Work Text:
Amyon woke up when Goniar shook and called him. He whined a little bit, because he was sleeping very well, and it was so much warmer inside the tent than outside! But his watch was about to begin, and he had to take over the shift from Goniar, who happily hid in his sleeping bag.
Amyon grumbled, yawned, and went to face the freezing weather outside.
He added some wood to the campfire, and put a kettle on it, yawning again. He was waiting for the water to boil, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye that made him turn abruptly in that direction.
And forget about the water, the cold, the sleepiness: the Beacon of Eilenach was lit!
“GONIAR! GONIAR! WAKE UP!”
He heard a curse coming from the tent, but some moments later Goniar came out from it, saw Amyon looking astonished towards east, and looked there, too.
They had been assigned to the guard of the Beacon of Nardol, with thirty-days shifts, for sixteen years, and until now the Beacons had never been lit.
The two men abandoned their stupor and quickly got to work, uncovering the firewood, putting the oil on it and starting the fire.
They looked west and after some time they saw the Beacon of Erelas lit up too.
They remained looking at it for a while, still amazed about what had happened.
Then Amyon spoke: “The Beacon-hills of Gondor have been lit.”
Goniar didn’t point out the obviousness of his friend’s statement, and none of them said out loud what they both were thinking: that meant that a war was coming.