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Chapter Text

Saeradan tells him of their runekeeper's escape when Corunir returns from the forward camp at the edge of Tâl Methedras. What little there is to tell, anyway- she and the Rohirrim she had escaped with had both been near collapse when they stumbled into the scout-camp and they sleep still. Esterín doesn't so much as shift when Corunir enters the tent he had shared with Braigiar before- well. Before. She is still clothed in grey prison-rags that smell faintly of iron and of sulfur and if Corunir were perhaps a bit bolder he would change them out for something less grimy. He instead picks through what spare or cast-off gear of his brothers and sisters remains in the scout-camp for any that look of a size that would fit Esterín. He leaves the offering beside her and wanders through the Gravenwood gathering smooth stones to pass the time.

He is, of course, out when at last she wakes. He enters the tent to retrieve something from his own bags and doesn’t notice that she has woken until she calls his name. He turns and she is watching him, elf-eyes sharp as ever. His smile feels as if it must crack his face in two- but perhaps it is just that there has been so little cause for cheer in recent weeks. He kneels at Esterín’s side and opens his arms in invitation. She leans into the embrace with a long exhale and he folds his arms gently around her, wary of hidden injury. He need not worry- the hug is tight, even for her, and she gives no sign that it pains her. She is shaking, he realizes, and holds her tighter. Corunir remembers well the passage across the Rammas Deluon and the aftermath. Their positions had been reversed then, but the scene had been much the same.

In time she pulls away and looks with distaste on her attire. She eyes the clothing and armor Corunir has collected. “Is that for me?” He nods and the relief is naked on her face. She near tears the hole-ridden cloth in her haste to be rid of it. Corunir hesitates but she seems not to notice or care that he is still there. He means to ask if she would rather he left but the words die at the sight of the scars.

Esterín has had scars for as long as Corunir has known her- a long life lived often in dangerous places leaves its mark. Corunir has seen many of them by chance during his travels with the runekeeper, but many of those he sees now are new. One, large and covering much of her right shoulder and stretching far down the chest, looks to be a burn, barely healed. What hint of a smile Corunir still clings to fades into sadness at the evidence of his friend’s pain. She catches his eye and shrugs.

“I am here. I live.” Many of their friends are not so fortunate. It goes unsaid but not unthought. Esterín examines several pairs of boots until she settles on a pair that fits. Prestadír’s, Corunir thinks. There is a dagger strapped to the side and she draws it, testing the edge. Corunir has just enough time to worry before she takes the blade to her hair, grown far longer than he has ever seen it. She saws roughly at a handful of hair, leaving it messy and uneven.

“Stop, stop!” Corunir laughs, reaching for the dagger. “Let me.” She yields the dagger with reluctance but sits willingly enough as Corunir cuts away at her hair with the ease of long practice.

“As short as it was before,” she says quietly. Corunir nearly misses it.

“I will do my best,” he says. His best is really quite good- he has done this for others many times before. Esterín examines the results in a sheet of beaten metal and smiles. It is so faint Corunir nearly thinks it isn’t there at all.

She is dressed fully as a ranger now. If her ears, pointed and highlighted by the shortness of her hair, are ignored she would easily pass for one of the Dúnedain. Corunir tells her as much and after a breath her smile grows, unfurling like the first spring leaves after a long winter. Corunir smiles back and thinks, for the first time in longer than he will admit even to himself, that there is still hope for the Grey Company.

Chapter Text

They watch the Oath-breakers of the Forsaken Road pass them by in silence. Saeradan’s face is carefully blank, revealing nothing. Radanir’s is hard, his teeth clenched tight enough to ache. They bring a fell chill with them that the rangers know far too well. The cursed shades pass and Radanir shudders. He gazes into the distance until Saeradan's hand falls on his shoulder.

"The Forsaken Road is empty," Radanir says. Saeradan understands his intent almost before he thinks it.

"We should bring them out while we have the chance," Saeradan agrees. They return to the Forsaken Road, grim. Saeradan seems at ease, or at least not ill at ease, and Radanir tries to emulate his calm. It is difficult, here within wet stone walls chilled by the Dead and haunted still, for all the ghosts have departed. Radanir keeps one eye always on Saeradan, unwilling to lose another brother to these tunnels. It is because he is watching that he sees Saeradan's facade crack when they find the first body. Hodhon, come with Calenglad from Tinnudir to join the Grey Company. They carry him above ground once more and return for the others.

They are better preserved than they have any right to be, between the rats and the water and the time that has passed. Perhaps the chill of the Oath-breakers discourages even the progression of decay.

Radanir's hand shakes as they carry Calithil out. He thinks of happier times in the wilds near Rivendell and it hurts. He will have to tell Elweleth of Calithil's death, he realizes. They had all three been companions often over the years. Linnor is easier- for Radanir if not for Saeradan- and Himeldir, neither having been as dear to Radanir or as well known.

They both know Candaith will be the worst. Radanir had grown up with him and he was nearly as common a sight at Saeradan's cabin as Saeradan himself. Radanir steels himself and rests a hand on Saeradan's shoulder, for both their comfort. It takes some time to locate the deep chamber where Candaith and Esterín had confronted Britou, but when at last they do they find a sight unexpected.

A dome rests on the uneven floor, glowing faintly. Roughly oval in shape, it rises to Radanir's knee at its highest point and shrouds an area that could easily hold a Man's body. Radanir and Saeradan watch as one of the large rats scurries close to the dome and sniffs at it. The rat's nose touches the edge and there is a spark and a burst of light and the scent of burning fur. The rat is thrown ten feet back and lands gracelessly. It smokes and does not rise again.

"Fantastic," Radanir says. "What is this?"

"I have no idea," Saeradan says.

Radanir steps closer to the dome. The light intensifies as he draws near before flaring briefly and subsiding to the point of translucence. Radanir reaches into the dome before either Saeradan or his own common sense can stop him. The dome fades into nothing and Candaith- revealed now and somehow, after nearly a month, alive- takes a shallow breath. The light of Saeradan’s torch glints off the fresh blood that soaks Candaith’s back and Radanir scrambles for the runestone he keeps in a hidden pocket just over his breast. Saeradan kneels beside him with another runestone and Radanir has never been so glad that Esterín insisted that they learn this, not even when they found Braigiar in Tûr Morva.

These runes are not powerful and they are not skilled in their use, but together it is enough to stop the bleeding. Candaith does not wake- not during their desperate ministrations nor when they carry him as gently as they are able to the surface nor when they lay him down to prepare a camp for the night. His right hand is clenched around something they cannot see.

The scene is familiar in an eerie way. It had taken Braigiar days to wake when they had found him, alive against impossible odds, and he had waited only a week. It has been months for Candaith, preserved somehow by the strange dome of light deep in the tunnels of the Dead. Radanir resolves not to worry if Candaith does not wake for some time. Saeradan seems both able and willing to worry enough for the both of them, anyway.

Travel is an obstacle the next morning. They have stabilized Candaith as much as they are able in the wild, but they cannot leave him resting on his back when even the briefest contact could open the terrible wound again. Neither can they secure him in the bed of their wagon, filled with their own dead. In the end, Saeradan steers the wagon one-handed, the other arm holding Candaith upright and leaned against his shoulder. Radanir walks at times beside them and at others ranging ahead or to the rear to keep watch.

They reach Lhanuch without incident and Radanir would be suspicious of their good fortune if Saeradan were not with him. Radanir goes alone into Lhanuch. He wonders with black humor if the Uch-lûth will turn as the Hebog-lûth did. Glynn Brenin seems honestly angered by Lheu Brenin’s weakness, though the Draig-lûth raid does more to convince Radanir of the Brenin’s position. The worms unleashed in Lhanuch are not yet full-grown but they are still large enough to terrorize the people of Lhanuch. They are dangerous creatures to fight alone and Radanir has little time to spare on worry for Saeradan and Candaith. He puts down another one by the gates and steals a moment to breathe. The wagon sits still on the hill below him. Candaith is slumped sideways on the driver’s bench and Saeradan is nowhere in sight. Radanir hears the thump-thump-slither of another worm behind him but he turns too slow to meet it.

---

Candaith never is sure, even years later, when he finally woke. He remembers an endless expanse of grey like mist in the hills at dawn and at times voices, some familiar but most not. His eyes open at last on twilight outside of Lhanuch and the first thing he sees is Radanir, pinned beneath a scaled worm and screaming through clenched teeth as it savages his shoulder. Candaith’s body is slow to respond as he stands. Pain burns down his back and a smooth stone drops unnoticed from his fingers. Candaith grits his teeth and pulls himself straight. He is armed only with the dagger he keeps in his boot but Radanir has no time for him to find a better weapon.

Wherever he has been and for however long, it has not dulled years of training and of practice moving unseen by another creature. The worm does not realize its peril until Candaith’s dagger is already buried in its eye. It screams as it dies and collapses atop Radanir. Candaith sets his feet and leans into the worm’s corpse but the pain in his back he has been ignoring redoubles and drives him to his knees before he can move it. He can barely even make out Radanir calling his name.

---

A day and two nights later, Candaith is able to stand without tearing open the wound on his back and undoing the hard work of Lhanuch’s healers. He wanders the village by starlight until he comes to the wagon he had woken in. Radanir and Saeradan had explained little of what had happened, saying only that it had been far too long since they had seen him. Candaith cares not at all for the implications of their words.

“Candaith?” Radanir’s voice stops his hand, halfway to the rough cloth that hides the contents of the wagon from view. “I did not expect to see you out here.”

“From what little you have told me, I think I may have rested quite long enough.”

Radanir laughs but the sound is forced. “I doubt the healers here would agree.”

“They would, in fact, tell us both off for being up and about and ruining their work.” Candaith smiles. “But then, there is hardly anything new about that.” Radanir’s laughter is less forced now and Candaith counts it a victory. He lets his hand fall to his side. “What has happened, Radanir? Where is the rest of the Company, and what is in this wagon?”

Radanir is silent for a long moment. “Some things are better said under the light of day.” Candaith’s face hardens and Radanir sighs. “But if you would have the tale from me now, in part or in whole, I will not keep it from you.”

“Tell me,” Candaith says. They sit together beneath the stars and Radanir tells him what has become of their friends in the past three months- their grief after his own presumed death, the betrayal at Tûr Morva and Lothrandir and Esterín’s imprisonment in Isengard, the departure of Prince Théodred and the Rohirrim. Candaith’s breath is uneven and he leans into Radanir’s unwounded shoulder. So much has happened. He has missed so much, held in some strange limbo in the Forsaken Road. It is too much to comprehend all at once. “The wagon?” He feels Radanir’s breath, forced steady.

“Leave it for tonight, my friend,” he says. There is a touch of desperation to his voice and it is that which convinces Candaith to heed him. “No good will come of it now.”

“Until morning, then,” Candaith says. They are both silent for a time and Candaith begins to drift, his body weakened still by the terrible wound down his whole back dealt him by Britou’s shade. He only just makes out Saeradan’s voice as he sits on Candaith’s other side. Something soft falls over him.

“We have missed you dearly, Candaith. Sleep well, brother.”

Chapter Text

They are riding for Combe nearly before Brackenbrook is finished speaking. Even if a grim ranger was not in itself a cause for concern, they both agree that they still owe the rangers for their rescue from the Blackwolds, however coincidental it may have been.

Toradan is indeed grim. That had been no exaggeration on Jon’s part. Toradan still holds out hope that Amdir can be saved and Isena is willing to try. She knows little of the meaning of a morgul blade; her brother’s face says he knows more. His hopes are not as high as hers but he agrees to try anyway. Side by side they enter the Blackwolds’ hideout.

Amdir looks so much worse. It has only been a few days since they last saw him in Archet but he is even paler now. His skin is nearly translucent and Isena thinks that if the light hits just so, she will be able to see straight through him. Torchlight flickers and Isena frowns. She can see straight through him. Isedd’s breath catches but before he can speak Amdir screams. The sound drives Isena and Isedd both to their knees right beside the brigands that fill the cave. It hurts, but it seems to her that it must hurt less than whatever is happening to Amdir. There is an edge to the scream that no mortal voice can produce- it is far more like the cry of the Black Rider amid the flames- but beneath it is only the sound of a Man in terrible pain.

The door to the cell bursts from its hinges and very suddenly they are surrounded by enemies. Isena catches the first one on her shield and throws him back at his companions.

“Yes, this was a perfect time to leave Bear outside!” she shouts at Isedd. His staff cracks down onto another head.

“Terribly sorry I wasn’t expecting our undercover infiltration to need quite so much muscle.”

The rest of the Blackwolds scatter in Amdir’s wake. Sara Oakheart reclaims her staff and whacks one or two over the head with surprising glee. She stands well behind Isena and Isedd and Isena has no thoughts to spare for the old woman. She knows, as Amdir’s voice rises with his arm, what is coming, but Toradan stands opposite her, Amdir in between, and she is too slow to stop it. She launches her spear but it catches only air as Amdir vanishes into the night and Toradan collapses.

Isedd is already at his side, a pale light glowing between his hands. “Sit him up,” he orders. In these matters alone will Isena obey without question. Toradan is shaking and struggling for every breath. Isena supports him and hushes him gently as the light in Isedd’s hands grows. When it fades, Toradan is still trembling. His skin is cold and he is soaked in his own blood, but his breath is steady and he yet lives.

“Let’s get out of here,” Isena says. She supports Toradan out of the cave and up the winding path, slick with spray from the waterfall. Sara Oakheart is nowhere to be seen.

The great advantage to leaving Isedd’s great brown bear outside of the caves is that the horses are still there, undisturbed by either Amdir or the fleeing Blackwolds. Isedd climbs into Leitha’s saddle and together they wrestle Toradan up in front of him. Isena mounts Smelly and turns his head towards Combe.

“The Mustering Cave,” Toradan says. “Mundol. We must-”

“The only thing we must is get you somewhere you can rest,” Isedd snaps. Toradan is just this side of conscious and is only kept upright by Isedd’s arm. He shakes his head and even with Isedd’s grip he nearly topples. “You can barely sit, let alone walk.”

Isena sighs as Toradan tries to fight Isedd. He is weak enough that even her brother can restrain him with ease. “Isedd. If Amdir is hunting his brothers now, where could we leave him that’s safe? Wounded or not, he will be safer with us.” Toradan shoots her a grateful look. “Where is this Mustering Cave of yours?”

“Across the Midgewater. Beyond the old fort.”

“We won’t be able to ride through the Marsh in the dark,” Isedd says. His eyes are distant in the way Isena knows means he is deep in thought. She smiles. “Walk by night or ride by light. We have hours yet until dawn- Toradan, how quickly will Amdir be able to cover the same distance?”

“If he left now… it would be nearly noon tomorrow. At least, it would be for a Man. Now…”

“We have no other estimates on which to base our plans,” Isena says. She eyes Toradan. “And what of you?” Toradan shivers and straightens.

“I am fine. We have to go.” Isedd rolls his eyes and Isena nearly laughs.

“We can beat Amdir if we circle around the northern edge of the Marsh by the light of day,” Isedd says. “For now, we should rest.” Toradan mutters something Isena can’t make out. “You can grumble when you have the strength to sit up alone, ranger.”

Isena leads them down the hill to a sheltered hollow at its foot. They light no fire but Toradan’s shivering worsens until they can hear his teeth chattering in the still night. At last Isedd calls Bear over and coaxes Toradan up against his flank. Isena and Isedd settle on either side of Toradan and ever so slowly his shivers ease.

The dawn is slow in coming. All three of them are restless and they are moving even before they can make out more colors than grey. Toradan rides behind Isena on Leitha this time and they make as much haste as they dare in the dimness. The sun is far too close to noon when Toradan points out the entrance to the rangers’ cave. He is inside before either Isena or Isedd have dismounted, stumbling in his haste. Isena does not care for the cry that echoes out to them.

Mundol lies in a growing puddle of blood. The pool is small still- this was recently done. Toradan is at his side, speaking softly. Isedd drops to his knees as soon as he sees Mundol is still alive.

“Amdir was just here,” Mundol says. “Reniolind. In the old Marshwater Fort. Please-” he chokes on a wet cough. Isedd’s light shines again.

“He is young still. Only a few years out of childhood, really,” Toradan says. He starts to stand. “We can’t-” Isedd orders someone to hold Mundol, oblivious to the rest of the conversation. Isena pushes Toradan back down.

“Follow when you can,” Isena says. She turns and runs. Toradan’s questions fade behind her.

Leitha and Smelly hail from the northernmost plains of Rohan, the same as Isena and Isedd. Leitha has the endurance to carry twice as much and still keep pace with all but the finest of horses. She is strong, but Smelly is fast. He is moving well before Isena has settled in the saddle, flying across the Midgewater as if he was born here. Isena drops from his back when they reach the ruins and stomps her way through the overgrown spiders that infest the place.

Reniolind nearly attacks her when she bursts through the door. He is still alive and uninjured. He knows nothing of what has befallen his kin in the past week until Isena tells him. Toradan was right, Isena thinks. Reniolind is younger even than her youngest sister.

“We must get to Bree. These caves run most of the way back- this way.”

Amdir waits in the depths. Even now, Reniolind tries to reach him. To save him. More than anything, Isena wants to believe that it can be done, but Toradan had tried this too and nearly paid with his life. She keeps her shield up and does not relax her guard.

She is fast enough this time. She knocks Reniolind aside and staggers under the force of Amdir’s blow. Her spear flashes in the torchlight and Amdir cries out. The sound is more wraith than Man, now.

“Morin!” Amdir shouts into the darkness above them. He flees. Isena hears Reniolind call warning just before something hot and sharp drives into her back. The weight forces her to her knees. She spins her spear in her hand and stabs blindly over her head. She hits something but it is still a small eternity more until the thing releases her. She falls. After a moment she hears Reniolind calling her name. She uses her spear to pull herself up and staggers after Amdir.

Amdir himself is long gone by the time they make it into the daylit woods beyond the tunnels, and there is little sign of his passing. Isena’s right shoulder burns and there is an alien weakness in her legs. It is not caused by blood loss- although she is still bleeding- and so she assumes poison. She never had stopped to look at what had stabbed her from behind. She sinks to the ground with a quiet groan. Reniolind is at her side when she looks up.

“Let me see,” he says. His voice is steady, impressively so for all that has happened in the last half hour. Isena has no strength to fight him even if she were so inclined as he examines the wound. “You said your brother was not far behind you with Toradan and Mundol. How exactly did you two come to be so involved with my brothers?” It is a ploy to keep her aware and engaged and she knows it. She has seen Isedd do the same many times.

“We were rescued from a Blackwold cell by Amdir and Strider. They weren’t there for us, but they helped us anyway. We agreed that we owed the rangers for their help- when we heard that a ranger was asking for aid we went and met Toradan. We’ve spent the last day and a half trying to track you down before Amdir did.”

Reniolind laughs once. “From the sound of things, I rather think it is we who are indebted to you, now.” His hands slow in their work. “Were you with Amdir when…”

“Yes,” Isena says very quietly. “None of us could reach him in time, and afterwards… He kept telling Strider to leave and not to worry.” She takes a deep breath and releases it bit by bit.

“He knew what was coming.” Reniolind’s voice is distant. “We all know to fear a morgul blade.” His voice catches. “He must have been terrified.”

Something moves in the underbrush. Reniolind is on his feet, bow in hand, squarely between Isena and the unknown creature. Isena pulls herself up, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. The creature sniffs at the air and growls. The sound is familiar.

“Bear?”

“Perhaps,” Reniolind says. “We should-”

“Hey, Bear! Over here!”

“What are you doing?” Reniolind hisses. Isena looks over.

“What am I..? Oh.” Bear comes bounding out of the trees straight for Isena. She pushes Reniolind’s bow aside. “Reniolind, this is Bear, a friend of my brother’s. Bear, this is Reniolind.” Bear sniffs first at Isena and then suspiciously at Reniolind, who looks equally wary. Isena looks up and sees a white owl circling above.

“At your service… Master Bear.” Bear sniffs at Reniolind again and licks him once.

“That means he likes you,” Isena says. She sits and waits until she can hear two sets of hoofbeats approaching.

“I want nothing to do with another one of these hairy, overgrown spiders,” she announces when Leitha and Smelly emerge from the trees. Her shirt is in shreds and her armor lies beside her, a gaping hole punched in the back. Isedd comes and looks her over critically while Reniolind helps Mundol and Toradan down from the horses. “I much prefer the pests we had at home.”

“You mean the marauding orcs that set our house on fire?” Isedd does not look away from his task. Isena laughs.

“Yes. Those ones.”

Mundol and Toradan are both still weak, though they are at least not seriously injured any longer. Isena is injured but stronger than either of them at the moment. They make for Bree with as much speed as they are able, eager not to stay alone and so weakened in the wilderness.

“This will place all three of you and your captain in the same place,” Isedd says. “Amdir may very well come after you even in the middle of Bree if he learns that you have survived.”

“Perhaps,” Toradan says. “But we stand a better chance together than apart.” Isena nods to herself and leans on Bear for support.

Isena nearly pities Barliman Butterbur. There are far more rangers than he is comfortable with standing in his common room, some of them clearly not well. Then again, the number of rangers he is comfortable with might peak at one.

Strider- Aragorn, after he abandons the pretense- bundles all five of them into his room at once. None of them are small people and it is a tight fit. He hears their tale in full and afterwards examines each of his men for himself. He offers the same attention to Isena and Isedd with thanks for protecting his kin. The conversation lulls and he sighs.

“We must deal with Amdir, and soon.” What levity they have found fades to grimness. They are all too aware of this truth. “For tonight, though, rest here.” He leaves them in the room for a time and returns with warm food enough for all of them. It is not long before the weight of the last two days begins to press down upon them. Mundol is the first asleep, curled into the corner in the single small bed. Toradan is near nodding off, too, and at Aragorn’s urging he wraps his cloak around himself and lays down beside Mundol. Isena is half-asleep herself, staring blankly at the far wall. She starts when Isedd’s hand falls on her shoulder.

“We should go,” he says quietly. Isena hmms but doesn’t stand just yet.

“You are welcome to stay, if you wish,” Aragorn says. “Although,” he looks around the crowded room. “I understand if you do not.” Isedd looks at Isena as if he expects her to have some input on this decision. She folds her arms and lays her head down on the small table. He laughs.

Isena’s eyes are closed before she knows it. She tracks the others by their voices though she doesn’t bother to separate one word from another. Something warm and smelling of pine needles falls over her and she sighs contentedly. Reniolind’s voice falls silent, and in time so does Isedd’s. She hears the clatter of empty wooden dishes as someone clears away what remains of their meal, and some time after that a breath that blows out a candle. After that she knows no more.

They never are able to save Amdir, but Bear answers to his name for many years afterwards.

Chapter Text

The rush of wind in her ears is far louder than the voices of her friends. She feels impossibly light for a few brief moments. There is a burst of pain, everywhere, and then nothing.

---

Nothing truly ends.

"Get her up. We have to go."

"Is it safe to move her?" A pause. "Esterín?"

"We have no choice." Exhaustion. "We cannot stay here "

Se ú navaer.

"Corunir?"

"I have him."

Movement. Sensation reaches for her. It hurts.

"Lorniel? Can you hear me?"

Can she?

"She needs… must leave."

Voices in darkness. She knows them. But from where?

This is not over yet.

"Lunathron, behind you!"

Family. Her oldest friends. No different, really. It's been so long since she has seen them all together. They must be home, or on their way there.

"Here. Where is the key?"

Clanking. A metallic scrape.

It has been too long since they watched the sun rise over the mountains together. Even on cloudy days she loves the sight. And in the evenings you can just convince yourself that the glint in the west is the sun on the distant lake.

"Thoriel?"

"Here. The way is clear, but it will not long remain that way."

Cuio!

Time passes. She retreats into warm darkness.

"We made it."

Relief.

"She needs to rest. Let her."

Lorniel sleeps.

---

She is alone when she wakes. She is in her own blankets and she feels heavy. She frowns at the ceiling. No room in Esteldín has such a roof. Voices call out beyond a wooden door, strangely accented. She is not in Esteldín, of course. She has not been able to leave Angmar in years. This is her room in the caves of Gath Forthnír. Why had she thought otherwise?

She pulls herself upright. Her body aches, though it is more similar to the widespread soreness she associates with illness rather than with physical exertion. It is worst along her back and neck and she struggles to recall anything. She stretches carefully and thinks. She remembers the skirmish with Bogbereth’s spawn, the one that had come far too close to Gath Forthnír for comfort. She remembers Corunir’s arrival with Braigiar and their new friend, an elf woman claiming to be sent by Aragorn. Lorniel’s friends had seemed at ease with Esterín, and for her own part Lorniel had been too happy to see them again to be properly suspicious of the newcomer. Esterín has proved herself well enough, though, and Lorniel is not at all sure they would have made it inside Carn Dûm without her. Within the walls- within the walls, her memory comes up blank. She remembers passing the first gate. She remembers searching the faces of fallen bodies for… someone. She remembers darkness and hazy dreams. She sighs and opens the door. She will have to ask the others, then.

“Lorniel!”

Thoriel is the first to see her. She leaps to her feet and wraps Lorniel in a tight hug. It hurts, but not much more than anything else does at the moment. Lorniel still winces. Thoriel drops her arms. “Sorry.” Before Lorniel can say anything, Thoriel darts around the bend of the tunnel. “Hey! Lunathron! Get over here!” She reappears and grins at Lorniel. “It’s about time, you know. We were starting to think you were going to sleep through the rest of this fight and leave it all to us.” Lorniel laughs.

“Never. You know me better than that.”

Lunathron appears. His face lights when he sees Lorniel and he pulls her into a hug with more caution than Thoriel had. “You never have stayed out of a fight once it was presented to you.”

Lorniel pulls back. “And you have?”

“Usually I am only following you.”

Thoriel snorts. “I would hardly say usually.”

“Hey-”

Thoriel and Lunathron descend into friendly bickering. Arms fall across Lorniel’s shoulders as they pull her towards the central cavern.

Lorniel guesses it to be late in the evening by the company in the cavern. Most of the elves are still awake, together with half the dwarves and only a handful of the Men. This means she gets far more friendly pats and well-intentioned if heavy-handed thumps than too-tight embraces, and just now she is grateful for that. There are many inquiries into her well-being and congratulations on a plan well-executed. The plan, the plan. There is too much happening all at once. What was the plan again? Esterín appears from the sea of faces and smiles at her.

“And Laerdan just convinced Golodir to rest.”

Lorniel’s smile freezes. Of course. How could she have forgotten. A rescue. She turns away from the crowd gathering to celebrate her waking. Lunathron catches her eye and nudges Thoriel beside him. They clear a hole in the ring with quiet words and a few elbows and as soon as Lorniel has the space, she runs. She slows to a walk after leaving the crowded cavern. Whatever happened that she cannot remember has left her drained and the path past the pool is treacherous on the best of days.

She can hear movement in her father’s room when she comes to the door. It has long been silent, the room left empty at her insistence, waiting against a desperate hope. She will never admit, not even to Thoriel and Lunathron, just how thin that hope had grown in the last year. She does not know what she would have done if this rescue had failed. She takes a deep breath and knocks. The movement stops. Footsteps approach.

“Laerdan, if you are coming to see if I am resting, I can assure you-” The door creaks open and Golodir stops short when he sees her. They stare at each other for a long moment before Lorniel laughs and throws herself forward, arms wide. Golodir staggers under her weight but his arms close around her and he does not let go. “Lorniel…” She laughs again and realizes she is crying.

“Hello, Father.”

It is several minutes before either of them pull away. Both their faces are streaked with tears and Lorniel’s smile feels liable to split her face. There are so many things she wants to say and to ask, but her father speaks first.

“How do you feel?”

Lorniel shakes her head. “I’m fine. Just a little sore.” Golodir watches her closely. “Honestly!” The gap in her memory seems more serious suddenly. “Besides, should I not be asking how you feel?”

“Hm. I am as well as can be expected.”

Lorniel eyes him suspiciously. “What does that mean.”

“I am tired,” he says simply. “Truly, Lorniel, you are only sore?”

“Yes,” she says, perhaps too defensively. “Should I not be?” Something dark flickers across Golodir’s face. “Father?”

Golodir sighs and sits heavily on the edge of the bed. “Do you not remember?”

“Very little between passing the first gates of the city and waking here,” she admits. She sits beside him, their shoulders touching. “What happened?”

“I can say little of your passage through the city,” he says quietly. “I saw your entry at the second gate before Mordirith brought me to the gates of the inner city. The gates opened and there you were.” A faint smile crosses his face. “And with a small army at your back, it seemed. And then- he threw you." Golodir falls silent. Lorniel tries to picture the scene but imagination and memory both fail her. "I thought I lost you then." Weightlessness. "A fall from that height would have claimed all but the luckiest." Dark. Golodir continues but Lorniel doesn't hear him. There is something in her mind now. She had believed it a dream when she woke but now she is less certain.

"Se ú navaer," she whispers. Golodir's voice stops. She brushes her fingers against the back of her head and wonders if she imagines the tenderness there. She shudders and presses closer to Golodir. "I think… I think I very nearly did not leave Carn Dûm alive." Golodir pulls her close and suddenly she is no warrior, no captain of the Free Peoples. She is just a young girl who wants her father to make things right. She clings to him and weeps as she hasn't since she was fifteen and her friends began dying for a cause they barely understood. Golodir smooths her hair and holds her until the storm has passed. She wipes her face and sniffles. "I missed you, Ada."

"I missed you too, Lorniel." He pulls away only enough to meet her eyes. “Thank you for saving me.”

There are other things to discuss, of course. Years' worth of things. But they are content for tonight simply to keep each other's company and revel in the fact that they are both alive and free.

When she finally leaves her father’s room, Lorniel finds that the caves are nearly silent. Even those who keep the latest hours are asleep. She is wrung out and exhausted both physically and emotionally, but she is not yet ready to return to her room. She wanders the tunnels instead, until she finds herself at a small ledge overlooking the pool. She comes here often when she wants to be alone. The others either have not noticed or have elected to give her her peace when she comes here.

There is someone else here tonight. Corunir’s head turns at her approach. He tries to shuffle to the side to make space for her, but this ledge is small even for one. One of them could leave, she supposes, wedging herself into what space there is, but Corunir was here first and for her own part she doesn't mind sharing. Legs dangling, she leans over the ledge to survey the pool. It is clear today, enough so that she can see the reflection of torchlight on veins of iron in the rocks. Corunir's hand closes around her arm and when she looks back his face is strained. She smiles and scoots away from the drop.

"You still worry too much, I see."

He does not let go of her arm. "You nearly died once this week already. I think I am allowed to worry a little bit more than usual." Lorniel's smile goes fond. She leans into Corunir and feels his nearly imperceptible sigh of relief. His arm goes around her shoulders and for a time they sit in silence. "Are you alright?"

She is not yet certain. "I am still here."

"That's not an answer."

Corunir has been in Gath Forthnír a week now but they have had little opportunity to talk as old friends. A conversation like this is perhaps overdue.

"I think I died. Or something that was very close to dying. Are you alright?"

"I- what?"

"Are you alright."

"Lorniel."

"What? I thought that common knowledge by everyone’s reactions to my waking. Anyway, you said you were in Aughaire for some time. What have you been doing all these years?" Corunir does not respond, caught between questioning her further and confronting her question. Lorniel thinks she knows the answer anyway. "Have you really been there all this time?" she asks quietly. Corunir takes a deep breath.

"Golodir told me to stay and so I stayed."

"That is not what he meant and you know it."

Corunir shrugs. "After the watch-stone trap activated I thought…" He sighs. "I tried to follow you but I could not pass the stones. I sent messages when I could, but until recently none of them made it beyond the Ram Dúath." He shivers once. "Even with Esterín's help I barely made it through. All I could see was the trap. Palandur and all the others who fell are still there, you know.”

“Corunir.”

“It’s been years of course, so there is little left but bones, but no creature living or dead has disturbed them.”

“Corunir.”

He shakes himself and looks at her sheepishly. “Sorry.” Lorniel pulls herself upright so that she can better hug him.

“Thank you,” she says. For braving the stones for them, for bringing help, for following her into Carn Dûm. “We were losing hope here. Your arrival could not have been better timed.” Corunir huffs a disbelieving laugh. “I am serious, Corunir.” After a moment she speaks again. “I dreamed we were all back in Esteldín while I was… asleep. You and me and Lunathron, Palandur, Aberia. Everyone. We were watching the sunrise over the mountains and Haelas was complaining that it was far too early to be awake. You were more worried about getting caught, because we were supposed to be in our beds still.” Lorniel grins. “You were right, as you often are. We near had our ears scolded off, though I think your mother was just trying not to laugh.”

Corunir laughs softly. “I miss those days.”

“So do I.” Lorniel sighs. “Do you know anything of the others?”

“Until I made it here, all I knew for sure about any of us was that Palandur was dead.”

“I thought as much. There is still much to be done here anyway.”

When her eyes grow heavy, Lorniel bids Corunir goodnight and winds her way back through the tunnels to her room.

They throw a feast, or at least such a feast as they are able, to celebrate Lorniel’s recovery and Golodir’s rescue. Areneth and Thorth pilfer extra Angmarim supplies from the outskirts of Carn Dûm for the occasion. Lorniel catches sight of Laerdan speaking with Esterín during the festivities, and the next day she is nowhere to be found. When Lorniel questions Laerdan, he tells her that Esterín is helping him with a gift for Golodir. Lorniel accepts it and turns her attention to the war they are still in the thick of.

There is still so much to do. Lorniel and Laerdan spend much of the next two weeks explaining their situation to Golodir. He says little of what happened to him but has much to offer on the workings of Carn Dûm and the politics of the servants of the Iron Crown.

Esterín returns with several bundles. The larger part of them is supplies for Gath Forthnír as a whole- food and arms and armor and a single young sapling from Rivendell that Esterín says will survive in Angmar’s harsher air. Lorniel is no botanist, but several of the elves recognize the tree and cluster around it speaking excitedly in their own tongue. Esterín brings the last bundle to Golodir where he is eating with Lorniel and Laerdan and presents it with a small smile.

“It was Laerdan’s idea,” she explains as Golodir marvels at his old gear, taken from him after his capture but now as brilliant as the day it was first forged. Esterín pulls a pained face. “The blades had to be taken to Imladris for repair. Hemeldir had many thoughts on their design and spoke of them at length.” Blades? As far as Lorniel remembers, Golodir had had only one of note, the sword passed to him from his mother. Her father’s face mirrors her own confusion. Esterín hastens to explain.

“The sword itself was in poor condition to begin with and was broken when I was recovering it. The larger part of it Hemeldir made into Forhathel, the sword, and with the remains he forged Pinachar, the dagger.” There are indeed two blades, both finely crafted and star-bright. They bear little resemblance to Golodir’s old sword, but when Lorniel takes them from her father to examine the grips are familiar as her father’s sword ever was.

“Halbarad sends his greetings, and Daervunn wants it to be known that he is very upset with all of you for disappearing for years without any word.”

Lorniel smiles. It sounds like Daervunn.

Golodir gives her the dagger later.

“This sword has long been in our family,” he says, handing it to her. “Now that it lives in two blades, it seems only fitting to pass some part of it on.” Lorniel draws the blade and cuts at an invisible foe. Golodir watches her with a smile. “The Little Avenger. A fitting name, I think.” Lorniel grins.

Lorniel follows her father back into Carn Dûm with Esterín, Throst, and Artain to find Mordirith. Golodir all but begged her not to come, but this fight is nearly as personal for her as it is for him. It is larger too than their wishes; Lorniel is one of the best warriors in Gath Forthnír and they will need all the strength they can manage to reach the False King.

Esterín stops Lorniel before they enter the city and holds out a carved stone bearing a familiar symbol.

“Save it for my father,” Lorniel says, as she did before their first strike into the heart Angmar. Esterín’s face hardens.

“I did as you asked before and you nearly died. None of your people would forgive me if it happened again.” Her eyes say she would not forgive herself, either.

“You saved me before, though,” Lorniel says. She has recalled some of their escape from Carn Dûm and she is sure of this. She has asked the others, too, but they were all reluctant to speak of it. “Se ú navaer, yes?” Esterín goes stiff.

“You remember that.” It is not a question. “It nearly failed.” She reaches for Lorniel’s shoulder and says something Lorniel does not understand. Warmth passes over her, a faint wave of sensation that she notices only because she knows something is happening. Esterín turns away. “The others are waiting for us.”

Illusions spin around them as they fight their way forward. Mordirith taunts them, drawing them in.

“What do you know of your father’s time in my care?” his voice whispers in Lorniel’s ear. “What has he truly told you?” She shakes her head as if she can dislodge his words. “He has looked into the palantír. Has he told you all that he has seen?”

It does not matter. Even if the False King speaks true, it changes nothing. The Iron Crown falls today. Lorniel leads the charge through the final door.

Mordirith’s laughter echoes through the throne room. Lorniel sets her back to her father’s and fights an image of herself, broken and bloody and far too solid to be only an illusion.

“Enough!” Golodir shouts. “Face us yourself, Mordirith!”

“As you wish, Golodir.” There is a smile and an edge that chills Lorniel in his voice, sourceless no longer but directly in front of her, a wicked blade swinging for her neck. Golodir cries out but Lorniel catches Mordirith’s sword on her own crossed with Pinachar. Metal shrieks as her sword folds before the blow, but Pinachar holds. A heavy fist catches her in the middle and she flies backwards, skidding and tearing skin on the jagged iron grating of the throne room’s floor. She struggles to her knees and fights for breath. Lightning flashes in the center of the room, the light reflecting off Forhathel’s blade as it bites into Mordirith’s side. He screams and Lorniel’s heart leaps. It is working. She pushes herself up and rejoins the fight.

At last Mordirith’s guard drops again. Forhathel sinks half its length into his body. Its light flares, blindingly bright, and the blade snaps in two. They are all thrown away by the force of its release and when they recover, Mordirith is on his knees.

“How…” They close around him as he struggles to gather himself. Lorniel stands before the Steward of Angmar, Pinachar in hand. He laughs between great, echoing breaths. “It matters not. In the end, you victory here means nothing. I will return in time.”

Lorniel knows this. It had been a subject of much discussion when they had first conceived this plan in the caverns they had come to call home. Impermanent as this defeat might be, it will shatter the grip of the Iron Crown on Angmar and enable their resistance to make real gains before a new power rises to seize control of the Witch-king’s realm. The fact does not make this fight any less meaningful.

“Let us be done with this,” Mordirith says. Lorniel steps forward and raises her dagger. Pinachar, the Little Avenger, striking for a thousand lesser hurts and a hundred dead friends in the last decade of an endless war here in the north. For Palandur and all the others lost in Rammas Deluon, for Corunir’s lonely watch in Aughaire, for the descendants of Arthedain and Rhudaur allied once more to fight the Shadow. She drives the blade home and Mordirith screams and flees, Pinachar dropping to the ground in his wake.

“Long may the wound pain you,” Lorniel spits.

The Iron Crown is broken. Before they may revel in this triumph, a strange old woman appears and makes off with the palantír. They have little choice but to retreat to Gath Forthnír, where their friends anxiously await their return. There is celebration at Mordirith’s fall, but it is tempered by the awareness that he will return and by the strangeness of Sara Oakheart. Esterín departs soon after to bring the news of Mordirith’s defeat south. Lorniel coordinates strikes against the forces of Angmar, fallen into disarray without Moridirith, and push many of them back into their strongholds in Urugarth and Carn Dûm. Golodir and a handful of others search for Sara Oakheart. They find her within a day of Esterín's return, lurking brazenly, if such a thing is possible, in the center of the Circle of Despair.

"I don't trust it," Lorniel says. Esterín sits across from her, hands folded before her. "Why is she there so openly?"

"It seems like a trap," Golodir agrees. Esterín nods along.

"She has the palantír. She may understand its use. Can we afford to ignore her?"

Lorniel sighs and stands straight, stretching. The soreness has yet to fully retreat from her neck and upper back. "No." She must admit that this is something they must address.

"Then I will go and see what might be learned," Esterín says. Lorniel looks at her sharply.

"Alone?"

She shrugs. "If, as you suspect, it is a trap, it makes sense to send as few as possible."

"If it is a trap," Lorniel says, watching Esterín, "what do you suppose that will mean for you?"

"I have no idea."

Lorniel takes a deep breath. "I don't like this." She looks to Golodir. "Do you have another plan, Father?" She greatly hopes he does.

He does not.

Lorniel shakes her head and leans over the table. "Don't tell Corunir. If he hears, there is little you can do to keep him from following you." Esterín smiles faintly.

"So I have learned. Has he always been like this?"

Golodir laughs and Lorniel has to grin. "All our lives. Be careful, Esterín."

"I will be," she says solemnly. "I promise you."

Lorniel sighs and sinks into a chair once Esterín is gone. "I hate that she's right about this."

Golodir nods. "It is always the hardest part."

Lorniel has just begun to worry in earnest when Areneth calls her to the doors. Esterín has returned, and she looks much the worse for wear, for all she bears no obvious injuries. She is pale and unsteady on her feet, leaning heavily against the stone walls to stay upright. Lorniel offers her arm and quickly finds herself supporting nearly all of Esterín’s weight, which is considerably less than she had expected.

“Was it a trap, then?” Lorniel asks quietly, aiming for lighthearted but not entirely succeeding. Esterín huffs an almost-laugh anyway.

“A very strange one. We should find Golodir and Laerdan. Anyone who should hear this. I would rather recount it only once.”

A hint of foreboding lays itself lightly across Lorniel’s heart. “Alright.”

Esterín’s tale is indeed strange. Lorniel does not miss the way Laerdan flinches at the mention of Amarthiel. She corners him when Esterín reaches the end of her endurance and has no choice but to sleep.

“Laerdan, you have been a friend and a voice of wisdom for both me and my father here,” she begins. Laerdan stares at the wall rather than meet her eye. He must know where this is going. Lorniel drops the meandering line of questions she has prepared. “You know this Amarthiel. Far better than you would like- or would like us to know, I suspect. Please, tell me.” Laerdan at last meets her gaze and she nearly recoils at the pain she sees there.

“Your eyes are sharper than I might wish, sometimes,” he says. “It is not a pleasant tale.”

“Perhaps,” she says when he does not elaborate. “But it may be necessary to tell it. This champion seeks a ring of power and has a palantír with which to seek it. We will need every advantage to stop her.”

Laerdan touches a spot near his breast. Lorniel has seen the gesture often from him in times of trouble. “You may be right, Lorniel. But I am not certain I can give you the answers you seek just yet.”

“If not me, then perhaps my father, or Esterín. Or perhaps in writing, if it comes to it.” She lays a hand on Laerdan’s shoulder. “Thank you for all that you have done already. I am sorry that it hurts. We will help you, if you let us.” She turns to go.

Laerdan sighs behind her. “You are far too much like your father, I think,” he says with a touch of wryness. He draws a piece of jewelry, a pendant or locket by the look of it, from beneath his clothing. He stares at it. “My daughter, Narmeleth, was once a great elven-smith. She made many beautiful things…”

Laerdan was right. The story is unpleasant in the extreme. Lorniel hears him out, asking only what is necessary to follow the line of the tale.

“Thank you,” she says gently when Laerdan at last falls silent. Laerdan shakes his head.

“The hour is late. Tell your father, and Esterín if you must, but I would rather this not become common knowledge. It can bring nothing good.” Lorniel hesitates, but she nods and leaves Laerdan to his thoughts.

Esterín leaves the next day for Tinnudir with Laerdan only hours behind her. Only Esterín returns, weeks later. She looks even more worn than she had on her return from Barad Gúlaran. Lorniel embraces her and she shakes as she recounts the disasters in Annúminas. She does not stay long in Gath Forthnír- she never does, Lorniel supposes. They do not see her again until she returns with Narmeleth just long enough to make the final push to destroy Mordirith and his lieutenant with more finality than they had managed before. Angmar falls and Lorniel is too busy with what remains to worry for her friends, even those that she sees daily. She has little time too to mourn those lost, though she has become far too adept at multitasking grief.

Months after Mordirith’s last defeat, Esterín appears one more time. She has a summons, now, and Lorniel rubs the soreness from her neck and decides she is quite ready to leave Angmar behind for awhile.

Chapter Text

Corunir lays on the cot and glares at the leg that still stubbornly refuses to support his weight. He had been told off by no less than three different people last time he tried, but there is still too much he does not know and he itches to get up and track down answers. He is contemplating the best way to try again when he hears raised voices at the entrance of the near-full tent.

“I am fine,” one insists, being firmly sat on a stool near an empty cot. “I swear I am well enough to walk from one end of the field to the other without collapsing.” Corunir’s breath catches. Golodir had said she was whole when he had come to visit Corunir early that morning, but seeing is another matter entirely.

“Esterín!” he calls. Her head turns instantly. As soon as she sees him she is moving again, heedless of the irritated orders to sit back down. Corunir pushes himself upright and ignores the way every muscle in his body protests and as soon as Esterín sits beside him he pulls her close. She makes a small sound but doesn’t pull away, her fingers digging into his shoulder with the same desperate strength with which he grips the loose linen of her shirt. They stay like that for a long time, clinging to one less friend lost to this fight (necessary but so very painful). Corunir tries and fails to forget his last sight of her, falling as the eagles struck at the fell-beasts from above.

Wetness against his hand finally forces him back to the world. He looks, and fresh blood glistens in the sunlight from outside. He breaks the embrace with a muttered curse. “Est, you’re bleeding.”

“This again," she mutters, seeming far less concerned than such a situation merits, looking first down at her chest and then craning to see her back, though it clearly pains her to do so.

“Again?” Corunir is impressed he manages no more than mild alarm. Esterín continues to mutter- mostly curses directed at the fell-beasts and their riders- as she tries to reach her back and stop the bleeding herself. She winces at the motion until Corunir tugs her hand away and replaces it with his own. It’s not an unreasonable amount of blood, really, but ideally his friend would not be bleeding at all, thank you very much. “Have you heard much news?” he asks to distract himself, as if knowing more of the battle will somehow hurt less than simply imagining the worst.

Esterín looks away for a time, but her hand is steady against his shoulder as she tells him what she knows of the aftermath of the Black Gate. The bleeding has stopped by the time she falls silent and Corunir can only stare blankly at hands sticky with drying blood until Esterín takes them in her own and gently cleans the mess away with water from a nearby table.

“That’s… a lot,” he says finally. Esterín laughs softly but without humor.

“It is.” They say nothing more, just sitting together until they are finally interrupted by healers on their rounds.

Chapter Text

Faeron catches sight of Esterín halfway between the Second and Third Circles of the city. At first he isn’t sure it is her- he sees a flash of color against white stone and a glimpse of a face that seems familiar but no more. He is good with faces, but he knows too that as often as not it is no more than wishful thinking. Still, he follows after her, now very much wishing he had brought Rhadrog along. Really, anyone he could hand the basket to before running after maybe-Esterín would do. Instead, he is forced to weave his way through the crowds gathered in Minas Tirith for the wedding at a snail’s pace and nearly loses her at least four times. At last she stops at a half-empty stable on the Third Circle and Faeron can close the gap. He can hear her laughter as he enters the stable behind her.

“Don’t get too comfortable, my friend,” she says, tending to her horse- Lakewind, who had traveled south with the Grey Company. “We won’t be here that long.”

“Surely you will stay at least until the wedding?” Esterín turns and her surprise is clear to see. “It’s only a few days away, now.” She smiles and studies his face.

“I suppose that’s what all the flowers are for? It’s a rather more colorful place these days.” Faeron laughs at that and trades the basket for the bags in Esterín’s arms. The bags are noticeably lighter.

“Come on,” Faeron says, patting her shoulder. “The others are waiting on that basket.” He leaves the stable before Esterín can protest. She laugh-sighs behind him and he can hear her following. Faeron leads the way up to the next Circle of the city and back between a number of close-packed buildings until green opens up around them and they stumble into a hidden stand of trees and grassy space tucked against the stone of the mountain here at the far end of the Circle. Esterín is still taking it in when Faeron relieves her of the basket. Most of the surviving Grey Company is gathered here, less those already gone north and with the addition of Rhadrog, who helps Faeron unload lunch from the basket while the rest welcome Esterín back.

“We were beginning to wonder if even you could get lost here,” Culang calls to Faeron as they settle.

“Please,” Faeron scoffs. “And who would you have sent to find me if I had? Brungos?” Brungos’s retort is lost under a round of laughter but for a muttered one time.

The food is handed out in short order, and soon after Esterín becomes the target of a thousand questions. Her last two months make for quite the tale, even if she can hardly get through one question before there are another three presented, and at last she just laughs and shakes her head.

“It is a long story anyway, but it takes much longer if I must keep jumping from point to point.” That earns another laugh and, at last, a pause in the flood of questions.

“Might I have my bags back now?” she asks, stealing a bite of food in the lapse. Faeron nearly says no. Taking them had brought Esterín along more reliably than just about anything else he might have said or done, and the last time the Grey Company had let their runekeeper out of their sight she had disappeared for two months without a word, apparently to galavant through wood and mountain in the north alone.

The good mood of the others is infectious, though, and Faeron knows for a fact he is not the only one who will want better answers out of their friend. He hands over Esterín’s possessions with a half-smile and lets it go for the time being. She catches his eye and he wonders how transparent he is.

“The rest of Minas Tirith hasn’t slowed down even overnight for at least a week,” Amlan says. “But we have not been less busy since… I don’t know when. It has been a strange few days.”

Eventually the excitement born of reunion calms, though they are all still full of restless energy. For her own part, Esterín is tired from the long journey south and it is starting to show. They don’t make it easy for her to extract herself from the picnic, however.

“I suppose we are lucky you returned to Minas Tirith when you did,” Golodir says the third time she makes to leave. She sits back down. “We had no idea where you were to send word.”

“We couldn’t even prevail upon Gandalf to do something wizardly to help, because he has been gone nearly as long as you have,” Corunir grumbles. And Esterín laughs, and explains that she had left both Gandalf and the wedding party at Grimbeorn’s home to come south at her own pace. They can’t be more than a week behind her.

Finally she makes it to her feet and waves. “Don’t forget to meet us back here tomorrow!” Brungos calls after her, grinning at Faeron. “We are fighting Rhadrog’s company for Faeron’s- oof.” Something suspiciously boot-shaped nails Brungos in the chest. Esterín shakes her head and leaves to find somewhere to stay the night. Brungos opens his mouth again, sights set on Faeron, but Faeron leaves before he can get another word in, making a note to himself to get Brungos lost on the Third Circle again before the wedding.

Esterín is halfway back to the main road on this Circle before she realizes Faeron is following her. She really must be tired. “I will be able to find my way back,” she assures him. He shrugs.

“I don’t doubt it.” He a little bit doubts it. There is no simple path back to the main roads from here. “I am just taking the excuse to escape for a few minutes.” Esterín laughs.

“What is this fight about, then?” she asks.

Faeron gives an exaggerated sigh and falls in beside her. “There seems to be some disagreement between the Grey Company and the Rangers of Ithilien about where Rhadrog and I should end up next.”

Which is an oversimplification of the situation, of course, but not untrue. The two of them have spent much of their time together since their return from Agarnaith, to the point that the Grey Company all but adopted Rhadrog. Not long after, the Rangers of Ithilien turned the same attention on Faeron. Esterín asks after Viznak, but he is still back in the swamp which, all things considered, is probably for the best. Faeron sees Esterín safely to a room for the night and briefly considers borrowing something small from her bags. She would know it was him, of course, and likely would track him down as soon as she noticed- hopefully after sleeping. Instead, he simply rests a hand on her shoulder and wishes her goodnight. She smiles and waves.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

-----------

Esterín finds her way back to the clearing the next day (and only gets a little lost on the way) and it turns out ‘fight’ is not quite the word for what the two companies of Rangers have in mind. Instead, an elaborate game of hide-and-seek takes shape. Faeron and Rhadrog are designated as referees and the green space- much larger than it had seemed the day before- defines the bounds of the game. Rhadrog’s company hides first, vanishing into the trees like ghosts, and despite the limits of the grove it still takes the Grey Company the better part of two hours to track them all down. Esterín makes a decent accounting of herself in the first half and hopes she won’t embarrass herself too badly in the second. They break for snacks and water and then it is the Grey Company’s turn to hide.

Esterín finds a perch in a dip atop a boulder displaced from a spot higher up Mount Mindolluin unknown years before and prepares to wait. It turns out to be a much shorter wait than she expected, though not because of any undue lack of skill on her own part. Not quite half an hour in she hears voices nearby, below her hiding place. They are familiar, but the last she knew they were also back in Eriador. She peers around the edge of her boulder and promptly startles so badly she falls from her spot entirely. Fortunately for her, the ground is not so far away that she does herself real injury. Less fortunately, nearly all of the Ithilien Rangers see it, and no small number of the Grey Company besides.

---------

Lothrandir never had made it all the way back to Sûri-kylä. He had intended to, and had certainly wanted to, but there had been no time. They had made decent enough time north, even with Wenda and the Hebog-lûth dissenters who joined them in Dunland. Lothrandir, Radanir, and Braigiar spent only a night in Lhanuch but quite a bit longer with Saeradan and Candaith north of Bree, and after that there had been the matter of sending news to every major Dúnedain outpost and settlement, especially those that had lost someone to the Grey Company- which was most of them. Then there had been the stop in the Angle, and then the stop in Rivendell where they had barely had time to give their own accounts before another messenger’s news sent the Last Homely House into a frenzy of packing and preparations. Not long after that, the fragment of the Grey Company in Eriador agreed to return to Gondor for the wedding and set out, having never made it farther north than Tinnudir.

A week into the return journey, they woke to find they had an extra companion. Braigiar groaned when he saw her, but Lothrandir could only laugh. He and Bregelian had traveled through much of Rohan together years before and it was always good to have her along. Braigiar put on quite the long-suffering little brother performance- and has kept it up all the way into Gondor- but it hardly fooled even the horses. Bregelian did eventually admit that, even if she was not precisely supposed to be here, she wasn’t expressly supposed to not be here either. She had not been farther south than the Redhorn Pass in years and was eager to travel again.

Upon their arrival in Minas Tirith, they had run into Mírthel (almost literally) hurrying through the streets. The Ithilien Ranger beckoned them along behind him until they found themselves here in this stand of trees with Esterín falling off a boulder and landing at their feet.

“I know it’s been a couple months, but I wasn’t expecting you to be that excited to see us,” Radanir says, standing over Esterín and offering her a hand up.

“I thought you were going north,” Esterín wheezes as Radanir hauls her to her feet. Lothrandir tries not to laugh from where he stands with Braigiar and Bregelian.

“We did, and here we are again. We could hardly miss our chieftain’s wedding now, could we?”

Esterín’s tumble from the rocks causes enough of a commotion to draw the rest of the Rangers out of the trees, and one by one they enter the clearing. Lothrandir has not been away as long as Saeradan and Candaith, but after the long journey spent together it was strange to be separated from the others for so long and it is good to see them again. Esterín hangs back, and at first Lothrandir thinks she is only sore from the fall, but when he looks closer he knows the face she's making. She had worn it after Isengard any time she looked at him and thought too much. She wears it now when she looks at Candaith, her hand straying towards her rune-bag as if expecting a fight- or injury. Perhaps waiting for Candaith to make the first move. Even with warning, seeing him again after believing him dead for so long is a shock for all of them. Lothrandir wants to pull her aside, convince her not to take any more blame on herself, but he knows as well as any that those feelings heed no logic, and that there is no absolution here that he can provide. He sighs, and tries to make it good-natured, and pulls her into the whirl of warm embraces and laughter, and doesn't miss the surprised but grateful look she shoots him over Saeradan's shoulder.

“Esterín!” Radanir calls. “I hope you have not forgotten about those drinks you owe me!” Esterín hesitates for just a heartbeat.

“How could I? Have you invited anyone else since last I checked?” Radanir laughs and introduces Bregelian and Lothrandir catches Faeron explaining the situation to a number of the southern Rangers- and perhaps inviting them along to this long-planned evening together, too.

By now there are rather a lot of them to fit comfortably in one tavern, especially with the city already packed with travelers come to attend the wedding. This patch of green has served them well enough thus far, though, and quite honestly many of them are more at home among the trees here than they would be on crowded streets. They meet there again that evening and eat and drink together as fireflies dance around them and it is warm well apart from the midsummer weather.

Esterín takes a flask from the rune-bag that never leaves her side and hands it to Radanir with a grin that is trying very hard not to be mischievous. “I did owe you in particular a drink,” she says. Radanir eyes first Esterín and then the flask. “This was a gift from my friend the West-wind in Skarháld.” Radanir grins back at her and takes a large drink. And then nearly spits it all back out again.

“No wonder that thing is nearly full,” he coughs over Esterín’s laughter.

“It is a bit strong for nights on the road,” she admits, passing over some water. “But I rather like it, honestly.”

They stay late in the trees, that night and the next. The third night after the arrival of Lothrandir and the others is the wedding. They have all managed to find something appropriate to wear and Lothrandir has to admit it is rather strange to be out of anything even approaching Ranger gear. It is even stranger to see all the rest of the Grey Company similarly dressed, even Esterín, who looks more and more like a Ranger herself the longer she spends with them. Their rayed-star pins, the one adornment none of them would ever dream of going without, glitter in the light of torches and the setting Sun. Esterín’s wooden star hangs from her rune-bag, which she has not left aside even here. They stand together as Gandalf speaks and at long last Aragorn is wed. The people of Minas Tirith cheer their King and new Queen, but Lothrandir and the Grey Company cheer first a friend or captain or chieftain. The feast that follows is magnificent, but honestly Lothrandir remembers very little of the details afterwards. There was warmth and laughter and good company and really, that was all that mattered.

Chapter Text

Est takes her time leaving Járnfast, copies of Khîl’s book for Gandalf and other scholars in her bag. She stops in Erebor and visits the Gem-cutters, preparing to follow Durin to Elderslade. She stops in Dale and looks around. She stops in Lake-town and looks in on people who might be her distant kin. She stops and looks at Smaug's bones, partly to make sure no one else has been poking at them but mostly to stall some more.

She gets to Loeglond. She walks around and tries to make better conversation with the people here than she had last time she came through. She has a late lunch (or early dinner) with a girl she grew up with, who spends her days working the rafts while Est adventures. It’s kind of awkward, but nice in a weird kind of way.

After that, it's either go home or leave. She's wandering along the Greenwood edge of town, still stalling, when she hears a familiar voice of a decidedly different tone than the raft elves. She doesn't quite go running.

“Corunir!”

He turns just in time and gets a chest full of Est hug. She knows it’s more exuberant than she normally is, and far more affectionate than even the Loeglond elves are. She doesn't really care. Corunir probably tries to say both ‘it's good to see you’ and ‘hey is everything alright’, but what he gets is ‘it's good to alright?’

Esterín thinks it's hilarious. There’s some small talk, and eventually she gets to “Why are you here?”

“I was looking for you,” he says with a smile. “You're hard to find sometimes.”

“So I've been told.” She wonders what the problems are now, to have driven him to chase her across the mountains and Mirkwood both.

“Is there a good place to stay here, do you know? Or perhaps in Lake-town if not here?”

“I have a house,” she says before she thinks about it. “There's plenty of space.”

Corunir doesn't seem to notice her unease until they're standing at the door, the old key in her hand.

“What is it?”

Her smile is brittle. “The place is a mess, I'm sure. It's been awhile since I've been back.”

“Est-”

She opens the door and steps inside, and is so incredibly glad she isn't alone. She stops in the kitchen and stares at nothing, because all of it is empty and it has been for two and a half centuries. If it weren't for the sound of Corunir's feet behind her on the wooden floor, she might have stood there in the suffocating nothing for hours or days.

There's dust everywhere, and any food she had left here is long since gone. She cleaned the place, made plans to go to Felegoth to study a bit more with Celion, and never looked back. She isn't sure what she expected, honestly, but nothing has really changed. Aelinil's room is as he left it the day he left for Mithlond. Suntais's room is still closed up as they had left it- Aelinil hadn't disturbed it after their departure and Esterín left not long after his. It's quiet.

Esterín waves at the couch. “We can brush off the dust and rearrange, or you can take one of these rooms if you'd like.” She looks around. “Sorry about the dust… it might actually be worth the ride to Lake-town.”

Corunir shrugs. “I've certainly slept worse places, and we're already here.”

Est definitely doesn't flinch at the idea of staying. “Ok.” She stares at the cupboards. She still hasn't moved from where she stopped. She thinks Corunir is more interested in looking around a place she called home than watching her too closely. She lets out a breath.

“All I have to eat is the road food I've had with me for some time,” she says apologetically. “We can find something at the docks though, probably.” No, it does not matter that she really just ate and no, she is not running from the house.

They go on a little tour of Loeglond. It's a small place, so it's a short tour. Est stalls before going back, watching stars and lantern light play on the lake. Corunir sits beside her and says nothing for awhile. It’s odd, having this much peace. They haven’t been afforded this kind of ease in all the time they’ve known each other.

“You never said why you came looking for me.”

“You know about the wedding, right?”

“Yes.”

“I know we only just got back from Gondor and all, but I wanted to ask if you wanted to go south again together.”

Est blinks. “You came all the way here to ask me that?”

He shrugs self-consciously. “Well, I tried to find you in Rivendell, but they said you had already moved on. I didn’t exactly intend to come almost to the feet of the Lonely Mountain. Anyway, Golodir is riding south with Saeradan and Candaith and a few people from the Angle, but it felt weird riding off without you, so...”

That’s sweet. And it means more to her than she expected to know they continued to think about her. “It sounds a little bit as if you are avoiding anyone from the Angle.”

“Hardly. It’s just a useful side effect.”

She laughs. They’re sitting close together on the docks, knees and shoulders touching. Est kicks off her shoes and lets her feet dangle in the water. “Of course I’ll come.” She thinks about Lakewind and has a moment of guilt for the thought of taking him out again, even at a leisurely pace. “The wedding is at Lithe, right? That doesn’t leave us much time.”

“We’ll make it,” he says confidently.

There’s silence. The idea of even more travel doesn’t bother her. She thought it might, after so much back and forth, but a quiet journey with a friend seems nice, actually. (And much preferable to staying here, where she has no idea what to do with herself.)

It’s getting late, even the bugs going quiet. Something nudges her under the water and she chases it with her foot. She doesn’t want to go back to the aching-empty house. (She misses them, even after all this time. Stars she would hardly even know them now. They would know her even less.)

“That’s your home, isn’t it?” Corunir asks.

It’s my house, at least. “It is.”

“Why does it hurt you so much?”

Oh. Her breath catches and she chokes on a laugh. “I didn’t think it was that obvious.”

“Give me a little more credit than that,” he says, almost offended. She shakes her head and pulls her feet out of the water.

“It’s too empty,” she says very quietly. She can feel Corunir press closer to her and leans into it. “Just dust and memory now.” She curls into herself. “I never wanted to go back.” She closes her eyes and presses her head to Corunir’s shoulder.

“We can go,” he offers. “Grab our stuff and find somewhere else for the night.”

Est shakes her head. “No. It’s too late in the night, and it wouldn’t be fair to you or the horses. We could all use some proper rest.”

“Alright.” She can practically hear his disbelieving if you say so.

She takes a breath and stands. “I needed to do this at some point anyway, I suppose.” She smiles in the starlight. “I’m just glad I’m not here alone.” He takes her offered hand to stand and doesn’t let go as they return to the house. Her grip tightens when they cross the threshold but after a moment she lets go. She moves around the house, trying to make it habitable for a night at least. It’s an interesting time, and results in a lot of sneezing. Eventually they give up, open the windows for some not-dust air, and curl up in their traveling gear, Corunir on the couch and Est in her old bed.

Esterín doesn't sleep. Rather, she does sleep, generally speaking, and more so than the typical elf can be said to sleep, but she doesn't sleep that night. She stares at the blue almost-light that shines through the glass here and drowns in memories instead.

It was so long ago but it feels like yesterday. Suntais left with Seilphir and it was just her and Aelinil, and there were long empty spaces in their conversation even when they went out on the lake together. Esterín was more ready to fight after Edhelion, and even the five centuries since have not dulled that. Aelinil didn't know how to deal with a warrior daughter- and Est was by then, even if she never would have said as much of herself. She always carried a rune of lightning on her, and if you startled her you would find yourself on the receiving end. It was a bittersweet belonging, just the two of them, but she and her father both did their best and she was happy more than not.

But he wouldn't stay. The one thing Esterín never understood was that decision. He had loved a human woman, from the North-men that lived on the lake in Esgaroth-that-was so very long ago. He loved the Long Lake and the life in Loeglond. He said he always meant to sail one day, to see what lay there, but Est… she has never felt of Valinor that it was something real. It was a distant fantasy, a pretty way to speak of what came after. She saw Mithlond with Talagan, heard the gulls above the grey ships, and though she knows in mind that she could take that road, it has never felt like an option. But it was for her father, and when he told her of his intentions he said he had always imagined she would come with him. She said no before he even really asked. He looked at her, sad and hurt, but she shook her head. “It's not for me.”

He thought she meant not now. At the time, perhaps she did. Perhaps she was lying to herself, or perhaps she hadn't yet fully decided. No matter how much she pressed though, no explanation he gave made her understand. Suntais's decision had made sense. Even now, Aelinil’s does not. Am I not enough for you to wait? Esterín had thought. She never said it aloud, though. She didn't want a bitter parting. She never doubted that he loved her, and she knew as well as he that she was an elleth grown and fully her own person. If she was not ready, she was not subject to her father's whim or will in this. It still hurt.

She saw him off at the Forest Gate, and then she went home. She never expected it would feel so empty. It seemed her every step echoed off glass and wood, though not much had truly changed. It was hardly the first time she had been alone in the house on the rafts, but it felt so very different. The silence rang and she jumped at little noises. Alone. She was alone. Neighbors knocked but she didn't answer or dealt with them in rote politeness. She shut the door and it echoed.

She stood once for near three days at the door to her father's room. Winter returned to the lake, brief but fierce, and when she finally came out of it, she shook with cold.

There was another survivor of Edhelion in Loeglond- Isgalen, who had been one of the Guard. Esterín hardly knew him, but they shared some quiet fellowship. Est went to him after she woke from her trance and they talked, of loss and pain and sudden change.

“I couldn't stay in the mountains,” he admitted. “Every time I looked north I felt like I was there again.” That, Est understood.

“It helped, you know, to have people,” he said. “Even if they didn't really understand, I didn't feel so alone.” There was an offer of more there, too, a reaching-out from someone who might understand. Est backed away from it, though. She was still mourning her father- he wasn't dead, of course, but it felt like death and some part of her knew even then that she wouldn't see him again. She thanked Isgalen and left.

Within a week she left Loeglond altogether. Locked the house, packed for travel, and left. She didn't come back until the chase for Karazgar forced her path.

She wandered between libraries and the last elven strongholds for two and a half hundred years, alone, feeling like a ghost and never staying long enough to become a fixture or to be remembered. When Elrond sent her to Celondim and she was inexorably drawn into the great drama of the times, it was the most connected to the world she had felt in a very long time. It was terrible, and when she was enough in her own mind to notice, it hurt, so badly, to be alone. She doesn't want that pain again, and she doesn't want that fog. It terrifies her, the idea of going back to that.

So here and now she turns her face into her cloak, a gift from the rangers months and months ago now, and weeps at the pain and fear as fresh as it was the day Aelinil disappeared from her sight for the last time.

“...Esterín?” Ah. Damn. She sits up and wipes at her face, but it does little to help the situation. Corunir’s face appears at the half-closed door.

“Sorry. I hoped I wouldn’t wake you.”’

“You didn’t. Don’t worry.” The bed dips as he sits beside her, rests hands on her shoulders. “What is it?”

She just shakes her head. She opens her mouth but only a broken sob escapes. She reaches for Corunir and he pulls her to him. She can only cling to him and shake with all the ache in her, trying to press herself closer, desperate for any bit of contact, of warmth, to prove she is not alone here. She can hear Corunir’s voice in her ear as she jerks with silent sobs, distant, whispering reassurances and gentle reminders. She doesn’t know how long it is before she can manage words, but when she does she bites out answers for him bit by bit. She owes him this much of an explanation at least.

“I understand,” he says, so softly, and she knows he does. She had known it when she met him in Aughaire, when they crossed the watchers together.

“Not alone,” she whispers, with all the strength of an oath. “Neither of us. Not again.” His breath catches.

“Yeah. Alright.” A hand strokes her hair and she tries to burrow herself somehow deeper into the embrace. “For as long as we both walk these shores.”

They fall asleep twined together there, and for her own part Est is sore all over when she wakes from the fierceness with which she had clung.

“I’m sorry,” she says as they eat a berry breakfast. “Last night I was…”

Corunir shakes his head. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.” A moment passes. “I think I understand some things better now.” He smiles, teasing and gentle. “And Valar know you’ve seen me in as bad a state.”

Est smiles back. “Maybe. Still, thank you.” He lets his arm rest alongside hers across the table.

“Why were you up, if I didn’t wake you?” she asks.

He shrugs with a little laugh. “All the sneezing from the dust gave me a headache. I just hadn’t made it to sleep yet.” Est thinks of the headaches that had plagued him after the fight in Barad Cúron and wonders if there’s more to it than he is saying.

“We could see if the Wood-men have any boats bound south along Anduin,” she says eventually. “Ride as far as Hultvís perhaps, and give the horses a well-earned rest.”

“Sure. Though, I know next to nothing about boats.”

Esterín grins then. “What a time to learn, then.”

Chapter Text

They watch the fell-beast dive again, ducking low to the ground at Braigiar's warning. Wings rush overhead, lightning flashes, and the Nazgûl wheels away, frustrated. This time. It’s only seconds before someone else shouts a warning. Corunir twists for a glimpse of the crest of the hill, hoping to the Valar that he won’t see another of his friends taken. Lightning chases the beast, but as he watches a second one descends at Esterín’s back. Half a dozen of them shout at her, but she isn’t fast enough to escape. They can only watch as the fell-beast lifts into the sky with Esterín locked in its talons. If she screams, they can’t hear it. Corunir thinks he can hear laughter, though, cold and spiteful.

And then the eagles join the fight. Half the combattants at least come to a stand-still as the great birds arrive, shrieking. The fell-beasts scream in answer, but the eagles have arrived from above and under the cover of Sauron’s unnatural clouds. They dive at the fell-beasts and tear two from the sky before their masters can turn to face the new threat.

Corunir looks at the beast that took Esterín just in time to see an eagle stagger it. Something drops from its claws and plummets.

“Esterín!”

“Corunir, watch your back,” Golodir snaps from behind him. Corunir turns, teeth gritted, and cuts down the two orcs coming at him from behind. He falls back to the crest of the hill with Golodir, eyes fixed on the battlefield.

“Did you see where she fell?” Daervunn asks. Corunir nods. “Go, bring her back.” It’s all the permission Corunir needs. He looks once at Calenglad, laid out beside their other fallen, and tries not to imagine Esterín looking the same. He can hear Golodir behind him and he runs and spares a moment to be thankful that anyone has come with him. He doesn’t trust himself to be reasonable just now, much less cautious.

They’re less than halfway there, dodging between clusters of fighting and searching for any path through, when Orodruin explodes. The earth shakes, and though Corunir staggers, unbalanced, he does not stop. He can hear Golodir cursing and slows only long enough for him to catch up.

The ground falls away as the tremors grow stronger. What it means Corunir doesn’t know, nor does he care to speculate. The fall was high, but she could challenge Saeradan for luck. She might be alright. Wishful thinking, but it drives him recklessly forward until stone vanishes under his foot. It’s only Golodir’s grip on his cloak dragging him backwards that saves him.

“Calm yourself, Corunir, or we’ll never make it.” Stone cracks and fire roars out of the Black Gate with a great rush of heat forces them both to their knees. When it passes, the Gate lies shattered on the plain and their path forward is blocked by a great rent in the earth. Corunir can see the bottom vaguely in the light of the sky lit by red fire, jagged and uneven.

He notices too late that his footing is precarious. Rock slides out from under his boots and he tries to leap for solid ground on the other side of the trench, but it’s far too late and he falls headfirst into darkness. He grabs for the sides of the chasm and sharp stone tears his hands even through thick leather gauntlets, but he manages to catch hold of something. His shoulders scream in protest but he stops his fall, his lower body slamming into unseen rock.

As it turns out, he was nearly at the bottom anyway. At least he didn’t impale himself on some spur of rock or fallen spear.

“Corunir!” Golodir’s face appears above him and- oh, he fell further than he realized. It's a long way back up.

“I’m alright,” he calls, moving to brace himself against the far wall, much closer here than at the top. “Just let me- argh!” Fire burns along his right leg as he puts weight on it and he nearly loses his footing. “I’m fine!” He ignores the concern mounting in Golodir’s voice and braces himself. He doesn't look, but he can feel the long wound the stone cut down his leg when he hit the wall, already wet with blood. This won’t be a pleasant climb. His hands are already torn and one leg is maybe half as strong as he needs it to be- and will only get worse. Fine job of rescuing Est, he thinks wryly as he all but throws himself upwards. It’s a long way. If his leg is half as bad as it feels, speed will be his only chance of climbing out.

He stops two-thirds of the way up, suddenly without handholds. His right leg is holding more of his weight than it should and he can feel it threatening to give out. Golodir says something but Corunir isn’t paying attention. It’s not just his leg whose strength is close to failing. He isn’t sure how much blood he’s losing. It feels like a lot. He shakes his head to clear it.

“Corunir!” He looks up. Golodir is leaning over the edge, arm extended, waiting for him. He’s still a long way off. “There’s a hold up and to your left. It should be sturdy enough.” Corunir follows Golodir’s direction and slowly gets back in motion. He’s glad he can’t see Golodir’s face while climbing. He really doesn’t care for worrying people, and Golodir is almost certainly wearing his ‘I Am Definitely Not Worried’ worried face. In his defense, it's a very good not-worried face, but when you wore it every time you were, in fact, quite worried, it ended up being as good an indicator of worriedness as any plain old worried face.

Golodir starts talking above him and Corunir realizes he’s stopped moving again. He reaches up. His right leg finally gives out, though he still manages to gain the next handhold. Corunir takes several deep breaths and rests his head against the rock in front of him. It’s not really any cooler than the air.

“Corunir?” He doesn’t look up. “You’re almost here. Just a little bit further.” Corunir’s right leg hangs uselessly below him and the muscles of his arms are wobbling. He shakes his head. Golodir curses and Corunir can hear small rocks clattering against each other. When he looks up, Golodir is dangling from the edge of the rift, one hand out and easily within Corunir’s reach.

“What are you-”

“Just take my hand,” Golodir says through gritted teeth, and the tone so clearly recalls younger days that Corunir obeys without question.

He helps as much as he is able, but most of the work of pulling them both clear of the chasm falls to Golodir. He manages it though, and they both collapse, panting, well away from the edge. Corunir groans when Golodir rolls him over to examine his leg but has no energy to do more.

“How did you climb as far as you did,” Golodir says half to himself. Corunir shrugs one shoulder. He had to. It's as simple as that, even if it hadn’t been quite enough. “This will hurt,” Golodir warns just before he pushes something onto Corunir’s leg. Corunir bites back a scream and twists away from it, as if he can somehow escape his leg itself, but Golodir holds him steady and pulls the makeshift bandage tight.

“We need to get away from here,” Golodir says after several minutes.

They certainly can’t stay. The ground is still unstable and the red glow from beyond the splintered Morannon is growing brighter- or maybe closer. Corunir doubts he can stand, though, and… “Esterín?”

Golodir grips his arm. “She is lucky and resourceful. If she survived the fall, I don’t doubt we will see her again.” He hauls Corunir upright and drags an arm over his shoulder. “And if things are worse than that… I cannot carry you both.” They move forward, back to the slag-hill where the rest of the Company should be.

It’s slow going. Corunir is even less help than he feared and the world is still shaking. At least it makes an effective distraction for the forces of Mordor- without it, they surely would have been swarmed within minutes.

“Corunir, stay awake.” He shakes his head once. Had he been-? He thought he had been chasing after Golodir on the fields- no. It’s Esterín he had been chasing this time, with Golodir at his side. And this time he is the one being dragged half-dead across the battlefield. He thinks this is rather funny. Golodir thinks it’s rather less so.

They are forced into the dubious shelter of a lattice of ancient metal as a handful of enraged trolls stampede past. Finally still again, Corunir can feel the last of his strength fading. He grabs for Golodir’s sleeve and thinks he mumbles an apology before everything goes dark.

---

Golodir has a moment of blinding panic when Corunir collapses against him, but soon enough he reassures himself that Corunir is still breathing.

“You really are going to make me carry you all the way back to the camp,” Golodir says. He forces the levity into his voice (though for whose benefit he isn’t sure).

The trolls have moved past their hiding spot, but now other creatures of Mordor mill past, some in confusion, some in fear, some in full panic. One passes far too near to them and Golodir pulls back, hiding Corunir in as much shadow as can be found.

It’s nearly dark by the time the way is clear enough to risk it. Golodir manages to get what little water he has on him into Corunir, but they had come prepared today for a fight, not a march. And not a fight they expected to survive, either. Aragorn and the rest of the Host will be long gone by now, pulled back well beyond the battle-plain. Golodir can barely make out the ruins of Haerondir, but there’s just enough light left to mark its position in his mind. He pulls Corunir over his shoulders and grunts as his sore muscles protest. The fighting and the struggle at the rift would have exhausted the best of them, and Golodir is not as young as he once was. His chest still pulls as he walks, too; a memory of the fight with Thrúgrath, despite Esterín’s best efforts. He hasn’t mentioned it to her. He thinks perhaps he ought to have a reminder of that day. The thought of Esterín pricks his heart in a way that’s not at all physical. He is not half as hopeful for her survival as he had pretended for Corunir. If, after all of this, I manage to outlive both of them… He shakes his head and continues on.

It’s a mark of his own exhaustion that he misses Haerondir entirely and realizes only when he stumbles into the remains of the Host’s camp. It looks as if it’s been ransacked, though by Sauron’s forces or the retreating Host it isn’t clear. A few tents remain mostly undamaged and he makes Corunir as comfortable as he can in one of them. It’s far too dark to make out any details of Corunir’s condition and he doesn’t trust their surroundings enough to light a fire, so he lays down beside Corunir with one hand on his chest to feel his breathing and falls asleep in seconds.

Golodir doesn’t know what wakes him the next morning, but the sky is just light enough for him to venture into the camp to see what might be salvageable. Most anything of use is gone, but there is enough for him to properly tend to Corunir’s injuries and he’s grateful for that much.

Corunir is awake when Golodir returns to the tent, though he’s pretending not to be.

“How do you feel?” Golodir asks as he cleans the ugly cut on Corunir’s leg. Corunir doesn’t say anything. Golodir shrugs to himself and goes to check the camp one last time before they set out. There’s rustling behind him and when he turns, Corunir is already halfway to standing. Golodir grabs him by the shoulder. “Easy. I’m only looking to see if we are alone here. Rest while you can. It will be a long walk.” Hopefully the Host removed to somewhere nearby, but if he must he will carry Corunir all the way back to Minas Tirith.

Corunir grasps at Golodir’s arm with surprising strength. “Don’t-” he winces and Golodir carefully lowers him back to the ground. “Don’t ask me to stay behind again. Please.” There is a pleading note in his voice that Golodir has not often heard. His eyes are bright and he offers no further explanation

Golodir nods slowly. “Very well.” What is this about? “Are you ready to move?” Relief flares in Corunir’s face and he nods and looks aside. Golodir takes a last look around from the entrance of the tent before hauling Corunir up.

Corunir fades in and out of wakefulness as they hobble along, leaving Golodir largely alone with his thoughts. Don’t ask him to stay behind? Again? He has asked Corunir to leave him be often enough recently, but staying behind? Golodir doesn’t think he has asked that perhaps of anyone since… Angmar. I asked him to stay behind when we came to the watchers at Rammas Deluon. Ten years ago now, give or take. That march had been nightmarish even before the stones threw forth their deadly shroud, and not long after Golodir had marked the beginning of his time in Carn Dûm. He shudders at the thought of it even now. Suddenly chilled, he pulls Corunir closer and marches on into Ithilien.

Corunir is more awake when they stop to rest near noon, hidden in a sheltered grove not far from the southern rangers’ waterfall hideout. He grimaces and shifts his leg around, but nothing seems to give any relief.

“How do you feel?” Golodir asks. Corunir tries to grin.

“Like I gashed my leg open on some rocks.” He shrugs at Golodir’s look. “Nothing unexpected. I should have some time yet.” Golodir hopes he’s right.

“What happened in Aughaire after we left?” Golodir asks after a time. Corunir looks away.

“Nothing, really,” he says quietly.

“It hardly seems like nothing,” Golodir says. Corunir shakes his head.

“It was. Really.”

“Corunir.”

Corunir’s mouth twitches. “Not fair. Captain voice.” Golodir almost stops to ask, but he presses his advantage instead.

“Tell me.”

Corunir curls his arms around himself protectively and finds something of great interest in the trees to study for several minutes.

“I’m sorry,” he says eventually.

Golodir looks at him. “Sorry?”

“I should have gone for help earlier.”

“What do you mean.”

Corunir shakes his head, still staring at the trees rather than meet Golodir’s eyes. “I stayed behind the stones as you said and watched all of you march on. I watched as you started dying, and I couldn’t do anything. I tried, but… I just couldn’t force my way through. I tried to follow, for years. I- Even after I recovered enough to send a message, I couldn’t bring myself to wander far from Aughaire. Most of the falcons never made it to Esteldín.” Corunir’s eyes are miles and years away. He barely twitches when Golodir shifts to see him better. “I should have gone myself, and I should have gone earlier. Maybe if I had…” He trails off into silence again.

Well then. The simple answer was yes, he should have. That was why Golodir had asked him to remain behind. They all knew a mile away that something terrible surrounded the statues. Golodir had intended Corunir to take word back to Halbarad if something went horribly wrong- as it had. Instead, he threw himself at the statues that had already killed near a third of their number until he no longer could. Golodir wonders about the recovery Corunir mentioned.

Knowing that no one had heard anything of them for so long… it was certainly a different explanation for why they had been forced to fend for themselves in Angmar for as long as they had than Golodir had feared. It’s not so much that he believed Aragorn would have left them to their fates even after disobeying him, but Golodir wouldn’t exactly have faulted him for it. If they had known earlier, if Corunir had left earlier, what might have changed? They had lost so many as the years dragged on. Elegys. Lorniel. Would it have saved them? The memory of Carn Dûm rises again. Would it have saved him? There is, perhaps, no way to know. The palantír might show you. The thought rises unbidden in Mordirith’s voice and Golodir shakes his head sharply. Corunir hides a flinch at the movement.

Golodir sighs. “Yes, you should have.” Corunir takes a shuddering breath and Golodir lays an arm across his shoulders, adjusting his seat and pulling Corunir closer to lean against him.

It would be easy to be angry. Corunir seems to expect it. I am angry, he admits to himself. He has been angry for a long time, though, and he has been trying to do better with it since Pelennor. He thinks of Pelargir, before they boarded the ships. Especially with Corunir. His loyalty is to people more than to duty and it always has been. Golodir knows that- had known that at the watchers, but there is an intensity to it that still surprises him, even after all this time. It has saved his life more than once and he knows that, too. He’s not sure he deserves that kind of loyalty.

“We are well past it now. There is nothing to gain from what-ifs.” And he is too tired to spare much strength for this right now. After a moment, Corunir’s shoulders shake and it takes a moment longer for Golodir to see it for laughter.

“I’m not sure I ever expected to hear that from you,” he says.

“Why not?” Golodir asks.

“You haven’t exactly had luck leaving the past behind.”

Golodir snorts. “How do you think I came by such wisdom? And anyway, I hardly keep the past around for my own entertainment.” Whatever mood they are in, that sours it. Mordirith is a plague, and it would be well worth my death to see him wiped away. Golodir shoves the angry thought aside. There is no time to dwell on that now. He needs to get them moving before they lose the light. No one from Henneth Annûn has challenged them yet- the refuge must be minimally guarded or abandoned altogether. If that is the case, Golodir has some notion of where they will find Aragorn and the rest of the Host.

“Come on,” he says. Corunir mumbles half a question, apparently fading again already. Golodir feels a hint of guilt for disturbing him, but staying still is not an option.

Corunir is quiet the rest of the day. At some point he loses consciousness altogether and won’t respond to Golodir’s voice. He kicks himself for not noticing sooner, but the shakiness in his own body tells him that he’s lucky to still be on his feet himself. They have little to eat or drink and Golodir has foregone scavenging in the hopes of getting Corunir to safety sooner. He pushes on as the sky darkens, losing himself in putting one foot in front of another. Despite every thought-worthy thing Corunir said, Golodir has no attention to spare. He’s lost enough in the haze that he nearly takes a swing at Lothrandir, appearing from the dark brush to guide him the last of the way to Cormallen. They see Corunir safely into the hands of the healers and Golodir all but collapses on a nearby crate.

When his thoughts are clearer he finds the count of their losses, hoping to the Valar that Corunir will not be added to the number by morning. He catches a glimpse of Esterín and follows her. He isn’t much for conversation just now, and it seems she isn’t either, but it’s good to see her up and around. Golodir winces to himself at her uncertain smile. He had been avoiding her after Pelennor, and not for any good reason. He adds it to the list of conversations to have… after a long sleep. He finds Corunir after the healers release him, intending to at least let him know their runekeeper is in one piece, but he falls asleep in the camp chair well before Corunir wakes.

Chapter Text

“Something is bothering Halbarad,” Corunir adds, after all but begging Golodir to stay close to him when they reach the battle before the White City. “But I am not sure what it is and he told me- very politely- to back off when I asked."

Golodir snorts. "When has that ever stopped you, polite or no?"

Corunir gives him a bland smile. "I have had more practice with you- and I'm not really in the mood to get dumped in the Anduin if I push Halbarad too far." Golodir makes a thoughtful sound and Corunir levels a finger at him. "Do not get any ideas." Golodir only raises an eyebrow. Corunir sighs and leaves.

Golodir thinks he knows what's bothering Halbarad. He is less certain that there's anything he can do about it, but he goes in search of Halbarad anyway.

They had all balked before the Dark Door, bunching together and twitching at shadows, but Halbarad had stepped through after Aragorn and the rest of them followed. Golodir had been among the few close enough to hear Halbarad's words, laced with a high-pitched echo that had chilled Golodir far more than those who haunted the Paths ever could. It is an edge he has heard only a handful of times, thrice from Elegys and once from Lorniel, and now from one of his oldest friends announcing his own death.

He finds Halbarad in the bow of the ship, carefully hidden from easy view elsewhere on the Night-jewel. He takes care to step loudly enough to be heard, but even so he is nearly at Halbarad's shoulder before he is noticed. Halbarad nods a greeting as Golodir leans against the rail beside him.

"I take it Corunir found you, then," Halbarad says. "He disappeared soon after the others began discussing grouping for the coming fight." His mouth quirks. "He really is uncomfortably observant sometimes, isn't he?"

"I have noticed that myself at times," Golodir says dryly. But I have learned a thing or two from him of persistence. "Halbarad-" are you alright is a stupid question here, though, and a broader how are you is too easily dodged. "You think it's tomorrow, then?"

"Yes. We've made good time on the river. We should reach the Harlond early tomorrow." Golodir gives him a look and waits. Eventually Halbarad sighs. "Yes," he says quietly. "I think so." Golodir nods.

He knows it would be useless to suggest Halbarad stay behind. He would never agree- and fate will not be so easily cheated. Foresight be damned, Golodir thinks in a sudden flash of anger. He takes a deep breath and tries to unclench his hands from the rail. “Stay near us.”

“Of course,” Halbarad says. “If this is to be my last fight, I would stand nowhere else.” He stares out across the Anduin lit dimly in the late afternoon. “This is why we came south.” They stand in silence together for several long minutes before Halbarad shivers and steps away from the rail. He sits against a barrier of crates stacked high and closes his eyes, one arm resting on a drawn-up knee. Golodir sits beside him.

Halbarad cracks an eye. “I might say something about you not taking the hint to leave me in peace, despite all your complaints about Corunir.”

“You might,” Golodir says amiably. “And I might ignore it.” Halbarad mutters something that sounds suspiciously like an insult, but Golodir can see the ghost of a smile on his face. There is a fragile, forced calm about Halbarad that Golodir recognizes all too well. He has yet to find any cure to it but time. Sometimes distraction helps, but even then it will not provide as true a peace as you might hope.

“Do you think Saeradan made it safely back to his cabin?” Halbarad asks, eyes turned northward.

“I do,” Golodir says. “Radanir saw him and Candaith practically to Andrath. The Bree-lands should not be dangerous enough to stop the two of them.”

“Perhaps. We left the defense short-handed, though.” Halbarad’s face darkens. “It is neither impossible nor entirely unlikely.”

“And here I thought I was the pessimistic one.” Halbarad’s sharp exhale might almost be counted as a laugh.

“Who says it’s pessimism?” Golodir snorts disbelievingly at that and Halbarad shrugs concession. His left hand, balled into a fist, taps at the deck between them until Golodir grabs it. Halbarad’s hand uncurls and locks with his in an inescapable vise grip. Valar, he’s terrified, isn’t he? And trying so hard not to be, for his own sake as much as for the rest of us. He can feel Halbarad’s pulse, too fast against his own wrist. But nothing short of chains would keep him from following Aragorn this time.

“You weren’t always, you know.” Halbarad’s voice breaks Golodir from his thoughts.

“Hm?”

“The pessimistic one. Elegys always had you beaten there.”

Golodir smiles at the memories, and at the twin spikes of warmth and ache at the thought of Elegys. “It was no contest,” he agrees. “But I have never met someone so eager to be proven wrong, either.”

“You always knew we were going to have an interesting patrol when she joined us.”

“One way or another.”

They laugh, and for hours they reminisce on times decades gone as the sun sets behind the unnatural cloud cover out of Mordor. Halbarad’s grip eases bit by bit. The lanterns on the ship are lit one by one, lighting everything in a soft glow that blankets them in a haze of near-unreality. A timeless moment of memory paused just before the drop into whatever is to come.

“I still don’t know how Saeradan got away with that, the bastard,” Golodir grumbles into the night.

“Oh, Aragorn was in on it the whole time.”

“He what?” Halbarad laughs at the affront in Golodir’s tone. “All these years I thought he was just lucky.”

“He makes his own luck, like he always says.”

“You mean he cheats.”

“For sure.” Halbarad chuckles. “Though he is honestly lucky, too, I think.” The conversation lulls. Eventually Halbarad sighs and disentangles his hand to dig in a pouch at his side. “Give this to Tennivren when you return to the north, will you?” He passes over a soft leather pouch, its drawstring pulled tight. It feels like a figurine or something of the like. “I promised to find something to bring back if we found half a moment of peace.”

Then when did you find time to pick this up? If they have had more than a night of calm, it would have been at the camp with the prince of Rohan before his departure- or else in Tûr Morva before the Brenin lost whatever courage he had pretended to have. Golodir takes a breath and kicks the memories back.

“This may be safer with one of the others,” he says. “Perhaps-”

“Perhaps, but I’m giving it to you.” There is a glint in Halbarad’s eye that stops Golodir’s protests. Now he is the one trying to distract me? When did we trade parts in this conversation? The doors of being known open as easily one way as the other, Golodir supposes, and they have known each other for a very long time, now.

“Very well.” Halbarad nods once, satisfied. The silence that follows has a strange quality that Golodir cannot place. Halbarad at least looks more relaxed, but his eyes are still distant.

“Have you eaten yet?” Halbarad asks abruptly. “You will need all your strength tomorrow.” Golodir looks sidelong at him.

“What about you?”

Halbarad shrugs. “I ate late in the afternoon. I will find something later. You didn’t answer the question.”

“I- no, not yet.”

“Go find some food.” Golodir rolls his eyes and Halbarad jabs him in the ribs. “I am serious, Golodir. You don’t have to keep me company all night, either, you know.”

“Fine,” Golodir sighs, stretching legs gone stiff sitting in one place for so long. He leans over and pulls Halbarad into an embrace before he stands. “You are certain of this?” he whispers.

“I am.”

“Then I will miss you, Hal.” Halbarad’s arms tighten.

“Take care of yourself, Golodir. And thank you.”

He walks away, and is not at all surprised to find his eyes burning.

Chapter Text

They stumble back to Pel Dúven together, Corunir’s grip still stubbornly tight around Golodir’s waist despite his insistence that he has the strength to walk. Esterín wanders beside them, sometimes drifting ahead and sometimes behind, but never far. She almost seems like a sleepwalker- at least until they are doused with invisible ice by the passing of a Nazgûl overhead. They all walk more carefully after that.

Halbarad is the first to spot them, standing in the burnt field with Lothrandir and Aragorn.

“What happened?” he demands as they approach, looking them all over with naked concern. I must look a sight, Golodir thinks wearily. Everything aches, despite Esterín’s runes. He lifts his arm from Corunir’s shoulders, but the younger ranger still refuses to let go of him. Should have just let me- “Golodir?”

“The olog Thrúgrath is dead,” Corunir says before Golodir can scrape an answer together. “We… it was a near thing.” His tone alone tells half the story, and the state of the three of them tells the rest. Halbarad comes to some conclusion (Probably the right one, Golodir thinks) and steps closer.

“It’s good to hear, but better to see you all back here.” Halbarad throws his arms tight around Golodir. “None of that today,” he all but growls in Golodir’s ear.

“None of that yourself,” Golodir mutters back. He closes his eyes, hit by a sudden spell of dizziness, and grabs at Halbarad’s shoulder for support. Maybe Corunir was right not to let me walk alone. He still hasn’t let go. Golodir can hear the others press closer, feel hands and arms on his.

“You too, Esterín,” Lothrandir calls. Hesitant footsteps shuffle closer and a last hand touches Golodir’s shoulder. He can still see the fury in her eyes as she knelt beside him, one hand trapping his and the other clenched around carved rocks. You should have let me go! he thinks at her now. It wasn’t for you to choose. If they spoke true at all it would have been worth it..! Someone’s grip tightens and he takes a deep breath.

“Take a moment to rest, all three of you,” Aragorn says when at last they separate. “There will still be battle enough after you catch your breath.” Golodir watches Halbarad retrieve the standard he has kept close since Rivendell and shares a look with Aragorn. He knows, too, and is as powerless to change things.

-

They catch up to Aragorn and the greater part of the Company. Esterín stops them before they crest the rise, fear and dread on her face. Shouts and a flare of light cut her explanation short.

The enemy is defeated or fled, and there is Aragorn, and- Halbarad. Aragorn is cradling him in the middle of the mess atop the rise and Golodir stumbles closer. Halbarad is pale, his face drawn in pain, but he looks up as Golodir kneels beside him.

“I said none of that,” Golodir says very softly. Halbarad tries to grit out a smile.

“You hardly listened to me,” he says through clenched teeth.

Golodir glances down at his chest. By the One... He doubts even Esterín could fix that. He meets Aragorn’s eyes and sees the same grim realization. He goes to lay a hand on Halbarad’s shoulder, but before he can even make contact Halbarad gasps and tries to bend double, curling into Aragorn’s chest and groaning as Aragorn murmurs useless soothing words.

There is nothing for it after that but to wait.

-

“I think I broke your figurine,” Golodir says to the night sky, sitting beside where they have laid Halbarad and the others who fell on the Pelennor. He hasn’t opened the pouch to check, but near everything else on him had been crushed beneath the olog. He doubts Halbarad’s trinket was any luckier.

One more reason to want Mordirith dead in truth, and one more reason to ensure it happens, no matter the cost to me. He knows Corunir is terrified that he will find some way to die, even accidentally, any time he wanders out of sight, or perhaps do the deed himself. If I could bring myself to that, however, I might have found a surer path than throwing myself at the largest enemy I could see. Nor would I be so wroth with Esterín for saving me.

Halbarad might kill you himself if he heard you talking like that. The others too. If he thought he could keep it, he would give his friend’s grave a promise not to make a habit of this. All he can give truthfully, though, is a promise to watch over the others as best he can, and to follow where Aragorn leads.

“It will have to do, for now.”

Chapter Text

Andrath is quiet and the old fort is deserted. The Greenway is empty but for the creak of the wagon wheels and the breath of the horses bearing them home. Radanir had left them days ago, heading back into trouble alone but for Glorengúr. Erebrandir and Thordal go on without complaint, and Candaith watches the sunlit valley in contemplative silence. Saeradan starts humming as they pass Bree, some hobbit homecoming-song he probably picked up from Halros, and within the hour they roll to a stop outside Saeradan’s cabin. It feels far longer than a handful of weeks has passed since Candaith last saw the place, longer even than Saeradan said had passed since the disaster on the Forsaken Road.

Saeradan climbs down from the wagon bench and stretches before helping Candaith down, careful not to jostle him. Candaith grits his teeth, even the gentle impact with the ground sending a line of burning pain along his spine. Saeradan says nothing, but his face tells of his concern loudly enough. Candaith takes a deep breath and straightens as much as he can without tearing open the stitches. Again.

“I’ll see to the horses?” he offers. It shouldn’t involve too much bending or carrying of things. Saeradan gives him a knowing look and tosses a small iron key his way.

“The brushes are in the back closet now,” Saeradan says. Candaith rolls his eyes good-naturedly but accepts the lighter duty while Saeradan unhitches and settles Erebrandir and Thordal.

Candaith hasn’t truly been able to visit Saeradan here since Yule at least. In the years since he left Esteldín to spend nearly all his time in the wilds, Saeradan’s has come to feel as much like home as his little camp in the shadow of Amon Sûl. The setting sun streams golden through the westward-facing windows and the whoosh of displaced air as Candaith opens the doors sets flecks of dust dancing.

They haven’t been gone so long that there’s more than a fine layer of accumulated dust- indeed, Candaith’s own part in the Grey Company’s journey seems almost comically short now, cut down in a damp cave not a week from home. He sighs, sets Saeradan’s key on the table, and opens a closet door. It’s empty, the wood paneling water-stained. “Right.” He goes to the back closet.

"What happened to the front closet?" he asks, joining Saeradan with the better-kept horse brushes that haven't yet been relegated to road use.

"Do you remember that leaky patch in the roof?” Saeradan takes one of the brushes and sets to work on Erebrandir’s coat.

“I thought you were going to fix that before the snows started.”

“There were more pressing things to worry about,” Saeradan says. “We had an unseasonably warm day just after a snowstorm, and all the snow melting at once washed a whole section of the roof away.” He holds up his hands to suggest a hole almost a foot and a half across. “I patched it, but once it gets warmer it will need a more permanent fix.”

“How is half of the roof just looking for an excuse to collapse on you not farther up the list of things to worry about?” Thordal snorts and Candaith takes it for agreement with his assessment.

“It’s hardly half the roof,” Saeradan grumbles. “And I just hadn’t gotten around to it.”

“No one else stopped here long enough for you to talk them into helping you, you mean?"

“Perhaps,” Saeradan says, a smile fighting for control of his face. Candaith laughs, and hides a flinch at the twinge of pain it causes. Saeradan never has cared for climbing up to even this low roof. Candaith has done it in his place more than once over the years.

Candaith pats Thordal and straightens carefully. Infuriating as he finds it, it does still hurt to strain his back at all and he has little choice but to leave the last of tending to the horse to Saeradan. Thordal is a fine animal, but Candaith misses his own Menethir. There’s no knowing what became of her anymore, though. The Grey Company had most likely taken Menethir and the other horses of those who had fallen on the Forsaken Road with them when they continued south as spares. After what happened beneath Methedras, though, little though Candaith knows of the details, they would have had no need for so many steeds. The Falcon Clan had not been able to take them into the tunnels with them, and it would have been absurd for all of them to follow the survivors of the Grey Company. Perhaps some of the horses went free in Dunland, or else found their way to sympathetic Rohirrim farther south. Candaith hopes Menethir remained among the Dúnedain, for his part.

He manages to get his pack and Saeradan’s into the house without causing himself further hurt (or catching Saeradan’s worried attention) and finds himself at the back of the tall wagon, hand hovering at the waxed cloth that covers them. His back throbs with a dull, deep ache in counterpoint to the sharper pain when he pulls back the cloth and sees the shrouded bodies again. Four crates sit in the wagonbed between him and them, their sides stamped with scratched-out red talons. He won’t be able to lift these without tearing the stitches- he had tried, just after they left Lhanuch, and his startled, pained scream had nearly sent Saeradan into a panic. For the sake of his friend’s nerves, Candaith leaves the crates alone this time.

It’s not as if there is much other reason for him to be here, then, but he lingers, almost reaching out to touch one of the bodies.

This isn’t all of them. That fact hurts almost as much as the fact that at least this many of them are dead. Not all of the bodies had been fit to travel, Saeradan had told him, sighing against the memory. Those had been laid to rest in the shadow of the mountain, far from their homes. The rest are here before him, waiting for Candaith and Saeradan to find them somewhere to rest. On the top lie those who had not been so lucky as Candaith on the Forsaken Road.

He remembers it in flashes- the waves of shades had seemed a test for Britou’s amusement at first, but they showed no sign of stopping and as their otherworldly glow had shone on his Bebarahir a wild, desperate plan struck him. There was a flash of relief as it seemed to work, then pain, and then fear and a terrible biting cold. Laughter rang on the stone walls and lightning flashed, falling farther away with every heartbeat. A pebble clattered along the floor, and all he could think was to grab for it as his sight went dark. There was more after that, but it was even hazier and riddled through with long, dark silences he fears to look too deep into even in memory.

“Candaith?” Saeradan’s voice rounds the wagon. The sun is setting rapidly and the night is growing chill. “If you set yourself bleeding again I swear…”

“Fear not. I’m in no hurry to repeat the experience, either,” Candaith says. His voice is far unsteadier than he expected. Saeradan sets a hand on his shoulder and he takes a deep breath. He manages a smile that he hopes is reassuring for Saeradan. “You don’t have to worry so much, you know.”

Saeradan scoffs and lifts one of the crates. “You spend a month thinking one of us is dead and see if you’re half as calm as I am.” Candaith chuckles and holds the door open for Saeradan.

Candaith carefully lights the wood-stove and the lanterns Saeradan keeps in the room that’s one part storage and one part guestroom. Saeradan keeps enough long-lasting food here even when he plans for a long absence that they don’t have to resort to trail rations or walking into Bree. Candaith isn’t sure he can deal with the Breelanders’ coldness tonight. By the time they have eaten and Saeradan has brought all the crates inside, full night has fallen. Saeradan pulls the lanterns closer and opens one of the crates.

The four wooden boxes contain the personal effects of the fallen, destined for their families back home. Their gear, if it had been usable or not simply taken by the Falcons, had been sorted through and distributed among those who remained. Candaith’s own things, less whatever he had borne with him onto the Forsaken Road, had met the same fate, and it had been a strange thing indeed when Saeradan handed him a small canvas bag bearing his own name in Nethraw’s small, neat script. There wasn’t much in it- his journals, a few trinkets he had collected, a silver ring like woven leaves with tiny stones that sparkled in the firelight. His mail had been rendered useless by Britou’s supernatural blade, but it should be repairable in the right hands.

They sort the contents of the crates into several piles on the table depending on their destination, some to Esteldín or Tinnudir or the Angle or any number of other smaller towns and homesteads. Candaith picks up a delicately-made leather satchel labeled Himeldir and sets it back down heavily. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. Saeradan looks up. Candaith catches his eye and shrugs helplessly.

“It’s no accident that the shades turned when they did,” he says. Piecing his memory together with Radanir’s description, there’s little question that the Oath-breakers had come for the Grey Company only after his attempt with the ring. Saeradan grasps Candaith’s wrist.

“Do not blame yourself,” Saeradan says. His eyes are hard and flat but his voice is gentle. “It wasn’t you who raised a blade to our brothers.” Candaith pulls away.

“But before I opened my mouth, the shades attacked only to toy with us, not to kill. Perhaps if I had stayed silent-”

“Do you believe they intended to let you return from the deep chamber?” Saeradan demands. Candaith hesitates. He remembers Britou’s laughter, the endless attackers- the bones in the other deep tunnels.

“No,” he admits softly. “He did not wish us to leave.” He sighs. “Himeldir was right. We should not have gone there.”

“What the Oath-breakers’ chose to do was beyond your control,” Saeradan says firmly. “And… we did learn that they would hold to their original oath, if Aragorn truly will release them.” Candaith looks at him.

“We know that for certain?”

“They believed it enough to leave the Road,” Saeradan says. “The tunnels were empty but for rats when Radanir and I found you.”

Candaith deflates. Some good may have come of it, at least, but it didn’t need to cost so many lives. His own life Candaith would have been willing enough to give for this, for something he believed in the way so many of the Dúnedain believed in Aragorn, but he would never have traded the lives of the others if he had the choice. Well, I never was going to be a captain, he thinks wryly.

“I’m glad Radanir and I left Tûr Morva when we did,” Saeradan says abruptly, breaking the heavy silence. “If we had missed the Oath-breakers’ departure- or worse, continued south on a road that may yet claim the lives of all the Company, never to come this way again- who knows how long it would have been before someone found you?” It’s not something Candaith had considered before now. The look on Saeradan’s face, pensieve and distant, says he has considered it quite a lot.

Candaith thinks of the long, hazy gap in his memories and shudders at the thought of spending even longer there. Saeradan looks at him apologetically.

“Sorry.” Saeradan takes the last of the bags and sets them in neat piles near the door. The crates marked with the sign of the Falcon he breaks and feeds to the fire. He dusts his hands off once he finishes and takes a small wooden box from a shelf. “Do you want to play a few hands?”

Candaith smirks. “I know better than to play cards with you, by now.”

Saeradan shrugs. “Knowing better rarely stops you.”

True enough. It requires little enough true focus and the routine of it is soothing, as if this were any other night Candaith came to visit over the last twenty years. Saeradan doesn’t even bother to cheat, for the most part. Eventually Candaith yawns and Saeradan shuffles the cards away. They have more grim business to get to tomorrow, but for now Candaith enjoys the sleepy peace. Saeradan insistently checks Candaith’s wound and allows Candaith to badger him into pasting one of Mandan’s salves over his own badly bruised shoulder before they retreat for the night.

“It doesn’t smell that bad,” Candaith laughs as Saeradan tries futilely to scrape all of the excess off his hands.

“You’re not the one who has to try to sleep through it,” Saeradan grumbles back. He gives Candaith a careful but solid hug before leaving him to the guestroom. “I am glad we found you there,” Saeradan says very quietly. There is something raw in his voice, buried under the quiet and the earnest sentiment. Candaith tightens his hold on Saeradan, wary of his shoulder. “And I’m sorry we didn’t return sooner.”

“You were rather busy elsewhere,” Candaith points out dryly. “But I’m glad you brought me out of there, too. Thank you.” He sleeps better that night than he has in some time and wakes refreshed, and hopes that strength will carry him through the next leg of this journey.

Chapter Text

The day of their escape, they put as much distance as they can between themselves and Tûr Morva before nightfall. Even the worst injured do not protest. Indeed, few of them say anything at all beyond what is necessary that day. As the light fades they pack themselves into a cleft in the cliffs, easily defended and acceptably hidden. They never would have fit the Company that had departed Rivendell here. The knowledge makes them all the more painfully aware of their losses, though they do not talk about it. There is no laughter or conversation that first night out of Tûr Morva, and neither are there tears. There is only silence, heavy and still, as they fall one by one into exhausted sleep.

It is strange, for those of the Rohirrim who are familiar with the Dúnedain, to see them laid so low. They watch uneasily, trading the shifts between themselves while the Rangers sleep. They're clustered, the injured laid out carefully in the center of their ranks, the others protectively close. The worst injured, at least. None of them escaped unscathed.

---

Golodir is alone when the Falcons turn, navigating the winding tunnels with a tray of Idele’s small apple tarts balanced in his arms.

“Golodir, hold!” one of them calls from behind- Yevan, who had come to visit him in the orchard. He stops by Golodir, alone, with a nervous smile on his face. “Where are you bound?” Golodir raises the tray and Yevan nods in comprehension.

“Is all well?” Golodir asks carefully. The tarts are still warm, steaming into the mountain air between them. Golodir adjusts his hold on the tray, surreptitiously surveying his surroundings.

“No,” Yevan says, reluctance inching into his voice. “You should come with me.”

“Should I, now?” He can hear the footsteps behind him, trying and failing to stay silent on the rough stone floors of the Falcon-clan’s caves. “What is this?”

Yevan sighs. “You really should just come with me,” he says. “I like you. I would rather not hurt you.”

“Your friends do not seem to share the sentiment.” Yevan grimaces but does not call off his allies approaching from deeper in the caves. The tunnel is too narrow for effective sword-work, but Golodir still has a dagger near to hand. He hardens his heart, putting from his mind the simple peace of the orchards and the quiet of the lake at night. “And not once in my life have I gone quietly.” Feet move behind him as they abandon all pretense of stealth, but Golodir is already moving, flinging the hot tarts at Yevan’s face and spinning to send the tray into the nearest one behind him. He takes up a guard, dagger in hand. “Come then, traitors,” he snarls. “How many of you will it take to kill me?”

He fights well, and longer than many even of his kin could have, but there are too many, and it ends with him gasping for breath beneath a pile of enraged Falcons.

“If the goal was to kill you, Northman, you would already be dead,” one says coldly. “Take him to the cells.” Golodir struggles then, thrashing wildly as they drag him back up the tunnel to a block of cells that they clearly mean to fill, but all he earns is further bruising and a deep cut along his ribs. For all his efforts, he is a prisoner again.

---

“Lothrandir.”

The Wizard’s voice echoes strangely in his ears, rebounding against the inside of his skull until it drowns out all else.

“Lothrandir.” Lothrandir, Lothrandir… “You have resisted me long and well. You have earned rest.” Rest… rest. “Join me, and you shall have it.”

Lothrandir grins through chapped lips and shakes out his arms, dripping blood from split knuckles on the Wizard’s white robes. “I know this trick, old man. Try again.” Saruman sweeps the trailing, shimmering fabric out of his reach. Lothrandir breathes steadily, the way Panu taught him in Sûri-kylä, in and out until the Wizard’s spell takes hold.

---

Braigiar does not say it aloud, the first time he appears beside Lothrandir asleep, but it vibrates in the fabric of the dream between them. “This is not the man Bregelian told me stories about.” Tinged with sorrow, and regret, and a distant, hopeless anger whose target is unassailable in his black-stone tower. Lothrandir is too tired to mind.

---

“Lothrandir!”

His eyes snap open, and the Wizard standing over him is struck and falls back, red spilling down his pristine robes as familiar voices burst into the tower room. There is Esterín, furious, and Tirneth and Tathwen taking him by the shoulders and pulling him upright, and Radanir and Prestadír advancing on Saruman with their swords drawn. They have come for him! They must have escaped the prison-caves of the Hebog-lûth!

“Get him out of the tower,” Radanir orders, and the sisters Lothrandir had introduced to the headman of Kauppa-kohta three years ago drag him down the stairs of Orthanc as he struggles to get his feet under him.

“Wait,” he gasps out as they stop long enough for Tathwen to fiddle with a locked door. “We can’t- we cannot leave them. They cannot face Saruman alone.” Tathwen and Tirneth trade an indecipherable look. Lothrandir painstakingly frees himself from their hold, limbs heavy and slow still from the Wizard’s work. “We must go back for them.”

But Radanir comes crashing down the stairs above them, rebounding off the stone until he falls finally on the flat floor, all the sound of it drowned in the screaming from the upper level. Radanir stands- too slowly, but he does- and drags himself to them, clutching at his ribs.

“Run,” he wheezes. “Run, or we will all die here.”

“But-” Lothrandir starts.

“They are beyond our help,” Radanir bites out. “We can either flee or join them.”

Something clicks. “I have the door,” Tathwen murmurs. She tucks herself under Radanir’s arm and Tirneth takes Lothrandir’s, but they have not made it two more flights down before they are caught by orcs ascending, and they are overwhelmed in seconds. Lothrandir falls, and takes an orc with him, and though Tirneth stands over him as long as she can, his last sight as he fades is the bloody mess made of her guts, red spreading over the black stone floor and soaking grey cloaks. Darkness covers his eyes, and it shimmers.

Realization dawns.

No one is coming for you. They are not his thoughts, but they echo in his head until it seems they must thrum with truth. The elf left you. The rest have little chance of escape. Even if they did, they would not come for you, not here. It would be foolhardy, hopeless, and doomed before it began. They have, too, another mission, do they not? Far too urgent to ever attempt a rescue of one broken Ranger.

No… he thinks. “No,” he says aloud, though he can hear the shake of his voice and feel the tears on his face. I will resist him. But he is growing so tired. “Your tricks grow old, Saruman. Have you nothing more creative than illusion?”

The Wizard’s eyes glitter. Multicolored lights bloom behind Lothrandir’s eyes when he blinks.

“Gun Ain, return the Dúnadan to the Pits.”

He hardly has any strength to resist as Gun Ain drags him unceremoniously from the room by the back of his tattered shirt.

---

“Are you hurt?” Halbarad asks as they sit vigil against the dawn.

“No.”

Golodir sits silently as the sun slowly creeps into their crack in the mountains.

“No one they took past to the deep tunnels ever came back.”

Halbarad saw their bodies. Some of them. The other branch of the tunnel led to the Pit, but he had not been brought that way. I nearly did not come back, either. He does not think it will ease Golodir’s heart any to hear that.

---

“Braigiar,” Idhrien hisses to the next cell when she thinks they are unwatched. “Does this look right?” She tosses the wooden plate across the way to Braigiar and Radanir's cell.

“Almost,” Braigiar says. “There’s one spot- ah I won’t be able to describe it. What did you carve this with?” Idhrien passes her belt over, careful not to let the metal rebound against the cell bars. “There.” The plate comes twirling back into her cell and Idhrien nearly fumbles it at the sound of footsteps approaching their wing of the prison caves.

She kneels and takes Tirneth’s hand in her own and tries to see the rune in her mind’s eye as Esterín had described. Idhrien whispers the word and thinks she feels something jolt deep in her stomach.

“What are you up to today?” The arrival of the Falcon-clan guards shatters Idhrien’s concentration and she glares at them before she can help herself.

“What is that look for? Are your accommodations not to your liking?” One of them drums idly on the bars, the clink of his gauntlets on metal echoing against stone.

“Stuck-up northerners,” the other mutters, followed by a string of words in his own language. Insults or curses, Idhrien figures. Or both.

“We were complimenting the caves today, weren’t we?” Braigiar chooses now to speak up and Idhrien can only be grateful to him for drawing attention from Tirneth, unconscious and feverish beside her. “Radanir, what are some good synonyms for slimy? Preferably ones I can rhyme.” Radanir starts listing words and the Falcons turn on them. Idhrien pictures the rune and feels the jolt again, the sign in the wood pulsing for a heartbeat with blue-green light.

Idhrien knows what she wants to do with this. She wants the deep wound in Tirneth’s stomach to seal over, all the tears in her guts to close, her fever to be banished. Deeper and simpler, she wants Tirneth not to hurt, and all she can offer is a please with all the strength of ancient words and the heart to believe this is enough. This is all she has, alone in a damp cell with Tirneth fading beside her, no supplies and hardly even sufficient food and water. She can feel something pulling against her and she pulls back, fighting something she can feel only as a pressure in her chest until at last she loses her metaphorical grip and the sensations drop away. Idhrien blinks her eyes open and wipes her brow, suddenly beaded with sweat.

It is hard to see in the dim light, but when Idhrien peels back the makeshift bandages, Tirneth’s wounds aren’t half as deep as they were. The fever persists, but she seems to be in less pain, at least. Idhrien takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. Less than what she hoped, but better, perhaps, than she should have expected for a crude, inexperienced rune scraped into a wooden plate with a belt buckle.

Thumps and muffled shouts draw her eye to Braigiar and Radanir.

One of the two Falcon guards is laid out on the tunnel floor, an ugly red welt already swelling across his face. The other is pinned to the far cell with Idhrien’s belt wrapped around his throat. His hands scrabble at the smooth leather but can find no purchase.

“Hand over the keys,” Braigiar says. His voice is quiet, dangerous, a dramatic change from the sharp-edged banter just minutes before. The guard goes for the keyring at his side and raises it with a shaking hand. Radanir takes it and begins trying each one in the lock of their door. Braigiar doesn’t release the guard until he finally goes limp, slumping against the metal as Radanir lands on the right key.

“Are you ready to move?” Radanir asks quietly, trying keys in Idhrien’s door while Braigiar binds the guards.

Idhrien stands and is hit by a surprising wave of dizziness. “I think I could make it, but Tirneth will not.”

“We will carry her, then,” Radanir says. The lock clicks open.

She wants to leave. More than anything she wants to not be here any longer. “There is no way we make it,” she says softly. Radanir’s eyes tighten and Braigiar shoots her a look. “All it takes is one misstep, one guard raising an alarm, and we will have every Falcon in the caves on us. Unless you can get all of the others out, too, and the greater part of them are in any state to fight, we will not make it.”

“You want to stay here?”

“Of course not,” she hisses. “But I will not leave Tirneth alone and carrying her out of the tunnels and then the city just the three of us is out of the question.” She sighs. “You will stand a better chance just the two of you. Get out, find help, and come back for us if you can… or move on if you cannot.” The Grey Company still has a mission.

Radanir closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the bars of her unlocked cell. “We don’t know these caves at all,” he grates out. Braigiar looks away. “We have no idea where the others are. If they are even still alive.” That thought makes them all wince. Radanir sounds like he is trying to convince himself as much as Braigiar.

“Go,” Idhrien says softly. “We will survive.” Radanir growls in frustration and swings open the door enough to give her a brief hug. Braigiar hands over anything useful he found on the guards and clasps her arm before they hurry off into the tunnels. Idhrien closes her eyes, locks the door again, and settles herself by Tirneth’s head.

---

The smell of rot has been growing steadily in their wing of the prison-caves, days after their neighbors fell silent. Elladan and Elrohir noticed it first, but by now even Halbarad can smell it. If he strains just so against the bars, he can see it, too. Was I a fool to trust them? he wonders, not for the first time. Should I have seen it? Many of them were displeased to see us from the start. Did I lead us blindly into a trap? He has had little to do since Mair herself had taken him from behind, her knife drawing a thin line of blood from his neck before even the sons of Elrond could stop her. They had surrendered their own blades willingly at Mair’s demand amid the cries of the rest of the Company echoing through the caves.

No, he tries to tell himself. If any of the others had more than vague misgivings, they would have said something. Even Lothrandir had gone along with it. But now he too is gone, lost to the Ring of Isengard if Iwan’s boasting can be believed.

Halbarad had not thought himself so poor a judge of character before this.

He is still deep in his own mind when Nai and Eiviona come to pull him from his cell, ignoring Elladan and Elrohir and the silent cells beside them save for wrinkling their noses at the smell. They drag him through the tunnels and he walks proudly, despite the chains, and his heart cries when others of the Company near enough the main passage to see him shout for him. He is bound for interrogation, he assumes. Lheu had made rather a point of bargaining with knowledge. He knows how to face this, at least.

“Halbarad!” It’s Golodir’s cry that stops him, Nai crashing into him from behind as he turns and meets his old friend’s eyes, gripping the bars of his cell and glaring as if he could strike the Falcons dead by sight alone.

“Keep moving,” Nai says roughly, shoving him forward.

“Where are you taking him?” Golodir demands. Calenglad shifts in the shadows behind him. Faintly, Halbarad can make out the heavy bruising across Calenglad’s face.

“Wait your turn and you will find out, Northman,” Eiviona says. She drags Halbarad forward by his chains. Golodir opens his mouth, but Halbarad knows the look on his face far too well, the one that too often precedes dangerous and foolhardy moves, and he speaks first.

“Golodir,” he says, gentle as he can make himself. “It will be alright.” He follows Eiviona, and can only smile, sadly, at Golodir’s frustrated howl behind him.

---

Braigiar has no rest, for all he is among the most exhausted. Just dreams, he tells himself as he wakes still feeling all the strength it takes for Golodir to release his hold on the bars of the cell door, to bury the anger in his voice just long enough to calm Corunir. Golodir sees Calenglad’s face crumple when they find Fainneleg dead in the cell beside them, hidden from their sight until now, and Braigiar feels the fury surge anew, anger blinding as splintered light. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to fall back asleep. Just dreams. Or nightmares. Either way. But he wakes again not twenty minutes later in the same instant Celairant sits up screaming and Braigiar knows what he saw, can still feel him straining to reach Amrúnir in the next cell. Langlas lays a hand on Celairant's shoulder and those who were woken by the noise turn away. The fact that less than half of them did speaks volumes.

He knows they're not simple dreams. His imagination has never been this strong. He can't deny it at all when he feels the hammer-shock of relief as he looks down at his own still body, alive but only just, through Radanir's eyes. Memory? But none of them are mine… But the next one is, his own vicious satisfaction as he choked the breath out of the Falcon-clan guard with Idhrien’s belt. He had been sorely tempted to kill the man outright- would have, if not for the others there watching.

---

Some fought the whole way down. Some went quietly but with pride. Some were insensate from their injuries and were dragged without care.

Demúr is among those who go without much struggle, mapping the tunnels as best he can and waiting for an opportunity that does not come.

There are others in the Pit of the Falcon when he is cast in, landing roughly but without doing damage to himself, but not many. Some had shouted from the cages above as he was marched past, his own kin and Hebog-lûth both. Down here it is mostly bones, the few still alive cowering in the far corner.

He sees why soon enough.

The great beast sends the mound of bones flying, and though Demúr fights as fiercely as the others, they are crushed flat or devoured one by one, until at last all he sees is a gaping, beaked mouth with teeth snagged with grey fabric.

---

Braigiar stumbles beyond their sleeping bodies and their Rohirrim protectors to empty his stomach as quietly as he can possibly manage (not very) after that one. He spins, light-headed and shaky, when footsteps approach from behind, but it is only one of the Rohirrim- Baldgar. He raises his hands in placation.

"Just seeing if you're alright," he says. "None of your friends would appreciate it if we let you wander off into trouble after all of this." Braigiar takes a breath and spits the foul taste from his mouth.

“I have been better,” he rasps, “but I am not dying or leaving.” He sits heavily against the cool stone of the mountain and tries to breathe through the pain of his own slow-healing injuries and the echo of pain from the dream. Baldgar offers him water and he takes it gratefully, but it cannot wash out the taste of Demúr’s terror.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Baldgar offers awkwardly. Braigiar laughs once, quiet.

“I would rather sleep peacefully for a night, but I do not think that is in your power to grant.” Baldgar huffs a breath. “But thank you,” Braigiar adds belatedly.

---

Corunir’s hands shake so badly he nearly fumbles the keyring, searching for the one that will open Golodir and Calenglad’s cell, trying not to see Galasebdir too still in the cell behind him, not to hear Areneth crying out in pain as Idhrien leads him out behind Tirneth and Tathwen. He can see Golodir’s hands clenched tight on the bars, and hear shouts from deeper in the caves where Radanir and Esterín have already gone, but all his focus is bent on trying one key then another, painfully slow as he scrapes key against lock before finding the keyhole again and again and again.

Golodir’s hands reach out and grasp his wrists, just over the line of too tight. “Steady, Corunir,” he says, and Corunir can only distantly hear the strain in his voice. He lets his hands fall and presses his forehead to the cold iron bars, breathing deeply until he can set aside the thoughts of the wings of cells they have already searched, of how many they have yet to search, setting the thoughts far away, back in the heights at Zudrugund where they must take their time before they can reach him again.

He blinks hard, and takes one last shuddering breath, and opens the door with hands that do not shake again until they have left the caves behind.

---

“Lothrandir?”

He is asleep, and he knows this with a strange clarity. He is still in the Pits of Isengard, doing Saruman’s drudge work and spoiling it where he can. Even in dreams he has stopped leaving this place.

“Lothrandir.” He looks up, and Braigiar is there beside him again.

“It is good to see you,” Lothrandir says. “But I must apologize for the scenery.” When he looks down, he at least has the kindness of his own gear, not the rags Gun Ain had thrown to him after he was stripped of his battered Company equipment. Esterín’s bracer sits like a grounding weight on his left arm.

“Walk with me?” he asks, desperate, suddenly, to escape this, even like this. Braigiar nods and pulls him upright, wrapping an arm that shouldn’t be necessary around Lothrandir’s middle as they walk the halls and walkways of Isengard together. Even here, exhaustion bleeds from Lothrandir.

“Hold,” Braigiar says. Lothrandir leans on him more than he would like as they stand motionless and the dream slowly changes around them, grey and black and smoky-forge-red melting away before green trees and old stone and the wide, blue-purple sky of their camp above the hills just south of the forges of Mirobel.

“You have gotten better at this,” Lothrandir says, eyes stinging as he gazes into the clear sky. Braigiar smiles, his face bunched in concentration as the camp solidifies around them. He lowers them both to the ground, their legs dangling fearlessly off the ledge.

“We are coming for you, Lothrandir,” Braigiar says quietly. “I swear, we are. Just hold on a little while longer.” Lothrandir nods silently, giving up whatever pretense still remains to him and sinking shamelessly into the only friendly touch he has felt in weeks, even unreal as this is. He wants to ask for news, for word of the rest of the Company, but he knows it is better if he has nothing to offer Saruman if he does break. The Wizard has been distracted the last few days, and the depths quiet, but Lothrandir has not the first idea why. “I don’t know how long I can hold this,” Braigiar says, soft. “But I will stay as long as I can.” For a moment, it almost feels like Lothrandir is traveling with Bregelian again, in less dangerous days, but then it passes and it is only the two of them dreamed far away from Isengard.

“Thank you,” Lothrandir whispers as Braigiar hums some half-formed melody above him. He takes whatever respite he can, bracing himself for whatever rude awakening will drag him without warning from this sliver of peace.

---

There is thunder in the tunnels. It sounds strange, here in narrow passages with uneven walls, but it is familiar, and as light flashes off damp stone walls, they allow themselves to hope.

---

Radanir staggers into the scout-camp, alone, and Saeradan wants to scream, or weep perhaps. Anything but slip into the role of the steady one, the one who keeps the safe harbor. Radanir clings to him, telling the story through tears, and Saeradan does not tell him that he has heard most of it in some form already, from Seren and the few others she brought with her. Saeradan takes Radanir to his tent and tends to his wounds while he talks, all the terrible things in the caves spilling out as if they will burst him from within if they do not escape.

“We will not leave them there,” Saeradan says as soothingly as he can. If Théodred will not- cannot- help us, then we will rescue them ourselves, just Radanir and Corunir and me. It will have to be enough. Radanir looks at him with such desperate hope and grief that Saeradan cannot bring himself to speak of his difficulties playing diplomat with the Prince of Rohan, not yet.

“Rest. You will be safe here.”

---

Grey light fills the shallow ravine, and slow and sore they gather themselves, limping back to the Gravenwood to hope for a few days of peace to pull themselves back together before riding for Rohan. The memories will not be so easily left behind.

Chapter Text

The fighting ends with the suddenness of a thunderclap. The clash of steel falls silent, and the groaning of the earth stills. The groaning of the wounded continues.

Nona falls back to the top of the slag-hill, her blade dark. Horn is there, blood still flowing freely from his arm. His shield lies broken before him, but he lives. Nona breathes deeply, but instead of relief gets a mouth full of smoke. She coughs and kneels beside Horn. Her ribs throb sharply.

“I’ll survive,” Horn says with a thin smile that’s more gritted teeth than anything. “Who needs riddles about death and fate anyway.”

Nona’s lips thin. “‘He lies upon the broken ground, his shield shattered.’” Horn narrows his eyes. “‘The list of the dead is long. The minstrels mourn.’” Horn draws breath to protest, but she cuts him off. She is in no mood for this now. “Where is Esterín?” She is nowhere to be seen among her grey-cloaked friends on the hill- the living or the dead. Horn closes his eyes and sighs.

“One of the fell Riders took her,” he says. “Golodir and Corunir went after her, but-” he looks aside, to where the wounded of the Grey Company gather, and lowers his voice. “It was a long fall.”

Nona stands jerkily and looks out over the ruined battlefield. The quiet is as overwhelming as the clamor of the battle was before. Clouds and smoke hang low. “She has survived worse things. She may yet live.” She tries not to look at the bodies of others who were dropped by the terrible flying beasts.

“Has she?” Horn murmurs. She thinks of the look in Esterín’s eyes when she came to find Nona in the Gap of Rohan.

“Yes, I think so.”

One of the rangers is making rounds with rolled bandages. Not one from the north, Nona thinks, squinting past the blood and grime across his face. She takes the offered roll and returns to Horn’s side.

The great host- so much smaller now, it seems, after the endless torrent from the Black Gate, and not just from their losses- drags itself wearily to its feet and slowly pulls back, away from the rot-in-waiting of the mounds of the dead and the fetid pools of the runoff of the Black Land. Nona looks back once, from a far hill, and exhales sharply at the sight of it.

She is no stranger to battle. She has been a warrior of the Uch-lûth for years now, and Rohan was consumed by war for all her swift journey across it. She came to the Pelennor Fields only late, though, and this fresh ruin before the Black Gate is unlike anything she has seen before. The hills where they made their stand look so small from here. By the Huntsman… we really were near to losing everything. She had tried to laugh away the doom on the long march here, for Esterín’s sake, and for Horn’s, but perhaps they were right to fear this. Esterín, I dearly hope they find you.

She remains near the Grey Company, as she did for much of the march here, and when the hale among them assemble to return to the field in search of survivors, she volunteers to accompany them. Horn is safe among the rest of the host and not like to die of his wounds just yet, but Esterín’s absence still itches at her, right beside the place where Corudan should be. Her whole body aches, but no more, she thinks, than anyone else here, and far less than most.

Horn presses his riding-horn on her before she leaves, insistent. “I will hardly have need of it here,” he says.

“And if I find I have need of such a horn back on the field, it will already be too late, I would think,” she replies. His mouth tightens. “And,” she adds, trying for some dark levity, “what do you think any of your people would do if they answered one of their own horn-calls and found me holding it?”

“Most, I think, would know you by reputation,” he says, a wry grin tugging at his lips. “We made quite an impression everywhere we stopped.”

“We barely spent a week in your lands, and everyone was preoccupied with war.”

“You would be memorable even so.”

“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.” Horn smiles properly, then, and she is glad to see it, here in the middle of all of this. She hasn’t seen it much since the High Knolls, before they went their separate ways again. Someone calls for her. She takes the horn.

The search-party splits when they return to the field, spread wide to seek any survivors who were missed in the retreat. The ground is treacherous, and Nona’s muscles protest the crossing. Her side aches.

Braigiar joins her, stepping lightly over twisted metal and fallen stone. The ground gives way beneath her foot, the brittle crust of old scrap crumbling into a shallow hole. She lurches forward, hissing as her jarring landing sends pain shooting through her ribs.

“Nona?”

“It is only bruising,” she says dismissively. She knows the feeling of broken ribs. She draws a deep, careful breath and straightens. “This place is… unlike anything I have seen before. Even what I saw of the Wizard’s Vale was nothing quite like it.”

“These hills have been the trash-dump of the foundries of Mordor for thousands of years,” Braigiar says. “Isengard was green recently enough that Baldgar saw it.” There is something heavy in his voice, in the memory of a friend. Nona touches his shoulder lightly and walks on.

She doesn’t know what it is that draws her eye, but she stops, caught on a dark lump motionless in the shadow of a shard of the Black Gate. She approaches warily, until recognition catches and she runs the rest of the way with a strangled cry.

She thinks Esterín must be dead for certain. She is soaked with blood and with great holes in her chest- but then she breathes, faintly, and Nona almost drops Horn’s horn. She drops beside Esterín, and by her stars she’s a mess. Would it be a kindness to try to move her like this? Would she survive it? (Nona saw a careless man gored by ox-horns once. It wasn’t dissimilar to this)

Nona looks about for help- she considers the horn, but… it would be cruel, to call them all over only to watch their friend die. There is little Nona can do alone, though.

“Braigiar!” Esterín doesn’t respond even to Nona’s shouting just inches from her ears.

“It’s Esterín,” she says, urgent, when his head appears around the arm of twisted metal. Braigiar stops short, something just a little hopeful in his face. Nona bites her lip. “She lives, but…” Braigiar rushes forward and kneels by Esterín, calling to her softly. There is no response.

“There is little we can do,” Nona says. She thinks it’s to herself as much as Braigiar. “I thought… I thought she might want friends beside her if...” Braigiar makes a small, wounded sound and shakes his head. He reaches for her, but he can find no better way to move her than Nona had.

“She tried to teach us once,” Nona finds herself saying, “about the stones. I couldn’t do much, but she tried.” But Braigiar’s breath catches, and he pulls Esterín’s bag from her body with a muttered apology and tears it open.

“There has to be one in here,” he says under his breath. He pulls stones and odd bits from the bag and shoves them Nona’s way, and she takes them blindly.

“What are you doing?”

“She may have words for me later-” he finds whatever it is he’s looking for and all but throws the bag Nona’s way. “But it saved me once. I hope it works again.”

Nona hastily dumps the rocks back into Esterín's bag. “You can use her stones?”

Braigiar hesitates. “I made it work. once.”

“Will it be enough?”

“Valar, I hope so.” He closes his eyes and takes Esterín’s hand, and Nona steps back.

I don't know who might watch over us here, but please. Do the Huntsman and his court have any power here? She half expects the sparks that so often follow Esterín to fly from Braigiar to shock her, but nothing has changed. Nothing moves on the broken slopes of the scrap-heaps.

“Esterín,” Braigiar calls. “Please-”

Nona finds she cannot keep her distance. She kneels on Esterín's other side, taking her hand. “We have much left to do still,” she says, “and promises yet to keep.” We have not survived these last few weeks only to lose you at the end of it. Can it truly only have been thirty-odd days since Esterín and her friends appeared at the gates of Lhanuch? It seems so very far away, now. She leans down and presses a kiss to Esterín’s forehead.

“And we’ve learned plenty well not to play with promises," Braigiar adds with a strained smile. He grunts, and something flares from the stone held tight in his fist, and beneath the terrible mess of blood, Esterín’s flesh moves. “Is it working?” Braigiar asks through clenched teeth.

Nona squints. “It’s doing… something.” It’s impossible to tell if anything is healing, under all the blood and shredded clothing. Something is changing, at least. She waits.

Braigiar’s breath leaves him in a rush and he slumps forward, catching himself on wobbling elbows, bowed suddenly in the way of horrible exhaustion nearly beyond endurance. “It’s done,” he gasps. “Or I am, anyway.”

“Steady,” Nona says, taking him by the shoulders and easing him back. “Do not fall asleep out here. The view is terrible and I cannot carry you and her both.” He manages a breathy chuckle and opens his eyes, watching Esterín.

“Was it enough?” he asks quietly. Nona bends over their friend.

“Esterín,” she calls, slapping gently at her cheek. “Esterín, Corudan is threatening to make Horn and I swim beside the boat again.”

“What-” Braigiar wheezes a laugh beside her.

“Come back, or we will be forced to deal with Horn’s father again, without you or Corudan to temper us.” And she heard that the man survived the battle, and so feels no guilt at all over threatening him. “You know how well that will go.” She is about to give up and risk carrying Esterín bodily from the field when she draws a loud, choking breath. Braigiar hauls himself upright and Nona draws closer. Esterín chokes again, but at last, she opens her eyes.

Nona laughs, loud and delighted and so terribly relieved.

The walk back is long and slow, Nona all but carrying Esterín and Braigiar nearly too exhausted to keep his feet, but at long last they return. Word spreads quickly, and soon they are surrounded by those who want to know as desperately as they if their runekeeper will survive.

Braigiar is fading. Exhaustion is too familiar a sight here. Nona takes him by the arm and steers him to a quiet space in the shade, and he slumps against the trunk the moment she releases him.

“You did it,” Nona says, crouching beside him.

“We have yet to see if it will be enough, in the end,” he says, eyes already shut.

“She was well enough to tell you off,” she points out. Braigiar huffs a laugh.

“True that,” he allows. He opens one eye, wearily meeting her gaze. “No one has seen Golodir and Corunir, though. They went to find her, but we found no sign of them nearby.”

Nona takes a long breath and searches for anything remotely optimistic to say. “If they are together, they will protect each other. There is nothing to do for them now,” she adds, aiming for gentle. “Rest. You have done what you can, and more than many could.” Braigiar sighs unhappily, but he is spent, and lays down his head and sleeps. Nona waves another of the rangers over, and goes in search of Horn, and rest of her own.

Chapter Text

Dust and old straw whisper underfoot as Isena goes through her stretches, slow and deliberate. The dim lantern flickers, sets the shadows dancing. She can hear her grandmother's voice, correcting her stance and insisting she raise her shield arm and teasing her fondly in between giving her cousins the same advice.

The barn is nearly empty and the farm is silent beyond. It is far too late for her to still be awake, but here she is, alone with her thoughts and shadows for partners. She misses the weight of a shield on her arm, for all she had only just gotten used to it before- before. She doesn’t even have a proper spear, just a splintery old broom handle with the wrong weight to it.

The barn door creaks as the wind gusts outside. The candle in her lantern gutters out and she curses under her breath- but another dim light enters the barn, shielded carefully until the door is shut tight against the wind.

“Isedd!” Isena throws the broomstick aside as if burned by it. “What are you doing here?”

Isedd crosses the barn slowly and carefully relights Isena’s lantern. He sits heavily against an empty stall, cradling his own candle in both hands. “I woke up and couldn’t find you,” he says quietly. Isena looks away to hide a wince.

“Sorry,” she mutters. Isedd doesn’t answer. He only sits and stares blankly at the candle flame. Isena kicks the broomstick farther into the barn and thinks longingly of daily routine back home, pestering Téornyth until she agreed to practice with any and all of their cousins and siblings who were interested.

But this is not home. Kind though Alse and their partners are, desperate as Isena and Isedd had been, this is yet no more than a place they are staying.

Isedd looks worse by candlelight. His hair is dull and his nightshirt hangs loosely off his shoulders and his bony wrists are thrown into stark contrast in the light. Isena had looked little better, that day Alse found them, but unlike her brother, she no longer looks more a skeleton than a girl.

“Isedd. Isedd.” If his eyes weren’t still open, she might assume he had fallen asleep. When he still does not answer, Isena scoops up her lantern and gently takes the candle from Isedd’s hands.

“Hey-”

“Let’s make something to eat,” she says, setting his candle in the lantern beside hers. She drags him up by the hand and leads him to the door.

“I’m not hungry,” he protests, meticulously checking the latches on the door before allowing her to pull him away.

“Too bad,” she lies. “I am. Besides, it calms me down.” Isedd’s hand tightens around hers, just enough for her to notice, and follows her willingly.

Isena doesn’t know if keeping her practice from Isedd will help anything, but she can’t bear the look in his eyes when fighting and home come up in the same breath. Alse had called it many things, when Isena asked them, and insisted that Isedd would heal in time. Guilt was the one that made the most sense, and behind it grief. Alse had told her other things, some of which made little sense and others that scared her, but Isena took two things from the talk: watch out for your brother and make sure he eats. The first she would have done anyway and the second is a simple thing to add to her self-appointed duties.

It must be after midnight, but Isena stokes the fire and sets a pot of water over it. Soon the kitchen is warm and light and it smells like home, and though Isedd insists he still isn’t hungry, he takes the bowl Isena forces into his hands and returns it empty and compliments her with a fragile smile. He doesn’t look so terrible in this light, awake and talking quietly in the sleeping house.

“It tastes like Mother’s,” he says as he helps her clean up. It does. This should make her feel better. Instead, silent tears fall to join the dishwater against her will. “Isena-” Isedd’s arm comes around her shoulder and she turns gladly into the embrace. It’s not the same as their parents, or even their eldest brother, but right now it is enough. “It will be alright,” Isedd murmurs. Isena wants to laugh.

I don’t care about it, she thinks. “Will you?” Isedd takes a long breath.

“Eventually,” he says. “I hope. Come on. It’s late.” They set the kitchen back in order and return to the room they share and hope for peaceful sleep.

Chapter Text

You can tell the storm is coming even before your father. You can smell it in the air; faint, but welcoming and welcome.

“It should be clear until this evening,” your mother says, sharing a look with your father.

“It’s going to be rainy at lunchtime,” you insist confidently, and your father only shrugs and adjusts the heavy basket in his arms.

“We should hurry, then,” he says lightly. “We don’t want to get mud all over Ránvi’s house, do we?” You shake your head furiously and run ahead down the winding track to the town on the Lake, your parents’ voices fading behind you.

“...she really know for sure?”

“It could be…”

Your grandparents’ house is large, compared to your father’s back home. It stands to reason, you suppose. Your mother has a lot more siblings than either you or your father. Your father’s family you haven’t even met, and you only have Suntais for siblings- and unlike your mother’s siblings, they don’t seem interested in children of their own. You’re a little glad for that. You think it would be weird to have anyone call you aunt.

The storm breaks just as you arrive, the wind gusting fresh, wet air through the narrow streets as heavy clouds roll in. You grin up at them, breathing in until the next gust throws your hair into your eyes and you can’t help but laugh.

“Esterín!” your mother calls. “Come say hello to everyone.” You leave the stairs only a little reluctantly, ducking into the bustle of your extended family.

It rains through lunch and well into the afternoon, and you sit by the window while you wait your turn at the game your cousins are playing. You watch the rain come down and listen to the distant thunder through the glass, open just enough to let in the breeze to cool the house quickly growing too warm with all these people. You would stay here happily, but your cousins call you back into the small room you have chosen for your games and insist it’s your turn to make a riddle-heart. You scribble answers to their shouted questions on a piece of old parchment then fold it at odd angles until it’s roughly in the shape of a heart, and then you try to read any sort of sense into it.

“I don’t think this means anything,” you say finally, passing it around.

“You just have to figure it out!” Ránvi insists, turning the shape this way and that to read the words that still show on the outside. “That’s why it’s a riddle.” She turns it again. "Hm." She hands it to her brother, who frowns at it for five minutes before shaking his head and passing it along.

"You have a hard one, Est."

"What did yours say?"

"I'm going to go on an adventure one day," he says. "All the way down the river to the Sea of Rhûn."

Lightning in the window blinds you and thunder cracks quick on its heels, sharp and clear as your family's voices in the kitchen, and all your cousins jump. You blink the afterimage from your eyes and grin, despite your cousins' nervous muttering and Álarr rubbing his head where he cracked it against the leg of the bed behind him.

"How much longer will the storm last?" one of your younger cousins asks plaintively.

"Not past dinner," you say, and they believe you far more easily than the adults had. Some of them grumble at the prospect of spending the rest of the afternoon inside, but they find a bin of blocks shoved under a bed and soon it's forgotten in the race to build the tallest tower before Kel pulls out one of the bottom pieces and sends the whole thing tumbling down- and into the tower beside it, if he’s lucky. You retreat to sit by the window again after one too many elbows thrown your way, watching the storm until it fades and the sun breaks through the tattered clouds above.

Chapter Text

The grey mist clears only slowly from his eyes, and his thoughts return slower still. He hardly feels the rough bark of the log-bench he rests on beside a cold campfire, or the soundless wind that stirs the slender tree branches. Even his hands feel distant, numb as if from cold or from laying on them too long. He doesn’t recognize the encampment around him, larger by far than the Company would ever need and well-fortified. The banners and blazoned shields might declare it for Rohan, if not for the scattered signs of the White Hand, or for the dead, men and horses all.

He rises, and trembles when his knees nearly give out beneath him. His back aches, like something terribly cold has been pressed against it for far too long. “Hello?” he calls, but no one answers.

There is one long tent in the west of the camp, little different from any other to look upon, but it draws him in.

Inside, cots are laid out like an infirmary, supplies stacked on tables and in corners when they aren’t strewn across the cots. They are empty- all but one.

“Esterín!” The other bodies in the camp had been faceless, or as good as. Strangers, if they were the faces of real people at all. Esterín is neither dead nor faceless, though her face is twisted even in sleep and lined with heavy sadness. Her arm is bound tightly to her chest, and what he can see of her skin is marked with bruises and smaller scrapes.

“Esterín?” he tries again, but she does not stir. Candaith finds a stool and sits beside her, taking her good hand in his. Distantly, he knows this must not be real, not the way he sees it. He has read enough accounts of such dreams and visions of the dying to guess what this is if he cared to, is touched with just enough of the Sight of the Dúnedain to more than suspect. He had felt doom settle heavy on him when they had entered the deep chamber where the pale banners of the Mountain flew, and had resolved then that even if he was not meant to escape it, then at least his friend might. Surely she had not escaped the Oathbreakers only to be laid low here among strangers.

“You will be well,” he murmurs to her. “You will be.” You must. Please. Let anything of the Forsaken Road end well. Let them lose one fewer friend than it seems they must, before the end. Esterín does not reply, still and silent like her spirit has not joined him yet, here between home and what comes next. Perhaps he should be glad of that; if she is nearer the lands of the living, then that is all the better. He is glad of that. Mostly. Glad for her sake, but lonely, too, with only the dead he does not know for company, and no knowing what is to become of him. “I will wait with you as long as I may,” he says, though she cannot hear him. “Perhaps one day we will meet again, on the right side of things.” He can hope. There is little else to be done here but wait, and hope, and so he does.

Chapter Text

The wind off the lake in the shadow of Methedras is cold, remembering the ice in the heights and the snow on the peaks, but the fires are warm and enough of the people of Tûr Morva are welcoming that they can forget the wind, for a time.

Halbarad waves a greeting to Radanir, who has been in a foul mood for nearing three days now, and continues into the caves where Calenglad had said he would wait. Just inside the heavy door he finds a pile of crates, a familiar cloak draped over one of the stacks.

“Oh! Hello, Ranger,” calls one of the Hebog-lûth girls with a bright smile. “Your friend told me you would be coming; he said he would help Maelona carry some of these crates down into the drier tunnels and join you as soon as he could.”

Halbarad thanks her and steps back outside, the cool air sharp enough to bite but still preferable to the stuffiness of the caves near the entrance. A small bird lands on a low stone wall nearby and looks at Halbarad inquisitively, as if he has some news for it. The Sun comes around the shoulder of the mountain and he lets his hood down, content to soak in whatever warmth she will provide this time of year. Someone calls out once elsewhere in the village. It’s peaceful.

Esterín and Lothrandir pass him, deep in quiet conversation, and enter the caves. Golodir enters the caves as well, bearing a tray of sweet-smelling tarts that steam in the mountain air, stopping just long enough to make a face at Halbarad when he swipes one.

“If you see Calenglad,” Halbarad adds as an afterthought, “tell him I’m only waiting on him.” Golodir eyes him carefully.

“Anything urgent?”

“Next steps,” Halbarad answers. “I am growing anxious to move on.” Golodir nods, some faint wistfulness briefly touching his face, and goes.

Some time later, neither Calenglad nor Golodir have returned from the caves and Halbarad begins to frown. How deep in the caves can they be? Surely it should not have taken this long to move the crates, even if they made several trips.

“Halbarad?” Corunir’s voice stops him. Worried, though he tries to contain it. “Have you seen Golodir? He should have been back by now. Idele is getting impatient; she set aside a tray of berry tarts for him, but they’re getting cold just sitting out.”

“He went down into the caves perhaps an hour ago,” Halbarad says, worry growing in the back of his mind. “I haven’t seen him since.” Neither Esterín nor Lothrandir have come back, either. “Corunir,” he says, very quietly. “Is anyone else unaccounted for?” Corunir’s gaze snaps to him, sharpening at his tone.

“No one has been noticed missing yet,” he says after a moment’s thought. “But I haven’t seen Idhrien or Braigiar in some time, and there are fewer of us about than there should be for the hour.” Halbarad takes the handle of the thick, heavy door that keeps the howling of the wind on one side and the caves on the other. His other hand finds the hilt of his sword. Corunir takes up a position just behind him. “I have not seen the Brenin either,” he says. Halbarad nods grimly.

“Stay close.”

He had hoped it would not come to this. He had taken Lothrandir’s counsel with all the weight it merited, and with his own judgement he had thought the Falcon Clan sincere, even those who had nearly as little love for the Dúnedain as for the White Hand. He had dared, for just a moment, to believe they could find allies here as they had in Lhanuch, and now he can only beg whatever Powers may be listening that it was not the wrong choice.

Calenglad’s cloak is still draped over the crates. No more of them have gone down into the caves.

The upper cells are empty. Halbarad sweeps deeper into the damp caves, Corunir silent at his back and eyes alight with sharp-edged worry.

They come upon a fallen tray, small tarts scattered about and crushed underfoot. There is blood there, too. Halbarad draws his sword. Corunir curses softly behind him. “Go,” Halbarad says under his breath. Corunir turns a sharp look on him, protest already in his eyes. “Now,” Halbarad hisses. “Find anyone still free and leave the village. Find the Rohirrim in the Gravenwood.” Corunir’s eyes flick to the scattered apple tarts. “Corunir, there is no time.” He tries to gentle his voice. “I will find him. You are swifter than me; take everyone you can.” Corunir closes his eyes and whispers a vicious oath.

Someone shouts, deep in the caves, and then Halbarad is running, not looking back to see if Corunir heeds his command. Fear rises in Halbarad’s throat and he crushes it ruthlessly. There will be time enough for that later, but first he must know what has happened.

He turns a corner, and there are five Falcons against three of the Company with naked blades, and he throws himself at their backs sword-first.

But Tirneth still falls heavily to the ground, and more of the warriors of Tûr Morva come down into the caves behind him, and though in their surprise they lose hold of the sons of Elrond, the sound of the fighting draws more attention from other tunnels, and soon they are surrounded. Halbarad fights desperately, panic buzzing from the back of his neck to his sword-hand, but the Falcons are many and this is their territory, and at last someone crashes into the back of his knees and sends him to the ground. A knife is put to his throat and the others are commanded to stand down, and to his great despair, blades clatter to the mossy stone and they are hauled away, one by one, into cold, wet cells to await Lheu Brenin’s pleasure.

Chapter Text

The first sound that returns to you is the thundering of hooves. It’s so great it rumbles the floor of the cage, and beneath it and the jangling of heavy horse harness you can hear battlecries. You try to open your eyes. Nothing moves. Your arm. A foot. Nothing. You can huff a breath in frustration, though, and at the sound someone shifts under you. Someone’s holding you.

“Esterín?” Derufin calls uneasily. “Can you hear us?” You manage another annoyed sound. “Here, get her up-” There’s shuffling, and hands pulling you upright. With great effort, you at last pry your eyes open.

You are still in the cage. Derufin and Duilin are with you, Duilin’s arm in a crude sling against his chest and both of them bloodied and bruised. You shiver, and Derufin rubs at your arm.

“What’s happening?” you croak, and both faces staring too intently at yours sag with relief.

“The Swan-knights,” Duilin says. “They’ve driven off the wraiths, at least for now.”

“Hopefully they’re coming back for us sooner rather than later,” Derufin adds with a tight grin.

“The wraiths...? The Nazgûl? ” you demand suddenly, sitting up on your own and regretting it as your head spins worryingly.

“Not the ones in black,” Derufin says, “or the tall red one from the other day.” There were more than that in the field? you think, despairing. Who?

“We tried to fight after you collapsed,” Duilin says more seriously, “but against the red one...”

“We couldn’t touch him,” Derufin says. “There is some sort of truth in what he was saying in Osgiliath.” He says it almost accusingly, and maybe you should regret snapping at them in the stables but you are weary and you are still too angry to do as you think you ought.

“Too much,” you say, slumping against the cold iron of the cage. “Hopefully less than I fear.” You turn to them. “You are lucky you were not slain outright.” They trade uneasy glances and you sigh, thin and with terrible coldness. “What else?”

“He said he would find some use for us,” Derufin says. “We wouldn’t leave you alone with whatever he did to you, so he had us thrown in here all together.” You rather wish you could muster the energy to curse out Mordirith. There would be nothing new in it, but it would make you feel a little better.

“Thank you,” you say instead, “and I’m sorry.”

“Well,” Duilin says with forced cheer, “we aren’t dead yet are we?”

“There are worse things,” you say before you can think better of it. “The wraiths, the Nameless- trampled by a mûmak might be the least of it.” Their looks are dark, but you are right and you are tired and you are afraid, somewhere under it all. You had found Derufin and Duilin far from the rest of the archers of Morthond, separated and on foot, searching for mûmakil to feather with arrows. The beasts were charging in the distance, but you had come upon the boys on the other side of a great set of rolling holding cells from the charge, and they had followed you in search of stranger prey.

Even men who lived in the shadow of the Dwimorberg looked at the Nameless and backed away. They had returned, but they looked at the squirming darklings with revulsion and their bowhands had wavered before the monster barely restrained by the Morgul-sorcerers. After those things, the two Nazgûl had seemed nearly ordinary, cold and dreadful though they were.

The Nazgûl had been uninterested in you, though, and had abandoned their strange hissing fountains at the call of a great war-trumpet across the Pelennor. You can’t even say if they noticed you, and for that you are more glad than you can possibly say.

But Gothmog had waited beyond, and there he had turned something on you, and in your mind you had done battle alone.

“Who is this red one, Esterìn?” Duilin asks. “He seemed to know you personally.”

You heave a deep breath and wearily you face them. “He is a wraith. Lesser than the Nine, but more than dangerous enough. He is a lieutenant of the Witch-king- or, he was- and was his regent in Angmar until a few months ago. He-” you hesitate, then, and wonder how much you should say, and how much you have time for, and how much is true. “He was a man, once.”

“Are they all like that?” Derufin asks, as if you are some storyteller and not just as much a prisoner of the False King as he.

“Do you know who?” Duilin adds.

“It’s the nature of wraiths, yes,” you say. “...he was from Gondor.”

Eärnur is still a beloved figure in the kinds of tales often told to young boys. With everything the wraiths had said on the field, it’s enough for them to put it together. They fall silent, and you sit in uncomfortable quiet until the jingling of the harness of heavy cavalry returns. You tend to Duilin’s arm while they slow; your whole body protests the pull of the runes, as if you had used up all your strength in truth while trapped in Mordirith’s strange illusions.

“Prince Imrahil!” Derufin calls. The man at the cavalry’s head turns, his high feather plume streaked with soot.

“What have you boys gotten yourself into this time?” he asks, reining in near the cage. He nods to you and you wave tiredly.

“Long story,” you say dryly, and Derufin and Duilin shrug concession. “What’s the state of the battle?” Some of the knights behind the Prince look at you askance, but Imrahil answers readily.

“Ships that should have belonged to Balakhôr arrived some two hours ago,” he says, and you start at the realization of how long has passed. “They landed not far from here; you were brought nearly to the Causeway Forts.” You do start at that, paling at the thought of what Goth- Mord- the wraith had in store for you. You knew you had come into the southern half of the Pelennor by the time you met Derufin and Duilin, but you had not thought you were so close to the Harlond.

“Ah,” Imrahil says, “some of them are here now from the ships.” And you look up, and a familiar voice is calling your name in concern and surprise, and you sag with relief to see Golodir standing there.

“Stay back,” Derufin says sharply after introductions are made, pulling you back from the rusty bands of the cage and glaring at Golodir and you make a small sound of protest. “This is the one Gothmog spoke of?” This he directs at you, still watching a confused Golodir with naked hostility.

“Esterín?” But you’re shaking your head already, twisting away from Derufin to reach through the cage for Golodir’s arms because he’s here and you have been terrified for him since you left him in Pelargir and you had feared he- you had feared.

“He was wrong, ” you say vehemently. “And he lies. He knows nothing .”

“Esterín, what are you talking about?” Golodir says, returning your desperate grip with great concern. Duilin reaches for you with his good arm but you twist sharply aside. Please, don’t let him have heard, you think, for all the good delaying it can do. Not yet.

“Gothmog,” you say, swallowing hard. “He- one of Sauron’s lieutenants below the Nine. He has command of much of their forces now. He... we saw him in Osgiliath. He claimed that he could not live while...” And you nearly can’t bring yourself to say it, but Derufin and Duilin are still bristling with well-intentioned wariness and they will not be so kind, and so the cage is struck open and you fly out of it to hug Golodir and hide your spinning head against his shoulder, and you whisper: “It’s Mordirith.” Golodir stiffens. He tries to pull away but you cling more tightly to him. “Golodir, I’m sorry,” you whisper pitifully. “I don’t know how. Some of the things he said, today and in Osgiliath... I do not believe them.”

“Esterín, you must explain yourself,” Golodir tries. To Derufin and Duilin he says: “What happened to her?” And you don’t care for the worry there, even if you know you must be acting bizarrely, and everything hurts and you can see all too clearly the things Mordirith showed to you in the Breach of Terror.

Grudgingly, the sons of Morthond answer, and terrible concern wars with some fearful anger you have not seen since Angmar in his face- but you are here before him, and Mordirith is not, and so the worry wins out, at least for now, and he leads you away, back towards the burnt-out farmhouse where the rest of the Grey Company waits. Derufin and Duilin trail unhappily after you, but when neither Golodir nor your other friends show any sign of manifesting an angry eight-foot wraith after hours and the enemy retreats from the field, they return to the city with other scattered soldiers of Gondor. You, despite your best efforts, can hardly keep your feet, and are kindly but firmly made to sit and rest, watching everyone else shuffle this way and that as they try to bring some order to the blood-soaked fields. You surprise yourself by sleeping that night, but perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising, with so many of your friends gathered close for easy comfort. Explanations will be had in the morning.

Chapter Text

You go walking on your own, into the grey misty rain a little after dawn, east out of Loeglond and along the lakeshore. The birds are calling and the cattails bob in the gentle waves rolling in from the deeper waters. In the near-dark, the fog rises like smoke and the sunlight in the mists is like fire, and you used to love this sight but now all you can see is the refuge in the mountains, the fire and the smoke and Talagan before the library. The homes of Loeglond are greatly unlike the tall halls and the libraries of Edhelion, but they are close enough like this that you can hear the cracking of stone and wood again and you walk and walk and walk, and in your pocket you run your fingers over the careful, smooth lines of the simple lightning rune.

You might have thought to walk to Lake-town, if you had planned this, but instead you had all but fled your home when you could not sleep, and though your eyes itch and the thought of lying down to rest seems more wonderful than anything else, you wander along the muddy banks in search of some reassurance you do not know the shape of.

Your family doesn’t know how to treat you, now. You don’t know what to tell them, either. You are different, you are different, and home is not and your not-fitting is a sharper thing now, one that cuts even in the walls of your father’s house. They try gentleness and you can’t bear it, being treated almost like a child again, and they try to ignore it and you can’t pretend nothing’s changed, not for their sake or for your own. They have asked, all of them, what you want or what you need, but all you can say is I don’t know, I don’t know. You can’t see yourself clearly enough. You know you’ve changed, but you can’t quite put the words to how . Telling the story is not enough on its own for any of you to understand.

You walk along the Long Lake until you come to a shallow inlet, still and nearly undisturbed by the gentle rain. You find a large rock beneath the overhang of an old and weathered tree, and you pull your knees to your chest and stare out at the lake alone.

The rain persists long into the morning, slowly soaking you even in the shelter of the tree, and soon you start to shiver. You should go back, you think, but you do not move, not until the man arrives, footsteps whispering over the mud as if it has no hold on him.

“Hello there,” he says, and you blink blankly at him. “What are you doing out here?”

“I don’t know,” you say. “Watching.”

“For what?” the man asks- and you think he’s a man, dressed like the people of Lake-town, brown hair long enough to cover his ears but far shorter than most of... most of your people. There’s something almost elvish about his face, though, the weight and the subtle proportions and the way he nearly seems lit from within, just a little too clear and too visible to be a human in this weather. You shake your head and try not to stare so rudely.

“I don’t know.” For the next great fall, or the next task, or the next day. You had grown used to a routine that does not hold here, and though there are things enough to be done on the rafts, it leaves your mind far too free to wander.

The man sits beside you. You look at him sidelong. “I won’t intrude, if you do not wish it, but I would talk with you if you would.”

“What about?” you ask, a frown pulling at your brow.

“Anything at all,” he says. “I do not often have the opportunity to speak as much as I would like with those who live along my shores.” Your frown deepens, something stirring in the depths of your memory, distant and foggy as the world around you. A story in your mother’s voice.

“Who are you?” you ask, and he only smiles and gestures out at the lake.

“You seemed troubled,” he says. “And I thought that perhaps you would like a friend. It’s a lonely sort of day.”

He stays with you for hours, though you speak only in brief fits, without purpose or direction, and he listens patiently, asking little and not prodding when you go silent.

“I would dearly love to cut my hair short,” you say as noon approaches. “Not for mourning, but for the feel of it.”

“Why don’t you?” he asks, and you shrug.

“It wouldn’t be worth the questions,” you say.

“Would Edhelion not be reason enough for those who know of it to understand?” You pause.

“I have never had it short,” you say.

“Would you like to?”

“....yes.”

You don’t know where he produces the tools from. Wherever creatures such as he create their forms for this world. You sit silently on the stone as your hair falls away, and you marvel at the lightness of it and the soft curl of it against the side of your face and the warming mist on the back of your neck, and for the first time in too long you smile. It isn’t how things are done, usually, but it feels too much better for you to care. You mourn what was lost in the Blue Mountains, yes, but never had you thought to do so publicly like this. If people assume that is what this is, well, that is for them to think. You don’t care.

“It’s a little thing,” he says, so quietly you doubt it’s meant for you at all. “But most beginnings are.” He brushes the last loose hairs from your shoulders and nudges you over the edge of the stone to see your reflection in the still water. “You greatly resemble your mother like this,” he comments, and you whirl to stare at him. He smiles. “I have been a friend to the people on these waters for many years. I don’t show myself often, but I know many of the folk here.”

You talk with him well into the day, after that, and the sun burns away the worst of the mist once the rain eases, and you sit and talk and walk a short ways along the lake with its guardian. You think he enjoys the conversation. You hope so. He doesn’t much resemble most of the tales you have heard of him, but he is kind, as they say, and he laughs easily and lets you ask far too many questions, even if some of his answers are rather opaque.

You don’t tell many of the meeting, even years later, but you hold it close to your heart. You tell your father, and he believes you easily and goes out alone on the lake the next day, a small offering in the style of the men of Lake-town in hand like you haven’t seen him do in a very long time. You almost think it’s strange, how many ways the spirit reminds you of your mother, but perhaps there is reason enough for that.

It’s centuries before you see him again, but even then he remembers you, and you smile, and talk with him long into the night.

Chapter Text

She stumbles out of the valley and by some miracle nothing troubles her on the way. She comes to the lake and looks up towards the doors, looks back at her trail. Is she leaving obvious signs behind her? She can’t tell. Her eyes won’t focus and she can barely set one foot straight in front of the other. Can’t lead them back to the caves. She rounds a boulder and trips. Her arms shake as she pushes herself up and shrinks under an overhanging rock. Just a moment of rest. Then I can go back. Have to be careful about it though. She lets her head sink down to her chest.

Corunir is on watch with Lunathron at the top of the steep, hidden path to Gath Forthnír when they catch sight of a shape down below, on the shores of the lake. It seems to be staring at them. After several minutes, it rounds a boulder and vanishes.

“That could be bad,” Lunathron says blandly.

“I’ll go,” Corunir says. “You alert the others?”

“Est? Hey, Esterín. Can you hear me?”

She blinks and jerks back, saved from slamming her own head into rock by Corunir’s hand, curled gently around her head as he tried to wake her. He bites off a curse as his hand is crushed between head and stone.

“Corunir?” Her voice is raspy and weak. She clears her throat. “What’s going on?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that.” She doesn't move to sit up, just sits there and stares at him with eyes just a little too wide. “Est?”

“I’m not… not sure. Couldn’t lead anyone back so I stopped to take… take a rest. Be more careful afterwards.”

“Are you hurt?” Corunir’s brows knit together and he looks her over, searching for blood or obvious injury, one hand still at her head. He had not been told what it was, precisely, that had taken her into Nan Gurth, but Golodir had gazed after her in unhappy silence and ordered a more stringent watch be kept until she returned.

“I don’t think. Sore, but I think I’m… ok.”

Corunir eyes her doubtfully. “You sure?”

“Tired. Head’s a mess. But I think so.” Corunir takes her face gently in both hands and holds her eyes. They won’t focus on him for more than a few seconds before she has to blink hard and force them back to him. There’s no obvious injury, but something is so clearly not right.

“You’ll be alright, Est. Promise.” Please. You have to- you will be. The force of the thought surprises even him.

“Alright.” Her eyes drift again.

“Hey.” Back to him. “Do you believe me?”

“Of course.” And she sounds so offended that it startles a smile out of him.

“Come on. Let’s get back to the caves.”

“I’m…”

“Est?” She shakes her head.

“Just… give me a minute. Can’t do questions yet.”

“Alright.” He pulls back to give her space, but her hand grabs his and holds it against her cheek and she closes her eyes. After only a few minutes, her grip starts to slip and she leans forward until her forehead rests against his shoulder.

“... did you just fall asleep on me?”

No answer. He huffs a laugh and runs a hand over her hair. “Alright, come on.”

She barely stirs as he carries her back to Gath Forthnír, just curling towards him as if hiding from something. Lunathron shoots them a worried glance but Corunir waves an all clear and takes Esterín inside.

Chapter Text

Nona pushes her hair back out of her face again. “This one should do it, then.” Horn leans over her shoulder and points at a different card.

“No, try this one.”

“No, that’s how they beat us last time- they have the counter.”

“They might not have it this time.”

“You don’t know that, and if they do, we lose.”

“I don’t think they-” Horn pushes his hair back, too. “I don’t think they do. Your card won’t be enough whether they have the counter or not.”

“And if they do have it, we lose outright.”

“It’s a chance we should take.”

“They’ve had it the last three rounds, Horn.”

Esterín and Corudan trade looks. Esterín’s cards are held carelessly in one hand while Corudan’s are held very properly before his chest. Nona squints at them.

“They have the counter,” she says, and plays her first choice.

“You should listen to Nona, Horn,” Corudan says solemnly. “She is wise.” He plays a card from his own hand. Horn throws down a counter to it with a wide smile- and so has nothing to play against Esterín’s card when she reverses the turn order and plays an offensive card of her own. “Not that it would save you,” Corudan adds serenely as Horn and Nona both groan, dropping their cards in yet another defeat.

“They must be cheating,” Horn says as Nona combs her hair out of her face yet again. “There’s no way they’re just this lucky.”

“We simply have an abundance of experience with the game that you lack,” Corudan says. Esterín barely keeps herself from snorting. She had learned this from Cúcheron while they waited in the Haunted Inn for Raddir’s word to start the journey through the Drownholt barely two months before.

“An abundance of experience cheating perhaps,” Horn mutters. Nona rolls her eyes.

“You wound me, Horn,” Corudan says, a hand to his chest. “Would any warrior of Lothlórien stoop so low as to cheat at a game of cards among friends?”

“If they could do so without being caught, I daresay they would,” Nona says, watching Esterín collect and reshuffle the cards. “I expected better of you, though, Esterín.”

Esterín laughs. “You think too highly of both me and my card-skill. I wouldn’t recommend playing any sort of gambling game with Saeradan,” she adds after a moment. “His luck is even more suspicious than Corudan’s.”

“Surely you don’t believe I am cheating too, Esterín,” Corudan demands. Esterín grins impishly.

“I believe I have not seen you cheating.”

Horn blows hair out of his eyes. “One more game.” Nona groans. “We’ll beat them this time.”

“I admire your persistence, Horse-lord.”

“See, I do have at least one redeeming quality.”

“I wouldn’t go that far…”

Esterín laughs to herself and begins the next round. They’re partway through the second round after that when Horn straightens abruptly, hair flying into his eyes again. “This is ridiculous.” He hands Nona his cards and digs in his pack. “Do you want one?” He holds up a tie and Nona glances over distractedly from both hands of cards.

“Yes, gladly.” Horn holds one tie between his teeth while he gently pulls Nona’s hair back. “I think this one first,” she says while he ties her hair, trying to indicate a card with both of her hands full of other cards. “Then this from my hand.”

“Counters?” Horn follows her gaze, tying his own hair.

“This one.”

Horn takes his cards back. “Alright. Let’s try it.”

They don’t win that hand, or the next.

“That may be enough for tonight,” Esterín laughs as the night draws on.

“One last hand.” It’s Nona suggesting it this time, glaring intently at the deck. “The last one, I swear.”

Esterín sighs. “Fine, if we all agree.”

It’s worth the two additional hands they play just to see the look on Corudan’s face when Horn and Nona finally do pull off a victory, cheering loud enough to startle the birds from a nearby tree and embracing each other as if they just won some great battle. Esterín grins and elbows Corudan.

“What now, my friend?’

“I will simply have to pay more attention next time,” he says, as dignified as if he stood before the Lady Galadriel. “But for now, I believe it is my watch.” And he takes up a position beyond the light of the fire to definitely not pout about losing at cards despite cheating outrageously.

Chapter Text

They return to Bâr Randir in the warm afternoon, the sunlight filtered gold and green through the first changing leaves. It will be cooler come night, but for now they shed their cloaks and outer layers gladly, lounging in the grass and losing themselves in easy chatter while they tend to their equipment.

It’s only when Corunir cringes at the rasp of a whetstone on steel that Esterín looks at him more closely. He’s at the edge of their loose circle, in the shadow of the building and half turned away, speaking only sparingly, something drawn tight in his face even at the inoffensive noise. She sets down her half-mended bag and crouches beside him.

“Corunir?” she asks softly. He offers her a wan, pinched smile and sighs just as quietly. Her eyes go almost involuntarily to the scar that only just shows beneath his hair, then back to his face in question. He ducks his head in admission and she takes his hand and draws him up. “Leave it,” she says when he reaches for his scattered gear. “I’ll come back for it.” She waves briefly to Braigiar and the others and tugs Corunir gently into Bâr Randir.

He slumps against the wall the moment they are beyond the reach of the sun, pressing his forehead to the cool stones. “You could have said,” she says idly, keeping only the lightest of touches against his arm.

“It wasn’t all that bad yet,” he protests, but he doesn’t open his eyes. He lets Esterín duck under one arm and pull him along, down the familiar halls to her own room. “I wanted to enjoy the afternoon while I could. This weather won’t last much longer.” Esterín frowns.

“Can you much enjoy it at all like this?” He shrugs.

“As much as I could enjoy being anywhere else when it gets bad.” Esterín only hums noncommittally and stops before her door. Corunir blinks his eyes open with a wince and pulls away.

Her room here is small, not much more than bed and table and a wide chest, but it’s hers. Her only great regret is the lack of windows, tucked on the inside of the circular hall on this level rather than the outside, but days like this it’s something of a blessing. It’s cool, and dark, and far from the noise of the common areas or the yards outside- and far nearer than Corunir’s own home deeper in Dol Halcalan. Corunir sits heavily on the edge of the bed and rests his elbows on his knees, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. Esterín calls forth a small, dim light and keeps the bulk of her body between it and Corunir, searching through her desk by feel more than anything.

She’s gotten much better at this, the cooling rune, tucking a small, round stone carved with tight, narrow lines into a sleeve of fine sand or dried beans. She doesn’t often use it for herself, whatever pain she would seek to soothe too often driving her to distraction beyond the careful control required to keep it only cool and not cold, letting in no more than a breath of winter to chill the weighted sleeve. It’s terribly useful for this, though, especially when so little else seems to help. Corunir droops over himself more and more while she watches, waiting for the cool to spread through the bag. It always seems to get so much worse all at once, leaving him quiet and oversensitive and strangely pale, flinching back from noise and light and even gentle touches, and there is so little she can do but let him alone to sleep the worst of it off. It comes like this more rarely, now, but Esterín never fails to feel wildly insufficient.

She touches his shoulder gently, letting the light die away, but his teeth are still clenched against the great pain she knows is growing in his head. “Lie down,” she says softly, holding out the cold sleeve, and it never really is a reassuring thing when he goes unprotesting, nearly falling flat with a long exhale and letting her lay the bag over his eyes. He catches her wrist in a weak grip before she pulls away entirely, squeezing once before letting her go. “Sleep,” she says, and leaves him to rest.

Chapter Text

The Fords of the Isen are quiet, the river running reddish-brown even in the shallow places, the camp on the hill in ashes and stones heaped in piles like grave-cairns over the drier places. They look down upon the trampled, muddy banners and the broken armor caught on the river stones. A heavy quiet hangs over them all.

The others might be thinking of the Company’s allies, of the long search that surely awaits them here if they are to find their Chieftain, of what it means that battle came here so certainly and so violently. Of the long shadow of Orthanc that reaches down the valley to the north. Of Esterín.

She rode away with the Prince of Rohan. Faeron calls from the eyot that he has found Théodred’s helmet.

Surely she did not come here and die, Corunir thinks, gripping his horse’s reins too tightly while he searches the shallows for any sign of their dear friend. But surely she would not have gone easily if she had had it in her head to protect the Prince or his men. None of the horselords had returned to the Gravenwood- but no, Braigiar had said he saw her, hadn’t he? That there had been a battle, and she had been injured but had survived, and she had gone across the mountains with Nona and into Rohan. She had not returned to them, not even in passing, and he finds the thought stings- but then, they had sent her away, hadn’t they? She had not returned smiling from her conference with Halbarad and Saeradan, and two days later she was gone.

But even Braigiar is looking around the Fords in dismay, and that does not lift Corunir’s heart any more than the clouds in the distance.

“There are riders to the north,” Elladan calls from the burnt-black hill overlooking the crossing. A charred timber that may once have been the palisade falls with a hollow thump. “Rohirrim, I think. They make for Isengard.” And there they have another friend, and they gather eagerly at Halbarad’s command and ride, gathering speed at the bidding of unspoken urgency until a stranger’s voice calls out to stop them- until familiar laughter comes to them on the wind with a thunder of hooves and Halbarad dismounts, and even from here they can tell he is smiling.

He doesn’t recognize her, for a moment, dressed in the style of Rohan and sliding down from a horse that is not Lakewind, her carved star gone- but she spent long enough beside them that they know her smile and the way she slips between them, falling easily into tight hugs and grasping white-knuckled hands. She stops before Corunir and almost- almost- he dares to think she seems a little lighter than she had when she left them. But she crashes into his hug and she is warm and alive and... lifting him up. He makes a small sound of surprise and she drops him the scant two inches back to the ground, and steps away as if surprised herself, and then someone else calls her name and she is moving on, and for just a moment he thinks manic. In her wake there trails the faint sensation of the air after summer rain, damp and fresh and still rumbling with distant thunder. Like the feel of her healing, almost, but directionless and just a bit charged, as if the rain will come again before too long.

He tries to catch her again, but the Rohirrim ahead are growing impatient and all the Company wants to speak with her, and Corunir falls to the back of their party beside Golodir, watching Esterín and her too-bright eyes, and her sharp and brittle composure that grows only sharper and brittler the nearer they draw to the Ring of Isengard.

Chapter Text

Many of them learned a word or two from Esterín after the Forsaken Road, and it’s already served them well. Lorniel only wishes she could have begged a few more from her friend before this.

Maybe it’s for the best, she thinks, tying the ragged mess of her braid back from her face. At least it’s long enough to tie back by now. If she could heal half so well as the great elven masters, she would have been found out long before now. As it is, Esterín’s simple runes are enough to keep her in fighting shape, and enough to save one or two other prisoners who were victims of machinery or mistreatment rather than exhaustion. That has nearly gotten Lorniel caught more than once, but so long as she’s managed to escape, the uruks have remained none the wiser. None of the prisoners she’s aided have turned her over.

Not yet.

She’s mapped the ironworks of Isengard thoroughly by now, found a dozen fascinating prisoners who aren’t Esterín or Lothrandir, and generally made herself a nuisance. This place is far smaller than Angmar, and she has far fewer people to worry about. She learned quite well how to hinder the march of war from hiding in the north.

Corunir always did accuse her of being a troublemaker.

She can’t claim credit for the explosion that had thrown the Ring into chaos, though- and she hasn’t seen Esterín since. Hopefully that means she escaped. At least one of them must. If the rest of the Company remains in the caves of Methedras, she will be sorely needed.

Too large an if for Lorniel’s liking- all the more so for their continued imprisonment being perhaps the best outcome they can expect. Those caves were warrens worse than these- here, the winding ways served a purpose, not just the whims of the elements. Escape? It’s possible , but it was, technically, possible in Angmar, too, but even the dwarves of Gabilshathûr hadn’t made it out.

Trapped, again. Too many of her company- the Lost Company, they were called, back among their own people for the first time in a decade- are captive again, if not dead outright. Stars preserve them, her father is caged again, who should never have seen chains again, and Lorniel is stuck here , haunting the tunnels of a Wizard’s war machine with nothing but Pinachar and bloody knuckles for company.

She wishes she could have spirited Esterín and Lothrandir away with her when they were hurled from the wagon into the Ring of Isengard. She wishes she could have done a thousand other things before that, but this is what she has to work with now. Her manacles had come loose, poorly made and improperly secured, and their captors never had searched hard enough to find Pinachar. She knifed the nearest of them, and Esterín and Lothrandir had made such a fuss she’d been able to slip into the shadows- alone.

She’d never had the chance to free them both at the same time; the Wizard was keen enough to keep them separate, and neither would leave while the other remained. It would be a touching display of loyalty, if it weren’t keeping all three of them here far longer than they could afford. (No, Lorniel would not be doing the same if she were one of the ones imprisoned, she insists to the suspiciously Corunir-like voice in her mind. Not even if one of the others were her father.)

(Sure, not-Corunir says.)

The smoky caverns rumble- more than just the footsteps of trolls- and Lorniel curses under her breath. Damn it all. She knows where the Wizard has kept Lothrandir since the explosion. She’ll have no chance of returning to this wraith-like haunting she’s been doing if she hopes to reach him, but it won’t matter after that. They are leaving , and they will not look back until they’ve dragged every one of their kinsmen from the Falcons’ prison-caves.