21 / 12 /16 ~ In which Eleanor attends a funeral, finds food, and stitches a head back together.

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: You know what, I'm not even going to try and justify this obscenely long delay. All I can say is that there is a reason (see the A/N at the bottom of the chapter) and that I'm truly sorry for keeping you all waiting! Feel free to throw inanimate objects in my general direction. Beyond that, I really hope wherever in the world you are you've had a reasonably good few months — 2016 has really kicked my ass, but I'm hoping it hasn't been quite the same story all around for you guys.

This chapter is going to be a little shorter than usual since it was originally part of the next chapter, but I decided to split them after the word count started getting ridiculously high.

Hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for a little bit of surprise news at the end A/N. :)

Part I : Chapter 8

- Too Young To Live -

"Children aren't colouring books. You don't get to fill them with your favourite colours." ― Khaled Hosseini

Funerals are awful.

The last one I'd been to had been my grandfather's, when I'd been barely twenty. He'd been someone whom I'd grown up knowing all through my childhood, loved, and still felt the loss of even now, years after he was gone.

I hadn't known prince Theodred.

I hadn't known what he was like — whether he was kind or cruel, funny or boring. I hadn't known what his smile looked like, or what his laugh sounded like. I wouldn't have even known what his face looked like, if his body hadn't been laid out at the head of the burial precession before us.

Not that his face now was any real representation of the man he had been during life. The body of the king's son was bloodlessly pale, but strangely peaceful in death, adorned in his full battle regalia, and being carried on a raised litter by six men of the court. Men who, from the expressions on their faces, I realised had to have been his close friends. His own sword — a less ornate, but equally well loved version of his father's — had been clasped to his chest along with a small posey of white alfirin* flowers.

I hadn't known him at all.

And yet, it was still a painful sight to watch: that empty shell that had once been a man, being carried and committed to the earth by a people who had so obviously loved him.

Behind him, moving as if drifting through a dream, walked Theoden. He was also garbed in his formal regalia, and while he did look ten times more the strong and capable king than he had that morning, the blank look in his eyes made him seem brittle somehow — as if he might simply shatter if struck at the wrong angle.

Flanking him were a stone-faced Gandalf, Aragorn, and Boromir, keeping a respectful but supporting distance behind the king as he and his guards walked towards us. Legolas and Gimli — both of them obviously unfamiliar with the customs of a mortal funeral, let alone a royal one — had chosen to stand aside with the crowds of people congregated around the path to the city's burial mounds, heads dipped respectfully as they watched. I stood just a few feet away from them at the mouth of the tomb that had been prepared for the fallen prince, surrounded by a dozen quietly weeping women of the court.

With very little time to make ourselves presentable in the chaos following the king's return to his senses, I had been given a simple black and grey gown with tight sleeves and a modest neckline to wear in lieu of my shredded tunic and filthy riding greens. I had also scrubbed as much of the dirt off my face as I could in a bowl of cold water, and pulled my mostly de-tangled hair back into a loose braid that hung over the sides of my face and halfway down my back. Still, I couldn't help but feel disrespectfully unpolished standing there among the mourning women, trying to keep my expression sombre and to avoid meeting anyone's eyes.

Beside and a little in front of me, Eowyn also wore black, her golden hair pulled up under a dark grey veil and thin gold diadem, and she looked as if she was fighting to stay upright as her cousin's body was carried into view. Her face was rigidly stoic, fists clenched at her sides, but I was standing just close enough to hear her shuddering intake of breath, and see her eyes dampen at the corners.

She took several deep, deliberate breaths, her expression unchanging until she'd quieted the buried sobs. Then she began to sing with an equally strong and beautiful voice, in a language that I couldn't understand, and yet was left with no doubts as to the meaning.

"Bealocwealm hafadh freone frecan forth onsended

Giedd sculon singan gleomenn sorgiende on Meduselde

Thaet he ma no waere his dryhtne dyrest

And maga deorost, bealo…"**

After a while I couldn't keep listening without risking my composure dissolving completely, so I did my best to tune out the sound of the other woman's pain into background noise. How she managed to sing so beautifully while forcing herself not to cry, I'd likely never know. I'm not even sure I wanted to know, either. I tried for a moment to imagine what it must feel like for her, to be expected to hold a straight face in front of all those people, all while someone you loved like a brother was being put into the ground…

Then, I imagined how it might have felt if it was my own gangly little brother, Theo — with his goofy smile, snarky wit, and endless sci-fi trivia — being lowered into a cold grave.

My eyes stung, and I quickly shut them before anyone could see.

When it was all mercifully over and the crowd began to retreat back into the city, we all made our way back up towards the hall of Meduseld, leaving the king to mourn alone before his son's grave in peace.

I drifted behind the other women in a numb daze, the memory of Eowyn's haunting song still echoing around the inside of my head. I was so far gone into my own thoughts, I didn't even hear Aragorn coming up behind me until his hand was on my shoulder. My funeral-face must have been worse than I'd thought, because his own expression softened when he met my eye.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently.

I opened my mouth to say I was fine, but the words wouldn't come, so I quickly shut it, automatically reaching up to rub at my still aching neck. The half-healed bruises left on my throat by the Uruk-hai had begun to feel tender again after the dust-up in the throne room, and I'd had to suppress the urge to touch them all through the ceremony.

"Yes, I just… I just really hate funerals," I managed to say after a moment, forcing myself to not think about the hurricane of emotional pain we'd all just had to sit through stone-faced.

"I cannot imagine anyone who would enjoy them," Boromir murmured quietly, looking more tired than anything else as he came up beside us.

"That slimy little imp of an advisor we allowed free, perhaps?" Gimli, who was also looking a bit washed out by the proceedings, suggested. Boromir grunted in agreement, and Legolas nodded with a faintly pained look at Aragorn.

"I cannot help but feel the decision to turn him loose may return to bite us later," he commented dryly. Aragorn gave the Elf a stern glare.

"His life was not worth sacrificing our integrity for," he said plainly.

Gimli snorted indelicately in answer, folding his arms over his barrel chest. "I still say you should have at least let the slippery little bastard get battered up a bit before sending him running."

"Seconded," I said at the same time Boromir growled, "Agreed."

We glanced sideways at each other, and I could have sworn I saw the ghost of a smile twitch at the corner or his mouth, before it disappeared back into a frown. Aragorn just gave us all a flat look that said this was not a decision that had been or would be up for debate. I heaved a heavy sigh, my shoulders slumping as I ran a hand from my bruised neck down over my braid, which had come loose in the wind.

"I need a drink," I heard myself groan before I could think better of it. To my surprise Gimli beamed at me, his worry lines vanishing instantly.

"Now that sounds like a fine plan."

Then my stomach let out an insistent growl that sounded embarrassingly like a car engine turning over.

"And some food as well, if my ears do not fool me," Legolas added with a wry, sideways smile at me, and I did not flush with embarrassment — not even a little.

"Come on, lass, let's find us all something to eat. Hopefully, they'll have something beyond the swill most Men call drink stashed away somewhere," Gimli grinned at me through his beard. Then, he strode off with determined purpose towards the kitchens of the house where no doubt the staff were already preparing the wake feast.

I hadn't actually meant alcohol when I'd said the word drink, but now that I thought about it, I hadn't had a good glass of wine in months. Though I suspected even lukewarm, swill-like ale would taste like heaven right now, provided there was a hot meal to wash it down. Aragorn gave me a halfheartedly disapproving look out of the corner of his eye, but I smiled dryly up at him, promised to bring them all back something too, and trotted off to catch up with Gimli.

When it comes to food and good drink, I swear, Dwarves must have some kind of inbuilt radar. We found the Meduseld kitchens in less than five minutes, despite having been shown only the throne room a few hours before. The smell of fresh bread and cooking meats hit me like a wave as Gimli shouldered open the back door to the kitchens and ushered me through. The cooking staff were already hard at work preparing for Theodred's wake, and the room was filled with busy people and wonderfully delicious scents.

The matronly head chef with grey-streaked hair and flushed cheeks spotted us immediately and bustled over, demanding to know why we were clogging up the routine of her precisely organised domain. However, the second she heard my stomach growling over the noise and discovered via an unusually polite Gimli that we hadn't been fed since we'd arrived, a look of scandal appeared on her face. She swept us away into the servant's mess hall and piled a small feast of breads, salted meats, cheeses, and dried fruits in front of us with such speed, I was half convinced she'd been prepared for something like this in advance. A flagon of ale was quickly set in front of a very pleased Gimli, and a mug of watered down wine was given to me after the cook spotted my expression at the sight of the ale.

I could have kissed her for that.

"This looks wonderful, miss…" I trailed off as I took the carved mug from her, trying to ignore the sound of Gimli's slurping on the other side of the table. She beamed warmly down at me, round cheeks red with pleasure and pride.

"Please, m'lady Elf, call me Ilda. And you're most welcome."

I smiled and nodded, resisting the urge to insist she not call me by my race as well as my apparent nobility. Instead I took a long, deep gulp of my watered wine. It tasted less sweet and more earthy than the stuff we'd been given in Lothlórien, but I wouldn't have swapped it for the world. I took another deep swig, savouring the taste along with a large bite of sourdough bread and cheese, before glancing back through the doors into the busy kitchen. At least a dozen middle aged women and a few younger ones were flying about in all directions, seeming to pull copious amounts of food out of literally nowhere.

Maybe my brain was still a bit fuzzy with hunger and the aftermath of the funeral, but I couldn't help but notice there wasn't a single splash of red hair anywhere among the greys and blondes. I hadn't seen the woman who looked so much like Katie since we'd entered the city, and Gandalf had hardly left the king's side long enough to exchange monosyllables, let alone a secret conversation about potential parallel universes.

Ilda, still looking very pleased at our enthusiastic eating, was just about to turn and return to her busy domain when I gently caught her arm, deciding to take a risk.

"Ilda, can I ask you something?" I found myself saying, quietly enough that I hoped Gimli wouldn't hear me over the sound of his own chewing. Ilda regarded me in surprise, but still smiled.

"Of course, m'lady."

"You must know most of the people in Edoras right?"

"Aye, for the most part," she confirmed.

"Do you know a girl a bit taller than me, early twenties, red hair, freckles, about eight months pregnant?"

She looked a bit confused as to where I was going with this for a second, but then the expression that crossed her face belied that she knew exactly who I was talking about. I didn't release her arm when she tried to hide it, but forced my expression to soften.

"Who is she?" I asked a little more gently.

The look of recognition that had crossed her face shifted into an uneasy one, then a faintly sad one. She looked down, chewing the inside of her cheek before looking back to me. She'd just opened her mouth to answer when the door Gimli and I had entered through banged open.

"Bring the lad inside, quickly!" someone shouted, and I recognised the voice as Háma's before I saw him. Two other familiar faces barrelled through the door. The first was the young guard who had sheepishly taken and then later returned mine and Aragorn's weapons, his face pale as he held the door open. The second was the older guard who had done the same to Gimli, Boromir, and Legolas; only this time he wasn't carrying blades and bows in his arms.

He was carrying a half-conscious, teenage boy who was bleeding from a gash in the side of his head.

Gimli and I were immediately out of our seats, the both of us knocking our chairs over backwards as Ilda's jaw fell open.

"Suns and stars, Gamling! Háma! What in the Abyss have you brought into my kitchen?!" she squawked, looking stuck somewhere between scandalised and horrified as the four of them clambered inside.

"The infirmary is still full up, Ilda. And this isn't the kitchen, it's the mess," Gamling answered with a calm that didn't quite show in his grave face. He didn't even look out of breath lifting the kid. "This boy just took a head first tumble off a seventeen hand gelding."

Ilda's hand went to her mouth in shock. I didn't know much about horses beyond how to stay on one at high speed without getting chucked off, but I was guessing seventeen hands was pretty huge if the cut on the boy's head was anything to go by. For all his insistence that he made a terrible nurse, Gimli reacted faster than any of us, sweeping the food and ale aside on the table in a business-like fashion and waving them over.

"Set the lad down here," he instructed, and Gamling lifted the softly groaning boy onto the dining table. There was nothing else handy to support his bleeding head other than the dense loaf of bread we'd been given, so I wrapped it in a napkin and slipped it gingerly under his neck to elevate the wound.

"H-he said he was tired, then he j-just fell!" a small, quavering voice was trembling from behind Háma, and it wasn't until I really looked that I realised the sound had come from a tiny girl clinging to his chainmail. She had the same sandy blonde hair as the boy, though she looked to be at least five years younger than him.

"Go fetch one of the healers," Háma told the younger guard, pushing him back towards the door. Gamling shook his head.

"They're all still seeing to survivors of Lord Theodred's battalion."

Without a second's hesitation Gimli pointed straight at me.

"The lass is a healer. Let her look at him," he said. All four of them turned to look straight at me with mixed expressions of surprise and scepticism.

"You are?"

Finally pulling my hunger-fogged head out of my ass, I straightened my spine and nodded.

"I am," I answered, then turned to our hostess. "Ilda, could we have a bowl of water and a clean rag please?"

"O-of course," she sputtered, turning and bustling back into the kitchens, shouting for rags and water. While all that was going on, I rolled up the sleeves of my dress and set to work inspecting the poor kid's head. He looked less like he'd just taken a tumble off a horse and more like he'd gone three rounds in the ring with an angry wallaby. He was absolutely covered in bruises, sweat and dirt — but the deep cut on his head was definitely the worst injury of his collection.

"This is going to need stitches," I stated, turning with a pleading look to my dwarf companion. "Gimli, could you get my medical pack?"

The words were barely out of my mouth before Gimli had turned and started marching towards the door with a wave over his shoulder. "Only for you, lass. I'll be back."

As Gimli vanished out the door, Háma turned to the still trembling girl sticking to Gamling's side like a limit.

"Where did you ride from, girl?"

"W-wyndmere, in the Westfold," she sobbed, a hand pressed to her dusty face, trying and failing to hold in the tears.

"That's a three solid day journey from here," the younger guard sputtered, apparently both shocked and impressed at their achievement. Three days straight riding flat out — no wonder they were both so bruised.

On the table, the boy began to stir fitfully, one foot in consciousness and the other apparently in a nightmare.

"I n-need to t-tell—" he slurred up at me as I gently held him down by the shoulders, "the k-king… need to…"

"The boy's been mumbling nonsense since we found him and his sister outside the walls." Háma explained while Gamling was helping me keep him still.

"You think he's been possessed too? Like the king?" the younger one whispered in a voice he probably thought was too quiet for me to hear. The poor kid on the table gave another pained groan, and I resisted the urge to snap at the two wittering guards that they were the ones talking nonsense. Instead I gave them a sharp stare over my shoulder.

"He apparently just rode here on a horse twice his size for three days with his little sister riding shotgun. He's exhausted, dehydrated, probably starving, and banged up from falling headfirst into the ground. Make yourselves useful and find him some drinking water, bandages, and something simple to eat before he falls unconscious again."

Háma, Gamling and the younger guard all blinked at me in shock. They glanced at each other like extras in an unscripted play scene, but none of them moved.

Bloody male pride. I glared hard at them all, channeling a grouchy Lord Elrond.

"Sometime today would be nice."

The younger guard actually flinched a bit and quickly retreated out the door to the kitchens, followed reluctantly by an irritated looking Hama and Gamling. I snorted once they were gone and went back to checking the boy's head wound. Ilda came back in a moment later and set a bowl of steaming water, soap, and several clean cloths beside me on a bench. As I set to work cleaning the kid's head, a pair of small dusty hands appeared on the table beside mine, and I looked over to find the little blonde girl who had come in after Gamling. She was looking down at the wounded boy with even more tears in her eyes, cutting little wet channels down her dusty face. Burying my annoyance at the three guardsmen, I gave her the gentlest smile I could manage.

"What's your name, sweet-pea?" I asked. She looked at me and answered through a wobbly little hiccup.

"F-Freda."

"Mine's Eleanor," I offered, then looked down at the boy lying half conscious on the table. "And his?"

"Eothain, m-my brother," Freda sniffled, trying to wipe the tears off her cheeks, but only ended up leaving muddy streaks across her face. "Is h-he going to be alright?"

"He's going to be fine. The cut isn't too deep. Beyond that, he's just tired and bruised, all easily fixable." When Eothain's wound was clean and Gimli still hadn't come back with my medical kit, I dipped one of the other cloths in the warm soapy water and started gently cleaning the mud from Freda's bruised face too. "You look like you're pretty beat-up too under all this dust. Three days is a long way to ride for two of you on your own."

Freda's lower lip trembled again as she looked up at me, then she looked down and nodded, obviously trying to force herself not to cry. A big part of me desperately wanted to wrap her in a hug, tell her it was all going to be ok — but something told me that was the last thing she needed right now. She was trembling so much…

'Too much for just exhaustion, boss.' Tink's voice drifted up from the depths of my head where she'd been strangely quiet. 'Some of those bruises on the boy are too deep and in the wrong place for saddle sores.'

I frowned and glanced down at Eothain again, noting for the first time the bruises on his fists as well as the rest of him, and a thought struck me followed swiftly by dread.

"Freda," I said carefully, "Eothain was mumbling something about speaking to the king. Do you know what was he talking about?"

Freda gave me another watery sniffly, and told me.

And my eyes widened as she did.

Translations:

* alfirin — small white flower that typically grows on burial mounds and graves, also known as simbelmynë in the languages of Men.

** Eowyn's Lament — by Howard Shore (Rohirric)

A/N: No prizes for guessing what is headed their way. :)

Next chapter is just over three quarters done and I'm working hard to finish it quick for you guys. In the mean time, here is my little bit of news I promised:

The reason for these slow updates is because I've started working on an original story that's already underway! *cue dramatic yet slightly ironic music* No details on the story or characters just yet — but what I can say is that it falls firmly into the high fantasy genre, will be aimed at 17+ audience, and is very loosely based on an old fairy tale I've had a love/hate relationship with a long old time *cough*mermaids*cough*sea-witches*cough*. If you're interested in seeing more, then keep an eye on my Tumblr and Pinterest pages where I'll be brainstorming and probably sharing the occasional mad idea. It'll be a long time before I can think about anything close to publishing, but it's a start.

But in the mean time, RB will remain my favourite place to escape to with you guys. Until next time, much love,

Rella x