20 / 5 / 17 ~ In which Eleanor almost self-defences a man to death.

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.

*!*Trigger Warning: Attempted Physical (and implied sexual) Assault*!*

A/N: Ok, it's been a bloody long wait, and while I'm trash for making you all wait so long for this (slightly shorter than planned) update, I am indeed still alive! Just been super busy for the past few months. The biggest reason for that is I am finally off the job hunting market after landing a shiny new job with lots of lovely new people! *happy dance*

Now on a slightly more serious note, before we get started, a brief explanation for the above warning:

I'm putting a trigger warning here not because anything truly traumatic or graphically upsetting happens (beyond the usual brand of fantasy violence and evil cliffhangers) but because this was quite difficult for me to write on an emotional level. And if it was difficult for me to write, then chances are it'll be difficult for some people to read too. A lot of what I poured into this chapter is unfortunately from first hand experience, and while I don't want to sugar-coat or downplay the emotions in it, I also don't want to upset any of my more vulnerable readers either. So if you are either sensitive to the kind of things in the warning, recovering, or just want to avoid it in general, please feel free to skip this chapter; I've deliberately written this and the next so that you won't need it to continue understanding story.

Also just realised I didn't include my usual thank you in the last two author's notes! So in light of this terrible faux pas, a huge thank you (and apologies) to: Imamc, Angrypancakegoddess, jada951, ksecc1, K.Y.1234, thesonicsmiley, N7SpaceHamster, Call Me Bessie, specialk1564, Teacup, luna153, REMdream, The Dramatic Muffin, AcquisitiveMargo, ConstantlyMunchingOnApples, Kitty, NeoMulder, RLMz, BoltonBornRocker, LadyBritish, abbygayle, 1fanofthemarauders, , BlackRose6661, Jyll, yasminasfeir1, DivinityV2, Theekshana, Mandela, Woman of Letters, Miki-chan13, nearlyheadlesspotter, EllieDragon, Ameliebjork, FictionalQuintessence, ThePersonWithTheReallyLongName, djmegamouth, Eredil, V-nea, LittleLionFish, pepcvina, The Lupine Sojourner, JustBecause170, Nosferatusophie, Anon, Ellie 3, and guests.

Part I : Chapter 10

- The Deepest Scars Are Invisible -

"Fear cuts deeper than swords." — George R.R. Martin

I really wish I could say that over the past few months I'd become a little better at sensing when anyone — be they friend or foe — was attempting to sneak up behind me. Sadly, if I did, I'd have been lying through my teeth.

I part squeaked, part jumped out of my skin at the sudden voice behind me, and spun inelegantly to find myself looking down the alleyway at a man. He was probably only a couple of years older than me if I were to guess, and handsome enough to get himself into a lot of trouble if he'd come from my world. He was leaning a bit heavily against a wooden wall, and grinning like the cat who'd stolen the cream, the cow, and the milkmaid to boot. Looking a bit closer, I realised he must have been one of the surviving soldiers from Theodred's company; he was dressed a bit haphazardly in the same uniform of the platoon I'd seen at the funeral, minus the chainmail and weapons.

Also — unlike his comrades — he'd apparently decided to numb the pain of his friend's fall with booze instead of war preparations.

A lot of booze. Like, enough to float a small battleship. He was still clutching a mostly empty bottle, and I could smell the fumes from over eight feet away now that I was facing him. I hitched my bag a little higher on my shoulder, noting that my body had instantly gone taught as a wound spring without me even telling it to.

"I-I'm sorry?" my voice came out an octave higher than normal.

His grin widened into a leer.

"No need to be sorry, sweetlin'. They suit your… assets beautifully."

A significant part of me wanted to snort-laugh at the truly terrible pun. But the rest of me — the sensible part — knew that nothing good could come of sticking around, and began urging me to burn rubber, now.

I tried to turn and move back the way I'd been headed, but suddenly found myself unable to move, like a deer caught in the beam of headlights. He took one lumbering step towards me, then another, eyes drifting non too subtly over the areas of my figure Tink had been praising not ten minutes ago, and a familiar feeling of dread I hadn't experienced in a long time began pooling in my stomach.

Cornered, frozen, alcohol fumes, glassy eyes looking at me like I was a dessert on a plate…

I'd been here before.

'Oh hell!' Tink swore through the rising panic inside my head, and I knew immediately what she'd realised. With full access to my emotions and the deep memories driving them, she'd finally caught on to what was happening inside me, and she sounded genuinely scared now. 'Boss, you need to get away from him! Run!'

A surge of adrenaline finally kicking in, I managed to take two tiny steps back towards the street beyond, but my knees had started to shake, and I was suddenly irrationally terrified that if I tried to run, I'd fall.

Fall, and not be allowed to get back up again without a fight.

"Saw you earlier, offerin' yourself up to that pretty-boy elf like you were a feast on a platter," he was slurring, full on grinning, his eyes glazed and still crawling all over me as he came even closer. "Figurin' if you're that desperate for the eye of a man you wouldn' mind a real one instead."

It didn't take a rocket scientist to realise whom he meant, and what remained of the calm and rational side of my mind realised that he must have seen us through that open window Legolas and I had passed. Not that it mattered. The man was less than three feet from me now, and moving surprisingly smoothly for someone so inebriated. Actual sickness began churning in my belly, and bile rose in my throat. I still had my weapons, but my hands had begun to be consumed by the same paralysis as my feet, absolutely refusing to obey.

And even if I could, what would it look like if I cut a drunk man to ribbons in an alley just after his king had given us sanctuary? It was a stupid fear, and irrational at that, but it was more than enough to make me hesitate as I reached for the sheath at my hip. Not long, but just long enough.

His leer turned into an unfocused grin — either unable or unwilling to see the terror I knew showed on my face — and reached a hand across the precious few feet of space still separating us.

'No, no, no!'

My stupid elf memory kept forcing those familiar images and sounds I didn't want into the front of my mind, paralysing me, fixing me in place like a bloody rabbit caught in a trap. I'd got so good at shoving them down before when it was just me alone. Locking them away where they couldn't get to me; but now that I was forced to see them again, reflected in this scene that was too familiar. It was too close to home, far too close. Too much like—

His hand touched clumsily to the side of my neck, right over where Legolas had only a little while ago.

I couldn't tell if it was Tink consciously helping me wrench back control of my frozen limbs, or if the sickening feel of his unfamiliar skin on mine catalysed my reaction, but my fear was suddenly eclipsed by a surge of revulsion that broke the shackles on my limbs. My hand shot out and seized him by the wrist, jerking his hand away from my neck and shoving him back with the other as hard as I could — which, thanks to the amount I was shaking now, wasn't all that hard.

"Don't touch me!" I snarled, and hated the fact that I sounded so much more scared than angry. The lazy smile didn't fall from the soldier's face, but his eyes flashed with all too familiar impatience.

"Come now, dove," he tried to croon, but it came out as more of a slur. "'m sure we both want the same thing here."

He tried to reach out for me again, and this time I definitely felt Tink helping me. The moment I knew my limbs were about to freeze in terror again, a surge of adrenaline and outrage fired through me, and without thinking I shot my hand out and seized the man's hand by the wrist again, just as he went to rake fingers into my hair.

Several things flashed across his face in rapid succession in that brief moment. Anger, annoyance, impatience, but then his bleary eyes focused a little more on my face, and then his expression had dissolved into shocked horror. It took me a solid five seconds to realise that he was staring slack jawed at my now plainly exposed, very pointy ears.

"Y-you're, you're—!" he sputtered, instantly sober, or as near as he could manage at least. "M-m'lady Elf! I hadn' realised—! I thought you were—!"

I shoved him back hard again, and this time he let me, despite my trembling arms.

"Thought I was what? Some other girl you caught on her own? Who exactly did you think you were just trying to molest?" I found myself gritting out, my voice still trembling with the remains of my fear, but giving way quickly to raw anger; at him, at myself, at how close I had come to being terrified into utter defencelessness. Again.

Oblivious to my internal turmoil though, the sloshed soldier rubbed at the side of his head, still looking at me through obvious beer goggles.

"No, I just… You look so much like one of our — that is, a mortal woman. If I'd known you weren't a — I'd have never tried to…" he babbled, but if he said anything beyond those word I didn't hear it. Everything inside and out of me had gone instantly, terribly still; so suddenly silent that I could hear myself breathe.

"…What?" I asked, so quiet and cold it barely came out at all.

Some of the colour drained out of my pursuer's face as he saw my expression, the look in my eyes, but he held true to form as gave a clumsy shrug. "I meant no disrespect to you of course, my lady Elf."

Lady Elf. Elf.

As if that was the most important part of why this was wrong.

The anger, the sudden fear, and the searing unexpected outrage at what he had just tried to do to me; all of it suddenly screamed up inside, turning my vision scarlet around the edges before I could understand what was happening. Not that I really cared. I couldn't stop hearing what he had just said. What he'd meant by it.

"So…" I asked very softly, in a voice that was too low, too frozen to be entirely my own anymore, "If I had been a human woman, one of your own, it would have been acceptable? It would have been fair? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

His brows furrowed at me, some of his confused annoyance returning as he peered into my eyes.

"Well, aye, my lady. But—"

I hit him.

Punched him right across the face so hard that all four of the fingers on my right hand popped and my knuckles screamed. The mortal man who had stood before me flew sideways in a blur of colour, his shoulder and head slamming into wall of the house so hard that his lower lip split open on his teeth. If I hadn't been so incensed with rage, the sound of the blow would have startled me. I could never have been able to strike anyone with that much strength on my own…

But I didn't care.

Rage howled up inside me like a beast beneath my skin, and memories from back on Earth, unbidden, unwanted, and deliberately buried deep for so long came charging up with it.

Waiting patiently at a house for someone to come home, that one night almost a year before I'd fallen into a coma. A night that had meant to be a happy surprise. The sounds of drunken, husky chuckles, then angry snarls the night when Mark had tried to—

I forced the images down, but they just came back again, like water boiling up inside a container too small to hold it; again, and again, and again. Rage blinded me, deafened me, tore at me from the inside me like a hurricane trying desperately to get out. The mortal man must have had a thicker skull than I'd originally thought, because he miraculously managed to stay conscious and upright, if a bit glassy eyed. I saw his stunned expression twist in an incensed, inebriated sneer, reflexively raising his hand to slap me across the face.

He snarled something that sounded like "ducking witch," spitting saliva and alcohol fumes into my face.

I didn't know or care what my body was doing until it was actually happening. I blocked the blow with the back of my arm with a livid snarl of my own, just like Boromir and Gimli had taught me to, the impact rattling painfully off my bones. I ignored it. Instead, I returned the open handed slap meant for me with all my strength, raking my fingers across his face. He cried out in pain as my nails drew blood, leaving four jagged red lines diagonally from temple to chin.

A good start, but it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough…

'Boss!' Tink was screaming, trying desperately to hold me back. 'Eleanor, stop! Stop it! You're going to kill him!'

I knew her words made sense, but I couldn't for the life of me remember why. Or why remembering why even mattered. All that mattered now was the red beginning to cloud over my eyes, and the rage burning like an exploding star in my chest.

The soldier — who no longer looked anything close to a threat — tried to lunge for me again, this time going straight for my throat. He had hands large enough to easily choked me unconscious if they got around my neck, but they never got the chance to try. Swinging both my arms up I smacked the palms of my hands over both my prey's ears. The sudden, unexpected pain of his eardrum popping under the pressure sent him into a fresh wave of screams. Then his shrieks died to gargles and my own bloody-tipped fingers latched and tightened on his throat with a strength I knew damned well couldn't possibly be my own.

It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

He struggled as I slammed him back against the same wall he'd tried to trap me against, gasping and choking under my hands, his face going white, then red, then purple. He might as well have been trying to fight back the hands of the Reaper for all the good it did him.

"P-please!" he managed to rasp out, wasting the last of the air in his lungs on a pointless plea, his eyes wide with fear as they stared into mine.

I didn't listen.

Everything was completely covered in a haze of red and fiery gold now, and somewhere far back in the shifting maze of my mind I could hear Tink still desperately trying to call to me, screaming at me to stop. But I didn't hear her, either. Everything was glorious, unrestrained chaos inside me. Nothing mattered, and nothing hurt anymore. I couldn't even remember where I was, who I was, or why I was so furious. Only that the man before me had earned my wrath, my punishment. That he was in pain, terrified, and dying with terror and regret for what he'd done in his eyes as he looked up at me — and it felt right.

It felt good.

"Eleanor!" Someone familiar roared my name from outside my head.

The next thing I knew, I was being wrenched away. My fingers had been dug so tight into the man's neck that my nails took scrapes of skin with them. He collapsed to all fours in front of me, retching and gasping, clutching his reddened, bruised neck — bruises just like the ones that had been left on me by the uruk-hai.

No. Not enough. It wasn't enough, snarled the wrath inside me.

Mad, red-hot rage was still boiling up inside me, screaming for release. I wanted to kick the wretched worm of a man at my feet in the face until his teeth went flying, but the person behind me, holding me back, was too strong. I tried to wrench myself free, and while I was vengefully strong for someone my size at that moment, whoever was holding me in a crushing bear hug was well out of my weight class. Thrashing against their chest, I managed to twist in their embrace, hands ready to fight and teeth bared in a snarl.

Only to come face to face with Boromir's thunderstruck face.

His eyes were wide, and he'd gone bloodlessly pale as he stared down at my face, and I realised with a twinge of intrigue that my eyesight had sharpened again, just like it had back in Fangorn. I was close enough to see what little colour remained in his face drain as his eyes met mine, see his pulse jump in his throat, and his alarm replaced by fear as he still forcefully held me back from my prey…

And I was close enough to see my reflection in his widened, horror-struck eyes.

Sometimes in life, you're confronted with an event so sudden and brain-fryingly alarming that your mind literally cannot process what is happening fast enough to react. It's a bit like seeing a speeding car coming towards you when you step out into the middle of the road. You know logically you should jump back, but your brain can't make your body move fast enough for it to matter.

That's what happened to me the second I saw my face, reflected with frightening clarity in Boromir's pupils.

My whole body froze solid, as if I'd been staring into the face of Medusa instead of my estranged friend. The insane burning rage in my chest didn't vanish, but it was as if someone had suddenly cut off its oxygen supply, dousing my whole body with ice water. I couldn't breath, I couldn't move, I couldn't think.

Because the reflection I saw in his eyes wasn't me.

Well, technically it was, but only in the loosest possible sense. It was my face, but it was twisted into an unfamiliar, animalistic snarl, teeth bared back to the gums, the shock of seeing myself not quite enough to wipe the mad expression away. My loose hair looked like it had been caught up in a typhoon, whipping violently about my head as if still caught in a wind only I could feel.

My eyes, however, were the worst.

They'd gone completely gold, the little ring of the colour expanded out to completely swallow my normal green, and the pupil's gone slitted like a hungry, predator cat's. It was hard to remember that only a little while ago I'd been admiring my reflection, the new strength and light I'd seen in myself. It was as if someone had taken that image and cracked it down the middle, like a mirror breaking to reveal a second reflection lurking just beneath. I didn't look angry. I didn't even look human.

I looked like a monster wearing a girl's skin.

The beast inside me howled in furious protest as my own rage died away to stunned horror, cutting off its grip on my sanity. Boromir blinked, and the image vanished, but it was too late. I couldn't un-see what had just been there — the madness I'd just seen in my own face. More of the red haze died away, and I felt myself twisting in my friend's grip to see what I'd done. He didn't let me go, but relaxed his hold just enough to let me look down at what I'd inflicted on the man who'd just tried to assault me.

The soldier who'd followed me into the alley had been swaggering and smug in his superiority. Most of that was likely because he was sloshed, admittedly, but his body language had all but screamed complete confidence that he was the predator in this game of cat and mouse, and I'd been his prey. He'd just been proved wrong in the most brutal way possible. Still on the ground, coughing and spluttering in gulps of air, he half hunched, half crouched against the wall I'd thrown him into. Blood was dribbling down his face from the gouges my nails had left in his face, there was a goose egg already growing on his left temple from where he'd hit the wall, and there was a ring of deep purple bruises appearing in a collar around his throat — and he was staring up at me with wide eyes, still unable to draw enough breath to speak, but looking at me as if he was staring into the face of Sauron himself.

Not a bruised, confused, 5'3 elf girl with crazy hair and absolutely no idea what the hell had just happened.

"I…" I heard myself wheeze. Boromir's grip suddenly tightened to twin vices on my arms.

"What did you do?" he growled, low and dangerous. I looked up to find him glaring down at me with something wild and frightening in his eyes. I swallowed, trying to find my voice.

"Boromir wha—"

"What are you?" he snarled, his expression twisting, verging on mad, and his grip tightening even more as she shook me. "Answer me! Tell me what you really are, now! What you did to me! What you made me see!"

Fear lanced through me, and before I could think, my adrenaline fuelled hands shot out, trying to break out of the hold and throw him off me. But Boromir was no drunken, lecherous guardsman. He was a seasoned warrior is full control of all his faculties, and he didn't let me get three inches from the wall. I saw fresh fear and instinct flare in his eyes, and he instinctively slammed me hard back against the wood of the building, his hand tightening on the base of my neck, thumbs pressing into my still tender windpipe as my air was instantly cut off.

The last of the red haze vanished with the air in my throat, and I frantically tapped his arm to show I surrendered, just as we'd done during training bouts in Lothlórien.

His grip faltered for a split second, but he didn't let me go.

"B-Boromir, plea—!" I managed to choke out, staring desperately up into his face.

His expression wavered again, as if not quite able to believe what he was doing.

But then it went hard as granite again, his grip tightening on me, and last of the air in my lungs was trapped there. He wasn't going to let me go. I could see it in his face as the red that had clouded the edges of my vision was replaced by black. He wasn't himself, not the man who'd become my friend. He wasn't going to release me, and whatever strength I'd used on the drunken soldier was long gone now. I couldn't fight him off. I couldn't even scream for help. He wanted to kill me. One of my dearest friends in Arda was going to murder me, and I had absolutely no idea why.

"Boromir!" A familiar dwarven voice bellowed from what sounded like miles away.

Gimli.

The last of my vision was almost gone, along with the oxygen in my lungs, but I had just enough to see the tall figure of a human man appear behind Boromir, and raise the point of a sword to the centre of his back.

"Release her, now!" Aragorn growled with absolute authority, pressing the tip of the blade hard into Boromir's spine, just behind his heart. Boromir didn't react immediately, but his hands did slacken on me just enough that I was able to suck in a painful, coughing breath.

"Step back from her, lad. Easy now," I heard Gimli say calmly between my own choked rasps, playing the good cop to Aragorn's bad.

It took a far longer moment for him to comply this time, but eventually the man of Gondor obeyed, releasing his hold on me, and stepping back with his hands raised. I slid down the wall, falling straight onto my hands and knees, retching and gasping in painful breaths before someone helped me gently into a sitting position against the wall. My eyes were watering too much to see properly, but I'd recognise that scent of pine and rain anywhere. I all but sagged against Legolas' shoulder in relief, choking on sobs and gasps, one hand gripping his while the other clutched at my burning throat.

"Explain yourself, now," Aragorn's tone was only one step up from a growl, his blade still aimed at the middle of Boromir's back. Boromir didn't move, but I could feel his eyes like ice against my skin. And when he spoke it was in a voice half mad with anger-fuelled fear I could hardly believe it came from him.

"I saw what you are," he said only to me. I didn't have enough breath left to answer, and when I tried, I just dissolved into another coughing fit. Gently, I felt Legolas' hand slip under my chin lift it back up, allowing me more breath, and at the same time, giving them all a good look at the state of my throat.

It must have been bad, because I heard Gimli and Aragorn inhale sharply, felt Legolas go deathly still against me, and there was a moment where the only sound in the alley was my own, rasping breaths.

"You have severely injured her," Legolas said finally, softly, and the ice in his voice was like an incoming storm compared to Boromir's, though his grip on me remained gentle. "Why?"

The question was low and dangerous, and left absolutely no question that if his answer was not satisfactory, there would be instant, violent consequences.

But it wasn't Boromir who answered it.

"M-monster!" the soldier who'd followed me spluttered, his voice a bit garbled from his ruptured eardrum, and one step shy of hysterical from where he was still sprawled on the ground near Gimli. "He was right to end her! She's not right! Those were a demon's eyes! S-she's no elf, she's a—"

"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you, boy," Gimli stated plainly, an angry rumble lurking just below the surface.

Finally, finally, I managed to stop choking and open my eyes.

Boromir was still just a few feet from me, and though Aragorn still had him at blade point, it was still an effort not to flinch back from him. Off to their left, Gimli had the soldier who'd assaulted me by the scruff of the neck, not strictly hurting him, but not exactly being gentle either, and making damned sure he wasn't going anywhere in a hurry.

Beside me, Legolas had slipped an arm under mine, and was carefully helping me to shaking feet. As he did, I caught a glimpse of myself in the metal of Aragorn's sword, and sucked in a startled breath. My face was no longer twisted into a lunatic snarl and my pupil's were no longer slitted — thank God — my eyes were still almost completely flooded with that strange, animalistic gold.

The exact same gold as Tink's eyes.

The bottom fell out of my stomach as that realisation finally dawned on me. I wasn't the only one who noticed, either. The second I looked up at the faces of my companions standing around me, I saw each of them go utterly still, all of them looking at me with expressions lost somewhere between shocked, confused, and alarmed.

"Eleanor," Aragorn said carefully after a agonising silence. "What happened?"

I swallowed a few times before I found my voice, and even then it was croaky and rough as sand on stone.

"He cornered me," I rasped out, jerking my head at the soldier, who was still shaking slightly, and staring at me as if I had fangs and blood running down my lips. "I was trying to find the stables and got lost. He followed me, came up behind me and… I don't know what happened. One second he was trying to touch me and I was shoving him away, then…" I trailed off.

What had happened? I didn't know for sure, but judging from the animal colour of my eyes, the bestial rage in my chest, and the echoes of Tink's terrified cries still ringing in my head, I could take a pretty good guess.

"I… I lost control."

Aragorn stared down at me for another agonisingly long moment in absolute silence. Then an expression crossed his face that I'd never seen before.

Horrified realisation.

It was gone a split second later, and just as quickly he was sheathing his sword and gripping Boromir hard by both wrists, steering him back towards the alley's mouth.

"We need to bring this one back to the barracks for questioning, quietly. Then report him to Háma," he said tonelessly, jerking his chin at Gimli and the downed soldier, before his eyes flickered back to me. They lingered on my eyes a beat too long, and I swear I saw some of the colour leech out of his face as he looked quickly away.

"And then, we need to talk. All of us."

A/N: As my Beta said during editing: "This is really going to hurt. Isn't it?"

Yes, yes it is. And for once I'm sorry for that.

A rather short chapter compared to the usual, I know. But I decided to split the one I was working on into two partly for dramatic effect, but mostly so I could finally get at least something posted for you guys. Apologies again that it's taken so long, and thank you for being so patient, and for all your messages (including all the ones I haven't had time to reply to! I still read all of them!) Your continued feedback and encouragement during these quiet months are the reason I can still fight through even the toughest and longest writing-blocks when they come.

Much love, and until next time,

Rella x