In which there is bonding, sparring, plotting, and Aragorn realizes that the end of the world has been a good thing for a few of them.

Théoden was miserable.

Having so misjudged Éowyn shamed him, but it was simply the latest in a long line of his failures, stretching back over a decade now.

He was too restless to stay in his rooms, but neither could he bear company. Finding solitude here was now quite difficult, even at this late hour, for the Elves did not sleep as mortal Men did.

His wandering feet eventually carried him to the very furthest reaches of the caves – to a small waterfall that splashed into an equally small but noisy creek. But for his lantern, all was dark, which matched his bleak thoughts. He stared into the water, feeling more lost than he could ever remember.

"Do not curse yourself so, Théoden King."

He looked up, startled. Though he had not heard her approach, the Lady of Lórien stood before him. She carried no light, but there was a faint, pale radiance about her. "I am an old man and a fool," he said bitterly.

Her lips twitched into a faint smile. "To me you are not old," she said. "And while you have been misguided, you are not a fool. Your thoughts are simply trapped in the world that was, and long did you suffer under Saruman's power."

Théoden did not know how she could know that, but the ways of the Elves were mysterious. "My son died while I was in Wormtongue's thrall," he said, more bitterly still. "He died and I did nothing. Saruman made of me a puppet."

Lady Galadriel sat beside him, her bare white feet just touching the surface of the water. "There are few in this world who can resist the power of Saruman," she said. "Do not think ill of yourself because you could not. He fooled us all."

That…was oddly comforting, though he did not think it should be. "I cannot blame him for how badly I misjudged my sister-daughter."

"No," she said simply, "you cannot. But you know her better now, and dwelling on your mistake will not aid either of you. I know the ways of your people better than Thranduil – I know you wished to use her marriage to forge an alliance with what remains of Dale. But the world is changed now: we are all allies already." She gave him a shrewd, piercing look. "You feel now like a king without a kingdom. Lord Elrond, my husband, and I understand that feeling quite well. But your people remain your own, and always will. It is you they will look to, not Thranduil. You are not useless, whatever you might think."

"Are you reading my thoughts, my lady?"

She smiled, and it was gentle and warm, like a summer dawn. "I do not need to," she said. "You wear them openly. You must understand, King Théoden, I am the oldest Elf in Middle-Earth, but for one. Until the storm, there was very little I had not seen at least ten times over. Saruman is your problem no longer – nor, I think, will he ever be again."

Théoden devoutly hoped she was right. "How old are you, my lady?"

"I have lived a little over ten thousand years in Middle-Earth," she said. "Give or take a century or two. When you live as long as an Elf, it is somewhat easy to lose track."

Théoden stared at her. He knew the Elves were more or less immortal, but to speak to one so very old…no wonder he seemed so young to her. "We must all be mere children to you."

"Yes and no," she said. "Your lives are so painfully brief to us, but you pour more into them than many of us do in a thousand years. The race of Men is unique, I think, in that you can adapt in ways neither the Eldar nor the Dwarves are capable of. You have to, or your lives would be over before they began."

"The children already have," he said. "They move about as though they were born here, and I hear them practicing the Elven tongue to one another. They at least might wholly recover from this nightmare." They might no longer truly be Rohirrim, but they would live, and with luck, they would thrive. He could wish for no more than that – that his people continue, however differently.

"Your niece had set herself a task, before the sword passed to her," Galadriel said. "She was recording the lore of your people, so that it would not be lost to time. Perhaps you could take it up in her stead."

"Perhaps I will." His people needed to remember who they were, even as they moved forward. He also needed to make certain Éomer was not over-wounded – he and his sister had been close once, and he was almost certainly cursing himself for a fool over all he had said. "Thank you, my lady. You have given me an ease of mind I did not think to find again."

The guards did not want to let Gandalf out, but there was no stopping a wizard when he had his mind set on something. He felt that everyone was spending entirely too much time being happy they were safe, and not paying nearly enough attention to the outside world. Someone had to do it, and it seemed that someone was him – whether Thranduil's guards liked it or not. If nothing else, the Ents needed warning about the Memories.

He went out the gate at sunset, and found the air still sweltering and sticky with humidity. Of course the Ents would not mind it; indeed, those he could see appeared quite happy. Treebeard himself was standing contentedly by the gate, surveying the wreck of the forest.

It had changed quite a bit. The felled trees had been cleared away, stacked into high walls that ran further than Gandalf's eye could see. Those that still stood now had better access to light and air, and if given a chance, they might well flourish. Certainly there was no more murk in Mirkwood.

"You've been busy," he said, leaning on his staff and peering up at Treebeard from beneath the brim of his hat.

"The dead cannot climb," Treebeard said simply. "Living, hmm, things might grow again, if the dead stay out."

Gandalf was quite certain Thranduil would have asked this favor of the Ents, had they not already done it. He wished he need not give them such ill news. "The dead are not our only problem," he sighed.

"Mmm, I know." Treebeard's bright eyes assessed him keenly. "I feel them, whatever they are. Alien and angry and comprised of pure malice. They will not enter here."

Gandalf wished he shared that certainty. He supposed he ought not have been surprised that the Ents would sense the Memories, however far away they were. "They, I think, can climb," he said.

It was difficult to tell with an Ent, but he would swear Treebeard almost smiled. "Still they, hoom, will not enter. They do not belong in a world of life – perhaps enough life might prove too much for them. What will happen to Erebor I cannot say, but this part of the Greenwood they will not sully."

Gandalf had his doubts, but he kept them to himself. There was no reason to destroy Treebeard's optimism yet.

Aragorn spent several days fussing – and there was no other word for it – over Arwen, before she eventually grew fed up. She was wounded to the heart, she told him (mostly gently), but he should know better than to treat her like an infant or a glass doll.

"You were out there so much longer than I," he sighed. She had lost her home, and so many of her people – something the Rohirrim could relate to, in truth. Imladris and its people had been his, too, but he had not watched them die. "I can only imagine what you endured."

"It was beyond a nightmare," she agreed, but her voice was calm. "We are here now, though, and we will heal, in time. But Estel, you cannot coddle me. If I do not face our losses now, I never will."

He took her hand in his. "I know," he said. "But sometimes I feel that your arrival was but a dream, and that I will wake to find you gone." It was not an admission he made lightly.

"I am going nowhere," she said, giving him a slight smile. "Not yet. But I can sit still no longer – let us go to my grandmother's garden." She rose, and he followed her out into the corridor, still hand-in-hand.

They were unlikely to find any solitude there, though there would at least be less of a crowd. Thranduil's halls, which had seemed vast even with the massive influx of Lothlórien's population, felt much smaller now – especially now that so many of the Lórien Elves had recovered enough to want to move about. Once everyone had settled, Aragorn predicted friction between Thranduil and the other leaders; indeed, he was surprised there had not been more already. It was no secret that Thranduil had little regard for Lady Galadriel in particular – but then, Aragorn had gathered that they had both suffered the same trauma when the Lórien Elves arrived. That would have greatly changed things.

He had not witnessed what they had been forced to do in the healing wards, but he did not need to. He knew enough of the Kinslayings to understand the enormity of it; all the more so because Galadriel had been there for the first of them. Thranduil had not, but he would have a very personal understanding of it now.

The gardens, Aragorn found, were not precisely crowded, but neither were they empty. Several of the Elves from Imladris were lying on the grass, though they could not be asleep, for their eyes were closed. Another group had found instruments, and were playing a soft tune that mingled with the babbling of the brook. Still more were at work in the vegetable patch, whispering words to encourage the plants to grow.

Far to the back were the red-haired Elf (who Aragorn had initially thought to be Thranduil's shadow), and the Lady Éowyn. Precisely what they were doing, he couldn't tell, but it appeared to involve much hopping from stone to stone, and a good deal of Rohirric cursing of such vehemence and vulgarity that he was hard-pressed not to laugh. He glanced at Arwen, who seemed as curious as he, so they went to observe.

"You have it in you to maintain your balance," the Elf – Tauriel, that was her name – said, as Éowyn pitched forward and landed on her knees with a particularly vicious oath. "You are over-thinking this."

"I'm not an Elf," Éowyn grumbled. "For you this might be as natural as breathing, but the only balance I have ever needed was enough to ride a horse."

"The boots will help, once you get the feel of them. Come, again."

Éowyn climbed back onto the rock, her face set with grim determination, ignoring her audience. Word of the sword's decision had spread swiftly – it was no wonder Tauriel was training her. However, it was patently obvious that the Elf had never trained a mortal. Aragorn knew his own advice would be of little use to Éowyn – he was far taller, and the Dúnedain were, on average, much stronger than other Men. Arwen, however, had sparred with him many a time, and had added to all he had learned from Elladan and Elrohir. She was not dressed for it at the moment, but perhaps she could be of assistance later. Her awareness of mortal limitations could be of great benefit.

Éowyn jumped again from stone to stone, her footwork unlike anything he had ever seen. Her boots really were unique – the soles thicker, with an angled tread designed to allow her to pivot. Pivot she did, trying to swing around and attack Tauriel from behind – ambitious, but also likely pointless, given Elven reflexes.

Sure enough, Tauriel turned, obviously expecting attack – but she obviously had not anticipated just what sort of attack. Rather than strike or kick, Éowyn launched herself at Tauriel, using the superior strength of her legs to knock them both off the stones.

Tauriel tried to twist out of her grasp, but Éowyn's grip was as relentless as the remoras of the Bay of Belfalas. The pair of them crashed to the grass, and though it audibly drove the breath from Éowyn, she laughed as she wheezed.

"Even Elves cannot always keep their balance," she gasped out, wiping her watering eyes on her sleeve.

Aragorn laughed. He could not help it. He had done that very thing to Elrohir, one day when his foster-brother was being exceptionally aggravating.

Arwen must have remembered it, too, for she laughed quietly as well. "Ada is wrong," she said. "We should pit her against Glorfindel. I would so dearly love to see her do that to him."

"That," Tauriel said, sitting up and clawing the hair out of her face, "was a dirty trick. All the more so because it worked. However, I would not try it against the foes that await outside."

"I know," Éowyn said, still wheezing. "But that is something we Riders are taught that I think Elves might not be, as you are so much harder to kill: we must be willing and able to recognize that there may come a time when the only way to defeat an enemy is to take him into death with you."

Tauriel's expression went extremely strange. "I could tell you a story about that," she said. "Another time."

Aragorn suspected he knew what that meant, even if Éowyn did not. Tauriel's love for Thorin Oakenshield's nephew was no secret – the tale had spread even to Rivendell. To watch the one you loved die would be enough to drive anyone to a suicide charge, Man or Elf.

Éowyn sobered. "I am sorry," she said. "If there is an old wound there, I did not mean to touch it."

"I know," Tauriel said, rising. "Take up your sword – I think that is quite enough of a balance lesson for one day.' She picked up her own practice sword, giving it a few swings to loosen her shoulders. When she looked at Aragorn, however, there was mischief in her eyes. "Lord Aragorn, you are mortal," she said. "Perhaps you can teach Éowyn what I cannot. She needs to practice against taller opponents anyway, as my lord so frequently reminds me."

Éowyn looked slightly alarmed at that – a sentiment which he echoed.

"Do not be afraid to knock her down," Tauriel added. "She is stronger than you might expect, as we have both discovered these last days, and she must learn. And Éowyn – just pretend he is your brother."

A grim, almost fey light entered Éowyn's eyes, and Aragorn wondered what Éomer had said to put in there. He glanced at Arwen, but found no help – she didn't need to tell him she though the idea had merit. There was no getting out of this without offering insult to Éowyn, who did not deserve it. No matter what her own misgivings, the Rohirrim were a proud race, and that pride would not allow her to back down.

He took the sword from Tauriel, but his unease only grew when Éowyn raised her own. It was far too long for her – why would the armorers not re-forge the real weapon? They must not have been able to, or she would not be practicing with such an oversized thing.

It was not that Aragorn thought her incapable, or thought her incompetent because she was a woman. The women of the Dúnedain fought every bit as well and fiercely as their men, but they too tended to be physically stronger and more durable than the Men of other lands. No matter Éowyn's skill, he had the sheer physical strength to seriously hurt her without meaning to – but if he went easy on her, he would only insult her, and do her a disservice when she went against a real opponent.

But Tauriel would not have suggested this if she did not think Éowyn could do it – and when he brought his sword around, he knew why. Éowyn parried it with shocking force, her weapon much heavier than it looked. She held and wielded it differently than a normal blade, no doubt out of necessity, using its weight to her advantage as she actually drove him back a pace with a series of well-placed blows.

She ducked his next swing, and her parry might have broken his arm if he'd been foolish enough to strike as though she held a normal weapon.

Less surprising was the kick she aimed at his knee. He knew that the Rohirrim were trained to fight with their entire body, not just their swords or bows, and it seemed Éowyn had not been taught so much to fight as to brawl. She ducked his next two strikes, actually using his superior height and reach against him. She was too close now to hit – he was going to have to kick her.

Kick he did, but barely; she dodged and rolled before his foot could fully connect with her thigh. Bounding to her feet, she laughed.

"I am not the first of the Rohirrim you have fought, am I, my lord?"

"No," he said, a little ruefully, "you are not. Tauriel is right – you fight dirty."

"Better to fight dirty than be dead," she said, dodging backward, assessing his next move.

"Yes, but you cannot get close enough to let one of the dead or Memories bit you," Tauriel called from the sidelines. "Hitting is of little use."

"What would happen if we bit them?" Éowyn wondered aloud, even as she ducked and parried Aragorn's next attack.

"No doubt you'd be poisoned," he said, and bit back a curse when her boot came down hard on his left foot. Instinct made him kick, using her weight as leverage to topple her over backward.

Éowyn did swear, but she was on her feet again in moments, digging her heels into the turf as she brought her monstrous weapon to bear down on him, and had he not reared backward, the blunt end of the blade might well have crushed his right hand. No, she was nowhere near as strong as he, but someone had to have started training her in ways around that some time before Tauriel had. She could not have learned so much in only a week. At this rate, the only way one of them would win would be if the other dropped of exhaustion – and there at least he knew he had the advantage. He genuinely wondered how long she could keep going as she was.

She finally yielded the fourth time she lost her footing. Her face was sheened with sweat and red from exertion, but her eyes were like stars, fierce and radiant and alive in a way that none but the Edain ever were.

"That, my lady, was well done," Aragorn said.

"More work on your balance and you will not be tipped over so easily," Tauriel added.

"Easily?" Éowyn said, in mock outrage. There was laughter in her eyes, and a moment later she gave voice to it. "You spar with Lord Aragorn, and tell me how easy it is."

"It is most emphatically not easy," Arwen said, with a small smile.

"Are you a warrior as well, my lady?" Éowyn asked, unwilling or unable to keep the excitement from her voice. The wreck of Middle-Earth might have destroyed the lives of most who lived upon it, but for the Lady Éowyn at least, opportunities had arisen.

"I might better be called a Ranger," Arwen said, giving him a fond look. "If a party is to be sent out soon, I will go with you."

Aragorn felt the blood drain from his face.

"My brothers are still out there, Estel," she said. "I will go out each time until we find them, or they find us."

Aragorn did not ask what she would do if it were their Memories that found her, though it was on the tip of his tongue to do so. Of course Arwen would have already thought of that. He could not stop her, and he was not nearly fool enough to try; if she went, so would he.

And Merry will go with Pippin, and Tauriel with Éowyn… If the chain went on like that, half the population of the Woodland Realm might venture forth. Given when had happened to the refugees from Imladris, he did not think that would end well.

As it turned out, Frodo agreed with him.

The surviving Fellowship, minus Gandalf, met that night in the wine cellar. While there was little true privacy to be had, everyone else here was much too drunk to remember (or possibly even hear) what they had to say.

"Sharley told us of the Memories," Frodo said. "More than I wanted to know. Sending an army against them would only create an army of Memories, for you cannot tell what they are right off simply by looking at them. Only a small group should accompany Lady Éowyn, or half of you might die."

"A small group including me," Pippin said firmly. His sparring with Glorfindel had left him stiff, and his skin already was a fantastic patchwork of bruises in various hues, but he looked inordinately pleased with himself.

"So long as you follow orders," Legolas warned.

"Of course I will," Pippin retorted, offended. "I'd like to come back alive, you know."

His good humor did not lighten Frodo's sobriety, however. "What is it, Frodo?" Aragorn asked.

"You did not see Sharley," he said. "I know not what she is now, but once she was mortal. The Memories killed her, and she still bears the scars." He drew his fingers along his arms, across his throat and over his face. "They tried to tear her to pieces. Pippin, I wish you wouldn't go."

"I have to," Pippin said. "I know I do, though I could not say why. I'll see if I can't find some mushrooms along the way. We need food here anyway."

That they did. Even the Lembas would not last forever, and then they might wind up eating one another.

"Then be careful. We have all only just found one another again. Not so long ago, I thought I would never lay eyes on any of you ever again."

His expression was haunted, and Aragorn thought that he, like Éowyn, had actually benefited from the end of the world. The horrible burden that had been laid upon him was gone; he could stay here in safety, with no more risk to his life than any of the rest of them. For Frodo there would be no long, brutal trek through the choking fumes of Mordor, no torturous climb to the summit of Mount Doom. How many others had had their fate shifted to some better course by the storm?

The idea of his own destiny had always sat ill with him. All his life he had known he was meant to reclaim the throne of Gondor, but now there might well be no Gondor – and if there was, trying to reach it would be suicide.

And that realization was strangely…freeing. He, Aragorn, was more than just the sum of his ancestors. Perhaps he might have enjoyed being king, but perhaps he might have hated it. He was a Ranger to his very bones, and if he did ever become King of anything, it would not be in the manner that had always been planned for him.

Would Arwen miss having the chance to be queen? He doubted it. In that, she was far easier to please than her father.

But then, it was not as though Elrond needed to worry about leaving her behind when he took ship. Until this was over – if it was ever truly over – no one would be reaching the Grey Havens alive. And even if they did, they would likely find all the ships had already gone. The Eldar still left in Middle Earth were here for the duration.

"We'll have to bring Bilbo something from Erebor," Pippin said, breaking through Aragorn's dark thoughts, "since he can't go himself. We ought to bring your father, Gimli."

Had Legolas been mortal, he likely would have choked on his wine. Even as it was, he coughed a little. "No," he said. "You forget, Pippin, my father imprisoned him here. Gloin has little reason to love the Woodland Realm, even now, and my father can be…well. Thus far we have managed to avoid war within these halls, and I would rather it stay that way. Perhaps Bilbo would like a letter-opener, or a silver belt. Anything that is not a live dwarf."

"Will you stay there when you go, Gimli?" Merry asked, swiping the last mushroom off the plate he shared with Pippin.

"I will. Being so close to home, but unable to reach it…I haven't words for how hard it has been. Once we've cleared out these Memories, it might be that travel between the lands will be safe again. However long that will take. Lad, did that Sharley woman say it was possible to kill them all?"

Frodo looked up from his goblet. "She did," he said. "It can be done, so long as nothing keeps making new ones. They cannot breed, fortunately."

"At least there is some mercy still left in this accursed world," Gimli muttered. "I only wish we knew when an expedition might be led."

"Tomorrow." Gandalf appeared from behind a rack of barrels. He looked tired, but there was a strange curiosity in his glittering eyes. Something had intrigued him, and Aragorn wanted to know what.

"We have a visitor," the wizard said, in answer to his unasked question. "All who intend to travel with us must come and meet her."

Thranduil could not say he had not been warned that he might receive otherworldly guests, but it had not been warning enough for what he found in his study.

The halfling, Frodo, had mentioned two women: one who was dead, and one who might not be. What faced him now was neither. A child it was, or looked to be: age was difficult to guess with the Edain, but Thranduil would say she was perhaps five – a little girl with long hair as pale as his own, and strangely mismatched eyes. She would have seemed unremarkable, if not for the fact that she was very obviously dead. Her strange eyes were milky and clouded, and there was a great, tearing wound along her neck that disappeared beneath the collar of her shirt. No pulse beat in her throat; no breath stirred in her lungs, and yet she was not like the other dead he had seen. Her fëa was still strong, and almost blindingly bright, and in it was an echo of what she might have been, had she lived.

"Hi," she said, giving him a small wave. "Mama sent me to tell you she sent some of us into your woods to keep the Memories out, so you can grow food and stuff." Her accent was wholly unfamiliar to him, and she sounded as though she were speaking through a throat full of gravel. "Memories don't like us, but I'm s'posed to tell you not to try to kill us, too. It's annoying, and it stings. Aelis'll help you otherwise."

She pointed, and when Thranduil turned, he found a woman who could not have been there a moment ago. She too was unquestionably dead; small even by Edain standards, she looked like what was left of a sacrifice to some dark god. So much gore streaked her that she could not possibly have any blood left in her body – yet like the child, her fëa was still secure.

"You will have to forgive Marty," she said. "She is very much her mother's child, but she speaks truth. They – and I – are here to aid you, though I cannot linger long."

There was so much to say to that that for once Thranduil had no idea where to begin. It was only a mercy no one else was near, to see him shocked to speechlessness. "How did you get into my halls?" he asked at last.

She smiled, a little dryly and a little sadly. "I go where I am needed," she said, "and now I am needed here. Sharley has sent me to scout your world, that she might have a better idea what her sister intends to do with it."

"And she could not come herself? Why does she not simply claim this sister and drag her home?" he asked, a little irritably.

"She cannot. It would not be safe."

"For her?"

"For you," Aelis said flatly. "It is bad enough the Mother has entered your world. She alone tears at the fabric of reality, without intending to – should Sharley come, it might well rip apart entirely. It is also why their father cannot fetch her – but what news I bear must be told to your companions as well. Marty, go, and do not terrorize anyone on your way."

The child actually rolled her milky eyes, and vanished through the door.

This, Thranduil was certain, was going to be the strangest council he had ever called. And after all that had happened so recently, that was truly saying something.

Yup, they've got company. Company who will make sure they can actually eat later (something aside from each other).