Something different! Enjoy x

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Kay knelt on the doorstep, scraping his too-small boots with a stick as layers of dried mud fell away.

Everything didn't fit anymore - he was growing too quickly.

His sisters sat in their favourite hiding place, the gap between the two beds, whispering as they dressed their straw dolls in rags. They were restless - it was too hot to play outside. Mother sat in the only good chair by the empty hearth, hugging the baby to her chest and hiding her face with long strands of loose hair. The fire had gone out hours ago and yet smoke still lingered in the cottage, staining the windows and infusing the air with  an unpleasant, dank smell.

It was the calm before the storm, and the storm came sooner than Kay expected.

"Mama," a plaintive voice drifted from the gap between beds, "I'm hungry."

Kay jumped up before anyone had time to react, and rushed to take the baby from Mother. He held it in one arm and grabbed his sisters by the sleeve, easy as they were sitting so close together, and the four of them ran from the cottage before Mother even began to tremble.

The girls shrieked with delight - it was all a game, after all. They rushed ahead to get to the old apple tree before mean old Kay, who always beat them when playing at races. Hampered by the baby, Kay fell behind - but he hurried to catch up when he heard Mother's heartbroken wails, scrunching up his face so hard his ears rang, blocking out the noise.

"Hush, you two," Kay scolded. "You never listen, do you?"

He flopped down with his back to the great trunk, letting the baby loose to explore whatever curiosities could be found in the withered, blackened grass.

"I'm hungry!"

"I know, we all are," Kay growled. "It won't get any better, so listen to what I say for once and maybe Mother won't get so upset." His bare feet stung from the run, and the glare of the midday sun made his eyes hurt even when he closed them. "You have to understand, we cannot complain. We cannot ask for more food. We're all starving and there's nothing we can do about it, so don't pester Mother. You know how upset she gets."

In summers gone by, the tree had been the largest of the surrounding fields and forests. There was no planned orchard, which made it stand out even more. In summers gone by, Father would climb into the highest boughs at harvest time and fill all the baskets, while the children gathered the heaps of windfalls. Mother would be busy for weeks, making pies and preserves and setting the rest out to dry in the hayloft. The fruit from the old apple tree would last until midwinter, where a spoonful of apple jelly on the breakfast bread was considered a great treat.

Kay remembered sitting in this exact spot every summer of his eleven years, the huge leafy boughs providing wonderful shade from the glare of just such a relentless sun. The view of rolling fields, alternate green and golden expanses of hay and potatoes, and Father in the middle of it all, weeding and harvesting with his faithful old carthorse by his side.

Father hadn't thought the war would mean much to them.

They were so out of the way - a whole two days' ride from Edoras, and even the nearest village was more than an hour's walk away. He was a farmer, not a soldier, and even when times were hard and all the villages were swarmed with Riders, he went down cheerfully with a full cart of potatoes like clockwork every market day. Sometimes Kay went with him, with Mother's apple concoctions secured on his lap. The villagers knew him well, and relied on his crop to put food on the table. He let sons of less well off families help out on the farm, for some extra coin.

Surely Théoden King wouldn't require his services more than he already provided.

It was over a year ago already - Kay flinched away at the memory.

His father was a giant of a man, hair as golden as his hayfields, strong as an ox. The baby was only just born, and Kay hid under the cart as his father boasted about it to a gaggle of old ladies, come to enquire about the mother.

"He is so small, he can fit into one arm - but a fine pair of lungs he has, his cry is as strong as a babe of six weeks. Four children now, and handsome and hearty every single one! Yes, yes, Mathilde is very well - up and about already!"

The women cooed and offered congratulations, going about their way.

Kay made preparations to climb out from under the cart, but ducked back again quickly when a piercing scream shattered the peace of the gossiping townsfolk.

A shriek of pure panic, fear and dread rolled into one, followed by a roar - such a noise Kay had never heard in his life. Father's head snapped up.

It was a sound of malice, evil incarnate, intent on nothing but death and destruction. It was a sound no human throat could make - it was so painfully monstrous that Kay ducked behind the cart wheels and squeezed his eyes shut, trembling, trying not to cry out. Tumult and chaos swirled about him - more people were screaming, running, the cart was rocking as panicked crowds rushed by, horses neighed in alarm -

And the sound of steel against steel, the smell of burning wood and flesh, would ring in Kay's ears until his dying day. Thunderous hammering filled his ears - he found put later this was the arrival of an éored of riders passing through on their way to the Fords of the river Isen. The very earth shook as they rode by - Kay was now hunched on the ground, arms wrapped around his head and legs, making his ears ring painfully on purpose to block out any noise.

He had no idea how long he lay in the dust, under his father's cart. It felt like hours as the Rohirrim defended their village from the terrible monsters.

Relative silence descended, broken only by the petrified sobs of any remaining villagers and the sharp, low voices of the soldiers, calling out orders.

One voice stood out.

"You fought valiantly, good sir."

Kay felt his heart skip a beat at the voice that answered, the familiar, rolling voice that reminded one of cornfields in summertime.

"Thank you, your Grace."

His father's voice was hoarse, and he still fought to catch his breath. Kay didn't even dare to open his eyes.

"We need your kind," the sharp voice said simply. "It is men like you that my father needs defending his lands."

"Thank you, your Grace - but I cannot possibly - I have a wife and family, no training in the art of war -"

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice any more. The situation is too precarious and every able-bodied man is needed, no matter how little their skill at arms. Your strength will be a valuable asset -"

"I couldn't possibly -" the voice was desperate, now. "These villagers rely on my crop for their very survival!"

"This is your last chance. Believe me when I say I hate to do this, but we have no choice. We ride out in an hour."

Kay scrambled out from under the cart, banging his head and scraping his elbow, and the scene that met his eyes nearly sent him tumbling into unconsciousness. Thatch burned, staining the sky with black clouds of acrid smoke. most of the carts and stalls were overturned and all kinds of food and clothing were mixed up and trampled on the cobblestones, where blood ran as freely as water from the spring. The riders had not even dismounted, and his father was facing them all, defiant and stubborn even as they took him away.

"Father, Father, Father!" Kay sobbed, dashing to his side and flinging his arms about his waist. "Don't go! You can't go!"

The éored averted their eyes. Many of them had been conscripted in this way too, torn from their families to replace fallen soldiers for a greater good.

"My little man." Kay, even now, in the glare of the midday sun with his sisters squabbling about him as he sat under the burning remnants of the steady old apple tree, could hear every voice in his head as clear as day. The way his voice was dry, yet steady, as he crouched down and looked his son directly in the eye and said his goodbyes - goodbyes to all of them through Kay, as Prince Théodred did not even allow him to go home and prepare. He would take old Conker, their beloved carthorse, for they had no other with them, and ride off with the éored, with promises to return and keep them all safe from afar.

Kay ran all the way home, choking with sobs, to find his home on fire.

The demons had cut down the apple tree with their coarse axes, set the miles and miles of ripe wheat and potato plants alight from sheer spite. They were all gone when he burst through the cottage door to find Mother and the girls cowering, terrified, in the gap between the beds, like himself under the cart not an hour earlier during the ransacking of the village. The baby's screams were muffled - they'd hidden him in a cupboard, the only way to keep him quiet enough during the rampage so the black monsters would not force their way into the cottage and take or slaughter them all. As it was, all the windows were smashed, and a massive hole had been made in the thatch.

The éored, it seemed, was only just in time.

And Father was gone.

This was surely the end.

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Some years later, on a bright summer's day, the village market was in full swing.

A flock of geese had escaped the poor girl driving them and were running about, causing general mayhem. Pigs and sheep made more noise than possible, as usual, and people flocked to various stands piled high with colourful fruits and vegetables, gossiping and chatting and haggling. Carts of hay and turf stood at street corners, alternately sweet and musky, and it was by one of these that Kay stood.

He was taller than most, broad-shouldered, many people skirting around him as they hurried to the square, and his golden hair shone in the sun.

Father had never come home.

But others had, and life and prosperity had returned to Rohan, however slowly. Their new King, Éomer - Théodred had also not come home - was wed to a Stoneland princess, and her dowry had kept his people afloat, through that first desperate, starving year.

Time passed, and wounds healed. Father's helm stood polished on a shelf Kay had made for it, on the wall of their little cottage. Mother polished it daily, and then went outside to look at the new apple tree - Kay's sisters had planted it in the first year they had enough to eat. It was as tall as Kay already, slim but sturdy, next to the hollow husk of the old one - a reminder of hope, of the future. It already gave a good crop, and though it was not enough to sell, Mother always made apple jelly and pies every autumn.

Kay smiled to remember it. Father's memory still remained, the pain and sorrow long gone, grief forgotten, leaving only happy, wistful memories.

Kay was looking for something, as he gazed through the crowd. A man made to approach him - perhaps to purchase the hay (the farm had flourished once again under Kay's hand, and the previous summer, they had built a tall barn behind the house, where they stored the hay after harvest, to dry and sell to farmers throughout the winter) - but Kay ignored him shading his eyes with one hand, scanning the crowd, his heart not in the selling of hay.

No, his heart crept up behind him, leaning her head against his shoulder, her hands around his waist.

"What news, beloved?" Kay took her hand and kissed it, tearing his eyes from the market and cupping his wife's face with one hand. She grinned.

"Oh, the usual. Edoras is probably holding a very similar display at the moment. But there is extraordinary news from Meduseld." She laughed as the poor harried goose girl and her friends chased any remaining geese. "You've probably heard - the Queen had a son, they have called him Elfwine, and Éomer King named him his heir the very hour of his birth. I missed you all the while - you might come with me some day. The city is magnificent."

"Perhaps," Kay said softly. "One day." He was glad - glad for everything, that Rohan was safe enough that his wife might travel comfortably for days on end, without threat, without his kneeling in burnt-out husk of a dead farm like the child he'd once been and despairing of her return. She would come back, always.

His wife went on, "I waited until her Majesty was well enough, and asked for her leave to go home. I told her why, and she was delighted for me, the dear girl. She wishes us luck."

Kay smiled, and they stood together, watching the bustling market in the bright sunshine.

The world was beginning anew.

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