8 / 12 / 20 ~ And in which Eleanor finally realises she might be out of her depth.

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: Well… this is a little embarrassing.

I've had this chapter title picked out for literal years now, but after the amount of time it's been since the last update, plus the dumpster fire that 2020 has been, I was seriously considering changing it to "2 Years & 1 Plague Later."

That said, it still amazes me that after all this time, chaos and some pretty big life changes (which I'll save for a blog post at a later time), coming back to this story, this world, and this fandom still feels like coming home. And what kinda amazed me more is that even after all this time, I'm still getting messages and reviews from you guys, often just to check I've been ok and wish me well. Cheesy as it sounds, I've read each of them over the past couple of years, usually more than once—all of them made me smile, many made me laugh out loud, and several of them legit made me cry.

So with that in mind:

To all ye fresh-faced new readers, welcome! I'll do my best not to scare you off.

And to all ye old-school readers, welcome back to the chaos again. Your reviews and messages have been a joy to read over the past two years.

And to both the old and the new, thank you so much. xxx

Normally I'd list the usernames of everyone who reviewed to thank you guys directly. But I hope you'll forgive me for not doing it this time considering there's upwards of 200 of you now (there were 180 reviews on the last chapter alone), and this author's note is already pretty long. :)

Just know that what you sent meant more than you probably realise, and I hope you enjoy the update despite the long wait…

(Note: This is currently the unedited version of the chapter, as my Beta is still checking it through. But since she is also now a fully qualified dentist and hella busy it might take a few more days. So, since I feel I've kept you guys waiting long enough, I'm posting my janky version early and will replace it with the polished version once she's done with it. Please hold fire on your grammar-related tomato throwing until then. xx)

Part II : Chapter 18

- The Calm Before -

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear." — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I stumbled down into the caves after Freda in a daze. My lips were still tingling from the intensity of that kiss, and my legs felt wobbly from where I'd felt it all the way down to my toes.

The rush didn't last though.

Sarra's cries of pain echoing up from the caves snapped me back to reality like I'd been doused in iced water. I'd barely taken in the scene as Freda and I had made our way past the sheltering, nervous refugees, down seemingly endless flights of stairs into the caves. The walls began to turn from smoothly carved walls to jagged edges the further we went, tiny speckles of something sparkling through the crags and cracks. It wasn't until we finally pushed through a throng of lingering people at the bottom of the steps and into the heart of the cavern that I got to see what they were.

Raw gem stones streaked the walls and ceiling like veins, their colours shifting with the flickering torchlights, reflecting the light back across the stalactites and rocks in a thousand different patterns.

No time to enjoy the view, or the spectacle of such a huge bedazzled cavern lurking under a comparatively modest-looking keep, Freda pulled me off to one side along the wall until finally I saw the familiar splash of Sarra's red hair. She was on the floor, curled around her belly, her eyes clenched and teeth gritted with pain. Etain and Ilda were doing their best to help.

And to my surprise, Boromir was there too. He was hunched over beside her with a hand on her back, looking very much like he'd just set her down as gently as possible.

Had he carried her all the way down here?

I didn't get a chance to even consider asking before Sarra's gaze caught on mine.

"E-Eleanor," she whimpered.

And I realised it was the first time I'd ever seen her truly afraid.

Not once had she balked during her persecution on our walk, when the healers and other women had sneered at her, and exhaustion had gripped her. Not even during the warg attack, when screams and howls had pierced the night air, and she'd been forced to flee, unable to defend herself.

But now…

I found myself pushing past Boromir on instinct, dropping onto my knees beside her on the stone floor.

"Go," I told him. "I've got this."

It took him a moment to move, eye still lingering on the distressed mother-to-be with a look of genuine concern, as if reluctant to leave her there. But finally he nodded, reaching out and giving my shoulder one last squeeze.

"There will be sentinels stationed outside. If anything happens, have them call for me," he whispered, jerking his chin in the direction of the other women. Most were too preoccupied with their own fear of the oncoming siege, but a few were casting unpleasant glances in Sarra's direction.

"I will," I assured him, patting his hand on my shoulder before gently pushing it away. "Stay alive out there. All of you."

I didn't watch as he retreated through the crowds of women, children and elderly back up the stairs. I was far too busy trying to quell my own hysterical internal panic.

I had been a healers apprentice for two years before I'd joined the Fellowship, and yet for all the antacuilës, psychic surgery techniques, and stellar bedside manners I'd picked up, there was still one glaring hole in my practical experience.

Childbirth.

It had been one of the things I'd technically been taught to do while studying under Lord Elrond, but only ever in theoretical terms. Elves didn't give birth often, and there'd been no human women present in Rivendell when I'd been there, pregnant or otherwise. Practically speaking, I'd once helped Katie when her cat was delivering kittens, but that was it. I suddenly felt way, way out of my depth.

An absurd, hysterical giggle bubbled up in my throat.

Now I was out of my depth.

"M'lady?" Ilda gave me a look that said she was worried I'd left my marbles outside with the soldiers. I took one long deep breath, forcing my panic down where I could worry about it later.

'I can do this. I can do this.' I told myself silently, and as I did I felt my racing heartbeat calming.

'You can, boss,' Tink's voice agreed, and I could almost feel the place on my shoulder where her incorporeal hand would have rested had she been real.

"Ilda, I need a large bucket of fresh water boiled up, clean as you can. Can you get that?"

"Of course," she answered, and bustled off far faster than I'd expected.

"Clean linens and cloth," I blurted at Etain and Freda, "I need as many as you can find to spare."

Just like Ilda, both mother and daughter raced off without question to find what I'd asked for, leaving me alone with Sarra. She was breathing in shallow little gasps, her face already drenched in sweat, and her eyes still filled with fear.

I helped her to shift onto her back, tearing off the cloak given to me and all the Fellowship in Lothlórien, bundling it up and resting it under her head as a pillow. I was about to start pulling whatever I could out of my medical satchel to clean my hands with, but before I could Sarra's strong fingers closed tight around mine.

I looked down into the face of the woman who looked so much like my best friend, and saw so much that was similar and so much that was different it physically hurt.

"E-Eleanor, I—" she choked out, then broke off as another contraction wracked her with pain, biting down on her lip to keep from crying out. I let her squeeze my hand with a strength that had been made for wielding a sword and shield, and would normally have made me wince.

"It's ok, we'll look after you, Sarra," I whispered as gently as I could, resting my other hand on her shoulder. "It'll be fine, I promise."

"I'm… scared," she whispered, the word coming out through more tears.

I squeezed her hand back, hard as I could.

"I know. But you'll be alright," I told her, my voice firm as I set to work. "You both will."

Despite what Hollywood and cable TV would have you believe, newborn babies aren't actually all that pretty.

That's not to say they aren't beautiful, but it's got nothing to do with aesthetics. I'd never given the concept much thought until that night. But several long and exhausting hours later, when I held Sarra's mewling, red-face newborn baby in my arms, I was struck with the realisation of exactly what I was holding.

A new life. A little spark of a new soul housed in a tiny, innocent form that would one day grow to become something so much more.

That was what made her beautiful.

One of the most beautiful thing's I'd ever seen, and probably ever would see again.

"She's alright," I managed to get out through my own exhaustion, tears, and the suddenly growing knot in my throat. "She's fine, Sarra. She's perfect."

Ilda helped wipe the sweat from Sarra's soaked brow as she gasped for breath, trying to sit up despite her own exhaustion.

"She?" She asked, and I couldn't help but beam at her, turning with the tiny, slightly bloody bundle in my arms so she could see her newborn daughter.

"One healthy little girl."

The fear that had been in Sarra's eyes dissolved completely as she looked on her child, replaced by a look I knew well. It was the same one I'd see whenever my own mother had looked at me.

She started crying and laughing all at once.

I joined in.

When Etain came back with another fresh bucket of steaming water, she and Freda helped me get the little girl cleaned, fussing and cooing over her the whole time. Ilda helped Sarra to sit up against the makeshift bed we'd fashioned from spare linens and clothes, still using my cloak as a pillow, until finally I passed the tiny wriggling, squalling bundle into her mother's trembling arms.

Sarra opened her mouth to try and speak, but gave up when the words simply wouldn't come. Instead she just smiled, tears flooding down her flushed face as she pressed her lips to the crown of her baby's head. Sat right beside her with my elf hearing, I was the only one who heard her breath the words:

"I love you… I love you so much… and he would have too."

The last of my vision vanished behind a new wave of happy, exhausted tears.

Once Etain was sure that Sarra and her newborn were sufficiently comfortable and settled she enlisted Freda to help her find some clean clothes and bedding. Ilda and I stayed at her side, partly in wonder and the scene we'd helped to create, but also to stand watch over them. Several of the women nearby were watching now, and while some of the elder ones still held glimmers of feeble disapproval, many more of the younger held what I could only describe as silent hope.

Hope that if a new innocent life could come into existence in this dark and terrifying place, maybe there was a chance for the rest of us too.

The sounds of Sarra's screams of effort and now her newborns had masked the low booms of the battle beginning, but now the echos of a siege underway were loud enough to feel through the walls if you leaned against them. Whatever was going on outside now, it was in full swing.

My thoughts drifted suddenly back to Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli out there in the thick of it, and I had to force myself not to let the fear for them swallow me whole.

"I need to get some more water," I announced, rinsing my hands in what was left of the last bucket Freda had brought. "Cleanest we've got. I need to brew some tonics for later."

"I can fetch it for you, m'lady," Ilda offered, though she was clearly just as enraptured with the sight of Sarra's new daughter as I was. I shook my head, creaking to my feet as the blood rushed back into my calves. It had been hours since I stood up properly, and the pins and needles in my feet almost sent me straight back to the floor.

"No, that's alright. I really need to stretch my legs anyway."

Ilda frowned, eyeing my overall exhausted frame, wobbly stance, and thoroughly mad hair with open skepticism.

"At least let me show you were the cleanest stream starts."

"I can see to that," a familiar female voice cut in from behind me, and I automatically whirled at the surprise.

It was Eowyn.

Beside me Ilda blanched, curtsied, and then reluctantly backed off, murmuring something about preparing some food for Sarra to regain her strength as she went. I, however, didn't move as Sarra glanced up to meet the Lady of Rohan's eyes. The two shield maidens looked at each other for a long moment in stony, lingering silence. Then Sarra, head held high and strong as any queen despite her state, nodded once, and only once, before returning her gentler attention back to her child—as if Eowyn had simply ceased to exist altogether.

I couldn't help the tinge of satisfaction I got from the sight, but didn't say anything as Eowyn led me off through the crowds towards back of the caverns. A couple of narrow tunnels opened up, curving around in odd winding passages supported only by some rickety old-looking supports that eventually led to what looked like a storage area. A small waterfall and stream fell down through the sparking cracks in the stone at the back of the small cavern. The icy cold water was so clear I guessed it was probably fresh off the glaciers further up the mountains.

"This is the cleanest source within the caves, slow as it is," Eowyn told me.

"It's fine," I said, placing the bucket under the stream. I caught a bit in my water skin before taking a swig to test it. Sure enough it was freezing cold and as clean as I'd hoped. The tonics I had in mind needed to help Sarra regain her strength called for the purest water possible, though at the speed this water was moving, it was going to take at least a few minutes for the bucket to fill up enough.

An especially loud boom echoed down from the keep above, shaking a few rocks and some dust loose over our heads. I felt that fear I'd pushed down trying to scratch its way out again as Eowyn frowned at the ceiling.

"The siege is already well underway."

"Sounds like it," I agreed, watching the water collecting painfully slowly in the bucket.

"I do not like how loud those sounds are becoming…" she murmured tensely. I just grunted noncommittally, forcing my focus on the water and running through the limited list of ingredients I had available to work with. I'd just managed to remembered the pouch of medicinal flowers Lady Galadriel had given me when I was pulled from my train of thought by the sound of Eowyn saying my name. She must have said a few times because when I turned from the stream she was giving me a genuinely concerned look.

"Sorry. Mind was somewhere else. What did you say?"

She looked slightly uncomfortable for a moment, but then repeated herself.

"I said I hope you know… I am grateful you chose to help Sarra. I am truly glad she and her child are well."

I just stared at her for a few seconds, watching her expression. She didn't seem to be lying, but…

"Good to know, I suppose. I would never have guessed otherwise," I said finally, a bit more coldly than I'd intended.

Eowyn blinked at me, clearly shocked.

Perhaps she wasn't used to being talked to like that. Or maybe she just hadn't expected me to reply at all. Either way, I couldn't bring myself to feel bad about the barb. It was unfair of me to passive aggressively chastise her, especially right now when she was technically helping. But I was tired, aching, bruised, sleep deprived, afraid for my friends, and had just helped deliver my first baby on the stone floor of a subterranean cave in the midst of a siege.

A baby that, if the women Eowyn was partly responsible for had their way, would have been shunned and discard for no other reason than the circumstances of her birth.

Eowyn remained mostly composed, but I caught the shadow of a wince out of the corner of my eye as I turned back to the bucket.

"Please do not mistake my lack of involvement as apathy," she said softly, staring down at the floor. "She is a dear friend, and whether she welcomes it or not, I still care for her wellbeing."

"Her wellbeing? Or her standing as one of your shield maidens?"

She leaned against one of the rickety looking support posts.

"You are right to be skeptical of our ways, our prejudices. They are not fair, and can be harsh to any who dare step outside the norm."

"Spoken like someone who also feels like they are hard done by for walking outside the norm," I murmured a bit louder than I'd intended. I felt more than saw Eowyn frown at the back of my head, and I sighed, turning from the bucket to face her. "Look, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be catty. But it's a bit hard to hear someone in your position to claim care for a friend, and then listen to them justify their lack of defending them in the same breath."

For a second the Lady of Rohan just continued to frown at me. But eventually she sighed in defeat, her shoulders slumping as if very tired.

"That is fair. And yet, I still meant what I said."

Another dull boom from overhead and I suddenly realised the expression in Eowyn's eyes as she looked up wasn't fear—it was frustration.

"You really don't want to be down here, do you," I observed, and she grunted in agreement.

"No. Had I the choice, I would be outside with the soldiers. Sarra would have likely been the same before… well…" she made a gesture back down the hall towards the women and children.

"She'd be out there fighting? Against ten thousand Uruk-hai? 'Give me liberty or give me death' sort of thing? " I asked, turning back to see the bucket was about half full.

"Something like that," she said with a small smile. "She was always the first to swing a sword during our training. And there's certainly more glory in facing even a hopeless battle than there is down here cowering in the dark."

My irritation twitched again at the implication, but I did my best to smother it.

"From what I've seen tonight, I think not all glory comes from battles and swinging a sword," I replied a bit tartly, the sound of Sarra's labour screams still ringing in my ears.

"Perhaps," Eowyn allowed hesitantly, clearly sensing my annoyance again. "But there is certainly little for us to be had in hiding away among the weak and frail."

That same sensation of outrage snarled in me at the idea of Sarra even obliquely being called weak after what she had just fought through. But I also knew biting Eowyn's head off for it wouldn't have changed anything.

"I doubt anyone of the women cowering down there could defend themselves if an Uruk came at them. You could. They know that, and it comforts them," I told her, then shrugged, nodding towards the weapons stacked up in the barrels beside her. "Makes them see they aren't totally powerless just because of what they are."

She regarded me and the rusted weapons that hadn't been picked up for use in the battle above, and gave a faintly sardonic smile.

"Despite all 'wiser' arguments to the contrary?"

I chuckled, through there was no real humour in it.

"Yeah, well. Men are still men, whether they have pointy ears or beards," I said flippantly, trying to ignore the pang of fear I felt for all the men outside—not just my own. I took up the nearly full bucket and turned back to Eowyn again. "That still doesn't really explain why you didn't defend one of your own shield maidens though."

From what Sarra had told me, Eowyn had never been cruel or apathetic to her in the way the other women had, but she had still done little to help her friend when she'd needed it most in the past nine months. I wanted to at least understand why. And from the expression on Eowyn's face now though, maybe she was asking herself the same thing.

"I think you over estimate how much influence I truly have, Lady Eleanor," she murmured finally, glancing back down the corridor again with an honestly sad, slightly guilty expression. I felt my own expression soften, seeing the regret in her face.

"Maybe, but you're the king's niece. Surely you could have done more than stand by and watch. Wouldn't there have been at least some glory in that? Being the only just voice in an unjust room?"

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but hesitated.

"Perhaps, I—"

Another thunderous boom cut off whatever else she was about to say, but this time it louder.

"What was that?"

Then a second one rocked the entire cavern, the sudden boom shaking dust and small stones from the ceiling as a loud cracking sound erupted from the wall right behind me. I almost dropped the bucket trying to instinctively dive for cover, but Eowyn caught me by the shoulders in time to stop me and the water from going flying. We both turned to where the sound had come from to find a crack had appeared in the wall, wide enough to see though. Or at least see what looked like a gloom-filled passage on the other side.

"Um… is that supposed to be there?" I asked, my voice coming out a little higher pitched than I'd meant.

Eowyn shook her head slowly, wide blue eyes fixed on the open wall.

There was no sound coming from it now. No light to see inside. But even from feet away I could feel the slight brush of a draught on the skin of my face.

"Eowyn," I started, turning to peer at her with dread pooling in my gut. "Are there any other passages into the caves besides the one inside the keep?"

She shook her head again, but something about the uncertainty in her eyes was unnerving.

"No. Or at least there shouldn't be anymore. They were all deliberately collapsed and sealed off decades ago to prevent…"

She didn't finish. She didn't need to.

Every horror movie instinct in me was already screaming that we needed to run right now. But if this was what we were both silently thinking, we had to be sure…

Carefully, slowly, I set down the bucket at my feet, and moved on silent tiptoe towards the crack in the wall.

"What are you doing?" Eowyn hissed. I waved at her to be quiet, pulling one of the torches off its wall sconce and holding it up to the gap. The opening was narrow, barely wide enough for an average sized human to reach through, never mind walk through, and absolutely ink black inside. There was no way Eowyn would be able to see through that darkness with her human eyes, even with a torch.

Me on the other hand?

I leaned just a bit closer, squinting to try and get my elf eyes to focus in the dark with the help of the glow off the flames…

I saw the blackened teeth of the Uruk-hai barely a breath before they snapped down right where my face had just been.

"Christ!" Tink and I both swore, stumbling back as the fully armoured Uruk-hai roared and snarled, trying to force it's way through. I didn't get a chance to get clear before it's hand shot out through the opening and seized me by the front of my tunic.

I'm not sure if it was Tink helping this time, or my own reflexes from training with Boromir and Gimli in Lothlórien. But when I screamed and shoved the torch straight into the Uruk's face, I somehow managed to jam the glowing end right between its right eye gap. It screamed too, letting me go as it flailed back in sudden pain, trying to put out its own burning helmet.

That was two Uruk's who's faces I'd burned off now.

Go me.

But the second that one fell back it was replaced with two more—snapping and snarling, battering at the narrow crack trying to force the rapidly crumbling gap wider. One managed to claw its way through, and like an idiot, I managed to catch my heel on the only jagged rock on an otherwise flat section of floor. My still half-numb legs gave out, and I fell straight back onto my butt, just as the Uruk lunged straight for me.

There was a whooshing sound, a blur of steel just over the top of my head, and the monster's neck snapped like a rotted tree branch with the sudden impact. It flew sideways to reveal two more struggling to forcing their way into the room. I flung myself over to crawl away, and was met with the sight of Eowyn standing at the ready right behind me.

She'd pulled what looked like a rusty war hammer from one of the storage barrels, and I had just enough time to see her pivot on her toes, swing with both arms in a surprisingly graceful arc over my head, and cave in the next Uruk-hai's helmet with its skull still inside.

"Get back!" She yelled, taking my hand and yanking me to my feet. "Back through the tunnel!"

We both ran for it, Eowyn shoving me ahead of her down the narrow stone passageway. The booms of whatever the Uruks were using to try and force their way in were sending rubble and dust falling from the ceiling. Fleeing down that rough-walled, one-person-wide hall felt less like a strategic retreat, and more like doing stunts for a Tom and Jerry cartoon. A piece of shale clipped my brow, and I felt the warm trickle of blood start to run down the side of my face as I burst back into the main supply room we'd entered from.

A moment later Eowyn appeared too, the growing snarls and howls of the Uruk's reverberating down the passage.

"The supports, quickly!" She shouted at me, before swinging that war hammer over her head and smashing it into the wooden beams at the sides of the entrance with a crash. I saw her plan instantly, and unable to wield anything else, I picked up a discarded shield with both hands. With a shapeless scream of effort, smashed it against the weakest part of the opposite support beam.

The wood groaned as the Uruk's howled, one of them appearing through the darkness of the passage and charging straight for me.

"Eowyn—!" I started to scream, my heart in my throat, but she was already moving.

One more swing from her war hammer and the rickety archway collapsed with a hideous cracking sound, and the ceiling came tumbling down along with it. I barely had time roll out of the way as the tunnel caved in with a thundering crash, crushing the charging Uruks beneath several tons of stone and shale.

I fell backwards again, and it was only when I tried to scramble away that I realised the one who's been charging at me—despite being literally buried alive—had still managed to seize my ankle in a desperate death grip. It was still twitching, clawing desperately at my leg, but before I could think to stab it until it let go, Eowyn's war hammer came down again and smashed the limb to bloody splinters.

"Bloody hell! Bloody rutting hells!" I gasped, scrambling back on my butt and kicking the bloody remains away. "How did they get inside?"

"I don't know," Eowyn answered, breathing just as heavily as she helped me to my feet again. "But if they made it through this far, that will not hold them for long. We need soldiers down here, now!"

I did my best to breathe, to try and think clearly and calmly. I'd faced and survived Uruk-hai before, and I knew from firsthand experience letting myself panic now wouldn't help.

But…

Freda. Etain. Ilda. Sarra and her new baby. They wouldn't stand a chance.

Eowyn had more than proved she was capable of defending herself, but there was little doubt in my mind the rest of them would all be butchered if even a few of those things got inside. That single thought painted a gruesome picture in my head, and my insides went cold with renewed panic that I couldn't stop.

"The sentinels!" I remembered suddenly, grabbing and shaking Eowyn's arm. "Boromir said they'd be posted just outside the main hall doors!"

She looked hopefully between me and the collapsed passage as another rumble shook more dust from the ceiling, and the rubble shifted. Then she set her jaw and nodded.

"Go. You are faster than me in any case," she said, squeezing my shoulder and pushing me towards the exit. Then she turned back to the collapsed cavern with a furious look, her war hammer held in a guard across her chest. "This I can do."

I was halfway back to the main cavern before my numb legs allowed me to start sprinting.

I flew back down the passages, bursting into the main cavern like a mad woman. Several dozen startled eyes followed me as I made my way through the groups of refugees back to where I'd left Sarra. I found her and her little girl both fast asleep where I'd left them, the newborn girl curled up safe and sound against her mother's chest, Sarra's arms cradling her protectively. Someone had wrapped them up in my Lothlórien cloak for warmth.

"Where's Ilda? Etain?" I found myself asking aloud, looking around and not seeing either of them anywhere. When none of the nearby women answered, pointedly looking anywhere but at Sarra I had to fight not to scream in frustration. "Hello? Am I talking to myself? Does anyone know where Ilda and Etain are?!"

Finally one of the younger women hesitantly lifted her head.

"They both went to the lower levels to bring up food and clean linens, my lady," she said, reluctantly standing and stepping forward. She was still refusing to look at Sarra, but the moment she saw the barely controlled panic on my face, she went pale too. "What has happened?"

"There are Uruk-hai trying to dig their way in," I explained quickly, trying to keep my voice calm despite my racing heartbeat. I'd started gathering up my discarded weapons and medical satchel and strapping them back onto my belt. "Eowyn is guarding the tunnel. I need to warn the sentinels outside, but I can't leave Sarra on her own. I need someone to watch her until Ilda and Etain come back, make sure she and the baby stay calm and warm if they wake up. I'll be back as quick as I can."

The young woman went even paler, her gaze going from me, to Sarra, to the other women and back again.

"But… my lady, we cannot," she started, her voice torn between fear and reflexive scorn. Score I could tell from her tone wasn't really her own, just the parroted words of the elders. "She is… I mean, her child is not—"

My already strained temper started to snap. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

I whirled on her.

"Are you serious? We could get overrun by monsters at any moment and you're all bent out of shape about that?"

The girl's lips thinned in guilt, but she held her ground, back straightening.

"She… brought this on herself."

She was the one who said it, but I heard the echos of what the older women had been whispering with scorn over and over among them all whenever Sarra's back was turned.

Learned hatred.

Pointless pain inflicted on their own.

I felt the furious gold of mine and Tink's shared rage flood into my eyes.

The young woman of Rohan took one look at my face and flinched violently away as if I'd burned her with my glare. Everyone within a few feet went suddenly and utterly silent. I didn't care. I was far too scared, angry and outraged to care.

I got up and marched straight towards the young woman, who I now realised couldn't have been much older than eighteen. She instinctively retreated from me like prey from a predator, until she was backed up against a glittering stalagmite, eyes wide as saucers. I stopped barely a foot from her, our toes almost touching.

"One of your shield maidens and her daughter just went through a difficult birth. They are both weak and need tending to for at least the first few hours," I bit, clinging to my temper, but the rage I could feel building inside made it come out as cold and poisonous as frozen arsenic. I got right up in the her face so she couldn't look away. "There is enough pain and suffering going on outside these walls in all your defence. If I come back in here and find you have needlessly created more because of your pride, I will hold each of you who turned away personally responsible."

I wasn't really talking to just her.

Still, the girl's hands and shoulders were shaking now, but she managed to hold her outward composure together — but only just. She swallowed, and nodded just once. I backed off immediately, giving them all one last disgusted glare before making sure Sarra and her daughter were fully covered and warm in my cloak. Then I turned and strode towards the stairs without another word, my blood still boiling.

I used that anger to propel me up the stairs in a sprint, taking them two, sometimes three at a time.

When I got to the top I was gasping, my legs burning from the effort. I staggered across the main hall which looked like it might have once been used for banquets and started slamming my fists against the giant double oak doors.

"Hello!" I shouted, trying to make as much noise as I could over the sounds of the siege outside. "Please, there are Uruks in the tunnels! We need help now!"

There was no answer.

"Hello?!"

Still nothing.

'Fine time for them to go for a bathroom break,' Tink grumbled, but she also sounded worried.

I tried to stamp down the fresh panic rising inside me again. It was getting harder to hold it back with every second now.

"We need to get this door open."

The massive oak entrance had been barred from the inside by a heavy plank of wood. It must have taken three people at least to lift into place. I had to brace a shoulder under one end and lift with my entire body just to get it to slide out of its bracket. Once it was out I barely managed to shove it out of the way enough to get the doors open—a gap hardly wide enough to let me squeeze through.

I tore my sleeve open and scratched up my arm as I stumbled out into pouring rain and the sounds of battle. The sentinels who Boromir had said would be posted outside the entrance were nowhere in sight, and the air was filled with the ring of shouting, and clashing weapons.

I didn't really know what was going on. I'd never see or studied sieges before, but I guessed that whatever was happening had to be truly bad if it had been enough to draw the sentinels away from defending the helpless women and children.

I followed the sounds of fighting to the edge of the courtyard, up the stairs and onto the same upper battlements where Legolas and I had been earlier. It had offered a clear view of the entire lower keep as the sun had been going down hours before, the grey stone soaked with red and orange light from the setting sun. Now it was illuminated by the blaze of torches and braziers enough for me to see what had called the sentinels along with every other man and strong lad away so urgently.

Wall scaling ladders.

The same ones Aragorn and I had seen being pulled behind the Uruk-hai formations, but ten times as many were now being raised towards the Hornburg walls. Only a few had managed to land solidly enough to grip the walls, but it was enough to allow dozens of armed Uruk-hai to start fighting their way onto the lower battlements.

The entire keep below me was in chaos.

I caught a glimpse of Eothain among the men trying to fight them off. He had been enlisted into helping the soldiers defend the walls over the gates, lifting heavy chunks of rubble and stone to drop on the heads of the Uruks trying to scale the ladders. Now he was helping a few of the older boys dump what looked like buckets of hot tar onto the remaining ladders, then setting them alight as the older more experienced soldiers beat back their attackers.

In the entranceway to the keep below that, at least thirty men were desperately trying to reinforce the wooden doors as a battering ram collided with it again and again.

Familiar, blood chilling snarls and roars were coming from the other side.

Without warning a ballista bolt the size of a tree trunk and tipped with a massive grappling hook flew out of the night and crashed into the wall right between two Rohan soldiers, sending them flying backwards to break and crumple against the stone of the keep.

As they fell I caught sight of Haldir's elves way down in the valley below, firing arrows in staggered arcs over the Deeping Wall into the hordes. I could also just make out the familiar stocky form of Gimli atop the wall itself, one-by-one clubbing down Uruks attempting to climb over.

"Twenty-two! Twenty three! Twenty-four!" He was booming, an incongruously merry sound among the howls and screams of fighting monsters and men.

For what felt like minutes but was probably no more than a handful of seconds, I couldn't move. I just stood there in terrified awe at the carnage and chaos all around. The valley and fields beyond the keep and walls had been utterly empty when Aragorn and I rode through just hours before. But now they were so filled with black-armoured Uruks that it looked from a distance as if the earth had turned into a churning plague of insects.

Theoden's captains had been right.

There were just too many.

Worse than anything we'd faced up until now. We might have inexplicably survived goblins and trolls in Moria, Uruk-hai scouts at Amon Hen, and wargs riders on the road to Helms Deep…

But I understood on some deeper animal level, staring down at that valley filled with death, that this was different.

That there was no way in hell we could survive this as we were…

My world slowed to a crawl as that same icy terror that had been clawing at me, trying to paralyse me so many time along this journey finally, finally…

Sank its teeth in deep.

I suddenly couldn't hear anything… I couldn't move… I couldn't breathe… I suddenly couldn't even remember why I had been so desperate to get outside in the first place. Even Tink's omnipresent aura vanished from my awareness…

All I could think of, in the tiny quiet part of my mind that remained sane, was of all the people from both my lives, from both my worlds, who I'd never see again when we lost…

I thought of Master Elrond, Arwen, Elladan and Elrohir back in Rivendell…

Of Merileth, Gweredir, and Colion in Lothlórien…

Of Merry, Pippin, Sam and Frodo…

Of my parent, brother and Katie back on Earth…

Of Vardamir, and the family from this world who I still hadn't yet found…

Of Aragorn, Boromir, and Gimli…

And of Legolas…

My legs went out from under me, dropping me to my knees on the rain slicked stone, my wide eyes blurring with tears. All the things I'd done before to beat back the panic—steady breathing, focusing thoughts, stupid tension-breaking humour—they all suddenly failed me, and the hopeless fear, denied for so long, gleefully began to drag me under…

I don't know whether it was God, fate, or just my running streak of insane dumb luck that put him there right at that moment.

But just as I felt myself about to disappear into that dark terror entirely, I heard a familiar battle cry and caught a flash of auburn hair out of the corner of my eyes. I looked down to see Boromir at the bottom of the stairs leading up to my level, opening an Uruk-hai's neck with his sword before rugby shoving it away from one of the younger conscripts. He yanked the boy back by his collar as another attacker charged them, and simply kicked the Uruk screaming over the battlements and into the sea of monsters below.

The panic paralysing my body and mind lost it's grip, just for a second. Just enough to let me breathe. Think. Remember why I was here.

Eowyn in the tunnels…

Sarra, and her daughter…

Ilda and her kitchen staff…

Etain, Freda and Eothain…

All the innocent people and those they loved down in the caves who would end up butchered if that collapsed passage didn't hold.

If any of us just gave up.

The sound of the siege crashed back in around me. The fear still tried to grip me, to pull me down under the surface again, but I clung to the sight of my friend fighting in defence of another like it was a lifeline.

It was enough. Just enough to let me clamber back to my shaking legs, stumble forward, lean over the battlements, and scream with every drop of air in my lungs.

"Boromir!" I shrieked over the chaos and sound of clashing blades. "Boromir!"

He spun and saw me, and his eyes went wide.

"Eleanor, what are y—?!" He started to yell just as another Uruk appeared over the wall behind him.

I got barely halfway through a screamed warning before he spun and cleaved the thing from nape to navel, slicking the stonework with even more black orc blood.

"You should not be out—!" He yelled over the chaos, but I cut across him, clinging to the memory of why I was out here in this madness.

"There are Uruks in the tunnels under the keep!"

Boromir went white as a ghost beneath all the dirt, blood and ichor.

"What?!"

"Uruks in the tunnels" I screamed back at him as loud as I possibly could, praying he understood. "They're digging their way in!"

Another two Uruks in heavy, jagged black armour scaled a fresh ladder a few feet down the battlements from him, and he was forced to turn and face them as they charged.

In those few seconds, my newly restored elf hearing suddenly picked a single sound out of the chaos.

One familiar voice shouting in Sindarin.

I'm not sure how I managed to hear him so clearly, or when I looked down at the Deeping Wall, I spotted them instantly.

But there, clear in a brief flash of torchlight despite the rain and darkness, I saw Legolas and Aragorn. They were both posted on the wall along with Haldir's elves, who were all alternating between cover and hurling waves of arrows into the hordes.

But neither Aragorn or Legolas were taking cover. Aragorn was frantically pointing over the side of the Deeping Wall into the hordes below, bellowing at Legolas to shoot something, to kill something. I couldn't see what he was pointing at, but faster than I'd ever seen him move, I watched as Legolas instantly pulled three arrows from his quiver at once and loosed them each one after the other. They flew into the dark, and whatever it was he was aiming it, he hit his target.

Just a heartbeat too late.

I heard the howling gurgle of a dying Uruk-hai from all the way up on the battlements…

Saw the flicker of a torch's fire flare through the steel grate that allowed the river through…

And the Deeping Wall exploded.

Continued In Part III

A/N: Welp, I do hope you enjoyed the beginning of the Battle of Helms Deep, despite it maybe being a bit less action-packed than if Ellie had been fighting outside along with the gents to begin with. But hey, being stuck inside trying to cope while the outside world goes full crazy has been kind of a mood this year, no?

I'm not setting a fixed date for when the next chapter will be out (I don't want to make you guys promises I can't keep), but what I will say is that about 50% of it is already down in a rough draft. So with any luck it won't be too long before you get to see how many of our crazy kids survived that opening act. :)

Until then, thank you so much again for reading this far and this long. And I hope that if you've been reading this story as an escape from everything that's happening in the world right now, that it maybe helped in some small way.

Much love, and please keep yourselves safe,

Rella xxx