I don't own any of Tolkein's world.

Disclaimer: AU, not following movie verse

Prologue

She staggered painfully through the wood, where were they? She thought. She could barely keep her eyes open as darkness threatened to consume her sight. She trudged on trying to blink away the haze in her eyes. Suddenly, she fell to her knees, not being able to bear the pain on her side while walking anymore as she clutched the bloodied area of her tunic below her ribs. Her ribs, she thought morbidly, she was sure she had more than one broken rib. Why else would it hurt so much to breath and so hard to catch breath? She looked down to the ground, finally noticing that the root that stuck out of the ground next to her hand was curiously silver. This was all too familiar. Valar help me, it's his wood. She cursed under her breath, she had wandered blindly into the Golden Wood, "that far huh?" she smirked grimly, letting herself remember the length of her journey from Mirkwood and the ambush that was made against their company while patrolling the Gladden Fields. She had walked in the completely wrong direction, she cursed under her breath again, she had meant to lead them back to Mirkwood, or at least near it. At least until she surely knew where more of her Mirkwood elves had been patrolling that week.

"What...that far—what?" asked Amras, his hand reaching out to help his commander get up from the ground. He was not that well off himself; he had long forgotten how long they had stumbled across the fields for since the ambush, his head stinging through the crusted blood on his brow. Every time he made some sort of exaggerated facial movement the gash would begin to bleed again, sending trails of red down his sodden and soiled face. His fever had risen and he was beginning to linger on the brink of delusion; he knew he should be feeling excruciating pain but his mind was beginning to wrap his body in a frighteningly numb state. His leg was broken and torn up from when the warg had savagely shaken it in its mouth, he recalled vaguely. He had nearly fallen to the ground with Aranel when she stumbled, for she was also carrying his weight around for quite a while.

"We're in the woods of Lorien," she said hopelessly, "I'm so sorry Amras," her voice hitching, "I fear I cannot go on with this pain...and who knows how long those damned Lorien wardens will take to stumble across our broken bodies..." she said miserably as pools of tears began forming in her eyes. She painfully stretched her long fingers through the ground, grabbing handfuls of dirt and clenching it with frustration.

Amras felt her shoulders begin to shake under his hand; he had never seen Aranel in such a state. He hated it, he resolved, as he felt hot streaks of tears running down his cheeks.

Aranel managed to get up with Amras' help, not wanting to fail her soldier. She was captain of the Mirkwood warden; she wouldn't let herself die without a fight. She wouldn't let herself die knowing that he might find her in such a state. Maybe I didn't wander blindly back here after all, she thought bleakly.

Her long legs were shaking with pain, as she and Amras staggered on through the wood, her face expressionless, dead.

They had not gone five feet when, again, she fell, this time bringing Amras down with her. Her face was plastered to the ground now, inhaling the raw scent of dirt. Amras was taken aback when he finally noticed he was falling, which was seconds to his painful impact on the ground. An agonizing groan ripped out of his throat when he landed on his leg, tears bursting out of his eyes.

Minutes ran by, hours eventually did as well. Not a word was uttered between the soldier and his captain, for the both of them were so tired, so desperate to continue, hating their bodies for not responding to their commands.

"Aranel" said Amras, finally being able to come out of the haze from his mind. He heard nothing in response. Panic filled him, with his last strength he managed to turn himself onto his back, desperately searching for life in Aranel's eyes as he turned his head to see her face. Her eyes were closed, her face paler than the last time he saw it. "Aranel....please..." he rasped desperately. She suddenly took in a shallow breath. He waited until he saw her back raise and fall again. When it did his heart continued beating. Her breaths were few and far between he noticed. His were beginning to slow as well, he thought, as he brought his hand to her face. He tenderly caressed her dirty cheek with the back of his fingers as his brow furrowed, bulbous tears running down his face, blood spilling out of his head, again. Surprise, surprise. He began feeling faint, lost too much blood. He sighed, so this is it.

His crystalline blue eyes shimmered with tears and deepened in anguish as he looked above to the sky. It was near sunset, he noticed. He numbly watched the golden leaves flutter brazenly in the wind, never to die, but to merely change colour come winter. He managed a lopsided smirk as he thought this, only now had he begun to see delicate beauty of his surroundings as his mind darkened every minute. I've never been in Lorien before... he thought before his heavy eyelids slowly covered the light of Lorien.

Tbc