for miss kitty

It’s the quiet he remembers most. The long hours spent looking off at distant Gondor, the silent beacon of Amon Din towering above him.

“What do you think of?” Bremand asks him, and it’s the silence he thinks of most.

--

His guide from the city abandons him at the foot of the mountains, a sack of food and a pointed finger his only remainders.

“It’s easy enough to find,” he says, gesturing towards the summit. He’s off before Deragar can assure him that he can miss a lot of things, even twenty foot beacons on top of mountain peaks.

The climb to the summit is not difficult, he only pauses when he loses sight of the beacon. His horse Balian beneath him is sure footed and soon becomes accustomed to the frequent pauses to gather his bearings.

He thinks of the farm, of the home he has left behind, so familiar and now so far away.

The beacon rises again ahead of him, closer now, he can see figures sitting nearby, tending a small fire. He pauses for a moment, watches them, these people he will live with and work with.

He swallows what is left of his fear and misgivings, and continues.

--

“You are brave to come here,” the man introduced as Bremand says. “Some would think of this as punishment.”

The fat one, Deragar thinks he was named Goriander, snorts. “For some people, it is,” he says pointedly.

Deragar watches Bremand but doesn’t respond. The third man, older than the other two, pulls him aside. “I am Limiar,” he says. “They are at odds quite often.” Deragar begins to ask why, but is interrupted. “Best not to ask why, you may find out in time. Goriander holds opinions I do not share, but I find the watch easier when I say nothing. Best they keep out of the way of each other. We do the best we can. You’ll be sharing the night watch with Bremand.”

Deragar nods, turns to Bremand. He is older, but not yet old. His face shows age, care and worry, his hands the passage of time spent at hard labor. A bigger man than he, though not by much. He has a lean, wary look about him, like a man used to solitude forced into company and told he must become agreeable to it. Deragar promises himself that he will stay out of the way as much as possible.

“Come,” Limiar says. “I’ll show you where to place your things.”

--

The dimensions of the tent exceed that of his room at home, a room he shared with four siblings. Here he’s asked to share only with Bremand. Standing in the middle of the tent, he cannot touch the tent wall on either side, nor the ceiling over his head. So much space, he thinks, for so little.

A few changes of clothes, a trinket to remember home. He needs very little, uses very little. One side of the tent is obviously in use, a pack, a few scattered belongings. He drops his pack beside the unused camp bed and sits down.

--

A voice drifts in from the tent flap. “You’ll want your cloak.” Bremand’s head pokes through the opening. “Nights are bitter up here.”

“Yes, thank you,” Deragar says.

He follows Bremand out of their small camp up the steep escarpment to the peak of the mountain, near the base of the beacon. Goriander and Limiar sit across from each other, near the base, at a small fire.

“Stays lit at all times,” he says, pointing to the fire. “Should we need to light the beacon.”

“Not that we have,” Goriander says. “Not that we’d need the help of the horsemen, or anyone for that matter. Gondor can stand on its own feet.”

“It’s a foolish man who wouldn’t call for help when it’s needed,” Bremand replies. His face remains passive.

Goriander flushes. “Theoden is no fool.”

“Then our problems are few,” Bremand says, smiling.

Limiar taps Goriander’s arm, urging him away, back toward the camp.

Deragar wants to ask on that which lies between them, where the antipathy with Goriander stems from, but doesn’t. He doesn’t dare. But quenching the fire of curiosity does not help, Bremand anticipates his question.

“There is much to that history, lad,” he says, turning to the fire. “Too much. But come, tell me about yourself.”

Deragar sits near the fire, wraps his cloak tight about him. “To be honest,” he says, “you don’t seem the type to want casual conversation.”

Bremand smiles, the lines about his mouth and eyes deepening. It’s a face he wears often, Deragar can tell, but would never have guessed. “There’s where you’re mistaken,” he says. “I’ll talk to whomever I please, lad, and I won’t talk to whomever I please. So talk.”

--

The first days pass in a deluge of information, entire histories spun out as they remain awake days on end. Tales of childhood and training, a studious show of ignoring the growing darkness to the east.

Only once do they speak of that, towards the end of their first month together.

“Will it help, do you think?” Deragar asks his companion.

“This thing Boromir has gone after? Aye, it might,” Bremand says, puffing quietly on his pipe. He blew lazy rings at the moon. “It can’t hurt.”

--

They both lay flat on their backs, passing Bremand’s pipe between them. Smoke drifts up and away, past the steep trail leading to the summit, past the fire around which Goriander and Limiar huddle, past the silent beacon towering over all. Silence is a thin blanket spread over them, too easily displaced by shouts from above, animals roaming nearby.

“Tell me of your home,” Bremand says. “Do you come from the city?”

Deragar shakes his head, his hair brushes against his neck and he shivers. “No,” he answers, “but very near. My father is a farmer, we live in a small town, nearer the base of the mountains.”

“How did you come to this assignment?” Bremand asks, blowing an experimental ring at the overcast clouds.

Deragar considers for a moment. He remembers why and how, the intense anger on his father’s face as he dragged Deragar to the barracks. His father hoped that, in some small way, the Guard would make a man of him, tear away the inappropriate thoughts and desires that grew in him even now, even still. He considers telling Bremand this, of his childhood friend who then became more than a friend, of the day his father discovered their play, the explorations. He considers but thinks too much on Bremand’s reaction, his possible disgust.

“Look at me,” he says instead, and Bremand gives an obliging roll of his head. “I’m not exactly tower guard material, am I? But I am the younger son of a younger son, and I had to have somewhere to go.”

“You wouldn’t learn a trade?”

“Too weak for smithing and tanning, too clumsy to make pottery. I’m rather self-sufficient with a bow and arrow, well enough to catch my own food anyway. Well enough for this.”

“So a man of independent means.”

Deragar doesn’t answer, just rolls over to study his companion. Lines of worry and care mark his weather-beaten face. A well traveled road map of time, place, leaving its deepest impressions nearest his eyes and mouth. A sign of laughter and sorrow, Deragar notes. How long had he been on this mountain? He cannot be as old as his face. “How did you come to be here?”

“Another story for another time,” Bremand says quietly, nodding his head towards the approaching figures of Goriander and Limiar. His face, open and friendly while gazing at the sky, has closed and he turns away.

--

A chill wind sweeps through the night air. Deragar wonders how it is that they, rather than Limiar and Goriander, came to be creatures of the night. He's sure his own mother would fail to recognize him, given the new pallor of his skin.

Bremand adds another log to the fire, stirs up the ashes to help it catch. His face appears younger in the soft half-light.

"How old are you?" Deragar asks, though he knows it isn't polite. The wind carries his words away from him, somehow makes them feel less awkward, less like an intrusion.

"How old do I look?" comes Bremand’s reply, and a swift laugh when Deragar hesitates. "It isn't a fair question, I know. Almost thirty years."

Deragar nods. His feels the weight of his own nineteen years in comparison with the heavy sense of guilt that younger generations always feel when questioning their elders, as if he should apologize for being born later. "You've never told me," he says to cover his discomfort, "how you came to this post."

Bremand tenses, as he always does whenever Goriander hints at tales of the past. Deragar imagines it to be terrible.

"I gave my heart in the wrong direction," he says and only that, turning his attention to the fire once more.

"That's it? That's all? What manner of woman could have been worthy enough to risk this exile?"

Bremand meets his gaze and Deragar feels suddenly ashamed. "More appropriate to ask what manner of man," he says quietly, and rises.

Deragar imagines following, imagines rising and tugging on Bremand's arm to demand more explanation, some bit of detail, but the set of Bremand's shoulders and his determined gait dissuade Deragar and he remains beside the fire, the imagined conversations a confused muddle in his mind.

--

After all their words were spent, they sometimes spent days in silence, almost making a game of the elaborate hand signals needed to communicate the simplest of ideas.

The pheasant is ready.

The latrine’s been moved.

I’m going to water the horses.

Around the fire, Bremand touches his hand to bring his notice to something, touches his shoulder, once ran a light finger down his neck to induce shivers.

Bremand is free with himself in a way that Deragar would never have anticipated or predicted. Far from the stoic man he seemed at first, he seems eager, willing to share his space with Deragar.

Deragar lays back, his head against a rock, his face tilted towards the stars. This is what he has grown to love the most about living on a mountain top, the unimpeded view of the night sky.

Bremand tips back next to him, content in his presence, in the silence surrounding them. Their arms brush against each other, but neither moves. Deragar’s heart races a little, but only a little. He checks his curiosity, his interest. He looks off into the distance, and wonders.

--

“Tell me what you think of,” Bremand says, his hand light, comforting on Deragar’s arm.

Silence, watching and waiting and the still, dark night.

--

Some rare nights they break protocol and gather together on the mountain top, the beacon towering above them.

Limiar, eldest of the four, tells tales of training, Boromir and Faramir’s first days holding a sword. The barely remembered days when Denethor led the men in more peaceful times, more peaceful tasks.

“He was not always as he is,” Limiar tells them. “Something, some darkness has changed him.”

Deragar listens to all, but he watches only Bremand, watches his face move in laughter or concern, interest or repose. His eyes follow the slightest movements made by those capable hands, a carefully placed log on the fire, a cup lifted to his face to drink. Someone may notice, but Deragar doesn’t care, can’t stop.

Bremand’s different somehow, with the others. He hides more, it seems, like an act that only Deragar notices. He wonders how much of Bremand’s past lies between those in the company. He catches Bremand’s eye, but turns away.

He leaves the firelight briefly, to relieve himself. He dawdles in returning, taking the opportunity to study from afar what he watched so closely. His unchecked footsteps are drowned by the talk of the others. He colors when he hears their words.

“He seems awful... interested, if you catch my meaning,” Goriander says. Deragar can imagine the leer on his face.

“I do,” Bremand says calmly. “And it is as beneath you as it is him.”

Goriander hastens to contradict, say more, but Deragar wants none of it, none of harassing Bremand further. He kicks a loose stone, it glances off Goriander’s boot. “Sorry,” he says as Goriander turns to glare. “I didn’t see it.”

He sits across the fire from Bremand, who meets his eyes with a wry grin, carefully hidden from the others.

For a few moments, Deragar lives in the smile.

--

Bremand spends hours one day teaching Deragar to chop and stack wood properly. “Have you never chopped firewood before?” His shirt dangles from a pile of firewood and Deragar concentrates on it from time to time, forgetting to listen to Bremand’s instructions.

Deragar rolls his shoulders under the weight of the ax. “Always someone else to do the chore,” he says, swinging the ax down upon the wood. He sighs heavily. “So I never learned.”

“You’ll rub a blister that way,” Bremand says, taking hold of Deragar’s hands. Bremand’s hands are warm, sweaty on his, his chest brushes against Deragar’s bare arm. Bremand moves his hands on the ax handle, pushing one further up and one further down. Deragar thinks he may have been holding the ax this way before but says nothing. He breathes Bremand in, the scent of sweat and warm skin and grass and pine wood all mingling, all inherently Bremand. He shakes his head to clear it.

“So the stacking you mentioned?” he says, bending to retrieve the logs.

Bremand takes the logs from him, adds them to the logs he has already prepared. “In a pillar,” he says, piling the other on top. “They dry faster this way.”

Deragar nods and moves back to his pile of uncut wood, which seems larger in size and number than Bremand’s. He turns to complain, maybe whine a bit, but stares at the shirt instead, the shirt and Bremand’s naked back, the muscles working as he lifts the ax and brings it down.

--

Clouds drift over the moon. Deragar settles down, head pillowed on his cloak, and watches the wisps of cloud, the intermittent stars. Bremand sits across from him, gaze on the fire, and Deragar knows this will be a silent night. Bremand may catch his eye, may come to sit near him and share his warmth, but he won’t ask questions, and he won’t tell stories.

Deragar knows that there are nights, days when Bremand needs to sit, needs to exist without questions and recriminations.

So he settles in, gaze on the moon and stars and clouds, and waits.

--

The day’s warmth has not yet seeped from the rock Deragar leans his head against. He presses harder back, gathering the lingering heat into himself.

Bremand sits near him, another source of warmth, but confusion too. Bremand catches his gaze sometimes, smiles at him when he does. Playful, almost teasing and Deragar does not know how to respond yet, what to do with these smiles.

Tonight their arms press against each other, the outside edge of their hands side by side on the ground, almost touching. He can feel Bremand’s question before it leaves him. “You never told me, why you came all the way out here. Was there nothing for you in the city?”

Deragar holds a bit, not wondering whether he can tell Bremand, exactly, but wondering what the end result of Bremand having this knowledge will be. If he would turn away even then.

He decides quickly. “My father found me with a friend,” he says. “Not a girl.” He waits, breathes in and out, finds the strength to continue. “There was no place too far after that.”

He can hear nothing over the hot rush in his ears, his own pounding heart. He feels Bremand shift and it takes several moments to realize that he has moved closer, not further away.

“He must be waiting for you then,” Bremand says, and Deragar can hear the softly held breath, feel the slight tremble in Bremand’s arm pressed tightly against his.

“No,” Deragar says, his hand slowly covers Bremand’s. “There is no one for me. Who waits for you?”

Bremand slowly turns his hand over, so they are palm to palm. Deragar’s fingers slip between Bremand’s, and he clasps their fingers together, holding on tightly.

“Only my mother, my youngest sister,” Bremand says. His breath is soft on Deragar’s cheek, closer now. “The others either deny my existence or are beyond existence themselves.”

“They deny you for that?” Deragar asks, his face now turned toward Bremand, their breath gently breezing over each other’s face and mouth.

“Just for this,” Bremand whispers. His lips slowly brush over Deragar’s, lightly at first, then more firmly as Deragar rolls over to face him, to meet his rising. All the words, all the things he could say slowly seep from Deragar’s mind, banished by the heady feel of Bremand against him, Bremand’s lips on his. Bremand pulls his hand from Deragar’s to cup his shoulder, his head, weave his fingers into Deragar’s hair to hold him tight. His other arm slides around Deragar’s waist, pulls their hips together.

Deragar can remember no words, no actions that invited Bremand’s arms around him, Bremand’s lips on his, but he can’t, he won’t find the words to stop him.

Instead he exhales slowly, his breath mingling with Bremand’s in the cool, still air. Bremand’s hand slips down his chest and in the silence, Deragar can almost hear the sound of his heart breaking. He does not want to imagine the consequences, the repercussions should Goriander discover them, the end. He does not want to, but cannot help it.

But all his doubts are not enough to lend him the strength to push Bremand away, not when he first touched Deragar, not when his arms first stole around his waist, not when his lips first brushed his. Not at first, and certainly not now. Deragar leans into Bremand, mouth open and eyes closed, and forgets.

--

Days pass, weeks. They occupy themselves first with getting to know the other, their desires and wants. They try to hide as much as possible from Goriander and Limiar, not wanting the persecution of the one, or the unwanted questions of the other.

Deragar revels in this time, these moments. He holds onto Bremand, never wants to let go.

--

Bremand undresses him slowly, pulling the light shirt over his head, runs light fingers through his thick blond hair before skimming them over his back, tightening his fingers in the waist of Deragar’s pants. They join the shirt in a heap on the ground.

Deragar fingers Bremand’s buttons, teasing them slowly out of their holes, unhurried in his reveal. He takes care to brush every inch of skin as it is uncovered. Bremand’s eyes are dark hunger and need, his expression open and teasing. A face of many contrasts.

He pushes the shirt over wide, firm shoulders, down thick arms traced with scars of training, evidence of a warrior’s life. His fingertips linger there, exploring. So much to explore, so much marked by time, an enemy’s blade, and Deragar skims his fingers past before his mind dwells too long on the things that might have been.

He works the buttons on Bremand’s pants, dropping them, moving Bremand to step out of them, allow them to tangle with his on the ground.

The world waits, quiet and new, a hush in the wind, the air as Deragar runs his hands around Bremand’s waist, steps into him, skin sliding against warm skin. Deragar can feel Bremand’s heart racing. He’s smiling when Bremand’s lips touch his.

--

Bremand’s arms around him, their overheated bodies cooling in the sweet morning air, Deragar risks breaking the silence, the contentment to nudge his forehead against Bremand’s neck.

Raspy hair from several days growth scrubs against his skin. His own smooth cheek slides over Bremand’s chest.

Bremand’s hand skim along his back, settling on the smooth nape. He breathes softly, evenly. Deragar closes his eyes against the soft light of day and falls asleep.

--

“What do you think of?” Bremand asks, and in his voice Deragar hears infinite patience.

Silence, silence and the lazy slide of skin.

--

The days grow shorter and colder. Snow caps the peaks around them, Bremand tells him its only a matter of time before it falls on them. The days are darker now, the shadow to the east grows larger every day.

An hour’s hike one afternoon brings them to a warm pool, fed further up by a spring. Weak afternoon sun filters through the trees, tracing intricate shadows over the rippling water.

They undress quickly, no lingering, no exploring, and dive into the steaming water.

Deragar stays under, his breath burning in his lungs. Away from noise, from the camp from Goriander’s questioning stares. Does he know? What can he do if he does?

He surfaces quickly when he cannot hold his breath any longer, an explosion of water and moist skin in the chill air.

Bremand is near, is never far away. Deragar reaches out his hand, brushes against Bremand’s arm, laces his fingers into Bremand’s and tugs him closer, entangling their legs. He folds his arms around Bremand’s waist, sighs softly into narrowing space between them.

His lips press against Bremand’s shoulder, against the smooth scar of an arrow, shot from an orc’s bow in Ithilien. Deragar has found them all, learned their stories from Bremand. His lips trace over Bremand’s shoulder, his tongue slips out to gather the water droplet’s spread over rough skin.

Bremand’s hands trace over his back, finger tips raking over his skin, raising almost angry red lines to the surface. His hands dip lower, fasten on his hips to pull Deragar closer, hitch his thigh up to meet hardness against hardness.

A few thrusts, mouths meet to capture screams, the silence surrounding them broken by moans and muffled sounds of ecstasy.

Deragar floats, his passion spent and his energy gone. He rests in Bremand’s arms. I love you, he thinks, he almost says aloud. But Bremand has said nothing of love, of permanence, and the silence between them remains.

--

He wakes quickly, rolls out of the bed roll he’d been sharing with Bremand. He pokes his head out of their tent, backs up quickly as Goriander slips inside. He hopes Goriander doesn’t notice the unused bed roll, then just as soon forgets the fear when Goriander’s agitated phrases are finally comprehensible.

“The beacon,” he gasps, “the beacon at Minas Tirith is lit!” He pauses again to catch his breath, he must have sprinted down the slope. But Deragar doesn’t need further explanation. He turns to Bremand, watches as he untangles his legs from his blankets and they both stumble outside into the chill air. To the east, perched atop a cliff overlooking the White City, a tiny flame flickers in the dusky light. Deragar looks above him, at the bonfire their tower has become, then to the west, to Amon _____.

He feels suddenly small, a tiny being in a large mountain range, passing along a cry for aid, for help and he can’t, doesn’t know why.

Bremand lays a heavy, grounding hand on his shoulder. “It’s three days hard ride to the City,” he says. “I’ll go pack.”

Goriander rounds on them both. “You cannot mean to leave?” he asks, incredulously. His excitement of a few moments ago has deflated, his breath caught and his wits once again intact, leaving the man with the reminder of why, under what circumstances the beacons are lit. “You cannot abandon your post!” He follows Bremand back inside, intent on stopping him, maybe, at least delaying him.

Bremand rolls the shared bed roll, gestures for Deragar to gather up the unused one. He turns to Goriander. “If Minas Tirith falls, it will be our end. We will not survive hiding in mountain caves, not against the evil that rises in the east. I would stand with my brothers, my kinsman, at the end of all things rather than cower in the hills, waiting for a victory that may not come.”

He brushes past Goriander, rolls the remainder of his and Deragar’s provisions in a sack. “Get the horses,” he says to Deragar.

“If you abandon your post, it will be on your head,” Goriander says. “I will not stand up for you.”

“I would not ask it of you.”

Goriander turns to Deragar. “You do not have to go with him. You do not have to throw away a future in the Guard. Deserting is a serious crime.”

Deragar looks to Bremand, but receives no answers from that quarter. He shrugs and turns again to Goriander. “I go with Bremand,” he says quietly, and follows him into the falling dark.

--

It takes them a day to descend from the peak. They move as quickly as caution allows, not wanting to jeopardize their horses or themselves on the steep mountain passes.

They pause only a few times, to do little more than catch whatever sleep they can while the horses rest.

They curl together against the cold and the fear of what awaits them, be it the end of the world or the dawning of the new age. Too exhausted to do more than breathe, they live these few moments together. They do not speak.

--

They cross the fields as night falls the third day. Across the Fields of Cormallen they can see orcs massing, can hear their growling speech echoing across the empty space between them.

The guards open the gate for them when one recognizes Bremand, but there are no answers for his hurried questions.

“There are few left to fight,” one guard says. “Our forces are fewer without Faramir’s men.”

As Deragar watches a shadow and a fear fall over Bremand’s face. “What of them?” he asks.

But there are no more answers for them. They move on, stable their horses in the nearly empty barracks and find space along the wall. Across the Fields a line of torches illuminates the ruined city the orcs have taken. Deragar shivers, fear sending a chill down his spine. Bremand’s hand touches his arm, holds tightly to his sleeve. They can do nothing now, even though they are here. Nothing now, but wait.

--

The battle ranges around him, orcs and trolls and men all stewing about, clashing together and tearing violently apart.

Screams echo in his ears.

He heard before that in the heat and rage of battle men have gone hours, even days before feeling, giving attention to even the most serious wounds. Better men than he, the blade that pierces his armor hurts immediately, totally, an agony that washes through his entire body, makes him want to vomit. He doesn’t see the orc that got past his flimsy guard. One body bleeds into another and he has difficulty telling friend from foe. Save Bremand, who never leaves his side. Who turns at his startled cry, catches him as he stumbles and with one hand, slays the orc still looming before him.

No words. Deragar can see in Bremand’s eyes how serious the wound is, how little time he has left. With a grim resolve and a hot rage burning in his eyes, Bremand stands, straddling Deragar’s prostrate body, challenging all who would come near.

The noise of battle fades. Are the orcs on the run? Or are they simply moving deeper into the city? He can no longer see, not anything but Bremand, still standing over him, protecting his wounded, dying body.

Deragar lifts a hand, to stop him? To call him closer? For no reason at all he begins to think of the man that Bremand had loved, what his fate was, if Bremand will find him again once Deragar is gone. He closes his eyes against that pain, and knows no more.

--

He wakes to darkness and a blinding, searing pain. A strange and quiet voice in his ear whispers “It will soon pass.” Deragar hopes he means the pain, not this absence of light.

Moments later it is still dark, but the pain is gone, leaving in its wake a profound emptiness, an almost absence of feeling.

“Am I whole?” he asks, coughing a bit as breath scrapes over his dry throat.

A rough laugh. “Feeling will return all to soon,” he hears. “Enjoy the absence while you can.”

A torch is brought nearer, illuminating a dark head and tired eyes. “There are others that need tending. I believe your friend is waiting to approach.” He gives a nod of his head towards the door. Deragar can see Bremand there, watching.

The man stands, lays his hand on Deragar’s arm. “Your stay in the Houses will be brief. Take some rest while you can.” He turns and leaves, not looking back.

Bremand replaces him at Deragar’s side. “He’s been here for hours, helping everyone.”

“Who is he?”

Bremand laughs softly. “Did he not tell you? He’s Aragorn. He’s the king.”

Deragar’s mind spins for a moment. The king had been at his bedside, tending his wounds, healing his hurts. The king of Gondor. “Why the king?” he asks, breathless with wonder. “Why is the king here, tending wounds and soldiers?”

“An old rhyme a nurse remembered, about the hands of a king,” Bremand says, shrugging. “I didn’t hear the entire verse.”

His aches return later but he doesn’t mind. The king of Gondor was at his bedside, the aches mean little in comparison.

--

Bremand is there when he wakes again, the pain has almost disappeared.

Their eyes meet, so much to say and so many to hear them say it. A nurse bustles past, bandages draped over her arm, a young girl carrying a bowl of water follows her. Deragar follows their movements for a while. Bremand’s hand covers his quickly before slipping away, and he looks back.

“Thank you,” Deragar whispers, and catches Bremand’s hand on the spread with his own.

“Of course.” Bremand smiles, his fingers tightening. “Always.”

--

The battle for Minas Tirith is over, but not the war. When Aragorn leads the remaining men to battle, Bremand rides with him.

“You ride to certain death,” Deragar says. His heart pounds and he wonders if, given the choice and the sound body, he’d have the courage to join them.

“Nothing is certain,” Bremand says. His arms fold about Deragar, unheeding of any who might watch, pressing him close. Their racing hearts beat as one. Bremand runs a rough hand through Deragar’s hair as he steps back.

“Look to the east,” he says, and is gone.

--

The city is almost empty, a broken husk, sheltering only those women and children unable to flee before the attack came. Muffled sentences, an occasional raised voice echo forlornly off the white stone walls.

Deragar has seen the city before, been inside it during market days with his father. A place of life and laughter, the center of Gondor, of Middle Earth. The sound had overwhelmed him, after so many years in the wild, the mass of humanity gathered inside, the rhythm of a thousand steps falling on stone pathways. Now all is silent.

He stands above the gate, the Fields of Cormallen before him, still charred and bloodstained. He looks eastward, at the darkness still rising over the mountains. It has diminished, but it has not entirely gone.

--

Hours pass, and he knows the moment the evil is destroyed. He wasn’t waiting for it, wasn’t watching for it, but from one moment to the next, the world is changed. Brighter, somehow, the color back in the sky, the air.

He breathes deeply, inhales the sweet air of peace, of happiness, of a new hope for man. And for a moment, for a little while, the weight of the future, of his questions and worries and fears, is lifted off him and he feels free.

--

The eagles come not long after that. Deragar knows of their kind but has never seen them before, he races out of the gate, stands breathless with wonder as they drop to the fields not far from him.

Mithrandir leaps off the first and gestures towards him. “Help me, quickly,” he says. He points towards the eagle’s massive claw, at the small form clutched inside. “They must get inside.”

He steps closer to the claw, reaches out a hand to brush the shoulder of the form inside. “I have heard of these halflings,” he says, waiting for the eagle to release the burden.

“There is no man who shouldn’t know them, hear of what they have done,” Mithrandir says quietly, his palm smoothing over dark hair. “They have saved Middle Earth.”

Another eagle lands gingerly beside them, also favoring one leg. Deragar carefully lifts the larger halfling in his arms, cradles him against his chest. The halfling opens his eyes slowly, carefully. “Frodo?” he whispers, then closes his eyes again and is silent.

“Follow me,” Mithrandir says, the other lifted high in his arms. The eagles take to the air behind them, their massive wings churning clouds of dust as Deragar hurries inside.

--

The army follows not long after. Deragar does not see them, Mithrandir scripts him into the service of the healers as he carries the halfling into the Houses.

Aragorn strides in, fresh from his horse and the long ride. “They are here?” he asks quickly, and Mithrandir beckons him close.

Deragar watches for a moment, watches Aragorn run light fingers over the halfling’s neck, rubbed raw and red, over his hand, missing its left forefinger. He feels slightly out of place, watching a scene he has no part of, watching a reunion between people he doesn’t know.

“You won’t be needed,” a nurse says at his elbow, easing him out of the way. “We’ll take care of them now.”

--

The soldiers return victorious, they have won, they have defeated the greatest evil of their age and Deragar feels certain the celebration will last for weeks. The city is filled again with crowds, teeming masses of cheering folk, finally free of the darkness that hung over them for so long.

He can’t imagine finding Bremand among them, doesn’t even know where to start looking. He begins wandering among the crowds, moving with their flow up the pathways of the city. It takes him several hours and he thinks he may have been moving with the same hundred people the entire time, carried along in their number.

He turns against the tide, fights his way back through the last gate and then, like fate, as he steps through the gate he sees a familiar dark head.

Bremand catches his eye, moves toward him through the people, the space that divides them. He stops a pace away. He doesn’t say anything, not anything; it will be weeks, almost months before he tells Deragar of that battle, of the evil and the death and the great eye hovering over all. But then, right then he simply steps forward, closing the distance between them and gathers Deragar to himself, and holds on.

Words catch on each other in Deragar’s throat. In the few moments since stumbling across him fear, relief, joy, love and an almost overwhelming sense of shame, of guilt for not going, for not sharing in the burden, have all flooded into his mouth, his heart, and he cannot choose between them.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says, starts to choke out between clenched lips pressed against Bremand’s shoulder. But Bremand steps back quickly, lifts a hand between them and covers Deragar’s mouth with his rough fingers.

“Don’t,” he says. “There is no need.” He slips his fingers down Deragar’s arm, hooks at his elbow and starts walking, sweeping Deragar along with him down the crowded paths.

He leads Deragar to the small room that was his when he served on the city guard, before he was ever sent to the mountains. It is sparsely furnished, only the small camp bed still standing in a corner. It is unoccupied, unused it seems since Bremand left it.

“We can stay here,” he says, pulling Deragar inside.

Bremand undresses him quickly, efficiently, but with an endless wild drive, a hunger that Deragar finds himself lost in, echoing madly. Fingers become tangled in clothing and rip themselves free, searching, seeking warm skin. Bremand only comes to himself around Deragar’s wound, carefully skirting the edges of it, mindful of brushing against it, causing Deragar further pain.

Bare skin meets bare skin and breaths hiss out between clenched teeth, mouths pressed together and searching. Bremand leads him to the bed, lowers himself upon it and Deragar follows, his heart and mind racing, his body seeking only one thing. Bremand.

The cheers and calls from outside seem to fade away, leaving only them wrapped in the silence, in each other.

--

It is dark, mostly dark when Deragar wakes again. He slowly untangles himself from Bremand and pads over to the window.

The victorious still roam the streets, lanterns and torches lighting their winding way. Deragar thinks it may never be fully dark again and somehow, he doesn’t mind.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, how long he watches before he hears Bremand stir behind him. He doesn’t turn as Bremand rises, moves to stand behind Deragar, his hands stealing about his waist, his chin hooks over Deragar’s shoulder as they both watch the revelers below.

“What are you thinking of?” Bremand asks, as he has many times before.

Deragar does not answer. He never does. The first time Bremand asked Deragar had been thinking of him, the way the flickering fire light traced patterns across his face that Deragar wanted to follow with his fingers, his mouth. He couldn’t answer at the time and now he doesn’t because he never does. It has become a game between them.

The words are a low rumble in his ear when Bremand speaks again, almost hesitantly. “King Aragorn spoke to me on the return journey. He says my debts are forgiven, that I’ve been promoted to the Tower Guard.” He pauses for a moment, rubs his rough chin over Deragar’s shoulder. “Not that it means anything, he says, in the peace time to follow.”

Deragar turns from the window, breaking Bremand’s hold on him. “What of the circumstance that sent you to the beacon to begin with?”

“It is forgotten,” he says, shrugging. “Someone must have mentioned it to him, because the King made sure I understood that in particular. Too sure,” he says, blushing. “Don’t you understand yet?”

Deragar nods. “You’re forgiven, I’m happy for you.” He turns away again, can’t look at Bremand as he asks the next question. He almost can’t speak, the words catch in his throat and he has to force them out, choked and straining. “So it’s back to Amon Din for me?”

A warm, strong hand on his arm turns him around, lifts his face to the light. “You’re given a place on the Tower Guard as well,” Bremand says quietly. “I wouldn’t leave you there.”

Deragar stares, uncomprehending for long, quiet moments. The soft glow from the streets is reflected in Bremand’s eyes, still searching his. The Tower Guard, something he’d never allowed himself to dream of, something he never thought he’d want.

“The Tower Guard,” he whispers, unbelieving. “Me.”

Bremand smiles and Deragar’s heart races again and he truly believes. His hands come up to trace Bremand’s lips as he answers. “You,” he says, pressing a light kiss to questing fingers, “if you’ll have it. And me?”

There is no hesitation, no doubt. Only one answer possible. “Yes,” he says. “Yes.”