A/N: Well, this is the first fic I'm posting to Stories of Arda! There are a few more on the way. This is angsty and short, as is most of my work. I hope you enjoy, and I'm always happy for feedback.

Victory

I didn't try to stop him. In my heart I knew I couldn't. He was a man now, and Gondor needed him. So he marched off to war, and every night was spent sleepless, kept awake by worry for him.

        My son was out there on the battle field, under the bleak shadow. We were surrounded by wounded in the Houses of Healing, and still we felt alone. Our sons were gone to war, our daughters had fled, and every day the air grew heavier and the sky grew darker, and our fear for our loved ones grew stronger.

        Then one day, when all seemed lost, and we did our tasks lead-footed with despair in our hearts, it ended. A great wind blew up, and the shadow receded, and the weight was lifted from us. But the sun shone on a battle field strewn with the mangled corpes of our husbands and sons. And so we stood conflicted, for we felt joy that the war had ended, yet a sick dread was apon us.

        And then the injured began coming in. We ran out of beds to put them in, so we made room for them on the floor and were careful not to trod on them. The air stank of sweat and blood and death, and my ears rang with the cries and moans of the dying soldiers.

        On the second day, my son had yet to return. The dread I had felt the day before was replaced by a numb sense of fear. Inside I was panicking, screaming and wailing for my child, but on the outside I was silent and composed.

        I was tending to a young man about his age. He had a bad gash on his chest, and was bleeding heavily. I was trying to change his bandages, without much success. His blood soaked through everything. It was on my skirt, and under my fingernails, and in the crevices of my skin. He coughed and sputtered, and his eyes were wild and glazed. "This one's not going to last," a passing healer whispered to me. I shook my head. Perhaps. Perhaps.

        Then they came, the young girls with the pale faces and the frightened eyes. Between them they carried a man, hair matted with mud hiding his face, his tattered clothing drenched with filth and blood. "Another one?" I asked, preparing to make room for what I thought was simply another wounded soldier.

        "It's... It's..." the girl looked positively horrified. I stared at her, wondering what could possibly be upsetting her so much. "It's your son," she whispered. "He's... dead."

        No, he wasn't. No, he couldn't be. My son was not dead. Impossible. My son was not one of the bodies lying on the floor in the Houses. He was not one of those haunted faces without names, waiting to be burned on the pyre. But slowly, slowly the realisation sank in. It was my son. My son was dead. My son was a blood-stained corpse. Somewhere outside a child laughed.

        Silently, I took him from the arms of the girls. He was a small boy, barely sixteen. I held him for a moment, and felt guilt sweep through me. This was entirely my fault. This was my child, and I should not have let him go to war. What had I been thinking? How could I have done this? I let him go. I killed my son.

        I carried him out into the warm spring air. I didn't know where I was going, only that I was taking my child away from those dead, nameless faces. My son had a name. My son would never burn with them on the pyre. I would bury him myself if I had to. But I would never let him smoulder amongst the corpses and be forgot, ash swept away by the wind.

        He was too heavy to carry now. I slumped down by the side of the road with my child in my arms. I stared at him and felt revulsion overwhelm me. At that moment, I hated myself. I was the one who deserved to be dead, an old woman who sent her son to a terrible end. The fact that there were a hundred others feeling exactly the same at that time did not console me. I was alone, and I was ill and covered in blood, and had seen enough death to last me forever, and now I only wished to die myself.

        A group of people came running past me on the road, shouting and singing and grinning broadly. "Gondor is victorious!" They cheered. "We are victorious!"

        I held my dead son in my arms and wept.