A Final Moment

Notes: First, please be aware that this is not a Lord of the Rings book-fic. I've read the books, but it was a moment in "The Two Towers", the movie, that inspired this. It is a major spoiler for the film, so if you don't want to know, what happens, please don't read it. Second, I've never written this character before, so please be gentle!

For those of you who don't know, its Haldir, pretty blond elf guy.

I was not happy at this point in the film. Really.

Also, this fic is for Collie, you wonderfully odd creature. Don't kill me! Please!

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The blow is true.

I feel it begin already.

The end.

It creeps through my veins like the winter chill of the North, strange and unfamiliar, something I have never touched. I know to fear it. Fear is natural for my people, fear of a mortality quashed.

Like mists, it enfolds us without warning, shrouding us in darkness.

Strange, that the pain is not much.

A mere ache that will bring death nonetheless, the venomous kiss of a blade.

I see my companions, warriors and allies lying before me where they have fallen, cut down, the chorus of battle howling in my ears. Metal strikes metal, flesh and stone. It all is so…meaningless.

Did they feel the chill, I find myself wondering, or were they gathered at once to the Halllways of our forebears? Did they question in the final throb of their hearts, I wonder, the madness of all of this as I have?

Their sightless eyes see nothing and speak to me no more.

Have they fallen for nothing?

My soldiers?

My warriors?

My…my friends?

I would that I could whisper but an apology in their closed ears for this darkness forced on them, an assurance that they have not been cut down in vain.

Had I the strength, I would not be able to voice the lie.

Or the truth.

All is nothing in such a moment as this.

A quickening.

My senses scream of a danger, but the cold it too much, my form encased in ice.

I feel the blade cut through the air.

The strike is hard and fast, the shock strengthened by the pain blossoming.

Fear truly touches me now, fingers icy and grasping.

My life is extinguished thus, on this wall of a shattered keep that is lying in rubble. Friend and foe rest at my feet, blood and smoke clouding the air, every breath touched by the tang of metal.

Was is worth it?

The many fallen, those who will soon join them?

It feels like time is mired in a marsh, the battle around me, slowed and silent as I feel myself sinking downwards to kneel. It is terrifying this thing, this…death.

My strength fades as the rose touched by winter's frost, my mind wishing and commanding that I die on my feet, a true and proud warrior of Lothlorien.

My body fails me now.

Weak and fragile.

Mortal.

Features of the ones earlier departed stare at me from sightless eyes and I seek the assurances of a journey to the Great Elven Halls in their faces, but see nothing.

Heat, smoke, blood, darkness all circle closer.

I can no longer fight, the tainted air useless to my broken body. My last song would be a plea that hope is not lost, that some good, some miracle, comes of this end.

My mind doubts, but the heart of my heart is of stone.

I know.

There is hope.

There is always hope, I know it, although it is hard to see.

I see the faces of those who have parted before me. They are waiting, calling me to them, and with the touch of a friend, a last touch of this world, I allow my soul to soar free to join them, for a new eternity.