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As the blows lessened in number and her vision grew to extend past the smoke filled plains just meters away, she felt herself rise in the beginnings of exultation. The ill begotten orcs falling in death’s embrace one after the other until there was no more in her field of view to be slain. Although she could still hear the clattering of swords behind her the noise from the weapons was getting increasingly lower with each minute, bearing silent good news for the alliance’s army, the aching limbs sore from hours of fighting ready to be raised in a rejoicing choir. Inspecting her surroundings one last time to make sure nothing had escaped her, that no orc or Uruk still lived on the ground she’d fought on, she moved her eyes across the field, satisfied in seeing that her assessment was correct: the enemy’s lines had been breached and almost completely destroyed, a handful of orcs still relentlessly throwing arrows and swords at whichever target they could aim at.
An orc with spiky chains bringing down a Numenorean soldier, slain with a spear.
Another brought to its knees by twin arrows and decapitated.
Several others killed by sword blows at their hearts’ level.
Twenty, fifteen, ten, five, three, two…
Her eyes detected no other foe on the side she was scanning to find her allies and friends, she’d heard one last monster growl in what resembled a pained sound and deemed it done for.
Would that she had checked to see if it was true and delivered the killing blow herself.
Would that her eyes could have seen better, seen it all, each and every demon pestering this land and bring it down until it could not even twitch.
Would that she had been swifter in disposing of the orcs in front of her, swifter in going to aid the other soldiers and control the situation they were handling.
Instead, a scream breaks the eerie silence death had brought onto the battlefield, fallen warriors laying all over the dirty soil, discarded swords mirroring the stars with a sea of glittering iron.
She knows that voice, has heard it talk to her directly several times.
Isildur.
Worried for her friend’s son, she snaps her head in the direction his voice had come from, and finds him still safe, mostly uninjured although battered and with his armor lightly worn. No, he hasn’t been wounded, so why…
It is only later that she sees it, too long caught into the haze of a long battle to properly focus on details. There are hands grasping at the front of Isil’s chest piece, holding onto him in what seems to be a stance to push away. Covered behind Berek’s long body, she finally sees the other rider’s own horse peek out and her eyes widen, zeroing on it to make sure the one she’s looking at really is his mare. And despite wishing with all her being the tiredness derived from fighting had played a trick on her mind, she finds herself recognizing Halbrand’s brown mount. She can feel her hands tremble as she raises her eyes from the animal to be sure he’s the one atop, because it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be.
But although she prays and hopes and denies to herself this is happening, it is. Her blue eyes settle back on Isildur and to the person in front of him, and in the space between the boy’s chin and clavicles finds a head of auburn hair.
No.
It seems like everything has fallen silent everywhere, she can hear no sound, nothing moves, there’s nothing but her urging her hoofed companion to run and her voice uttering a cry so deafening she didn’t think an elf could. There are terror and panic swirling through her veins in a nasty flow once she makes it to their spot and jumps down with none of the poise and grace her kin is known for.
“What happened ?” she asks Isildur, who turns slightly to her with red eyes and a trembling lip, the hands grasping his shoulders slipping away and bringing the other man’s face into view as his head slides sideways due to a hit received.
To her horror and grief, the face that meets her eyes barely containing tears is Halbrand’s.
Isildur’s voice is shaky and bears weight as he answers her. “We were checking for surviving orcs among the corpses that might have escaped far enough to reassemble into a smaller group. My companions and I had most of them disposed of and killed, but one managed to evade us and threw arrows in my direction.” She sees him gulp as her feet circle around Arsha, bringing her to Halbrand’s side. Just like she’s been told, she finds arrows sticking out of his back, three of them and all terribly black, two luckily low enough to have barely missed a lung and one awfully close to the heart. She hears the boy choke out a “He shielded me.”
Her hand go to grasp his shoulder and move his upper body from where he is leaning on Isildur, her arms circling around his still form to have a stronger hold. “Help me put him down.”
The boy quickly goes off Berek’s back and with his arms sustains the width of the King’s shoulders, until after mutual effort he is laying on his side onto a decent patch of soil. She brings her hand to his throat in search of a mostly steady pulse, hoping to find reassurance in it and instead is answered with a feeble, barely there throb.
“I need a healer !”
She barely hears Elendil’s voice calling for his son and nearing them, or Arondir’s light footsteps quickly coming to their side. She’s known to understand him not being the kind of man that gives his emotions away, but his face is much too clear to read in that moment as he takes in his lover’s King and his conditions.
“I’ll call for Bronwyn.” he tells from over her shoulder, turning back to make for the camp where the healers had been gathered. When the numenorean man is there to engulf his son in a relieved hug, laying his gaze on her kneeling frame and the body sprayed in front of her she hears him utter, in aggravated tone, “I’m sorry.”
She registers her head moving in a small nod at his words, immediately brushing them away as if to erase them.
There will be nothing to be sorry for, he will be alright.
He will be alright.
He will be alright.
She repeats this to herself for minutes that seem unending while waiting for Bronwyn, for a healer, for anyone to arrive to her aid in saving this man, because he can’t go, he cannot be lost to his people, he cannot be lost to her .
One of her hands goes to his cheek, in a bleak attempt to assuage pain she’s sure he’s feeling although barely conscious.
Then there’s a hand to her shoulder, gently grasping at the finely crafted metal of her war garment.
“Lady Galadriel” says Bronwyn in greeting, brown eyes staring at her King’s much too still body.
Shaken from her spiraling thoughts by the blessed arrival, she raises to her feet to make space for the woman so she can inspect Halbrand the proper way, eyes firmly settled on his face for any sign of recurfacing consciousness when she hears a wretched sneer. Her head snaps upwards and immediately finds it, its ugly mouth curved in a self complacent smile. “Adar will be avenged.”
Her blood stills, frozen, then the ice shatters and it begins to boil and rush in pure rage.
She breathes in.
“Take care of him.” she says to Bronwyn and Arondir at her side, taking a silent charge at the unholy creature’s laying place and grabbing it by the neck, dragging it away from the soldiers’ corpses as it tries, in vain, to free itself and throwing it on the uneven terrain some meters away from where her company is.
The orc has no time to figure out anything, only knows how to acquaintance itself with the last thing that will touch it. Her blade.
Minutes after, when the arrows have been extracted from Halbrand’s back and his wounds cauterized and bandaged in a momentary dressing, he is moved on a cart by Arondir, Elendil and Isildur, hands careful through their strenght of action.
If by the time her hands clasp his again, pressed against her heart, her friends notice her fingers being stained in black, no one comments on it.
They make as much haste to Pelargir as they’re able to, and during that time all she knows, all that anchors her to this world is the light melody of his faint but persistent breathing and the slight movement of his thumb against her annular.
When they arrive to Pelargir the sun, lowering itself into twilight, is visible again from behind less clouds than those present during the journey. Gathering her white gelding and Halbrand’s mare to bring them to rest at the stables, she lingers and watches some more as men offer help in bringing their king to his rooms, some other villagers surrounding their party offering prayers of good fortune and healing from within echoes of joyful cries at the Dark Lord’s fall.
The hand holding the reins tightens for a brief moment, and then releases its grip so her arm can raise to lead the way to her companions.
After this day she thinks it incredible she still remembers how to put one feet after the other, each muscle and bone in her body numb from ceaseless fighting, her movements precise and sure all through the battle that yet lasted too long for her elven self too, just as it had sucked every surviving warrior present of any strength for days to come. Their efforts had been worth the blood, the ache, the numbing pain though, for Sauron had been finally vanquished by a combined slash of her own blade, Halbrand’s well directed strike and Mithrandir’s call to the Valar, who had seemingly heeded their prayer and nullified him out of existence by Eru’s hand.
He was gone. He was no more.
Finrod, Aegnor, all the friends and soldiers, companions and unjustly lost souls he’d stomped over could finally meet a deserved peaceful rest. And she could finally rid herself of her self appointed quest for vengeance, relinquishing the burden she’d carried for centuries as she sought to bring down her kin’s slayer. She was relieved beyond words, and would have even been swimming in a pool of elation had the man most important to her not been on the brink of death, even now barely hanging on; she secures the horses within their sheltered home and makes for her room to quickly remove her armor and wash whatever small cut may have been placed on her flesh.
Once she’s wearing more comfortable clothing and her bruises have been tended to, she exits her room and goes directly where she knows Halbrand to have been taken, his long figure thoroughly bandaged and washed once her gaze finds him again. Glad that there’s no one to ask something of her, she takes the nearest chair by his small table and brings it to the side of his bed, sitting down; one hand goes to lay on his forehead, tucking an auburn strand away from his eyes with a light touch. He is so pale, his skin mostly washed but the poison from the arrows he’d been hit by causing it to burn and sweat to cover him like a veil with a horrible fever.
Her other hand goes to grasp at his, laying by his side, and raises it to her cheek, brushing her face against it.
“Á cuita, endanya. Á cuita.” she whispers as her fingers thread in his hair, going down to place a kiss on his brow. “Á lemya as ni.”
She remains by his side throughout the entire healing process, only briefly leaving the chair or her sitting spot on his bed to take a walk and inhale some fresh air, sometimes with Bronwyn accompanying her.
The wounds are sealed, but his body is weak from the poison and exertion. The woman had told her an afternoon as she brought her the clean bandages to wrap his chest in -Galadriel had insisted on being the one to tend to him after the first day, watching Bronwyn intently to learn all the steps and movements necessary for a proper care, taking the reins the following time the wrappings had needed changing.
Like she’s already done and learned to in the past few days, she removes his shirt, carefully raising his head from the pillow to slide it up and place it somewhere else so she can do her work. She starts to unwrap the cloth around his waist and goes up in a spiral until it comes off entirely, leaving her eyes free to see the nasty scars the arrows had inficted, the skin around the cauterized wounds blessedly no longer bearing the poison’s hue but still very much vivid in color, taunting her in the fact their simple existence endangers the man that bears them.
She remembers how slowly she’d ravaged that ill conceived creature days prior, how indescribably enraged she’d felt at its words and its surety the man it had wounded would die, that terrible imitation of a smile making her blood scream for death, death, death. To anyone that dared collect from her when she’d just regained her peace, to anyone that endangered it. To anything and anyone in this world that hurt and thought they could take something of hers away from her again. No more, never again would she allow it: if he had to be taken from her it would be by The One’s will after a life fully lived by her side, all other risks to his wellbeing would have to go through her first.
Galadriel looks intently at the difference in tone he displays from his head to his middle and her fists tighten.
Why does your kind have to be so frail? she asks herself feeling impotent, bringing a wet piece of fabric to polish away at the surface of the healing skin with precise and light touches. She then takes the clean bandages standing by the chair in hand, careful as she moves him on his side to have the material pressed against his back and not long after sets him onto his back once again, securing her work with a knot. His lack of response to the stimulations most of the time are what most of all submerges her in fear, feeling suffocated by it and needing to remind herself that he still has breath to his lungs by listening to his heartbeat with her ear at his chest.
She looks up at him from her position on his torso, having moved a bit, and raises to near his face, seeing him breathe air in in the most imperceptible way. Hands going to lay on his as she descends upon him, she presses their foreheads together and closes her eyes to feel the whole warmth of his being, radiating not from his fever striken brow but his resilient, beating heart.
She closes what little distance there was and presses her lips to his in a kiss, a call, a torch for him to follow.
Halbrand, stay.
Stay with me.
Her hands squeeze his as an anchoring for her own mind, invaded by what ifs and if I hads, and her tears flow down.
Two weeks pass, two unending and sleep evading weeks in which she just as rarely leaves his chambers but otherwise also meets some familiar faces in her unrelenting watch, Isildur, Elendil and now Queen Míriel, no more a regent after her return to her island months before, officially crowned a monarch after her father’s passing coming to visit the southlander King with the two men paying their respects most profusely. A low bow by Elendil “I owe him my son’s life. He will have my lifelong support, regardless of whether he asks for it.” A kneel to the floor by Isildur “Should his Majesty ever need it, he’llhave my sword.”
Míriel stands regal and proud before her “The long time of darkness’ reign has ended. Be sure that the ones still lingering will be vanquished just as quickly, Commander. Have trust.” she offers with determined kindness, soliciting and obtaining a smile from her.
“I will do so, your Majesty.”
The days pass with calm and joyful ease, the southlanders rejoicing in the fallen evil that has been erased from their land and the burden removed from hearts of painful association as word spreads that Middle Earth is free, that Arda will shine in unmarred light once again as Eru had always intended it to. And she would have her gladness entwining with theirs and swirling just as contently were it not for her love’s state, still cradled by that damned fever and remnants of blood loss. There had been so much of is coming out of his pierced armor, his warm brown piece stained in dark red and lines of black she’d wanted to rip off of him, so that he would not be touched by it a second more.
She wondered as she passed the wet cloth to lower his temperature whether what she had wrought on that creature who’d hurt him this way was nearly enough, if he’d suffered as much as Halbrand was, as she was looking at him so weak yet still fighting with all of his might. She thought back to how she’d slowly, slowly twisted her blade into the creature’s middle and brought it up to cut slightly at its lungs before drawing her dagger and plunging it in again and again and again. She wondered whether she could have make it suffer a worse pain than that she was currently facing.
She thinks by the time he’ll wake up - because he will wake up, she’ll be able to recognize him even in the darkest cave were he to go missing among other men, her skin having memorized his every feature through the fingers she’s caressed his face with every day, unfailingly cradling it in her hands as if he was the sun she needed to rise up so she could light up her cloudy sky.
She drifts into a dreamless sleep slowly, as she traces the light veins of his hand with her fingerprints.
Don’t let me be deprived of you now, melmenya.
A pleasant dawn announces the coning of the fifteenth day since Middle Earth victory over the forces of evil, two whole weeks in wich Halbrand had kept on balancing himself on the thin line between life and death and Galadriel had stool vigil, guarding his body diligently so his soul could come back home soon.
As she stirs into wakefulness, her bones cracking just so as she begins to stretch out her arms, her movement is stopped by the feeling of something moving on top of her head; she concentrates on it and quickly makes out the shape of a hand, rubbing the crown of her head with long fingers threading through her hair. Could she hope?
She dares to open her eyes and everything is silenced, every color muted down, every sensation but the hand on her head discarded as blue finally, finally reunites with green.
His eyes are open, his cheek touching the pillow to her side as his arm is outstretched to pat her gently.
“Elf.” he says softly, looking exhausted but present, awake and aware though his voice bears weakness due to his injuries. She’d never in her long life been happier to hear a voice speak to her, never felt her heart soar so high she thought she’d have to leave her hroa behind if it meant her feä would be with him always. He simply smiles to her, simple affection and love poring from it and she is pulled from her seat. Her arms are around him immediately, a vice grip embrace that won’t hurt him but doesn’t intend to let him go either, her lips pressing to his now evenly feeling skin as she lays kisses on his entire face while he laughs into her skin and chants Halbrand, Halbrand , happy to her thinnest bone, until he musters enough strenght to hold her in turn and recline back onto the mattress, bringing her with him. She moves her head from the warmth the crook of his neck buried her in and brushes their noses together, getting her a smile she’d missed so much she wishes she could bottle it up and admire it every waking moment.
She looks straight into his eyes and sees herself mirrored in them, sunlight dancing in the green of his orbs picturing a verdant forest. I love you, I love you, I love you. They whisper back to her, blue eyes shimmering. She lets him move slightly to leave a gentle kiss on her forehead, never taking her eyes off of him. Then he asks her, pain-dulled alarm in his tone “Isildur?”
She smiles a full smile in dismissal of his worry at that “Safe and living, thanks to you.” she rests her hands on his cheeks just as his cup her jaw tenderly, exiting a relieved sigh.
“We did it.” he says then, a grin blossoming on his face, looking at her for confirmation “We did. We vanquished the darkness away, all of us.” she confirms.
His grin grows into a full fledged smile with white teeth showing, reflecting her own.
“You really are the most stubborn colt in all of Arda, lebe.” the playful indignation at his equaling her to an animal is dismissed by his use of the endearment in his mother tongue. She laughs freely, bell like laughter resounding within the walls, the man in front of her encircling her in an embrace warmer than the sun shining through the window. She presses him to her gently, breathing him in and basking in the peace, the freedom, the sense of finally belonging and being seen, elevated, so beautifully and completely cherished.
Arda is free. I am free. She presses her nose against his neck, hands laying flat against his back.
The both of them tightly interlaced, with the sun raising in the sky and the light bursting from within her after centuries resplendent in all its unrestrained beauty, she welcomes life.