that no harm would befall her—she'd felt a rising panic that something terrible was about to happen, and she'd been so hot she'd had to strip off her dress, and her hands and legs had been seized by pins and needles, and still her heart had been beating so fast she'd begun to fear it would seize up entirely.

From inside the washroom, on the floor in her underclothes, she'd heard Legolas knocking in the hall on the door to her room, and she'd pressed her hands over her mouth, trying to stay quiet. Part of her had feared that if he'd thought her to be in true distress, he might have broken down both the doors. She had no doubt he was capable of doing so, and yet part of her had almost gone to let him in, for in truth, Shëanon had been frightened. She'd wondered if perhaps something indeed was the matter with her—if she ought to beg Legolas to find Aragorn or her brothers, or one of the healers in the hall, and tell them that she was ill—that she couldn't breathe—she couldn't feel her hands—that her heart was beating out of her chest—

But she hadn't let him in. Shëanon had sat on the floor for near to an hour, shivering and panting, until finally the vice about her chest had seemed to slowly release her, and her fear had begun to ebb, and her heart had seemed to slow. Then she'd stood and washed her face at the basin in the corner, and pulled her dress back on over her shift, and quietly crept back through her room.

Legolas had no longer been in the hallway, and she had been unspeakably relieved, and yet she had also been deeply ashamed.

She was still ashamed.

Shëanon thought about the moment she had sought Legolas on the deck of the Corsair ship, after he had heard the seagull, and she'd been tremendously worried about him. She remembered how he had drawn her to him and confided all that had been troubling him. How would she have felt if he had instead retreated below deck into some cabin and locked her out? It would have hurt her terribly, and she would have worried all the more, and she knew that he would not have done it to her.

But she was too humiliated to tell Legolas the truth: that she was lapsing into fits of terror for no reason. That she was afraid even though there was nothing to fear. That she was apparently so pathetic that she was reduced to paralyzing dread if someone so much as moved too suddenly in her presence. She imagined Legolas standing before her that time in the washroom while she'd rocked back and forth, half-dressed on the floor, clenching and unclenching her numb, cold fingers into fists, gasping for breath and pressing her palms frantically to her breast as though she might somehow reach her sprinting heart through the barriers of bone and flesh.

The disgusted expression he sometimes wore in her nightmares appeared before her eyes, and Shëanon flinched and frantically shook her head and tried to banish it. He wouldn't look at her that way—he wouldn't—

But already she had burdened Legolas with so much. How could she keep piling more of her own worry and hardship upon him? It seemed selfish and unfair, to burden him with more. And indeed, though Legolas had always been very patient with her, she feared his patience might soon run out. Perhaps he would no longer wish to shoulder her problems. She could hardly have blamed him—he certainly had enough to worry about, already. She knew he was consumed by worry for his father and must surely have been desperate to return to his home to see what evil had befallen his people. She knew he must surely have been thinking often of the Sea Longing. He also passed the greater part of each day helping Aragorn and Gandalf and her brothers put the city of Minas Tirith back together stone by stone. He had more than his fair share to face without the weight of her troubles, too. How could she expect him to contend also with her nightmares every night? Or with her mortifying bouts of panic?

Perhaps he would decide she was not worth it.

Perhaps he already had.

Shëanon drew a deep breath. She was starting to feel the dread creep in even as she sat there.

The truth was that Legolas had said nothing when she had stopped going to breakfast in the mornings. He had said nothing when she had stopped sleeping in her room. He had never said anything about the day she'd fled from her party in the garden, nor did he question her on the many other occasions after when she'd offered feeble excuses to flee a room. In fact, though he remained attentive and chivalrous whenever they were together, she and Legolas had hardly really spoken in weeks, and when she did see him, his face seemed so blank that it made Shëanon feel nauseous. It reminded her of the way he'd been after the battle of Helm's Deep.

She scrubbed her hands over her face. She felt that there was no path she could take that would be right—that no matter what she did, she would still do wrong by him.

Part of her was desperate to tell him all that had happened, to confide in him and free herself from the heavy weight she felt in keeping so many terrible secrets, and indeed she knew that that was what he wanted. But a bigger part of her shied away from the very notion. What would Legolas do if she told him even half of what had happened to her? If she spoke to him of the groping Orcs and the leering Men and the blatant torture she had suffered in the throne room? She thought again of the vision she had had of him arguing with Aragorn about how to rescue her, and his visceral anguish and fury… 'Have you no idea what he could be doing to her?' Shëanon winced and squeezed closed her eyes against a distinct pang of remorse and wretchedness and guilt. How could she tell him what had happened when just the thought of her harm had driven him to such heights of suffering?

Hasufel nosed her hand, and with tears in her eyes she fed him another carrot.

But it was not just that she didn't want to disturb and horrify Legolas. If she were truthful with herself, she had to admit that not all her reasons for remaining silent were selfless. She shivered on the ground beside the bucket and hung her head.

She was afraid to tell her companions why Sauron had captured her. She could not deny it. She was afraid of what they would think if they knew the truth. Shëanon imagined the look in Aragorn's eyes if she told him their entire quest could have failed because of her. If he knew how close she had come to failing them all, or what use she could have been to the enemy. How her blood could have been the downfall of all Middle-earth. And Legolas…

What would Legolas think if he knew who her sire was?

Shëanon's insides twisted with dismay and anxiety and more guilt still. She felt she was deceiving him by not telling him. All the care he had been showing her, adding honey to her tea and standing guard by her door and holding her against his heart while she fought the evils of her dreams? How could she accept it when she knew his feelings might change if he knew the truth? She was the daughter of a kinslayer and the granddaughter of quite possibly the worst elf in the history of Arda. Saruman had not been lying when he had called her accursed. If she was of the house of Fëanor, she might very well have been cursed, indeed. And Legolas and his father were of the Sindar, and their kin had despised the sons of Fëanor most of all. She felt a weight like lead in her stomach at the thought of Thranduil. While she suspected that Legolas might ultimately tell her he didn't care who had sired her, she was certain that the Elvenking would never allow his son to wed her, and she couldn't say that she blamed him. She thought again on her conversation with Elladan, and felt her lip tremble.

The voice of Sauron rang in her ears. Your father is Maglor Fëanorion.

It was a horrible revelation, one which had set a weight of anguish in her heart. And yet Shëanon's heart was full too of conflict. She remembered what she had seen in the mirror of Galadriel with vivid clarity, and…

In Hasufel's stall, she drew herself deeper into the corner and scrubbed her hands over her face.

She remembered everything, now. She could remember growing up in the cabin and playing in the clearing amid the tall summer flowers and upon the fallen autumn leaves. She could remember her master… her grandfather… She remembered him being kind to her, and telling her stories, and tucking her into bed at night.

She could remember the smell of his breath when, she now understood, he must have been drunk—when she knew he was changed and would hurt her. She remembered being desperate for his affection, his approval, and most of all, desperate not to anger him. She remembered loving him and fearing him.

She even remembered the dog, and falling asleep pressed against her fur, lulled into slumber by the soothing cadence of her breath, and the cold of her wet nose bumping her skin.

And she remembered, after so many years, that frantic flight through the forest with the dark-haired ellon who had taken her to Imladris. She could remember… his fair voice singing beside her ear.

She could remember the smell of his cloak.

And she could remember waking near to Rivendell to find he had abandoned her.

Shëanon struggled not to weep.

He had loved her. And he had been desperate to protect her, to save her—to do right by her.

She didn't know what to think or feel. All her life, thinking herself unwanted. All her life, imagining herself cast aside. But she had not been unwanted, and she had not been cast aside.

Shëanon thought of her mother. Her mother. How, in the mirror, she had seen her cradling her newborn child in her arms, calling her beautiful.

A sob escaped her before she could help it. She wondered if her mother had thought Maglor had indeed forsaken her, when he did not return to the cabin in time.

She wondered if, wherever she was beyond the circles of the world, wherever the mortal souls of Eru's second-born children dwelt once they departed their bodies, her mother could see her.

Shëanon wiped her tears on her sleeve.

Her mother had been good. She had clearly wanted Shëanon very badly. And…

And the ellon she had seen in the vision had not seemed evil. She touched her hair, where in the mirror she had seen him cut a lock to take with him.

Her mother and father were in her dreams, too. They haunted her as much as the Orcs and the Nazgûl and the face of Sauron. Usually, in her nightmares, they stood just out of reach, watching while she was tortured or while she fled her captors, but unable to help her.

There was suddenly a loud snorting sound, and her hair was stirred, and she glanced up to see Arod craning his neck toward her from the stall next to Hasufel's, snuffling impatiently in the direction of her bucket.

She smiled weakly and rose.

"Forgive me," she sniffled, bending to retrieve a carrot for him, too. "Have I been neglecting you?"

His lips tickled her palm as he happily accepted the food, and with a sudden pang Shëanon realized that he must have borne Legolas through battle at the Black Gate. Her throat suddenly felt tight, and she stepped closer to lean her head against his, feeling overwhelmed and shaken, even though both Legolas and Arod were unharmed. She stroked him behind his ears and drew a shuddering breath.

"Did you keep him safe?" she whispered, very softly. She stroked his neck. "You must have been very brave."

She looked from snowy Arod, to gentle Hasufel, to the great form of Brego in the next stall, and something inside her ached. She suddenly realized for the first time that the horses had only come to them because their former riders had fallen in battle.

Shëanon suddenly wondered if the horses had nightmares, as she did.

But if their steeds had been as affected by the dangers they'd endured as she had been, they weren't showing it. Arod leaned his great head into her hand as she patted him.

She took another step closer.

"What do you think I should do?" she whispered against his nose.

"Beware, aiër," said a voice, and Shëanon jumped and spun around.

Golden and tall in the sunlight, Legolas was standing behind her in the middle of the stable.

"Arod offers very poor advice," he continued easily, moving to stand beside her. "And he cannot be trusted with a secret."

He reached down and plucked an apple from her bucket, fed it to the delighted horse, then leaned casually against the side of the stall before her.

"Perhaps you should confide instead in his rider," he suggested, meeting her gaze.

Shëanon felt like her stomach flipped over. For a moment she could only look at Legolas in mute silence. He was gazing levelly back.

"Were you coming to take him out?" she managed finally, nodding toward the horse. Her voice sounded strained, and she grimaced.

But Legolas did not so much as blink.

"Nay," he said, "I came looking for you."

Oh, no.

"Me?" she asked warily.

"Yes."

Shëanon turned and pretended to be busy for a moment, gathering up the bucket and moving to the other side of the stall to offer the last few carrots to Brego. Legolas had gone so long without confronting her for answers that she'd been able to convince herself he never would, but what if he was going to start asking questions? Or point out that he knew she'd been sleeping in Aragorn's study?

"Did—is there something you need?" she asked tensely, with her back to him.

Brego made short work of the carrots, and Legolas seemed to have paused. She could feel his gaze upon the back of her head, and she shifted her feet nervously in the straw.

"You think I would not seek your company without some need of favor or duty?" he asked finally.

"I just meant that I know you have been very busy helping Aragorn," she whispered, though something within her was throbbing.

She watched Brego move to his water trough without really seeing him, listening instead for any sound behind her, but Legolas was still, and said nothing.

The throbbing got worse.

Finally, when she did not feel she could keep up the pretense of watching Brego for any longer, she turned back to face him. He hadn't moved, and she nervously glanced up into his face.

He did not look at all happy.

They stood before one another for a moment in complete silence.

"It is midday," Legolas finally said, just as she had opened her mouth to make an excuse to leave. "Are you hungry?"

She probably should have expected that question, but Shëanon had not realized it had gotten so late. It was probably why he had come looking for her in the first place. Something within her withered. Indeed, he had not been seeking her company—this was more of his solemn, perfunctory caretaking: stand guard at her door, build her fire, pile food on her plate, pour her tea…

The same bleak part of her that feared he would tire of her wondered if he felt bound by honor to perform these tasks even as he had been to look out for her in the very first days of their quest—if he felt obligated, having given his word to Elrond.

Or perhaps he felt obligated because of what they had done in her tent at Dunharrow.

Shëanon swallowed against a sick, miserable feeling and looked down at her feet.

"I had one of the apples," she whispered. "I think I'll just—"

"An apple is not enough," he said suddenly, and Shëanon started and stared at him.

He suddenly looked very angry, and in her chest, she felt her heart begin the terrible, staggering race.

Her fingers tightened around the handle of the bucket.

Then Legolas seemed to look her over from head to toe, and the expression on his face made it so very plain to her that he was displeased with what he saw that it made her stomach twist.

"I should go," she managed, her face burning. "I—"

She turned to stride past him, but Legolas moved and caught her arm so quickly that Shëanon heard herself make an awful noise—something like a strangled gasp, or like the yelp of a dog, and she jumped and flinched so violently that the bucket fell from her hand and hit the ground with a loud clatter.

Legolas released her immediately, and when Shëanon realized what she had done, she stood staring for a moment at the fallen bucket in grievous, trembling horror, her face flaming and her eyes stinging.

She didn't think she could have looked at Legolas if she'd tried.

She had—

She had shied away from him as though she'd thought he would hurt her.

As though he were one of the tower guards moving to grab her.

She suddenly couldn't breathe again.

Biting her lip hard to keep it from trembling, she stepped forth to retrieve the bucket, but as she knelt to reach for it, Legolas's hand appeared before her eyes and grasped the handle. She glanced up to see him straighten and hand it wordlessly back to her.

"Goheno nin—" she began, but Legolas had spoken at the same time and had said the same thing, and tremulously she at last looked into his face.

Shëanon flinched again. He looked as though he were in some kind of agony.

Her fault.

Her breath caught in her throat.

"I—"

"I should not have startled you," he said. "Forgive me."

She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to tell him that it hadn't been his fault, and confide that she had been jumping at every small thing for weeks, and beg his forgiveness—not just for crying out at his touch, but for keeping secrets from him, for avoiding him, for getting captured and for not being able to move past it.

For ruining everything.

But her heart was beating faster and faster, and the invisible band around her chest was squeezing more and more tightly, and her ears seemed to be ringing again.

"I have to go," she choked.

She hurried around him out of the stable, and then Shëanon all but ran all the way to her bedchamber.

Legolas did not follow her.

XXX

She didn't go to dinner that evening. She couldn't bear to see him. But she didn't stay in her room, because she feared he would come looking for her eventually. Instead, desperate for rest, she went to Elrohir's room, and finding it vacant she slept for a few hours on top of the covers of his bed until she awoke alone in the dark. Then she went out to the gardens and paced between the midnight trees and flowers until the night began to wane and birds began to awaken and call to each other.

Before the sunrise, she crept back through the silent, sleeping hall that led to her chambers and cautiously went inside. Her eyelids were heavy, and her muscles were so stiff and tense that she was in almost as much pain as she had been after the battle of the Hornburg, and she wanted so badly to curl up in bed and sleep away all her troubles. It wasn't fair that she couldn't do so, she thought. It wasn't fair that she could find no respite even in sleep—that all the horrors she had faced followed her even there.

She had just bent to take off her boots, thinking that maybe she could try to sleep while her companions ate breakfast, when she realized that someone had been in her room.

She drew up short.

On the trunk that stood at the foot of her bed had been set a basket of food, and beside it lay a single piece of parchment. Shëanon gingerly picked it up and read the word that was written on it in Sindarin:

Eat.

A weight of emotion burst within her, and she stood holding the note for a long time while the chamber about her grew steadily lighter. She traced the ink with her fingertips. Then she strode slowly over to the dressing table in the corner and set the parchment down beside the scrap that already rested there.

Shëanon wasn't hungry but she made herself eat some of everything in the basket. Her heart seemed to writhe in plaintive misery within her chest as she realized he had brought her favorite foods. He had never asked her what she liked best; he must have taken note at mealtimes. She shook her head in wretched disbelief.

When she had eaten as much as she could manage, she changed her clothes, washed her face, and left the chamber.

Legolas's room was just down the hall from her own, but Shëanon had never set foot inside it. Now she edged her way down the corridor, past Elladan's room, past Elrohir's, until she stood at his door. She stopped and stared at it, biting her lip.

Knock, she urged herself. Just knock.

The moments wore on, and she stood staring at the dark, polished wood with her heart in her throat. She began to wring her hands before her, glancing anxiously down the shadowy hallway to her left and right, and swallowed nervously.

What if he was sound asleep, and she disturbed him? What if he was wide awake, and had heard her, and knew she was lingering outside his chambers at the crack of dawn?

What if he didn't want to see her?

That's not true, she thought with worry. He had brought her dinner—he had written the note—he—

There was a sudden sound from the other side of the door, and Shëanon didn't think.

She simply bolted away down the hall.

XXX

By the time the sun had risen and breakfast was being served, Shëanon had lost her courage entirely. Speaking with Legolas felt an impossibly daunting task—the more she felt that she had to do it, the more anxious she became, and the less inclined to try. She hesitated for several long minutes on the steps that led into the immense hall of Merethrond, listening to the din of people from within, but eventually she told herself that talking to Legolas over the breakfast table was a bad idea. After all, everyone else would be there, and would surely take note if she acted strangely, and what was she to do? Ask Legolas to abandon his food so that she could tell him she was having panic attacks?

No, she thought. She couldn't talk to him like that.

Instead, she'd turned on her heel and hastened back down the steps and across the courtyard, away from the Great Hall of Feasts and the King's House and the Tower of Ecthelion, past the guards' barracks and the Steward's House, until she left the uppermost level of the city and came upon a long, narrow pass that hugged the side of the Hill of Guard. At the end of this quiet path, before an enormous, arched doorway that led into the mountain itself, stood four guards. Two bore the silver helms and livery of the Guards of the Citadel, marked with the standards of Elendil, but two others wore leather armor, and their hair was blond beneath their helms, and their shields and banners were emblazoned with the emblem of a running horse. These men nodded to her as she passed them, and biting her lip Shëanon nodded tensely back.

Then she passed into the cool shade beneath Mount Mindolluin and walked the Rath Dínen through the Hallows.

This long passage was illuminated by torches set in brackets, and on either side, set into domed alcoves in an endless line, were large, white marble sarcophaguses bearing the bodies of the kings of Gondor. Many of these coffins bore statues in the likeness of the men entombed within, and walking beneath the mountain, she thought of Moria, and the Paths of the Dead, and the phantoms she'd seen with her waking eyes, and she shivered.

Shëanon kept walking deeper and deeper into the crypt, until the statues were spent and the alcoves were empty, and she came to the place where, beneath a single emerald standard, a modest casket had been set.

To her surprise, there was already someone standing before it.

Shëanon drew up short and hesitated, but she had passed before one of the torches mounted behind her and her shadow had fallen upon the casket of Théoden, and Éowyn saw it and turned.

When Shëanon had joined her companions for breakfast for the first time after leaving the Houses of Healing, she had gone into Merethrond with a secret purpose, and as Legolas and Elladan and Elrohir had taken their seats at the head table, she had left their sides to seek the blond heads of Éomer and Éowyn amid the crowd. They had been easy to find, for Éomer had been sitting at their same table, beside Aragorn, and his sister had been seated at his other side. Shëanon had tentatively gone to stand before them.

"Lady," Éomer had frowned, rising from the table the moment he'd caught sight of her. Éowyn had turned upon the bench and looked at her in surprise.

Shëanon had drawn a deep breath.

"I heard about your uncle," she had told the two softly, and though it had been loud beneath the vaulted ceiling with the murmur of many people, by the looks on their faces, she'd known they'd heard her. "Théoden was a great man, but so too was he a good man. It grieved me very much to learn that he has fallen."

Out of the corner of her eye, she'd seen Aragorn watching her, and she'd guessed that Legolas and her brothers surely had, too, but she had not looked away from Éomer and Éowyn.

They'd seemed to trade a glance, and then Éowyn had also risen, and to Shëanon's utter astonishment, she'd stepped forth and cast her arms about her in a fierce embrace.

Bewildered, it had taken Shëanon a moment to hug her back, but the moment she had, she'd felt a rush of deep emotion come over her, and she'd closed her eyes.

"We'd thought you as lost as our uncle," Éowyn had whispered when she'd drawn away, searching Shëanon's face. "It is as though you are back from the dead."

"From the brink of death, as we were told," said Éomer.

Shëanon had gazed between the two of them, then, and in the light of the young morning, she'd noted that a pronounced change seemed to have found them both. Whether by the touch of grief or the weight of victory, the light of youth seemed to have left their eyes, and yet to Shëanon they had both seemed somehow more vivid, as though some curtain had been drawn aside and she was seeing them clearly for the first time.

But before she'd been able to say anything else, another person had appeared beside Éowyn, and despite knowing at once who the man must surely have been, she'd still started; he'd looked so much alike to Boromir that for a single instant she'd thought that he had been the one to come back from the dead.

The man had met her gaze and bowed before her.

"Lady Shëanon," he'd said quietly. "Glad I am to see you released from the Houses of Healing—I, too, dwelt there for a time, but did not have the pleasure of crossing your path before I was returned here to duty. I am Faramir—"

"I know who you are," Shëanon had bitten out without thinking.

Faramir had paused as though in surprise, and she'd blushed, realizing she'd surely seemed rude, but his resemblance to his brother had been so distracting that she'd forgotten herself.

"Forgive me," she'd stammered. "You look very much alike to Boromir."

Then she'd realized that perhaps the man might not have liked to be compared to his dead brother.

Faramir, however had only offered her a sad smile, and the eyes that were so much like those of her fallen companion had been kind.

"So I have been told many times," he'd said.

Shëanon had said the first thing that had come to her lips, and though it had been what was in her heart, she'd felt foolish for saying it.

"I wish he were here."

The man's regard had grown somber, then.

"As do I."

Now, in the crypt with Éowyn, Shëanon noted distantly that she had not spoken with her since that first morning, so secluded had she kept herself in an effort to hide her struggle. In the dim light of the flickering torches, she thought that Éowyn looked very lovely, but very sad.

"Forgive me," she said at once. "I didn't think anyone else would be here."

But Éowyn simply smiled tersely and shook her head.

"That is surely because I have been too long absent," she murmured, crossing her arms over her chest. A crease came then to her brow, and she looked back at her uncle's casket. "Have you ever felt as though you might outrun grief? As though you could escape it entirely, if you could only carry on as though it were not ever at your heels? As though you could not feel the breath of it stirring the air behind you?"

Shëanon stared at Éowyn for a long moment, and the only sound was the moving flame behind them.

"Yes," she said at last, swallowing against a lump in her throat. "It does not work."

"Indeed, not," Éowyn agreed. Before the torches, her blond hair was as golden as a sunset, and her gaze as distant as the stars on a clear night. "Grief prevails in the end."

They both fell silent. Shëanon bit her lip, not knowing what to say.

Then Éowyn turned back to her.

"I am told you come here often," she remarked.

Heat touched Shëanon's cheeks, and for a moment she felt awkward and embarrassed. It was true that she had come several times to the crypt since the day she'd been released from the Houses of Healing. She would come and sit on the ground before the king, gazing at the sigil of the House of Eorl without really seeing it, and feeling a kind of despairing, lonely sorrow to think of Théoden's body left alone in the dark tomb so far from his home. Now she wondered if Éowyn would think it strange or untoward, that she had been visiting the grave of her uncle when his own niece and nephew had not so often come. In truth, Shëanon had to admit that she had gone to the crypt because she'd sought solitude and had felt certain that she'd find it there.

But it was also true what she'd said to Éowyn at breakfast that day: she was aggrieved at Théoden's death; in fact, in a way, she felt haunted by it. She could not help but to remember the morning in Edoras when she'd spoken out of turn—when he'd not readily agreed to ride to battle and she'd accused him of faintheartedness. She had at last realized that she hadn't truly grasped the weight of his position that day, and indeed it was not until she'd laid eyes on the burning shambles of Minas Tirith and the field of fallen soldiers stretching before it that she'd fully understood.

And he had paid the ultimate price. And she had not. And it had not only been Théoden, had it? Shëanon thought again of Boromir, and how he had lain in the bracken at Amon Hen knowing he would die, and how they had sent his body over the falls of Rauros. And she thought of all the corpses she'd stepped on at Helm's Deep, those people whose final moments must have been spent in terror and in pain.

And she thought of her mother, and her stark white face as her life had left her, and how she'd perished in the very cage she'd so desperately tried to escape.

And yet Shëanon had survived.

"I think I feel a measure of guilt," she confessed. "That he fell, and I did not."

Éowyn blinked and looked thoroughly taken aback. Then she glanced down at the floor.

"We should not both bear that guilt," she whispered softly. "Indeed, I am the one who failed to save him. I think that it is my burden to carry… and yet I think he would bid us both to set it aside."

Then, as Shëanon watched, Éowyn's face pinched and tears began to stream down her cheeks. Shëanon had no idea how to react to this; she thought of Éowyn's cold dignity when her cousin had died, and how she had ducked her head and tried to hide her tears at Dunharrow, and she wondered if she should turn away or leave her in privacy.

But then Éowyn spoke.

"I am to be wed," she said, and though she was crying, she was not weeping, and only the slightest tremor in her voice betrayed her tears.

Shëanon gaped at her. The last she had known was that Éowyn had wished to set her hand in Aragorn's. She had been avoiding everyone, it was true, but surely she could not possibly have missed it if Aragorn had become betrothed? Could he have possibly received news that Arwen had perished, after all? Shëanon could not dream that her brothers would hide it from her if such a thing had come to pass, and she thought it equally impossible that Aragorn would so soon—or maybe ever—turn to another.

But then Shëanon again recalled the morning in the hall of Merethrond, only this time she saw it in a new light, and she suddenly knew at once what must surely have happened.

"I feel that I should not be so happy," Éowyn continued. "How can my heart be moved by joy at such a black hour as this? And yet my joy is dimmed, and sometimes I feel it as a weak candle through a thick fog, when surely it should shine upon me like the sun at the height of summer."

Shëanon felt her own eyes well.

"I can find no solace in gladness or in grief," said Éowyn. "It feels unfair that I should feel both at once, and yet neither unhindered by the other."

She laid her head in her hands and stood crying quietly for a moment. Then, aching, Shëanon stepped forth and gently touched Éowyn's arm.

"Éowyn," she whispered, "your uncle would wish you happiness."

"I used to think it the highest mark of valor to die an honorable death," Éowyn whispered. She seemed to have given up trying to dry her tears; in the torchlight their trails shone against her skin. "Now I think it far more noble to live an honorable life. Is that not strange?"

Shëanon considered this for a long moment.

"Théoden did both," she said at last.

Éowyn nodded, and dragging the edge of her long sleeve across her eyes, she sniffled and turned away from the casket.

"Have you been ill?" she asked Shëanon abruptly, as though she were desperate to speak of anything else.

Shëanon frowned.

"Ill?" she echoed.

Éowyn nodded.

"No."

"You look ill," she said frankly. She seemed to look her over. "And you have seldom been seen at meals. Merry and I fell ill after we slew the Witch-king… I thought that perhaps some such sickness might have found you, also."

Shëanon shifted uncomfortably and looked away from her. She did not like to think that other people might have been noting her absences from the hall.

"I have not been sick," she whispered.

An odd light came then to Éowyn's eyes that seemed to have little to do with the torches.

"Then you have been sick at heart," she said.

Shëanon did not deny it. It seemed there was little point, and she felt less vulnerable, somehow, in this dark, quiet place where Éowyn herself had already revealed so much of her own hurts.

She drew a deep breath.

"May I ask you something?"

Éowyn was watching her expectantly, so she continued.

"What is it your people believe happens after death?" Shëanon asked.

At her words, the young woman turned once more back to Théoden's casket. Her face was utterly inscrutable for a moment, and Shëanon wondered if she had upset her.

"We believe that our spirits find the halls of our forebears," she whispered finally, "and dwell there in their company… and that our horses graze in green pastures beyond… and that all memory of sorrow is forgotten."

Shëanon bit her lip.

"How do you know if it is true?" she asked.

Éowyn wheeled around.

"True?"

Shëanon nodded, searching her face.

Éowyn shook her head, set her hand upon her breast, and gazed steadily back at Shëanon through the dancing shadows.

"It feels true here," she said firmly. "Is that not truth enough?"

They looked at each other for a long moment until, her mind racing, Shëanon averted her gaze.

"I think now we both should rejoin the land of the living," Éowyn said, and though Shëanon had meant to stay at the crypt longer, she felt compelled to fall into step beside the waiting shieldmaiden, and together they walked back down the still passage.

When they had passed back out into the light of day, however, a figure appeared on the path before them, and Shëanon wondered if she would ever be able to look at Faramir without seeing his brother.

He was carrying a cup and buttered bread held on a cloth.

"I guessed well," he said when he reached them. He sounded both concerned and relieved. "I thought I might find you here."

Shëanon noted at once that the at the sight of the Steward, the change that came over Éowyn's face was as distinct as the difference between the lightless tombs and the bright sunlight beyond.

Then Faramir seemed to notice Shëanon, and he frowned.

"Though if I had known you to be in such fair company, I would have brought more toast," he said, speaking to Éowyn but offering an apologetic smile to her.

But Shëanon shook her head.

"I will take my leave of you both," she said softly, meeting Éowyn's eye. "Enjoy your breakfast."

Then Shëanon strode alone down the path.

XXX

Not knowing where else to go, and not wanting to go back to her room, she made her way slowly back through the Citadel and the King's House until she stood before another of the heavy wooden doors, and knocking softly upon it and hearing no reply, she pressed open the door in relief and went inside. Aragorn's study was a bright room with many tall windows, filled with maps and high shelves holding what she deemed were an age's worth of tomes and scrolls, but Aragorn was nowhere in sight, and the chamber was still and quiet, and in exhaustion she shuffled over to the thick fur rug set before the empty fireplace and sat on the floor.

For a moment she was unmoving before the dark hearth. Her conversation with Éowyn chased itself in circles around her head, and she thought again of her mother, and of the countless coffins in the crypt—all those men and women lying there forever, never to wake, until their bodies were dust. Then she thought of Arwen relinquishing her immortality, and she imagined Aragorn's body in one of those sarcophaguses, and she thought of the madness upon Maglor's face to learn that his wife had died. She remembered her unspeakable relief to learn that she had an immortal fëa. Now that relief was mingled with profound, harrowing grief.

Shëanon drew her knees to her chest and laid her head upon them.

It was too much. She felt so exhausted. She felt like she was falling apart at the seams.

Wearier in her soul than perhaps she had ever been and listening dully to the sounds of birdsong flitting in through the windows, she leaned back against the divan behind her and closed her eyes. A dark thought had been clamoring about in her head, quiet and easy to silence at first, but growing louder by the day, though she had tried not to listen to it.

The thought was that perhaps she should leave Minas Tirith.

Shëanon scrubbed her hands over her face and shook her head.

She didn't want to do it, but it seemed that it would solve many of her problems. If she left, she wouldn't have to worry about burdening her companions anymore. It wouldn't matter if she had nightmares, for they would not be there to hear her scream, and she would no longer have to hide the terrible bouts of panic or struggle to seem cheerful and composed. And if she left, she thought, then wouldn't she surely be doing everyone a kindness? Legolas would no longer have to stand guard outside her bedchamber for hours and hours in case she cried out in the night. He and her brothers and Aragorn would not have to worry about her anymore. And she would no longer feel like a black cloud every time she entered a room, ruining everyone's good moods and casting a bleak shadow about them, feeling guilty and dismayed everywhere she went. Surely that would be the right and selfless thing to do? Better for everyone.

Her heart ached.

She could just go home. She could slip into the stables that very day, saddle Hasufel, and ride back to Rivendell. Maybe after all the weeks of travel it would take, she would be better by the end. And…

And she wanted her father.

Shëanon pinched the bridge of her nose.

For some reason she felt that she could have told Elrond everything she couldn't discuss with the others. She could have asked her father about what she'd seen in Galadriel's mirror. She could have asked him why he'd never told her, because she was utterly certain that he must have known it all already. And perhaps she could even have confided in him some of what had happened at Barad-dûr…

Except that she couldn't go back to Rivendell, could she? She felt childish and guilty just for thinking it. Elladan and Elrohir would surely go mad with fury and worry if she vanished from the city with no word or warning—for it would have to be without warning, she knew. They would insist on accompanying her if she told them she wanted to go home. They would certainly come after her if she left, and though she was the faster rider, she didn't have a chance of evading them for long. They had been the ones to teach Aragorn to track, and their eyes were even keener than were his, and they had thousands of years more experience than he had. They would find her within a day.

And Legolas…

Shëanon hesitated, uncertain.

In truth, she didn't know what Legolas would do, nor what she would want him to do, and that scared her. Would he ride after her with the twins? She felt that the Legolas she had seen in her vision, the one who had yelled that marching upon the Black Gate itself to rescue her was inadequate, would surely have pursued her. Now, however, she had no idea where they stood. She remembered when he had said he would not force her to do anything she did not want to do… She had a nervous feeling that if she left, Legolas would take it as her own choice to forsake him, and she would never see him again. He would certainly take it as a betrayal, and a betrayal it would indeed be, but what if…

What if he would be relieved to see her go?

Shëanon hugged her knees even closer and drew a deep breath.

Wouldn't that be for the best, anyway? After all, she could certainly not marry him now that she knew the truth about herself, and the part of her that was too cowardly to be honest with him indeed thought it would be better simply to leave without giving him the chance to leave her first.

"I can't run away," she whispered out loud. "I am no coward."

But she was homesick, and tired, and scared.

Suddenly the door creaked on its hinges, and Shëanon jumped about a foot off the floor—she had been so deep in thought that she had not heard anyone's approach, and for a single instant she expected to see an Orc or perhaps one of the guards of Barad-dûr stalking toward her.

But it was only Aragorn.

He stood in the doorway, raising his eyebrows at the sight of her huddled down on the floor. Something in her face must have troubled him, however, for he frowned as he turned and quietly shut the door behind him.

Shëanon slumped back against the divan and let out a shaky breath, hoping her moment of fright had not been so obvious. She swallowed thickly and balled her suddenly trembling hands into fists in her lap.

"What are you doing here?" she asked distractedly.

Aragorn paused and looked at her for a moment.

"This is my study," he said calmly, and she felt herself blush. Of course, it was his study. Obviously, he sought solitude, and instead found her haunting his chambers like—like some ghost—

"Right," she stammered, her face burning. "Forgive me—I don't know why I asked—I'll leave you—"

"Shea," Aragorn frowned. He shook his head and paced toward her across the room, and when he sat down on the rug beside her, the look upon his face was grave.

"Many strange things have we seen since leaving Rivendell," he said quietly, "but never would I have thought to see the day when you would flee a room at the sight of me."

He leaned forward to rest his arms upon his bent knees, and at his words she felt such a distinct stab of grief and regret that she could not even bear to look at him. She stared down at the floor and clenched her jaw. Suddenly, her eyes were stinging, and she was abruptly aware that if she didn't get up right away and leave the chamber, she would surely soon find herself weeping before him.

Was this all it took, now, to reduce her to tears? One concerned glance and probing remark from Aragorn, and she was on the verge of sobbing?

But Aragorn laid his hand upon her shoulder, and suddenly the emotion from the preceding weeks was brimming so high within her that if she were standing Shëanon was sure she would have buckled beneath it. All at once it all hit her—where before it had been a kind of numb, blunted ache that she had tried her very best to ignore, she suddenly thought she would burst with it: the stark loneliness and heartache that had plagued her, the fear of what her companions would think if she told them the truth about Mordor, the terrible distance she felt between herself and Legolas, the long nights she spent alone in her room, suffering in silence, afraid to sleep, afraid to let anyone see how much she was struggling. The guilt she felt each time she could tell Aragorn or Legolas or her brothers were worried about her. Her desperation to convince everyone she was all right, so that she might shield them from the worst of the horrors she had faced and alleviate their stress. The terrible nightmares. The awful bouts of dread. The horrific memories of Mordor. The vision of her parents.

Shëanon covered her face with her hands.

Immediately Aragorn put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to his side, and before she could help herself, Shëanon began to cry.

It was perhaps the most despairing hurt she had ever felt in her life—her emotions like a terrible river, and she a breaking dam powerless to keep them at bay. She tried to quell her tears for a moment, desperately casting about for any control or escape, but found that she was not strong enough, and her face crumpled, and perhaps her spirit crumpled, for the first few tears were still tracking down her cheeks when she suddenly found herself weeping in earnest.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, futilely attempting to dry her eyes. Her whole face—indeed, most of her body she'd turned away from him, but Shëanon knew that it was useless. A blind man would have known she was in tears.

Aragorn tightened his grip.

"For what?" he asked quietly.

She pressed her hand against her mouth, shaking her head. For an instant she was resolved not to answer, but it was as though she could not stop herself from speaking.

"For getting captured," she wept, hanging her head. "For not being—fast enough—I should have—been quicker—I could have—shot it down—"

"Shea," Aragorn whispered, but she wasn't done. Now that she had started, she found she could not stop.

"I caused you all so much worry—I saw—you and Legolas—it was my fault. I should have listened to my father when he told me to go back home—and now—we should all be—happy and—light of heart—after so many months of darkness—and I can see that I am setting more worry still upon you—"

Aragorn was utterly silent beside her.

"I've been trying to—"

Shëanon broke off for a moment and could not continue. She'd been trying to be strong, to be better, to lock away the horrors she had endured and put on a brave face for her companions, but she realized abruptly that she had utterly failed.

She suddenly heard the voice of Sauron in her ears: Weakest of all your kin do I name you, half-elf. Her lip trembled.

"I know that—you have—much still weighing upon you—that you are—worried about Arwen—and that—you bear the weight of—everyone in this city—and—and—I know that I should be—helping you," she wept. "I gave you my word—instead I—almost ruined everything and—now I am still—making things—worse—"

Shëanon had to stop speaking for a moment because she was wracked so violently by her tears that she could barely draw a breath.

She felt Aragorn's fingers squeeze her, and for a moment there were no sounds but for her gasping cries.

Then he spoke.

"If I had been taken alive by the enemy, and suffered terrible trial and torment at his hands, would you begrudge me the grief that followed after?"

Shëanon clamped shut her mouth and said nothing. She felt herself go cold and clammy immediately, to hear him allude to torment in Mordor.

"Would you think it a burden to yourself to see my suffering, or think ill of me if I could not carry on as before—as if no hurt nor harm had touched me?"

"But you do carry on that way!" Shëanon suddenly burst. "I'm the only one who—who can't seem to—"

"You are the only one who was tortured by the Enemy," he said sternly. "And now you think to weather it alone—"

"I have to weather it alone—"

"Long did you believe that," Aragorn murmured. "And long did you suffer for it. Tell me, my friend, how did it serve you all your life to hide your heart from all who might have healed it?"

Shëanon tensed.

"That was—this is different—"

"Indeed?" he asked skeptically.

"Yes," she whispered tearfully, and for the first time, she looked into his face. She believed this completely: It was different, because many of her hurts, she was certain, would hurt her friends and family if they learned of them.

Aragorn gazed back at her for a long moment in silence while Shëanon wiped futilely at her eyes. Finally, he nodded and glanced toward the dark fireplace across from them.

"In the mines of Moria," he whispered, "when a Balrog of Morgoth had come, and Gandalf bade us flee, and I had fallen behind, did you not halt and face the demon itself, though I had commanded you already to leave me?"

Shëanon stared at his profile in bewilderment, but Aragorn looked at her again and continued.

"Did you not refuse to be parted from me at Helm's Deep? Did you not follow me onto the Paths of the Dead, and into battle on the Pelennor Fields?"

He shook his head.

"For me you would risk pain and peril, you would walk through darkness and death, and yet this you deem too terrible a burden to lay upon me in return—to confide in me the truth of your suffering? Some battles are not fought with bow or blade, Shea, though fight them we must. Do you think I would not readily stand at your side, as you have stood at mine?"

Shëanon felt her eyes widen, and for a moment she was utterly speechless, and Aragorn was watching her with the most resolute and gentle look in his eyes. She remembered how he had shouted at Legolas that he would die for her, and she remembered that he had carried her laughing on his back when she was a child, and she felt sick with shame.

"I know that you would," she whispered. Indeed, she could never have doubted it. "I just didn't want to ask it of you…"

She saw his brow crease.

"I will do it whether you ask it or not," he said, very quietly and very meaningfully. Then he lightly touched the back of her head. "Tell me what happened."

Shëanon squeezed closed her eyes and felt fresh tears roll slowly down her cheeks, and though she wavered for a moment longer, it was not because she did not want to tell him, but rather because she knew that it would be painful to speak the truth aloud. She remembered being pierced by the bolt, and how the poison had spread like fire through her blood, and she'd been in agony. It had had to come out, for it had been killing her, and yet its removal was excruciating. She felt that her words were the same—that she needed to speak, needed to get it out—she felt that keeping it all inside was poisoning her, and yet knew that saying it all aloud would be like when Aragorn had taken the bolt out.

She drew a deep breath.

"When I awoke at Barad-dur," she wept into the stillness. Every muscle in her body seemed to tense up. "I was chained up. And there were—Orcs—they… they were supposed to be searching me, but they were—hurting me—and—touching me—and talking about—eating me alive—and I couldn't even move—to fight them—"

Immediately and without a word, Aragorn drew her closer, and Shëanon laid her head upon his shoulder, and then she told him everything. She told him about being taken through the tower. She told him about the vision she'd had of him and the others. She told him about Sauron.

She told him that Maglor Fëanorion was her sire, and that Sauron had wished to use her blood to gain power over the three Elven rings and their bearers.

She told him, in a terrible rush, about what had transpired in the throne room at the top of the endless stairs, and the awful things Sauron had made her see, and the way he'd pried into her mind, and how she'd just barely managed to deceive him.

She told him about being locked in the cell, and finding Galadriel's knife, and cutting the guard's throat. She told him about using her Sight to flee the tower, and about her desperate plight on the plains of Gorgoroth. She told him about the Orc camp, and finding Frodo and Sam, and the Nazgûl.

She told him about the awful nightmares she'd been having, and the terrible, uncrossable wall she felt between herself and Legolas. How she was afraid he wouldn't want her anymore if he knew the truth about her parentage, or about the panic attacks, and how guilty she felt that he was so worried about her.

Lastly, she told him about the things she'd seen in the Lady's mirror, and how she had come to Imladris as a child, and Aragorn, who had remained silent throughout all she had said, at last drew away from her to gaze into her face. Shëanon scrubbed away tears and looked down into her lap, afraid to look at him, for one thing only had she left out of her tale: she had not told him her mother's name, nor her grandfather's name, and she had not told him that they were people of the Dúnedain. She didn't know why she had omitted it, but she was suddenly wary of revealing it to him—wary of what he would think to learn it.

But as she had haltingly recalled to him the dark history, his arm around her had gone tenser and tenser, until at the end when she was finally finished speaking and they sat in silence, she trembling and sniffling, swiping away the rolling tears, and he rigid beside her.

Shëanon sat for a long moment dabbing her eyes with her sleeves. She could feel Aragorn staring at the side of her face, and the only sound in the room beside her shuddering breaths was that of the wind stirring the tree branches beyond the windows. For her part, she felt exhausted and lightheaded from her tears and from the emotion of reliving everything that had happened, but as the silence drew on and Aragorn still did not say anything, she finally could take it no longer, and hesitantly peeked up at his face.

His brow was furrowed over his clear eyes as he stared intensely back at her, and she had the disconcerting feeling that he was studying every line and curve of her face as though he had never seen her before.

Then Aragorn slowly reached out his hand and gently lifted her chin, so that she was turned completely toward him. Shëanon sat unmoving with her heart in her throat as he appraised her, but though he frowned more still, he did not say anything for another long moment.

Finally, he let his hand fall and met her gaze.

"What else did you see?" he asked quietly.

Shëanon swallowed.

"What do you mean?" she sniffled, though she had known at once what he was asking.

Aragorn leaned away from her and turned to face the fireplace.

"Many years ago," he said very quietly, and his gaze was suddenly far away, "when I had returned out of the south to my people, a great number of Orcs came unlooked for into Eriador, and the Dúnedain were too few to keep them at bay."

He seemed to brace himself against some terrible memory, and Shëanon held her breath.

"Though I was grown full to manhood, there were some among the rangers who had walked the wilderness even beside my grandfather, and who had borne the burdens of leadership and sacrifice upon my father's death while I was a boy in Rivendell… and while I journeyed long in the wild far from our Northern lands. Though they hailed me as their lord and chieftain at the hour of my return, some held little love for me in their hearts, and abided my command with little trust. One such man came to me once, in an hour of great peril, and on that day knelt upon the floor before me, and laid his blade at my feet, and invoking the long years of fealty of his forebears to mine, he begged me grant him one request in return: that I should command his wife to set aside all weapons and forbid her from fighting in defense of our people."

Shëanon's insides gave an odd twist of anticipation and dread, for it was obvious to her why he was sharing this, and though she knew how his tale would end, she found herself hanging on his every word, listening with bated breath.

Aragorn looked back at her.

"I told him that I had not the power to give such a command. His wife fought and fell, and her husband took to him their young daughter and swore never to return while I held lordship over the Dúnedain, and he kept his word. We never saw him again."

Shëanon was staring down at the flagstone floor with her eyes stinging again.

"What were their names?" she dared asked.

His answering murmur was pointed.

"I think you know already."

There was a long pause during which she could not bring herself to say anything, and during which she abruptly understood her own heart, and knew why she had omitted this part of the story when she had recounted it to Aragorn: telling him that she was of the line of Fëanor had little bearing on him, but she was afraid that if she told him she was also of the Dúnedain, he might measure her up and find her lacking—that he might not be eager to count her among his people.

She felt a burst of anger, for it seemed ever to come back to this. Was this not why she had wept in Legolas's arms when they had returned to Edoras from Isengard? Was this not why she had been afraid to care for him in the first place, and why, even now, she was terrified to talk to him? Would she live her life ever in fear of rejection and abandonment?

But she had never really been abandoned, had she? Her mother had not abandoned her. Her father had not abandoned her. And this was Aragorn, who had loved her all her life.

She drew a deep breath.

"My mother's name," she whispered, "was Mírsell."

Aragorn looked at her for a long moment. Shëanon still did not meet his gaze, but she could feel it boring into her. She waited for him to say something—indeed, to say anything, or react in any way to what she had told him, but his silence wore on, and her stomach was in knots. At last, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod, and then he rose and strode away from her across the room. At this, she finally looked around and glanced over in consternation while he bent behind the grand desk before the wide windows at the far side of the study. For one startled instant, she thought he was dismissing her.

But he soon returned, and he strode back around the divan with a shining blade in his hand, and when he sat back on the rug beside her and held it before them both, she gave a start, for she recognized it at once.

It was her sword.

Aragorn was watching her steadily. A piercing light had come into his eyes.

He nodded down at the weapon.

"I took it from the battlefield," he said quietly. "I watched it fall from your hand."

Shëanon shifted nervously, for he had never looked at her the way he was looking at her just then.

Then he grasped her sword by the handle and held it aloft, so that the light that streamed in through the windows was caught by the blade and gleamed about it, and she watched as his eyes traced it from the sharp point down to the silver pommel.

He looked into her face.

"Andúril, your father called the blade forged from the shards of Narsil—the Flame of the West." His brow creased as though with deep thought. "This sword you have wielded with honor. Andórë, I name it…The Heart of the West."

Shëanon's jaw dropped, and she looked at him in amazement, but Aragorn it seemed was not yet finished.

He set his free hand upon her shoulder.

"Shëanon," he said gently, and her eyes widened, for he seldom called her by her full name. "Daughter of Mírsell, Lady of Imladris, youngest of the Fellowship, Bane of the Black Tower…"

He set his hand lightly upon the top of her head as he had done when she had been young, and as at Helm's Deep and on the plains of Rohan, he let his palm and fingers graze gently over her hair until he touched the nape of her neck.

"My kin," he whispered with tender, fierce emotion, his eyes intent upon hers, and she felt her lip tremble. "The most valiant of all the Dúnedain do I name you."

He held out the sword so that she might take it by the handle, but Shëanon didn't accept it. Instead, she lurched around the blade and flung her arms about his neck.

They knelt together on the floor for a long time. Aragorn must have set Andórë aside, for he had returned her embrace at once, and held her in the silent chamber while she shed more tears against his shoulder, too moved for words. She felt she had never felt so grateful for anyone in all her life.

When at last she felt some semblance of composure had returned to her, Shëanon drew away and wiped the last tears from her face.

"Thank you," she whispered, and meant it with her whole heart.

Aragorn grasped both her shoulders and waited for her to meet his gaze.

"Shea," he murmured meaningfully, "go to Legolas."

Her heart staggered.

"I'm afraid to talk to him," she confessed, watching him beseechingly.

"You would let fear keep you from him?"

She bit her lip and looked away, chastened.

"It would—pain him—to hear—"

"It pains him to watch you drown and yet ignore every line he has thrown you," Aragorn said. "Which pain do you think he would choose?"

To this she could say nothing, for she knew he was certainly right.

Then Aragorn rose and held out his hand to help her up off the floor, and Shëanon gratefully allowed him to draw her to her feet. Again he held out her sword, and this time she took it, gripping the handle for the first time since it had been knocked from her grasp on the Pelennor Fields.

"Many nightmares have I had here in the city," he said quietly when she stood before him. "And I would guess that all our company has fared alike. We agreed, I think, that there is no courage without fear. Now I say that there is no strength without suffering, though indeed I would measure no man's worth in suffering or in strength, Shea."

She furrowed her brow.

"What would you measure it by?"

His keen gaze found hers.

"What do you think?" he asked meaningfully.

Shëanon grasped Andórë more tightly and swallowed.

Then Aragorn squeezed her shoulder and offered her one more pointed look, and with a last nod, Shëanon turned and left the study.

A/N:

Hello, my amazing readers! I hope each and every one of you is doing well. I say it every time because every time it's true: I really can't believe how kind you all were in your responses to the last chapter. I'm so happy that Shëanon's backstory resonated with you all and I'm so touched by your feedback. I felt so much relief to finally publish it-it was literally years in the making!

It's also come to my attention that Aiër is now the 9th most-followed LOTR story on this website (!), and WOW am I blown away! Thank you thank you thank you all so much for all your love and support. I truly can't believe it.

I know this one was really heavy. Shëanon has been through a lot, but I hope you all know by now that no amount of darkness in this story is without a light at the end of the tunnel.

Hopefully I'll be able to get another update in before my trip, but if not-I'll see you all in New Zealand :')

xoxo Erin