Arwen had been stabbed.
Estel's heart had quailed in fear and his stomach retched, she was so pale.
Fortune had smiled upon her, or so it seemed. The cut was at the most a
quarter of an inch deep, but it was about thirteen inches long. There were
no bits of the blade to be found in her cream-colored back at all, however.
The orc that had stabbed her was long since dead, killed by the joint
efforts of Arwen's twin brothers and Estel, her brothers fearing what had
happened to her mother.
She had been rushed back into Imladris with the hopes that Elrond could
save his daughter, although he had not been able to save his wife. She was
his only reason for staying in Middle-Earth, and if she left, there would
be no reason for him to stay. With those hopes, Estel gathered the Athelas
needed to speed her healing.
As Glorfindel, on gate duty that fateful day had noticed them, he had run
into the Hall of Fire shouting to Elrond in both the Common Tongue and
Sindarin. "The Evenstar! My Lord!" Elrond looked terrified lest Glorfindel
say that the servants of the evil lord had abducted her, though this was
impossible while Estel was alive. He had the assurance that the Ranger was
still alive, for he had seen him run past the door with Arwen limp in his
arms, heading towards her chambers. "Orcs! Long blade! Needs aid!"
This was worse than he had imagined, for he was not sure how far she was
from them. He walked swiftly down the beautiful marble stairways of
Imladris, remembering how it had been too late to save his wife, and hoping
- no, praying- that the same fate, in different form, would not come to his
daughter. As he walked into the room, he realized she was still speaking
rationally with Estel, so his heart lightened. Just a little.
Yes. He would be able to save her. He had to rack his brains for the
ancient words that would save her from going any deeper into the soreness
of her wound. The look on her face, a look of pure pain, was hurting his
immortal soul terribly. However, as he muttered the words of healing, she
laid her head in the corner of her room at the top of her bed where the
pillow she slept on was. Then he watched her form relax and drift off, and
his face grew calmer as he watched her sleeping. No bits of restlessness
would come if she had truly healed, and none had come yet, after almost
three hours.
He still looked worried, however. "Estel." Elrond said. "She will be just
fine. I promise you that. She will not sink into shadow, it was not a
Morgul blade. Since she was only out there about half and hour, and the orc
that wounded her died, she will not have a scar, nor will she have a very
good memory of the incident. I will make sure of it. This is a trifling
compared to some of the other wounds she has received."
Estel looked into the face of Elrond and saw the perfect truth etched
there. He got up and left with the mysterious little bag he had, and went
in the direction of the banquet hall. He came back thirty minutes later
with a cup of constantly boiling water. He also had gone to his room, as
Elrond had noted from entering the Ranger's mind. He had come out with a
package, a square one, that Elrond was sure was for Arwen. The little bag,
it seemed, now that the Ranger opened it, was full of Athelas.
As Arwen stirred, rolling onto her front so that her back exposed itself
from her hunting coat, Estel smiled gratefully at Elrond. Estel chewed on
the end of a piece for a moment before dipping it into the water and
pressing it to Arwen's wound. She squirmed a bit and moaned a little, and
Elrond entered his daughter's dreams. What he saw troubled him. They dream
he witnessed in his daughter's mind was that Orcs chased her. Elrond ran
into the middle of the clearing where she was being tortured, and raised
his sword. The Orcs, startled at seeing new play, ran after him instead. He
killed them all, then led Arwen back into the hills of Rivendell.
* * * * *
As Arwen woke two days later, she noticed that she as in her chamber. When she saw Elrond sitting by her side, she saw his look of great relief. She looked confused as she sat up. "Where am I, and why, father, are you in my room? I remember being hurt, but I don't know why that would constitute a bedside vigil." Elrond smiled, glad that she did not remember much, and gave her a little squeeze of her hand. "You were hurt, and sorely, but you are right: that does not normally mean I would stay by your bedside, but Estel thought he should watch over you until you awoke." Here Arwen looked amused, so Elrond continued. "He had been at it for almost two days until I sent him to sleep about six hours ago." She laughed, a sound not heard for so long it had made the whole of Imladris despair. As she did, the whole place lightened, and the elves felt a great sense of contentment. As far as she knew, Estel did not know that she had awoken, and she asked her Father if he could see if he could keep it that way. He agreed, so she stayed in her room, fixing the riding coat that had been damaged when she had been wounded. As dinner approached, Arwen began to feel hungry. Her father came in with a bit of bread and some tea. He had managed to convince the kitchen staff that he was getting some food for a patient who needed it a lot. They finally gave in, and gave him some butter, and a plum. Arwen looked grateful to see some good food for the first time in a while. After a few minutes, when he had left, Arwen finished the letter she had been writing to her grandmother after finishing the coat. She saw Aragorn wandering the Garden paths with no apparent purpose. She called out to him. "Estel? What are you doing out there?" She watched as the light that came into his eyes returned as soon as her voice was recognized. She smiled. "I hope you are well?" she teased. "Arwen, you know I am well, it is you I worry about." A dark cloud that vanished instantly passed his face while he hopped over the railing that separated her room from the garden. "Meleth-nin, you were sorely hurt. I would not leave your bedside normally, but your father in-sis-ted I get some sleep." As he brought her in for an embrace, she was sure she heard his voice saying in an exasperated tone: "As if Rangers ever really need rest when others around them are hurt." She laughed again, and said something that made him draw away. "You know, Estel, I cannot help but believe that watching me sleep for two days straight would get a bit boring after a while." She kissed him on his cheek, and tasted the salt there. "Aran-nin! You have been crying! Why?" His breath shuddered as he drew another breath, wondering how to voice his concern. "I could not help but cry, Arwen. All Imladris was worried we had lost you to the void of Middle-Earth." He then looked so stern that Arwen even retreated a little. "The orc your brothers and I killed carried a Morgul weapon, so we feared the worst. However, since you were keeping your senses for so long, we began to worry much less. When we got to here, you almost had not the strength to get off your horse, even with my help. Immediately after your feet touched the ground, you fainted. I carried you into your room, and Glorfindel ran into the hall to alert your Father." He paused to breathe for a few seconds, and then continued. "I was so scared I would have nothing to live for anymore." "Estel! How could you believed that for one second my spirit would leave my body? How. how could you?" She ran into the gardens crying. He followed her. As he sneaked up upon her, she caught him. "Estel, I cannot believe you would break your promise! You promised me you would never think of it! Ever!" Here she resumed her sobbing. His hand caressed her heaving shoulders. She calmed a little. "Arwen, you were to pale to not think you were dying. You lost nearly all your blood." She looked at him with a combination of saddness and anger. He continued. "Beloved, you are dearer to me than anything else, and I would have killed myself if you had fallen. Come on, meleth-nin; let us just go back now. You can go to sleep, and so can I. I will be able to sleep in peace tonight." He had slipped an arm around her back to pull her into an embrace that she had resisted. He now grabbed her hands with his two while standing in front of her, and got her onto her feet. She allowed her self to be lead to her room. She sat on the stool in front of her desk as she addressed the envelope in front of her that contained her letter to 'The Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn, from their Granddaughter'. Unseen by her, Aragorn snuck up behind her with a small bowl of greenish paste. As he put more of the Athelas cream to the wound in her back, she screamed. "Ai! Elbereth! Help me!" As he did it again, she let out a new blood-curdling scream, seeing him wince at it. She slapped him, and he looked confused. Then she pushed him, driving him out onto the balcony, then running in and shutting the glass doors that separated her from him for the moment. Then she locked them. As he looked angry, she stuck her tongue out, and he looked positively deadly for a moment. That had really hurt her, and he knew it. She crossed the room and locked her other doors too, so that she could sleep in peace. She washed out her wound, and almost screamed at the pain that coursed through her veins as she did. Then, brushing out her long locks, she tied them up, far above her pointed ears. As she did up the buttons on her nightgown, she heard a wave of knockings on the wooden door that held the entrance to the hallway. She looked out the tiny glass circle that was in the door, and saw both her father and Estel out there. Her father looked exasperated, Estel looking horrible. Her long fingers found the door handle, and she opened it a whisper's width. She allowed her father in, but according to her wishes, Estel stayed in the hallway, pacing the floor with a look of pure anger on his face. After Elrond had entered, she sauntered over to her bed and gracefully lowered herself to the soft surface. Her father also sat next to her, and looking even more exasperated than normal (because she did things that made him exasperated quite often). "Arwen, the Athelas is for your own good. You know that." She looked vengeful now, so he was merely stating facts. "Estel meant well. It does hurt though, doesn't it?" he reflected upon the time when he had succumbed to being treated with it every day for two weeks. She nodded. A sigh came from Elrond's mouth. "Then why can't you just let him get it over with?" She rolled her eyes. "It's bad enough that he did it without telling me what he was doing, but he forgot something even more important than the pain." He looked quizzical, so she continued. "Father, be broke our vow that he would never worry about my dying, even if I was at the very door of the void. He promised, Father!" She dissolved into tears, her long-fingered hands covering her face, as if trying to hide the hurt held there. Elrond's hand brushed a strand behind her ear, remembering the time when she was small, that he had broken the same vow to her mother. He whispered something into her ear, trying to calm her down. She finally did, and with a deep breath called to her maids outside the door. "All right, send him in." Her favorite, the maid Elfrin, called into the hallway. "Estel. Arwen is ready." She had then backed away from the door with such a force that Arwen started. As he walked in, a look of pure anger in his eyes that she was sure he was going to do something terrible to her weather her father was there or not. He seemed to be grappling with the desire to throw her, yet resisting the Ranger instincts to do so. While he walked in, seriously considering tossing her out the window, she shot him a look of such evil that a look of confusion came over his face for a second. It disappeared immediately. She felt like kicking him, but since he was holding back his desires, she was too. He had just wanted to help, and could not understand why elf women could be so moody at times. She sat on the stool in front of her desk again, facing her head towards the wall, and with an exasperated sigh, she dropped her hunting coat to the floor. He brought over the Athelas, and with a quick motion, the entire wound was covered. She seemed so surprised that he thought she had missed the pain, but then he noticed her hand. It was clenched in so tight of a fist that he saw the nails of her slender fingers beginning to enter her skin. In another swift movement, he unloosed her fingers and wrapped them around his own wrist, feeling the gauge of the pain in her body by how hard she squeezed with every new addition of the herb. She was enduring this one, and suddenly she felt her head explode, then go light. With a soft moaning of "Father." she fainted again. Elrond's heart quickly jumped out of his chest, and Estel had caught her with one arm after watching her eyes roll into the back of her head, just too tired to stay awake. He set the bowl down on the desk, gave her a tiny kiss to the forehead, and lay her on the couch that sat in the corner closest to the desk. After he had seen that she was merely sleeping, Elrond bade Estel go take his leave and go to rest. He picked up his sleeping daughter, and gently lay her in the four-poster bed in her room, covering her up to her slight little neck that had often reminded him of her mother. She sighed in her sleep, and he was finally glad she was getting some true rest. * * * * * * When Arwen awoke about ten minutes later, she found herself in her bed, the pain of the Athelas still coursing through the length of her slender figure. She would soon need to get to sleep, since she had an entire dozen of young elves to teach the written Common Tongue to tomorrow, and she would -no, could- not let the tiny little elves down. They were all about seven, in their first year of the language, and she was their first teacher, for all the children loved her. The maid children anyway. She decided that before she sunk into the dreams of tomorrow that she would go give Aragorn and her father a little assurance that she was fine. She got up from the side of her bed, and padded silently to the kitchen. She knew that someone was there, she just did not know who, but took assurance in the feeling that they were not evil. She walked into the water room just in time to see her twin brothers come in from the other side bickering over a piece of cheese. She laughed, and as she did, their ears brightened. They looked at her with a seeming awe of great shame at being seen in their midnight snacking by someone besides the cooks (who had provided them with the food in the first place). She then said too the faces that could not see her, but merely sensed her, "Elladan, Elrohir! A piece of that huge cheese sent to us by the cook is not worthy of your quarrel, I think." As her voice was recognized, they laughed to, remembering the time she had caught them already in their snacking, but before it was the last of the cake, and she had insisted they share it with her. Her two brothers, who thought it terribly funny, escorted her to the kitchen. She was so tired, however, that she almost could not drink from the river itself. Elrohir brought a little cup with her name on it, saying it was a very late birth-day (meaning the day she was born) present, but back then they had not had the patience to make it. She had drunk her fill when the kitchen maid began pulling on her skirts. As she turned around she saw a huge gray creature, by the looks of it a troll, and catching the hobbits drift, she picked up her skirts and ran for her father. She quickly entered the room, and he was still lying there, his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. "Father! Father!" He stirred, and with her persistent shaking of his shoulder, he sat up. "Father, there's a troll in the fields! Wake up, and fetch Estel. I mean to help in this too, but he must not know it, for he will not agree." Elrond, however, did not either, but there was no stopping his Arwen when she was set upon something. She ran into her room, grabbing the hunting coat she had been working upon all day to wear over her dress. She grabbed her sword just in time to hear one of the kitchen maids, Daisy, screaming for Lord Elrond. Arwen pelted down the hallway, unsheathing her sword, cutting the head of the troll off just as he about to take a bit of a bite out of Gardenia. Daisy was in a corner with a fruit knife, and it was obvious she had tried to defend Gardenia and herself. She, nevertheless, was lying unhurt in the corner, seemingly thrown there. Arwen cradled the tiny girl she found in the wreckage of the barrel that had fallen on the tiny elf's head. "A! Elbereth! Viresse![1] Are you all right?" "Lady Arwen! I think I can stand up." She tried and failed. "A least I thought so. But yes, I will be fine." "If you're sure." Arwen looked unconvinced. But with a slight nod from Viresse, she smiled. "I have to say, Viresse, if you survive anything worse than this, I shall be forced to believe you have more than elven blood in you." She set the little elf down, and they little thing shook her head and scampered off to her room. Arwen leaned against the wall, tired even more than before, and as her vision slipped, she saw Estel entering the room, his sword drawn, unaware that the troll was dead. Aragorn came rushing into the kitchen, unaware of what she had done, how she had not listened to her father. He came in just in time to see her fall from exhaustion again. The hobbit's eyes widened. "Master Estel! Can you help her? Oh, please help her!" He gave another exasperated roll to his eyes, and lifted her off the floor where she had fallen. He carried her up to her room, where she opened her eyes again, her father trailing after Aragorn. She smiled sheepishly at him. "Arwen, you. you. you scared me." she laughed as he made this statement. "Well, you did." Elrond took the opprotunity to speak. "I suppose you aught to get to sleep, Estel?" The tall Man turned quickly. "I promise she will not leave her room until morning." Having disposed of that he called to Arwen's maid. "Elfrin, would you kindly lock all of the Lady Arwen's doors from the outside? I will lock the outermost one where you sleep." Elfrin nodded. Arwen looked furious. "Father, really, I was only getting something to drink." Elrond smiled. "Too bad. I wish you to rest well, my daughter." As Aragorn left with Elrond, Arwen shrugged. "Well, I suppose that I should at least be grateful for not having to have my medicine twice."
[1] Viresse: April.
* * * * *
As Arwen woke two days later, she noticed that she as in her chamber. When she saw Elrond sitting by her side, she saw his look of great relief. She looked confused as she sat up. "Where am I, and why, father, are you in my room? I remember being hurt, but I don't know why that would constitute a bedside vigil." Elrond smiled, glad that she did not remember much, and gave her a little squeeze of her hand. "You were hurt, and sorely, but you are right: that does not normally mean I would stay by your bedside, but Estel thought he should watch over you until you awoke." Here Arwen looked amused, so Elrond continued. "He had been at it for almost two days until I sent him to sleep about six hours ago." She laughed, a sound not heard for so long it had made the whole of Imladris despair. As she did, the whole place lightened, and the elves felt a great sense of contentment. As far as she knew, Estel did not know that she had awoken, and she asked her Father if he could see if he could keep it that way. He agreed, so she stayed in her room, fixing the riding coat that had been damaged when she had been wounded. As dinner approached, Arwen began to feel hungry. Her father came in with a bit of bread and some tea. He had managed to convince the kitchen staff that he was getting some food for a patient who needed it a lot. They finally gave in, and gave him some butter, and a plum. Arwen looked grateful to see some good food for the first time in a while. After a few minutes, when he had left, Arwen finished the letter she had been writing to her grandmother after finishing the coat. She saw Aragorn wandering the Garden paths with no apparent purpose. She called out to him. "Estel? What are you doing out there?" She watched as the light that came into his eyes returned as soon as her voice was recognized. She smiled. "I hope you are well?" she teased. "Arwen, you know I am well, it is you I worry about." A dark cloud that vanished instantly passed his face while he hopped over the railing that separated her room from the garden. "Meleth-nin, you were sorely hurt. I would not leave your bedside normally, but your father in-sis-ted I get some sleep." As he brought her in for an embrace, she was sure she heard his voice saying in an exasperated tone: "As if Rangers ever really need rest when others around them are hurt." She laughed again, and said something that made him draw away. "You know, Estel, I cannot help but believe that watching me sleep for two days straight would get a bit boring after a while." She kissed him on his cheek, and tasted the salt there. "Aran-nin! You have been crying! Why?" His breath shuddered as he drew another breath, wondering how to voice his concern. "I could not help but cry, Arwen. All Imladris was worried we had lost you to the void of Middle-Earth." He then looked so stern that Arwen even retreated a little. "The orc your brothers and I killed carried a Morgul weapon, so we feared the worst. However, since you were keeping your senses for so long, we began to worry much less. When we got to here, you almost had not the strength to get off your horse, even with my help. Immediately after your feet touched the ground, you fainted. I carried you into your room, and Glorfindel ran into the hall to alert your Father." He paused to breathe for a few seconds, and then continued. "I was so scared I would have nothing to live for anymore." "Estel! How could you believed that for one second my spirit would leave my body? How. how could you?" She ran into the gardens crying. He followed her. As he sneaked up upon her, she caught him. "Estel, I cannot believe you would break your promise! You promised me you would never think of it! Ever!" Here she resumed her sobbing. His hand caressed her heaving shoulders. She calmed a little. "Arwen, you were to pale to not think you were dying. You lost nearly all your blood." She looked at him with a combination of saddness and anger. He continued. "Beloved, you are dearer to me than anything else, and I would have killed myself if you had fallen. Come on, meleth-nin; let us just go back now. You can go to sleep, and so can I. I will be able to sleep in peace tonight." He had slipped an arm around her back to pull her into an embrace that she had resisted. He now grabbed her hands with his two while standing in front of her, and got her onto her feet. She allowed her self to be lead to her room. She sat on the stool in front of her desk as she addressed the envelope in front of her that contained her letter to 'The Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn, from their Granddaughter'. Unseen by her, Aragorn snuck up behind her with a small bowl of greenish paste. As he put more of the Athelas cream to the wound in her back, she screamed. "Ai! Elbereth! Help me!" As he did it again, she let out a new blood-curdling scream, seeing him wince at it. She slapped him, and he looked confused. Then she pushed him, driving him out onto the balcony, then running in and shutting the glass doors that separated her from him for the moment. Then she locked them. As he looked angry, she stuck her tongue out, and he looked positively deadly for a moment. That had really hurt her, and he knew it. She crossed the room and locked her other doors too, so that she could sleep in peace. She washed out her wound, and almost screamed at the pain that coursed through her veins as she did. Then, brushing out her long locks, she tied them up, far above her pointed ears. As she did up the buttons on her nightgown, she heard a wave of knockings on the wooden door that held the entrance to the hallway. She looked out the tiny glass circle that was in the door, and saw both her father and Estel out there. Her father looked exasperated, Estel looking horrible. Her long fingers found the door handle, and she opened it a whisper's width. She allowed her father in, but according to her wishes, Estel stayed in the hallway, pacing the floor with a look of pure anger on his face. After Elrond had entered, she sauntered over to her bed and gracefully lowered herself to the soft surface. Her father also sat next to her, and looking even more exasperated than normal (because she did things that made him exasperated quite often). "Arwen, the Athelas is for your own good. You know that." She looked vengeful now, so he was merely stating facts. "Estel meant well. It does hurt though, doesn't it?" he reflected upon the time when he had succumbed to being treated with it every day for two weeks. She nodded. A sigh came from Elrond's mouth. "Then why can't you just let him get it over with?" She rolled her eyes. "It's bad enough that he did it without telling me what he was doing, but he forgot something even more important than the pain." He looked quizzical, so she continued. "Father, be broke our vow that he would never worry about my dying, even if I was at the very door of the void. He promised, Father!" She dissolved into tears, her long-fingered hands covering her face, as if trying to hide the hurt held there. Elrond's hand brushed a strand behind her ear, remembering the time when she was small, that he had broken the same vow to her mother. He whispered something into her ear, trying to calm her down. She finally did, and with a deep breath called to her maids outside the door. "All right, send him in." Her favorite, the maid Elfrin, called into the hallway. "Estel. Arwen is ready." She had then backed away from the door with such a force that Arwen started. As he walked in, a look of pure anger in his eyes that she was sure he was going to do something terrible to her weather her father was there or not. He seemed to be grappling with the desire to throw her, yet resisting the Ranger instincts to do so. While he walked in, seriously considering tossing her out the window, she shot him a look of such evil that a look of confusion came over his face for a second. It disappeared immediately. She felt like kicking him, but since he was holding back his desires, she was too. He had just wanted to help, and could not understand why elf women could be so moody at times. She sat on the stool in front of her desk again, facing her head towards the wall, and with an exasperated sigh, she dropped her hunting coat to the floor. He brought over the Athelas, and with a quick motion, the entire wound was covered. She seemed so surprised that he thought she had missed the pain, but then he noticed her hand. It was clenched in so tight of a fist that he saw the nails of her slender fingers beginning to enter her skin. In another swift movement, he unloosed her fingers and wrapped them around his own wrist, feeling the gauge of the pain in her body by how hard she squeezed with every new addition of the herb. She was enduring this one, and suddenly she felt her head explode, then go light. With a soft moaning of "Father." she fainted again. Elrond's heart quickly jumped out of his chest, and Estel had caught her with one arm after watching her eyes roll into the back of her head, just too tired to stay awake. He set the bowl down on the desk, gave her a tiny kiss to the forehead, and lay her on the couch that sat in the corner closest to the desk. After he had seen that she was merely sleeping, Elrond bade Estel go take his leave and go to rest. He picked up his sleeping daughter, and gently lay her in the four-poster bed in her room, covering her up to her slight little neck that had often reminded him of her mother. She sighed in her sleep, and he was finally glad she was getting some true rest. * * * * * * When Arwen awoke about ten minutes later, she found herself in her bed, the pain of the Athelas still coursing through the length of her slender figure. She would soon need to get to sleep, since she had an entire dozen of young elves to teach the written Common Tongue to tomorrow, and she would -no, could- not let the tiny little elves down. They were all about seven, in their first year of the language, and she was their first teacher, for all the children loved her. The maid children anyway. She decided that before she sunk into the dreams of tomorrow that she would go give Aragorn and her father a little assurance that she was fine. She got up from the side of her bed, and padded silently to the kitchen. She knew that someone was there, she just did not know who, but took assurance in the feeling that they were not evil. She walked into the water room just in time to see her twin brothers come in from the other side bickering over a piece of cheese. She laughed, and as she did, their ears brightened. They looked at her with a seeming awe of great shame at being seen in their midnight snacking by someone besides the cooks (who had provided them with the food in the first place). She then said too the faces that could not see her, but merely sensed her, "Elladan, Elrohir! A piece of that huge cheese sent to us by the cook is not worthy of your quarrel, I think." As her voice was recognized, they laughed to, remembering the time she had caught them already in their snacking, but before it was the last of the cake, and she had insisted they share it with her. Her two brothers, who thought it terribly funny, escorted her to the kitchen. She was so tired, however, that she almost could not drink from the river itself. Elrohir brought a little cup with her name on it, saying it was a very late birth-day (meaning the day she was born) present, but back then they had not had the patience to make it. She had drunk her fill when the kitchen maid began pulling on her skirts. As she turned around she saw a huge gray creature, by the looks of it a troll, and catching the hobbits drift, she picked up her skirts and ran for her father. She quickly entered the room, and he was still lying there, his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. "Father! Father!" He stirred, and with her persistent shaking of his shoulder, he sat up. "Father, there's a troll in the fields! Wake up, and fetch Estel. I mean to help in this too, but he must not know it, for he will not agree." Elrond, however, did not either, but there was no stopping his Arwen when she was set upon something. She ran into her room, grabbing the hunting coat she had been working upon all day to wear over her dress. She grabbed her sword just in time to hear one of the kitchen maids, Daisy, screaming for Lord Elrond. Arwen pelted down the hallway, unsheathing her sword, cutting the head of the troll off just as he about to take a bit of a bite out of Gardenia. Daisy was in a corner with a fruit knife, and it was obvious she had tried to defend Gardenia and herself. She, nevertheless, was lying unhurt in the corner, seemingly thrown there. Arwen cradled the tiny girl she found in the wreckage of the barrel that had fallen on the tiny elf's head. "A! Elbereth! Viresse![1] Are you all right?" "Lady Arwen! I think I can stand up." She tried and failed. "A least I thought so. But yes, I will be fine." "If you're sure." Arwen looked unconvinced. But with a slight nod from Viresse, she smiled. "I have to say, Viresse, if you survive anything worse than this, I shall be forced to believe you have more than elven blood in you." She set the little elf down, and they little thing shook her head and scampered off to her room. Arwen leaned against the wall, tired even more than before, and as her vision slipped, she saw Estel entering the room, his sword drawn, unaware that the troll was dead. Aragorn came rushing into the kitchen, unaware of what she had done, how she had not listened to her father. He came in just in time to see her fall from exhaustion again. The hobbit's eyes widened. "Master Estel! Can you help her? Oh, please help her!" He gave another exasperated roll to his eyes, and lifted her off the floor where she had fallen. He carried her up to her room, where she opened her eyes again, her father trailing after Aragorn. She smiled sheepishly at him. "Arwen, you. you. you scared me." she laughed as he made this statement. "Well, you did." Elrond took the opprotunity to speak. "I suppose you aught to get to sleep, Estel?" The tall Man turned quickly. "I promise she will not leave her room until morning." Having disposed of that he called to Arwen's maid. "Elfrin, would you kindly lock all of the Lady Arwen's doors from the outside? I will lock the outermost one where you sleep." Elfrin nodded. Arwen looked furious. "Father, really, I was only getting something to drink." Elrond smiled. "Too bad. I wish you to rest well, my daughter." As Aragorn left with Elrond, Arwen shrugged. "Well, I suppose that I should at least be grateful for not having to have my medicine twice."
[1] Viresse: April.