Eowyn had not intended to sleep, but the quiet, even breathing of the injured men had lulled her eyelashes further and further until the room had been but a narrow slit of candlelight. She had sent the other healers to their beds, for all had been tended, and now there was little need of more than one to remain, to hear them if they called out for help in the night.

It had been the most exhausting and dismal day of her life. It was more bleak than the one before, when she'd thought Aragorn dead and all had waited for the Army that was bearing upon them with no real idea of what would take place, but an understanding it was a battle in which the odds were against them.

There had been one comfort in the long day. Earlier in the afternoon, Legolas had run into the infirmary with a child clinging to his neck. It was Haleth, son of Hama, King Theoden's first knight. Hama had been lost on the way to Helms Deep. Soldiers of Rohan, perhaps in memory of Hama, but more so for love of the future generation, had put themselves in the path of whatever harm had been coming to the boy. Legolas had pulled him from underneath the bodies of six men earlier in the day. The child had been spared of physical injuries, though he'd understandably been terrified by all he'd seen.

She had positioned herself at the child's beside in the night, holding his hand, for he was alone in the world, having lost his mother the year before. Eowyn knew very well what it meant to feel alone. So had she, for many bitter months, while the young men were away at war, while Grima had haunted her in the shadows of the Golden Hall and Theoden had looked at her through eyes that were not his own.

But this boy would not be alone, she determined. He was a hero of Rohan. She thought of the relief that had come upon her when the elf had carried him into the dark room where they tended the wounded.

Legolas' sharp features had been almost soft in wonder as he called for Aragorn to come tend to the child. His voice had been terse and fearful as if in the hardy young life, he'd found hope again and was almost frightened to believe in it. She wished that Aragorn might have found similar comfort, but though he tended the child with tender hands, his eyes remained dark and his mouth grim.

She'd wanted to shout at him, to shake him out of his despair and dangerous state of mind, but she had known that she could offer him no words that would outweigh what he'd seen and what he knew was still left to do. She left him to his brooding in the end.

She didn't remember dropping off to a doze as she kept her vigil there at the boy's side, but the hand that came down upon her shoulder startled her out of bloody dreams. Still within the grasp of them, she leapt to her feet and prepared to fight, to defend the child she watched over.

It was Legolas, Aragorn's dear friend, who stood there though, hands raised and open to show her he meant no harm, though as soon as she recognized him she would have known that well enough. This elf loved Aragorn as brother, and Aragorn loved him back as deeply, and had she known nothing else about him, that would have been enough. But she also knew that Legolas had stayed at Aragorn's side and fought for Rohan when there was no end but death in sight, and that the victory was as sweet and sorrowful for him as it was for any of the people of the Riddermark. Eomer had told her earlier of the elf's grief and rage and his maddened attempt to pull the dead bodies of the Uruk-hai away from his kindred.

"I am sorry, my Lord. I was taken off guard," she told him quietly and sat back down as Legolas looked to Haleth, as if still surprised that he'd discovered him alive after the bloody battle in the night.

"You have been on guard for too long. You do not take rest, Lady?" Legolas returned his gaze to her after a moment. It was gentle, understanding, soothing. She wondered if all the elves had this empathy about them for man, or if it was just this one.

She sighed, shaking her head. "There are others who have greater need. I cowered in the caves while the men did the work of battle. I have not earned my rest."

His gaze was as piercing as it was gentle, and she felt as if he stared down into the darkest corners of her mind and threw light there. "Nay, Lady, you have. I have learned this day that the fighting is the easiest part. It is the other business of war with men that is hard to bear."

"Men are hard to bear," she growled, and turned to look at Haleth so that Legolas could not see her expression. Haleth was one of the lucky ones. "They would rather put swords in the hands of lads who know not how to wield them than let me step into battle, when I am capable and willing! When all women who were herded and pinned below like cattle would have proudly stood between their sons and harm!"

The bitterness was upon her tongue, hot and sour and almost too much to abide. She did not like feeling this way. But how could she not? What fools men were, to let the children perish rather than she, who had been trained to use a sword! Yes, she might have died, but not without taking several of the wizard's army with her to her grave. Instead, they had barricaded her inside stone walls while the children above had screamed.

"It is the way of the world that men fight wars," Legolas murmured, as if trying to reassure her, but in him she saw great uncertainty, as if he could not comprehend such reasoning either.

"The world is failing!" Eowyn cried and tears flooded into her eyes because it was so apparent to her that indeed the lives of all men would be ended in the coming war. She did not wish for him to see her tears, any more than she had wanted Aragorn to see them, and she wiped at her eyes angrily. She had been determined not to lose her hope this day, but she had never imagined the things that would come to pass or the lives that would slip away beneath her impotent fingertips while the sun passed overhead.

"Aye, Lady Eowyn," he agreed. "It seems that it is."

It surprised her that he agreed, that he did not offer false words of hope to her as men might. She looked into his eyes, dark and fathomless, a thousand years of secrets, hopes, and sorrows there, and saw that he understood her frustration. That he didn't think she was foolish or brazen or unladylike. He simply understood her and he did not underestimate either her intelligence or her abilities. And that was a rare and needed gift just now.

"Then why not allow me to choose my own end? I would take the enemy with me to death rather than cower and wait for the sky to fall upon me! I am a shieldmaiden of Rohan!"

As if in sympathy, and agreement, he lay a hand against her shoulder. The touch was feather-light, yet carried in it all the weight of a comforting friend. He stood silently for long moments, as if thinking carefully of his next words. At last, he spoke.

"You are treasured by the men of Rohan. They love you, Lady, even more than they love their King, I believe. Their courage withers and their heart wanes, but they still have the love of you and their brave women. To see you fall in battle, to watch you pierced with blades would be more than they could bear. You cannot ask them to do so! They would encircle you with their own blades, they would put their bodies between you and what enemy approached. They would not leave you to face the swords and do the business of war."

"Why does no one understand that I do not fear blades! I do not fear death!" Eowyn insisted softly, just as she had to Aragorn days ago.

Giving her a look that saw all, that pinned and leveled her, Legolas asked her, "what then?"

 She could not have lied to him. She gave him a more truthful answer than she had given even Aragorn when he had asked her what she was afraid of, if not death or pain. "I fear being left alone with my grief, when all that I love are dead and gone. When all the men have fallen and I have done nothing to stop it."

"We understand one another, Lady, for that is my fear as well, and heavy on my heart has it rested this long day," Legolas said softly.

There was such an infinite sorrow in his tone that she was moved to cover his hand, which still rested easily upon her shoulder, with her own. His skin was warm and smooth and the heat seemed to flow into her.

They remained like that until Haleth, in the grip of a nightmare, murmured something and jerked his head to one side. Legolas left her then and lay his comforting hands upon the boy, speaking in the melodic and ancient language of the elves that she knew nothing of.

As if he'd put some magic upon the child, Haleth stilled and the scowl on the child's brow lightened to peaceful oblivion.

"What did you say to him?" she asked when Legolas stepped back and stood over the child, as if still guarding him.

"I told him that all the ancient armies of the elves protect him while he sleeps. I told him he was safe."

"I hope you speak truth," Eowyn returned, very quietly.

"By the grace of the Valar he lives," Legolas whispered, amazement in his tone.

Throat tightened, Eowyn shook her head and disagreed. "By the love that men bore him, he lives."

Eowyn looked upon Legolas as he watched Haleth, and so it was that she saw the candlelight reflect in a tear that spilled over his dark lashes and down his warrior face. Another followed, silently, though his expression remained as still as a mask. To see him weep was to watch raindrops racing down stone.

"You are weeping, my Lord." Eowyn murmured, and rose from her chair to stand before him.

Even in the warm orange light of the candles, the tears seemed to gleam with cool and soothing radiance and almost before she was aware of herself, Eowyn's fingertips touched the smoothness of Legolas' cheek and the teardrop there. It was as cold as mountain water, and her fingertips seemed to glitter with silver as she rubbed the tear away.

"I did not know that the elves shed tears," she said finally, looking back into his eyes, seeing that the tears had stopped and he watched her curiously now.

"Yes, Lady, we may shed tears just as you do, but it is a rare thing. Only in times of great hope or the abandonment of it do tears fall from elf-eyes."

"And which tears are these, Legolas?" she asked him, and reached out to put a hand on his arm, smiling at him softly when he covered it with his own again.

He turned his head suddenly, as if he heard something calling, perhaps the morning. Giving her a look that let her see into his heart, even as he looked into hers, he murmured, "dawn is approaching, shieldmaiden. I will go and be at the King's call when he wakes. There is much left to do and many battles yet to wage."

And what she learned from his bared heart was like warming sun, for she saw his love for the one who would be King, even as she understood that he had seen her love for the same man. For any other to have the knowledge of her feelings would have injured her pride and given her cause for denial, but she knew with Legolas it was not something he took lightly, that he did not mistake her for a foolish girl pining for a handsome face. Though his love of Aragorn was as friend and as brother, it was something they shared together, a bond between them of admiration and fondness and concern and love for the heir to Gondor.

Tears rose up in her eyes again, and a smile, unbidden, stretched across her face. Nodding her goodbye, because she did not trust her voice just yet, she lowered her head and bowed to the Prince.

In a moment, his hand cupped her chin and raised her head again. "You shall lower your head for none, Lady."

He bowed and turned away, and she watched him go, without sound or effort across the stone floor, and the sleeping did not stir as he passed.

She needed reassurance from him though, and only hesitated a moment before she asked him for it. "You will look after Lord Aragorn?"

"I will stand beside him until the strength is gone from my arms and no longer can I hurl an arrow or raise a blade, Lady. Yes, I will look after him."

It was a promise of sorts, Eowyn thought. A pledge to her, and to the man they loved. Perhaps there was hope yet.

Because man and elf and dwarf alike adored Aragorn. Armies would follow him for love of him, even into the darkest reaches of the earth. And Legolas in particular, she thought. He would never face any battle alone, Eowyn knew, so long as Legolas was upon the Earth to stand beside him.

Eomer came to her not long after Legolas had departed, and insisted that she go and find a few hours sleep before it was time for the riders to start for Isengard and she back to Edoras.

She found that she was not tired, or perhaps she was simply too tired to sleep, and she walked from the keep and onto the now deserted walls of the fortress just as the sun cleared the mountains to the east.

She turned her face towards it, and stretched her arms high, wishing to touch the sun. Wishing for it to touch all the hurt men in the dark room below, as well as Aragorn somewhere high above in the King's chambers. She wanted it to warm away their dread and fuel their courage.

The sun fell fully upon her and she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply and tears, tears of exhaustion and grief and hope and love and hate and every other emotion spilled down her cheeks and she didn't try to stop them, alone in the dawn. She did not know what was coming. What she knew was that everything right and good, everything left that she loved in the world was just directly behind her now, safe in the fallen fortress. And that soon they would ride away to their fates. And she couldn't stop them, any more than she could stop the climbing sun.

But she would not be a spectator any longer. She would not be kept in darkness again.

Feeling suddenly as if she were not alone, though none came to the parapet, she turned and almost as if she had known they'd be there, looked upward. There, high in the tower, she saw both Legolas and Aragorn standing in the window, looking out.

Legolas was looking directly at her, and she saw that the smile that lifted his sunlit face was one of admiration and encouragement.

Her eyes shifted toward Aragorn, and she watched his face as he stared out toward the east and the sunrise. He did not seem so old, nor so weary as he had after the battle. Fingers of sunlight reflected and extended in all directions from the talisman he wore around his throat.

When he'd returned against all hope after the Warg had taken him over a cliff, she'd seen the relief light up his eyes when Legolas had put it back into his hand. It had stopped her in mid-stride from going to welcome him back with open arms.

Aragorn had said that the woman that had given him the beautiful piece was gone forever, but as his fingers reached unconsciously to hold the gift from her, as that jewel seemed to glow even brighter than the sun to Eowyn's tired eyes, she began to understand that the greatest distance could not drive the other from his heart. He had found an end to his despair, and it was in the memory of another.

And still, she rejoiced, because he stood tall and proud and there was determination about him again.

She did not know what the future might bring. She did not know the fate of man, of the one above, nor of her own people. But she watched Aragorn and Legolas standing together, as brothers, those of different backgrounds joined together by love and respect of one another and of what was just in the world. And they presented such a picture of solidarity and brotherhood among warriors and races that she did not understand how the free world could possibly be ended with them riding at the head of the line.

In the space of two sunrises, she had learned a lesson that she would not try very hard never to forget again.

Even when the day comes crashing down about the shoulders of man, and the moon rides high and wild across an endless night, the sun will rise again and the answer to all the questions, to all the doubts of darkness, is in dawn.

**********

The End

*Last in a trilogy which begins with Aragorn's point-of-view of the aftermath, "When Day Comes Down," and is followed by "And Moon Rides High," in which we see Legolas' reaction to war.

*Any feedback is most appreciated.