Disclaimer: I do not own The Lord of the Rings or its characters. Just a faithful fan here! Making no profits!
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Helm's Deep.
Though the party had been on a search for Merry and Pippin, they had wound up here. In this battle.
It wasn't that Aragorn liked to kill. He didn't particularly enjoy the feeling of his blade ripping through every vein and bone in another being's body. Nobody likes seeing a comrade fall, choking up blood, his entrails hanging from his stomach. So what brought him to the battlefield so many times?
People like Arwen. Aragorn felt a need to protect those he loved and couldn't be at the battlefield. People like Merry and Pippin, who had been taken by those damned orcs, and Boromir, who had been killed by the same monsters. He had a duty to present judgment onto those who had hurt and killed those who were good of heart. And then there was Legolas and Gimli. He had to have their backs out there in the fight. There was also Frodo and Sam, who needed as few antagonists following them as possible.
The fight had been at a standstill for some time now. They stopped the armies of orcs and Uruk-hai for a while. Aragorn stood on the wall of the fort, looking down. He could see orcs maimed, their lost limbs twitching elsewhere. The fallen ones gurgled, screamed. Among the dying monsters lie the dead and dying men of the armies of Rohan. They were in the same state, only their blood was red instead of black.
On the battlefield, everyone was equal. They felt the same emotions: fear, passion, hatred, love, mental pain. Physical pain. You forget for a moment the reason you are slicing through another's flesh why you are killing, save for the instinct to survive. It became nothing more than a live-or-die situation. Afterwards, you could decide if the fight worked in your political favour.
Aragorn kicked an arrow aside that was lying inches from his feet. The last scream of somebody dying carried to his ears. It was impossible to tell if it was human or orc. The world was a blur, and it seemed that suddenly all the cries of the wounded were pouring into his mind. He vaguely heard somebody yelling orders behind him, something about 'more coming.' Aragorn brought his hands to his ears and lowered himself to the ground. The screams were enough to make glass break and veins pop. The last dying twitch of a man's fingers as he choked the final drop of blood. A man finally stumbling and falling onto the body parts of another.
Strong arms pulled him away, waking him from his daze.
Another wave had come. So the cycle started again.
