26 / 9 /16 ~ In which fighting ensues, and Eleanor knocks a grown man out with a silver fruit platter.

Disclaimer: "The Lord of the Rings" is the property of J. R. R. Tolkien. I only claim ownership over Eleanor Dace, Rávamë (aka "Tink"), and the subsequent plot of their story.

A/N: No waffling from me this time, lovelies!

Just a quick, heartfelt thank you to: ConstantlyMunchinOnApples, Woman of Letters, Imamc, thesonicsmiley, Arasa17, tyrantOFathens, Angrypancakegoddess, BoltonBornRocker, Lucinda Silver, RLMz, Ryanwe, and guests for taking the time to review in the few hours between this chapter and the last. You're awesomeness defies reality. :)

Now, onward with the promised update. Hope you enjoy the dust-up as much as I did writing it! :)

Part I : Chapter 7

- Monsters & Men -

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." ― Oscar Wilde

We rode hard, which really does sound a lot more epic — and dirtier — that it actually is.

When most people think of riding a horse at top speed over rolling grasslands, they usually imagine lot of gorgeous panoramic shots, amazing views, combined with an uplifting soundtrack, and even a bit of dramatic hair billowing for added effect.

What it actually involves is a lot of hanging on for dear life to an uncomfortably hard saddle — or in my case, the man sitting in front of me in the saddle — and trying to ignore the cramp forming in your legs as you try to stay upright on a creature three times stronger than you as it thunders across uneven ground at break-neck speed. I'm pretty sure I'd never been less epic or sexy in my life; with my arms locked around Aragorn's waist tighter than a corset, hair in my face, and my legs and butt so sore from bouncing around on a saddle for hours I was likely going to be walking funny for days after.

When at last we began to slow down, I would have moaned aloud in relief if my mouth hadn't been full of my own windswept hair. I turned and indelicately spat it out as best I could, blushing in embarrassment when I heard Gandalf chuckling heartily. I was made to feel only a bit better when I heard Gimli grunting in equal frustration, having to suffer both the pain of riding as a passenger, and the indecency of clinging to an Elf for over four hours to avoid being thrown off.

Resisting the urge to groan and grumble along with him, I sat up on Hasufel's back and caned my neck to see over Aragorn's shoulder. He noticed, and shifted subtly to allow me to see past him more easily.

Less than a mile away in the distance sat what I could only describe as a tall rocky hill in the shape of a cresting wave, rising out of the surrounding grassy plains like a lone dwarf mountain. On its slopes sat carved wooden houses and buildings, most of which were raised on stilts to give the appearance that they were half-floating up the side of the hill. A single road snaked up around the incline, coiling between the houses, shops, and stables, until it finally came to a stop at a far grander looking wood and stone building at the peak — its thatched roof and carved walls glinting dark gold in the morning sunshine. The seat of the king of Rohan, I presumed.

It was a strangely roguish looking city to behold considering the last traces of civilisation I'd seen had been the towering tree spires of Lothlórien, but it was a welcome sight nonetheless after going so long in the wild. It might have even been a happy one, were I not able to clearly see even from half a mile away that the entire city was encircled by an off-putting wooden wall, complete with watch towers, sharped wooden spikes atop the fences, and an easily closable gate gawking open to us like the mouth of a trap.

Bizarrely, very few guards though, I noted.

"Edoras, and the Golden Hall of Meduseld," Gandalf confirmed what I'd already been thinking, coming to a stop beside me along with Boromir, Legolas, and Gimli on their horses. "There dwells Theoden, King of Rohan, whose mind is overthrown. Saruman's hold over King Theoden is strong. Be careful what you say. We are unlikely to find any kind of welcome here."

He gave me a pointed look in particular, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

Instead I just mimed locking my lips closed, and tossing the key over my shoulder as we took off down the hill again towards the gates.

It took barely any time at all to ride down the slope and make our way up to the entrance of Edoras, but my poor backside felt every bounce and bump as we went. No one stopped us as we slowed to a trot through the gates with Gandalf and Shadowfax leading the way. No guards manned the towers, and only a few rather bedraggled looking ones eyed us with suspicious curiosity from the walls and streets as we passed beneath the gates.

Not one of them tried to stop us.

It wasn't like we posed much of a threat, but these exhausted, hopeless looking men and women looked as if they were halfway to not caring if we suddenly decided to start setting fire to their homes.

As we made our way up the road through the city, the truly bizarre sight of us — two men, two elves, and dwarf, and a wizard all on horseback — clearly began to sink in. Passing rundown looking men and women, all of them various shades of dark and dusty blonde, slowed or stopped to peer at us. Some looked curiously at us through the dark circles beneath their eyes, while others glared in blatant mistrust. Most however, just looked tired, hopeless, and more than a little afraid. A couple of young mothers with small children ushered them close as we passed, staring up at Legolas and Gimli in particular with wide eyes as they did.

We passed beneath a carved, painted wooden arch that had probably once been impressively beautiful, and I spotted a banner that had been torn from its post by the breeze, falling emblem-up into the dried grass.

A green banner trimmed with gold, with a white horse beneath a bright yellow sun. The same banner Eomer and his men had been riding under, though this one was far less well kept, despite being in the king's own city.

An unsettling detail, I thought.

"You'd find more cheer in a graveyard," Gimli commented dryly, watching as one of the young nearby maids tried to retreat away further as we approached, only to stumble backwards into another red-haired woman behind her, almost knocking her over along with the bundle of rolled blankets she'd been carrying.

The younger girl spun, presumably to apologise, but the second she saw the red-haired woman's face — and the prominent swell of her very pregnant belly beneath the bland dress — her mouth snapped shut. I saw her eyes flicker over the other woman with obvious judgment, and a sneer crawled onto her face. She turned quickly away without a word, leaving the poor red haired soon-to-be-mother to struggle to pick up her dropped garments on her own. It was a real struggle to reach down over her protruding baby-bump, but she gritted her teeth and did it anyway, without anyone around her bothering to offer their help.

I watched with furrowed brows as she stood, and as her eyes met mine, and I felt the sharp tug of sudden, painful recognition that pulled at my breath out of me. My own eyes widened, and my mouth fell open, but the name never made it past my lips.

I knew that face.

'Katie?!'

I knew those brown eyes, hard with familiar determination, set in a pretty but adamantly freckled face.

It was her! It was really her! But how? When? What in sweet hell was going on? Even Tink sounded like she'd been smacked in the face with a mallet.

'I… I have no idea—'

"Eleanor?"

I jerked to see Aragorn looking at me wearily over his shoulder. He and Gandalf both followed my gaze to the young pregnant woman of Rohan who was the doppleganger to my best friend back on Earth. She was looking at me curiously too.

But not in recognition — just mild interest.

She didn't recognise me. She didn't know me. I could see it in her eyes from ten meters away, and the realisation and confusion tore at my insides as swiftly and as deeply as the shock of seeing her had.

"Ah," Gandalf exclaimed suddenly, covering my reaction with masterful ease. A grandfatherly smile adorned his face as he coaxed Shadowfax to an easy stop and dismounted. Leaning a little too heavily on his staff he approached her, he gestured with a faux-frail hand to on the of the coarse grey blankets in her arms. "May I please borrow this, my dear?"

The woman who looked so painfully like Katie blinked at him, nodding dumbstruck, taking the blanket and handing it to him.

"Thank you," he smiled warmly, and wrapped the coarse grey fabric around his shoulders. He adjusted the cloth about his shoulders until all the white of his finer robes were covered, and the hem dangled all the way down to his ankles. Satisfied, he turned back to the woman with another polite smile. "I shall return it to you shortly."

"O-of course," she said, still a bit shell-shocked.

Bloody hell and brimstone, she even sounded just like Katie.

My insides burned with a torrent of emotions again at the sound, and it took me a moment to realise that Aragorn had dismounted along with Boromir and Legolas — the latter of who was helping Gimli out of Arod's saddle. I just continued to sit there on Hasufel like a moron, my mouth open like I was catching flies, staring at Katie's Middle Earth twin, my mind frantically searching for an explanation.

She caught my eye a second time, and the pain in my chest swelled so suddenly I was abruptly torn between flinging myself off Hasufel, shaking her by the shoulders and demanding who the hell she was to wear my best friend's face, or bursting into tears, and wrapping her in a bone-breaking hug.

A hand suddenly appeared on my leg — a concerned touch just below my knee, that jarred me out of my numb shock.

"Eleanor."

I looked stiffly down to find Gandalf looking up at me sternly. My mouth closed, then fell open again as my neck got stuck trying to look at both him and Katie at the same time.

"H-how?" I managed to stammer out, but his hand suddenly tightened on my calf in warning.

"Later," he said quietly with a deadly serious look up at me. "You have my word. But now is not the time to explain such things. Come."

He offered a steadying hand to help me down, and I took it without thinking. It was probably a good thing I did too, because I was still in such deep shock that I almost fell flat on my face once I'd slid down off the saddle. I'd totally forgotten about the state of my legs and backside, but the second we left the horses and started walking up to Meduseld hall I was reminded as all the muscles below my waist exploded into aches and pangs.

Burying my shock and internal torrent of questions as deep as I could, I staggered up the stone steps behind Aragorn, Boromir and Gandalf, concentrating hard on not falling over my own wobbly legs. I almost walked straight into Boromir's back when they all suddenly came to a stop at the top.

The ornately painted double oak doors of the hall had suddenly swung open, and a rather beefy looking man of Rohan with long auburn hair, a wiry beard, and scaled armour strode out purposefully towards us. He was flanked by about a dozen guards, all of them with their helms down and spears at the ready — though mercifully not pointed at us this time. I wasn't at all convinced I had any patience or energy left for politeness after the day we'd all just had. I was still too busy reeling from the shock of seeing my best friend's image in the face of a woman from another world. As if my life wasn't confusingly, dangerously weird enough already.

Gandalf met the guards and their leader with a beatific smile, which was not returned.

"Greetings Háma! It is good to see you once again."

"And greetings to you, Gandalf Greyhame," the guard captain Háma said in a much less amiable tone, although he did attempt a rather strained smile of welcome. He looked for a moment as if he wished to say something more, but a tiny glance towards his left at some of the guards had him obviously rethinking his words. He faced us with a silently warning look in his face.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow you before Theoden King so armed," his eyes drifted pointedly from Gandalf's borrowed grey cloak to each of us — once again lingering for a confused second on me — before returning to the Wizard. "By order of Grima Wormtongue."

'There's a name and a half,' Tink jibed with a dark chuckle, though I could feel her unease as my own at the sight of all those weapons. One wrong move from any of them, and I could feel she'd be ready to throw me out of the way if needs be.

'Easy, Tink,' I chided silently, risking a look in the direction Háma had glanced back inside the darkened hall. 'Anyway, something tells me they're not the ones we need to worry about.'

A couple of guards came forward to relieve us of our weapons, one of them an old but burly man with streaks of grey in his red-blonde beard, and the other a young man barely out of his teens. Boromir, Legolas, and a very reluctant Gimli handed their weaponry over to the older man — Legolas indulging in a rather unnecessary flourish as he handed his long knives over.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but only just.

The younger guard stepped forward a little hesitantly to take Aragorn's and mine, and I couldn't help but notice the way his gaze kept flicking back to me.

I had to wonder what on earth it was with the men here and their wandering eyes. Had I been wandering around with blood or mud on my face again while the others had conveniently forgotten to tell me?

Beside me, Aragorn calmly unstrapped the scabbard and sword at his hip, and I reluctantly followed suit, unstrapping my knife pouch, and removing the throwing knives I'd hidden in my boots and up my sleeve. Finally I got to my engraved hunting knife, and I had to force myself not to look at the carved names and I pulled it from its sheath. I gripped it tight for a moment, eyeing the surrounding guards with poorly masked distrust. Despite my constant dropping of it, my knife had become even more precious to me over the past few weeks, and I was reluctant to let it go.

But threats were obviously not going to work here, so for once, I decided to try on charm instead.

Hey, I can be charming… occasionally.

I caught the young guard's and made a point of handing my well loved hunting blade over to him hilt-first with much more care than I had my throwing knives.

"Please don't lose this," I said very softly, offering him a pleading little smile. My Charm Mode must have been less rusty than I thought, because the young guard's face coloured a little, and he gave me a solemn nod through a hesitant smile.

"I shan't," he answered reverently, taking my hunting knife carefully…

And almost dropped it as he fumbled to hold it along with Aragorn's scabbard. A guard behind him snorted indelicately, and the boy's face turned even more pink.

"Is that all, my lady?" he asked a bit sheepishly.

Aragorn looked scrutinisingly down at the seven knives I'd handed over, then turned and fixed me with a very pointed, very dry stare. I eyed him back, sighed, and then twisted so I could reach a hand up under the back of my battered tunic. A second later I pulled out my last remaining throwing knife from where I'd stealthily tucked it under the laces of my breastband. The young guard gave me a half startled, half impressed look through a rapidly reddening face as I handed it over, and Tink gave a light, tittering chuckle from the back of my head.

'I think someone has an admirer.'

'Can it, you, or I really will start charging you rent,' I snapped, but on the outside I was smiling. The smile fell a little when I noticed Legolas off to the side eyeing the young guard closely, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. He didn't look angry, but he was wearing a look that maybe made me a teensy bit worried for the young man's future wellbeing.

As the two guards retreated with our weapons, Háma turned to Gandalf once again, and gave a pointed glance at his right hand.

"Your staff, Gandalf," he said in an almost wearisome tone, inclining his head at the tall white-wood stave that was almost taller than he was.

"Ah," the old wizard answered looking at his staff. Then he hunched rather deliberately forward, and leaned heavily on it, as if it were the only thing keeping his upright. "You would not part an old man from his walking stick."

Háma gave him a thoroughly sceptical raised eyebrow, eyed the rest of us dubiously, then nodded once, turning to lead us inside the double doors. Gandalf smiled sideways as Aragorn and me, giving us a tiny wink as we moved to follow suit, making a point to almost limp on tired legs in time with "walking stick" under the eyes of the guards. As if on cue, Legolas came up on Gandalf's left, offering the old wizard a steadying arm like any strapping grandson would, and Gandalf took it with a little more drama that I thought was entirely necessary.

Never mind the fact that the silly Elf prince was probably at least three times as old as the cunning old Wizard on his arm.

The rest of us followed in just behind them, and as we passed the young guard who's taken my knife risked a shyly flirtatious smile at me as we went by. He didn't dare say anything out loud this time though — smart boy.

"Was that necessary?" Aragorn's voice came so quietly I almost didn't hear it through the mutterings that erupted around us as we entered the entranceway. I glanced sideways at him with a raised eyebrow.

"What did I do now?"

"Attempted to dazzle the poor lad with your wiles, lass" Gimli clarified, his voice managing to sound gruff even in a whisper. I threw him a halfhearted glare through the pang of embarrassment.

"It was either I attempt to dazzle him with my so called wiles into relaxing a bit, or you lot scare the knickers off him with your death-stares, and we all get skewered," I whispered back tartly, my face warming.

"The day is young," Boromir murmured, eyeing the spattering of surprised courtiers and guards with narrowed eyes as we made our way from the entrance to the high-ceilinged main hall.

Aragorn followed his gaze and abruptly tensed up next to me. Before I could even ask what had them both so high strung, Aragorn nudged my shoulder with his elbow, and gave a minute jerk of his chin towards the shadows. I looked, and was met with the sight of about six or seven men who did not match the rugged but noble features of the surrounding men of Rohan. These ones might have shared the same dusty blonde hair and sun-warmed features of the locals, but something unsettlingly cold in their hostile gazes had them standing out a mile, and sending icy down my spine. They seemed to move as one through the small crowds, following us as we moved further inside.

The doors shut with a dull boom behind us, and I had to force myself not to whirl and look back.

I abruptly had the sudden, sinking feeling that we may have just walked into a trap we might not have an easy time getting out of, if of course things with the king didn't go well.

Which — knowing our luck — they probably wouldn't.

"My lord, Gandalf the Grey is coming," a — there was no other word to describe it — slimy voice came from the other side of the hall in a harsh whisper.

It was so quiet I doubt I would have been able to hear it had I not grown so used to my snazzy Elf hearing. I looked away from our stalkers, down the thrown room of Meduseld to the end where the voice had come from. The hall was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside, and just like the carved wooden arches we'd passed on the way into Edoras, it was easy to see it had once been a beautiful, warm place full of life and light.

But not anymore.

The once intricate paintwork on the carved wooden pillars had been long neglected and begun to fade to dull shadows of their former glory. The stone floor was dusty and cold without so much as a throw rug in sight, and the green and gold banners of Rohan that hang from the walls looked as if they hadn't been taken down and cleaned in years. A couple of long banquet tables and a long neglected roasting pit sat in the centre of the room, running the entire length of the hall. Once upon a time I imagined they had been more than enough to seat and feed the entire court, and then some. Now however, the only items gracing the king's tables were some tarnished silver platters, all containing rather sad helpings of fruit, bread and cheese that looked as if it had been sitting there a few days too many.

I still couldn't really understand why, but the entire sight and feel of the place filled me with equal parts sadness and disgusted anger. Worst of all, however, came when my eyes fell at last on the king of Rohan, seated in a regal, finely carved high-backed throne atop raised stone steps at the head of the hall.

I swear if the man sitting in that wood-worm infested chair hadn't been visibly blinking milky cataracts eyes that had once been blue at us, I'd have assumed he was dead.

Or at least halfway there already.

There are some people in both Arda and Earth — like Gandalf and my own dear departed grandfather for instance — who had managed to embrace old age with grace and decorum, proudly wearing every single white hair and smile-line as a badge of honour with no shame or apology. King Theoden was not one of them. He looked like something had crawled inside his soul and started shrivelling him from the inside out. He was sat bent over in his chair, wrapped in so many cloaks and furs to keep warm it was hard to see how far over he was hunched. A regal but heavy looking bronze diadem encircled his balding head, and was one of the few things that was keeping the remains of his unkept ghostly white hair out of his pasty, liver-spotted face.

I knew instantly, without any reminder of what Gandalf had told us earlier, that this was Saruman's doing. And the knowledge only made it more painful to look at the unnatural suffering that had been inflicted on the king.

The poor sod couldn't have been past middle aged, but he looked like he was well past a hundred.

Beside him sat a second man with dark greasy hair, and fine robes of what I assumed was an advisor. He was perched on a lower chair to the left of the king, but the old man was so heavily hunched over the second man had no trouble at all leaning over and whispering into his ear.

"They are all heralds of woe," he hissed, throwing us all a harsh glare as we approached, and I got a good look at one of the creepiest pairs of eyes I'd seen. One was icy grey with a dilated pupil, and the other a dark green and shrunken, set in a face so pinched and pale, and sneering at us like we'd all dragged horse dung in on our boots. He looked like he could have been an understudy for Severus Snape, though I suspected even Snape in all his greasy-haired Slytherin glory could have been insulted at being compared to the slimy little man who I assumed was Grima Wormtongue.

He all but radiated malice and venom from all the across the room, and my skin had started trying to crawl away just looking at him.

"The courtesy of your hall is somewhat lessened of late,Theoden King," Gandalf called out in a dry tone. He'd released Legolas' arm, though he was still pretending to limp. The rest of us had spread out instinctively to either side of him as we approached the stone steps and dais — Boromir and Gimli on his left, Aragorn, Legolas and me on his right.

All of us were facing forwards, but still watching the dark-faced men in the shadows from the corners of our eyes.

"He's not welcome," I heard Wormtongue hiss into the king's ear again, still watching us with his creepy, narrowed glare.

The king seemed to stir at those words, his dry mouth opening as if to speak, but the sound that came out was so rasped and croaky it almost didn't sound like a real voice.

"W-why should I-I welcome you, Gandalf S-Stormcrow?" Theoden demanded, though it sounded as if he wasn't really sure what he was even saying. Beside him, Wormtongue smiled, and gave the king an approving nod.

"A just question, my liege," he said with a haughty smirk, rising from his seat and moving towards us down the stairs — one part wraith to one part snake.

Beside me, Aragorn's elbow nudged my arm again, a little harder than before.

"Be ready," he whispered, barely moving his lips. I glanced uneasily from the dais to the men in the shadows.

"For?" I whispered back.

'Sudden gratuitous violence, I expect,' Tink said bluntly.

"To defend yourself, however you may," Aragorn answered in soft but fierce tone, and I had to fight not to let a hysterical giggle escape my throat.

'I was really hoping neither of you were going to say that,' I groaned silently.

"Late is the hour in which this grey conjurer chooses to appear before us," Wormtongue drawled to the watching courtiers and guards, stalking towards us with that ugly sneer still plastered on his face. "Lath-spell I name him. Ill news is an ill guest."

The thin veneer of politeness melted from Gandalf's face, and he gave Wormtongue a glare that could have frozen vodka.

"Be silent! Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. I have not passed through fire and death to exchange crooked words with a witless worm."

Wormtongue's sneer gained an even sharper edge, and for a moment he looked at if he was about to spit even more venom at us. His expression of snide confidence vanished like a puff of smoke though, the second he noticed the object Gandalf had begun to raise towards him.

"His staff!" the slimy man all but squeaked, backing up so quickly he nearly fell over the steps, and shouting at the men in the shadows. "Idiots! I told you to take the wizard's staff!"

And then, inevitably, the hall exploded into the impending obligatory tavern brawl. Because obviously we'd all been left in peace for far to long without being chucked head first into a good old-fashioned dust-up — sans weapons.

But hey, at least we weren't boxing Uruk-hai this time.

The half dozen dark-eyed men that had been shadowing us since we entered burst into the centre of the room from between the stunned courtiers and confused guards, and charged straight for us.

Boromir's arm and shoulder blurred so fast that I only saw it as movement, and the false guard who's tried to aim a blow at his face went flying backwards over a table. Another made the mistake of trying to lunge at Legolas from behind, and the Elf simply jerked his arm backwards in one sharp movement, barely looking, and caved the man's nose in with his elbow.

Unfortunately for us, the rest weren't quite so stupid.

'Heads up!' Tink shouted, pulling my attention to the left just in time to see one of the men making to grab me in a headlock. For once, I thanked God I was the height I was, because I ducked just in time for the man's hand to miss, skimming to the top of my head and almost losing his balance as I threw my weight into his side and shoved him away. Regaining my balance, I instinctively reached down for my hunting knife at my hip, only to remember with a shot of dread it wasn't there.

With a half frustrated, half panicked curse, I aimed one of Aragorn's wicked-fast tutored kicks at the man's unguarded stomach.

Or at least, I meant to hit him in the stomach.

He managed to stand up a little quicker than I'd expected, and my boot connected hard with an area a little lower and a tad more sensitive on a man than his belly. The man made a sound halfway between wheeze and a squeak, and he folded over onto the floor like a collapsed deck chair, clutching his nether regions in twitching agony.

'Or down. That works too,' Tink cackled manically, her glee mixing with my adrenaline in a bizarre and heady torrent.

Gimli let out a battle roar that would have scared the hair off any sane man, and I saw one of the fake guards go flying past into a pillar with a crash out of the corner of my eye.

"Theoden, son of Thengel, too long have you sat trapped in the shadows!" Gandalf was calling loudly, but quite calmly over the bangs and crashes of the fighting. Aragorn, Legolas and Boromir — all embroiled in their own respective punch-ups with multiple assailants — weren't allowing any of the attacking men to come within five feet of the approaching wizard. It was also in the short moment that I realised none of the real Rohan guards were helping or attacking us at all. In fact, I could see and wide-eyed Háma quite clearly holding the older guard who'd taken our weapons back by the arm, speaking quickly into his ear.

"Eleanor, behind—!" Aragorn's voice suddenly bellowed, and I realised I'd made one really, really stupid mid-fight mistake.

I'd stopped paying attention to my back.

One of the fake guards got behind me and I felt his breath on the back of my neck before I saw him. One of his arms looped around my middle, and the other snagged around my throat. His hip dug into the small of my back, and he pulled my head back sharply, cutting off my air. For a split second I panicked as the pressure on my throat and the lack of oxygen to my brain made my vision go dark, frantically kicking and thrashing against the hideously strong man behind me.

Then, as suddenly as the fear driven panic had come, it vanished into a strangely detached calm. I still couldn't breath, but it was as if I'd been able to put the part of my brain that had started running in unhelpfully frantic circles on mute, and I could think clearly again.

'Pinky!' Tink barked at me through the haze like a drill sergeant, and I instantly knew what she meant for me to do.

Clawing at my assailant's arm around my neck, I found his littlest finger and wrenched viciously it back until there was a loud popping sound right next to my ear. He howled out a cry of shock and sudden pain, and I twisted in his embrace, catching him in the jaw with my elbow. He released me instantly, staggering back as I staggered forward, sucking in blessed oxygen. He recovered surprisingly quickly from having his fingers broken, because I'd barely been able to take two breaths before he gave a snarl of rage, crawling his twisted hand, and lunged at me again with rage in his eyes.

Rage for rage, I guess.

My blurred vision went red around the edges and I snarled back in wheezy outrage right back at him. Without pausing to think, I reached back, seizing one of the biggest silver platter of fruit I could reach off the banquet table, and swung it with two hands over my head. Fruit flew, and the metal bounced off the man's skull with a loud gonging sound. The look of rage fell from his face, his eyes rolled back, and he dropped to the floor like a stone.

Sucking in rasping breaths through my sore throat, I stared down at him for a moment in shock, the platter still held loose in my hands.

Bloody hell, I didn't think I'd hit him that hard.

Still breathing a little hard, I looked up to find half the room — including, I was a little pleased to see, a rather impressed looking Aragorn and Legolas — were staring at me in shock. Every faux guard that had tried to jump us was now either lying unconscious, or in too much pain to be a problem, and every courtier who wasn't staring at us was gawking at Gandalf and Theoden.

Wormtongue, who at some point had been knocked to the floor entirely, made a squeaking sound and tried to shuffle backwards away from us on his butt. He didn't get far before Gimli stomped over and very calmly planted one of his big boots on the man's chest.

"I would stay still if I were you, lad," he said with an eery little smile.

"Harken to me!" Gandalf's voice rang through the room again. He was barely five steps from Theoden now, his hand raised palm up towards the old king. "I release you from this spell."

A gentle, shifting sensation rolled through the room, like the pull and push of the tide when you stood waist deep in the sea. I felt that power wash over me in a wave of gentle warmth, seeming to relax every muscle and ease every ache in my body for a moment, from the top of my head to the ends of my fingers. Out of my peripherals I spotted Aragorn and Legolas both experience similar reactions, their tense forms easing very slightly as the entire room stilled…

And then Theoden started laughing.

His old body wheezed and shook in cackling, mocking guffaws, and it was by far the most unsettling laugh I'd ever heard in my life — because I realised after a moment of horror that it wasn't just Theoden laughing.

One part of the old man's voice still sounded like his own; croaky and dry. But overlaying that was another voice; far silkier, and elegant, and poisonous as frozen arsenic.

Saruman's voice, I realised.

Superimposed over Theoden's like a blanket of viscous oil over water.

"You have no power here, Gandalf the Grey," that chilling voice chuckled confidently, somehow managing to twist the old king's crinkled face into an unnatural, triumphant looking sneer.

Gandalf regarded the possessed king with a long look that mixed disappointment with resolve. Very slowly, he lowered his hand back to his side, closed his eyes, and then very calmly allowed the concealing grey blanket to fall from around his shoulder.

Ok now, I remembered Gandalf's new white regalia being pretty spectacular the first time I'd seen them — but I can't say I remembered them blaring with near-blinding light, and accompanied by a surge of far less gentle power that all but set my teeth on edge with static. There were CGI washing detergent ads and thunder storms that despaired at not being as flawlessly flashy or impressive as Gandalf was in that moment.

Theoden's spooky two-tone laugh was cut abruptly short as he was thrown back against the back of his chair with a sharp cry of shock, milky eyes gone wide.

"I will draw you, Saruman, as poison is drawn from a wound," Gandalf stated loudly with calm certainty, another roll of that static-charged power billowing out through the room as he aimed his staff directly at Theoden's chest.

The king — barely recovered from the first barrage of invisible force — was once again hurled back against his throne like a butterfly in a hurricane. Even from ten feet away I could feel the fallout of that power building like an impossible, near-painful pressure against my own mind. I could only imagine what it must have felt like to be in the full blast range of that power.

Theoden gave another harsh shout of defiance in that ugly double voice, more Saruman's than Theoden's this time.

"Uncle!" a female voice suddenly screamed from the side of the room.

I whirled to see a woman about my age with long, dusty-blonde hair and a fine, white gown shoving her way frantically through the courtiers and guard. An expression of horror mixed with outrage marred her otherwise beautiful face as she charged at Gandalf — but Aragorn seized her by the upper arm at the last step, stopping her just in time.

"Wait," he said, gently enough to quell the fury in her eyes as she whirled on him, though the horror and fear at what was happening remained.

Theoden's arthritic body twisted in his seat in a bizarrely spider-like motion, a venomous glare aimed at Gandalf that I was sure was not really his own.

"If I go, Theoden dies," Saruman snarled through the king's mouth.

Gandalf responded with chilling calmness by thrusting the end of his staff in another blast of invisible power at Theoden, wiping the unnatural look from his face as he was flattened back against the throne.

"You did not kill me, you will not kill him."

The blonde woman who had called Theoden her uncle made a sound halfway between a snarl and a sob, but she didn't struggle against Aragorn who was still holding her gently back from the dais.

"Rohan is mine!" Saruman shouted through Theoden's body in a strangled, high voice that was almost painful to hear.

Or maybe that was the strange pressure I could still feel still building up in my head with the power in the room, making my ears ring, my eyes sting, and my head throb…

I saw Gandalf's face fall ever so slightly at the sight of Theoden still writhing under Saruman's control, barely enough to see unless you knew to look for the shadows under his eyes deepening. But Theoden saw it, and there was no way I could believe the look of triumph that twisted his old withered face could have truly belonged to him. The old king gave one last painfully high pitched howl of challenge, throwing himself forwards out of his chair at the wizard. Gandalf's staff came up again, and another blast of power, stronger than any of the previous ones, blasted through the room, throwing Theoden back into his thrown.

That painful pressure in my head suddenly surged again, and although I didn't quite cry out, I felt my mouth open in a silent gasp and my hand lurch up to clutch my temples — the pain behind my eyes continuing to build, and build…

Until finally, I felt something snap deep inside.

I think my eyes must have rolled back, because the room suddenly went dark, and I was suddenly spinning through a torrent of shadowy figures and haunting, far-off sounds. I lost all sense of which way was up or down, and for a few seconds, all I could heard was the roar of my own blood in my ears. Then, before I could even try to think through the panic of what was happening to me, or why, I heard something else echoing up through the sound of my own heartbeat…

Music. That same hauntingly familiar, wordless song I'd heard only a day before in the depths of Fangorn forest.

Only this time, it wasn't wordless.

"Hush little one, fear not the night.

I'll still be here come morning's light…"

My stomach lurched at what I realised was hearing. What I was recognising in those words — still sung by that strange, echoey, woman's voice — even if I couldn't quite remember the words themselves…

"Hear not the drums that beat they're coming.

Feel not the heartbeats all a thrumming."

Pain spiked through my head again in lancing waves, but I forcefully shoved them back, trying desperately to hear the words of the song echoing around the inside of my mind more clearly. Trying to make myself remember where the hell I recognised them from…

"Tis not for you to fear or cry,

To see the Lady with—"

Something warm and strong suddenly grasped me by the shoulder, I was abruptly pulled right side up again. My eyes rolled and came painfully back into focus of the world around me again, and the sudden vertigo made the floor tilt so violently that I almost toppled over. It was only when the world stopped rocking that I realised I'd staggered sideways against the banquet table, barely managing to keep myself propped upright on two violently trembling legs, one hand braced against the wooden surface, and…

And my nose was bleeding.

Not a whole lot, just a little trickle that I easily wiped away, and the same throbbing pain in my head I'd had the other night was back again — a dull pulsing ache behind my eyes.

A familiar, strong hand holding me firmly but gently up by my upper arm. Legolas' hand to be precise.

"Eleanor?" he made my name into a question, and I waved him off with a slightly stiff smile of reassurance — not wanting to show exactly how much what had just happened had really affected me.

"I'm alright, just dizzy," I answered truthfully, wiping my nose on the remains of my ruined sleeve, mercifully able to keep my words from slurring together despite how much they wanted to.

Legolas released his hold on my arm when he was sure I wasn't about to fall over, but his hand remained resting gently on my shoulder just in case.

Up on the dais — once I had finally managed to focus my eyes again — I saw something had started to happen to Theoden in the wake of Gandalf's powerful display. The wizened old man had gone boneless with seeming exhaustion on his throne, and as Gandalf stepped away, looking fairly exhausted himself, the king began to teeter forwards.

The blonde woman wrenched herself out of Aragorn's grasp, and caught her uncle before he could fall to the stone floor. Her lovely face was drawn with pain and fear as she helped him straighten again, and as he did, we all saw the repentants of whatever spell Saruman had held over him slowly ebbing away like sunlight through fog.

He seemed to grow taller in that seat, his hunched spine straightening, his shoulders straightening with renewed strength. His paper-like skin evened out, a healthy sun-graced tone replacing the sallow paleness, and his milky eyes grew clear and bright as a summer sky as he looked around at us all in shock. Within the space of a few moments, he wasn't a shrivelled husk of an old man anymore. Whatever had been done to him by Saruman, it had all but disappeared. All that was left were several thick streaks of silver-white at the temples of his dark gold mane, and for some reason, I was certain they had not been there before Saruman had invaded his mind.

When we had first entered, the old man on the throne of Rohan had looked on the verge of a death. The warrior king who stared around at us with sharp, intelligent blue eyes barely looked a day over forty-five.

Those eyes fell on the young woman at his side, still holding him upright and close to tears with relief, and his confused expression melted into warm recognition.

"I know your face…" he said quietly, with the tone of a father seeing his child for the first time in years. He lifted a slightly trembling hand to cup her face, and his own broke into a bright, beaming smile. "Eowyn."

Eowyn let out a sob of unapologetic joy, leaning into her uncle's touch and covering his battle scarred hand with hers as she cried.

"Breathe the free air again, my friend," Gandalf spoke with equal parts warmth and satisfaction, though he sounded weary, leaning heavily on his staff. Theoden looked up at the wizard and then around at the rest of us and the court, as if he'd completely forgotten we were all there.

His eyes landed on the five of us unfamiliar faces, lingering on me with a puzzled raise of an eyebrow — and it took me a moment to realise I was standing there in a half ruined, filthy tunic, with blood smeared on my face, still holding the big silver platter I'd used to brain one of his imposter guards with.

I cleared my throat a bit awkwardly, sheepishly setting the platter back on the fruit covered table as Eowyn helped Theoden get properly to his feet.

Now at his full and rather impressive height, he regarded us all before him — courtiers, guards, wizards, and weirdos — with a pensive expression, as if trying to remember how exactly we all came to be standing there before him. He looked down at his hands, so much younger than they'd been before, yes still heavy with the lines and scars of an eventful and adventurous life.

"Dark have been my dreams of late," he murmured absently, though it was loud enough for us all to hear him.

"Your fingers may remember their old strength better if they grasped your sword," Gandalf suggested, and as if he had been only waiting for the opportunity, Háma emerged from the surrounding spectators holding a fine looking sword held in an ornate, but well worn scabbard. The hilt of the sword had been crafted to resemble two elegantly rearing war horses, their backs to the blade. Theoden reached a steadily strengthening hand out towards the sword, and the second his fingers brushed and gripped the worn leather of the grip, his eyes lit with the shadows and light of years worth of memories. His face fell slightly, then hardened, a tiny, strong smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as he drew the blade from its resting place.

Háma's face split into a beaming grin that he and the rest of the watching guards could barely managed to keep to formal levels at the sight of their renewed king. But the look on Eowyn's face outshone them all — as bright as a star, her eyes filled with tears and fierce joy as she beamed at her uncle.

I couldn't help it, I found myself grinning too. And when I glanced to my left, I caught Aragorn, Legolas, and even Boromir doing the same at the sight.

Theoden raised the blade up to the vertical, and caught Eowyn's gaze as he observed the edge. He smiled at her warmly once again, but the expression withered and vanished like flowers under frost as he looked past her…

Straight to where Gimli was still keeping a truly petrified looking Wormtongue pinned to the floor beneath his boot.

If I hadn't been well and truly a part of the crew that had kicked the crap out of the real imposters on his hall of warriors, the look king Theoden sent his ex-advisor would have sent me running for the hills.

He didn't look anything close to a weak, dying, suggestible old man anymore.

He looked like a furious bear standing over the body of one of his cubs.

"Out!" The king of Rohan growled, low and dangerous as an approaching earthquake. "I will not sully the halls of my forefathers with his filthy blood!"

Legolas pulled me quickly backwards with him, almost falling straight into him as several very eager guards — including Háma and my apparent young admirer — surged past us straight for Wormtongue.

To say they threw him out of the halls of Meduseld really doesn't do the guards of Edoras as a whole the justice they deserve. Five of the burly mortal men picked up the frantically kicking and shrieking servant of Saruman by the arms, legs, and scruff of the neck, and bodily tossed him from the room like a bale of hay. The slimy little man flew straight out the double doors onto the stone patio where we'd been divested of our weapons. He tumble once, bounced twice, got tangled in his ostentatious advisor's robes on the edge of the steps, and went sprawling backwards down them into a painful heap.

Theoden strode out after him and down the stone steps with as much strength and purpose as he could muster on his weakened frame, still gripping his sword with white knuckled rage. The rest of us quickly followed out to find everyone on the street outside frozen in shock and awe at the sight.

"I've only ever served you, my lord!" Wormtongue was pleading frantically, crawling backwards away from the furious king on his backside and hands, eyes wide with fear. There was blood dribbling down his chin from where his lip had split open.

Theoden might have still been weak from his whole possessed-by-an-evil-sorcerer ordeal, but he still looked more than capable and willing to use that sword in his hand on the terrified, greasy man at his feet as he advanced.

"You and your leechcraft would have had me crawling on all fours like a beast!" he snarled, and the look on his face was enough to drain the blood from both Wormtongue's face and chill mine. After seeing what the little bastard had done to the king and his house, I didn't object to seeing him punished for it.

But punishment and butchering were two very different things, and the look in Theoden's eyes spoke loud and clear as to which he was leaning towards.

"Mercy, my lord! Send me not from your sight!" Wormtongue was still howling, but Theoden wasn't listening.

The renewed king of Rohan swung his sword up over his head with two hands and a roar of fury. Wormtongue screamed. I heard an involuntary gasp fly up my throat, one hand instinctively coming up cover my mouth, and the other instinctively gripping the arm of the person beside me tight as the blade came down.

Aragorn lunged down the steps so fast I almost thought he'd fallen down them too, his hands flying out to latch around Theoden's, and pulling the sword to the side at the last second. The blade missed Wormtongue's sobbing face by barely an inch, and Theoden bellowed in fury, trying to wrench the blade back up for another swing.

"No, my lord!" Aragorn shouted, managing to overpower the enraged king just enough to stop him again. "Let him go. Enough blood has been spilt on his account."

Theoden looked for a moment as if he was contemplating the merits of taking Aragorn's head off his shoulders along with his ex-advisors. The enraged king of Rohan met the ranger's gaze — stone for stone — and slowly, hesitantly, his anger began to dissipate.

Exhaustion crept back into his face and body again, and he relented reluctantly, dropping his blade arm heavily to his side again as his shoulders slumped with tiredness. You could almost hear the collective exhale of mixed relief and disappointment from all those watching — me and whoever's arm I was gripping included. I glanced sideways to find it was Legolas' left wrist I'd grasped. And though he still watched Theoden and Aragorn with sharp blue-grey eyes, I felt him watching at me too — warm fingers coming up and linking suddenly with mine, giving a gentle squeeze of reassurance.

Below us on the steps, Theoden took one last venomous look down at his traitorous ex-advisor, then very deliberately turned away.

No one, I think, was more surprised by that reaction than Wormtongue, because for a moment, he barely noticed Aragorn stoically reach out and offer him a hand up from the ground. The pale man drew his baffled, shell-shocked gaze from his king to look at Aragorn, and his outstretched hand…

His pasty, pinched face twisted instantly into a poisonous sneer up at my friend, and then he leaned forward, and spat blood and spit straight into Aragorn's upturned hand.

Aragorn reacted with far more dignity than I would have. He pulled a disgusted face, and retracted his hand, but did nothing more. He just watched as Wormtongue scurried backwards away in the dirt, clambered to his feet, and fled through the gathered crowd, shoving people violently out of his way as he went.

Outrage boiled up in me as I watched the cowardly git flee — but I was more than a little surprised to feel not all of it coming entirely from me.

'That little bastard!' Tink ranted furiously from the back of my head. 'That evil, conniving, poisonous little wanke—!'

"All hail, Theoden King!" one of the guards shouted, cutting Tink's tirade of obscenities off suddenly.

The awed crowed and triumphant guards who were all still watching took a moment to react, but when they did, there wasn't a single person — man, woman, or child — who didn't dip to one knee and bow their head in submission. Even Aragorn did the same, and the rest of us all inclined our heads in solemn respect as the king turned back to face us all.

The anger was gone entirely now, and his weather-worn face had taken on a look of confusion.

Confusion and quiet dread.

"Where is Theodred?" I heard him ask, so softly, so silently that I was sure Legolas, Aragorn, and I were the only ones who had heard him. He looked up around at the blank faces of his courtiers and guards, and raised his voice just enough so everyone could hear.

"Where is my son?"

A/N: My Beta gave me such a roasting for ending the chapter there! But come on, you all should know by now I can't help but end chapters in the most painful place possible. XD

Having said that, if you want proof that I don't want to leave you guys hanging; I genuinely had a dream last night that I was involved in some weird freak tidal wave/apocalyptic event that collapsed part of the building I was in into a lake, and my first (perfectly rational) though was — "Oh crap, my computer will get wet. I'll loose all my unsaved work on CM. My readers will be waiting months for me to re-write it all."

Dream logic, right? XD

Anyway, the next few chapters are all well underway — most of the dialogue is already down and dusted. I'm not sure yet when I'll be posting them, partly because I'm back to freelancing/job hunting again; but mostly because there's some pretty big stuff coming up in the story soon, and I'm being carful where and when I reveal certain things. In the mean time, if you want another feather to ad to your conspiracy-theorist's cap, I'll be uploading a new chapter of I&I from Gandalf's point of view pretty soon — which might give you a teensy bit of insight into both his and Elrond's motives regard Ellie and her "tenant"… and maybe even a little hint as to who she might really be. :)

Until next time, thank you do much, and continue to stay awesome!

Rella x