LOTRO Epic Quests Volume I Book 7 spoilers.
AGES
I
She moves soundlessly along the corridor, light on her feet, like a ghost or a gust of wind. The Ranger is still in his tiny cave-room, staring at the fire, exactly as she left him a few hours ago. Oblivious to her presence.
Quietly, she watches, feeling guilt creeping into her mind because she is witness to something he would not wish her to see, because she is trespassing, invading his privacy, even if he will never know it. But from what she has heard from others and seen herself, Golodir seems a good, honourable man, and she pities him. No father should outlive his child, let alone witness the death of his daughter.
Men's grief is similar to that of the Eldar, and yet so very different she finds it puzzling. She has seen death, has witnessed the demise of her teacher and mentor, and has grieved. But it was more selfish grief, missing the presence of a close friend, for she knew, even then while in mourning, that they would meet one day in the far West, on the fair shores of Valinor. With the Edain, it is different. They cannot cross the seas to be reunited with their loved ones, and it seems that what aggravates them most is that they do not know.
She wonders how would she feel were she to lose her parents to unknown fate, and shudders at the thought. How terrible it must to be actually experience something like that...
Golodir moves, and she quickly backs down the corridor, unseen. He would not appreciate her sneaking on him like that, but she guesses he would appreciate her compassion even less. Perhaps even hate her for it. And he would not accept any words of comfort, even if she had any to offer. What does she know, after all? What does she know of the grief of Men?
Back in the common room – tavern – kitchen – the cave serves all these purposes, and more – she puts a kettle on the fire and when the water begins to boil, she crushes some herbs into it. Sweet balm, camomile, athelas. A soothing, calming draught. It will not cure a broken heart, for no healing potion can do the feat, but it will allow the Ranger to sleep at night. Perhaps even to sleep without dreams.
The Ranger only looks at her when she brings him the draught, raised eyebrows the only indication he notices her, but he does not speak. When not out fighting or spying on the Enemy, he speaks little, only as much as strictly necessary.
Golodir leans over the cup, steam brushing his face, and smells the contents. "Herbs?" he asks curtly, his voice hoarse from disuse and unshed tears.
"You have long been captive in Carn Dûm. It will take some time to recover." This is not a straightforward answer to his question, and therefore not quite a lie. He does need to recover, but his wounds are not those of the flesh.
The Ranger nods, raises the cup and gulps down the contents, probably scorching his throat in the process, because the liquid is still hot. "Thank you," he mutters, pushing the now empty cup towards her. "I am grateful for your healing."
No, you are not, she realises with a dull shock, not really. He is just being polite, but his heart is not in it. He looks and behaves as if his heart was not in him anymore, and with it all life is gone from his eyes and moves.
She tries to picture putting emotions as complex as love into a lifespan as short as those of the Edain, and fails. How is it possible to make do with only a blink of an eye, a fleeting moment? Does it make Men feel differently, she wonders, does it make emotions more intense? Does it make loss more staggering, like a bleeding wound to the heart?
A soft thud stops her at the door. When she turns, Golodir's arms are resting on the table at slightly awkward angles, a pillow for his tired head. He must have been exhausted to fall asleep that quickly.
She watches for a while, listens to the quiet sound of his even breathing. It seems peaceful. Somehow, this peace only makes everything more pronounced, as if all the loneliness of Arda pooled into the tiny room and dripped down onto his shoulders. Or maybe hers, maybe she is only imagining it.
Softly, careful not to wake him, she touches the Ranger's shoulder, offering the only comfort she can. He will not know, and perhaps that is for the best.
"You will meet her again," she whispers with deep conviction, soothing. "By the grace of Ilúvatar, you will."
Golodir sighs quietly as he tumbles into deeper sleep. But his forehead smoothes out, and the set of his lips softens. So perhaps he has heard her, and he will remember. The words, not her; she is a ghost, a gust of wind.
The bad habit of being a healer, she thinks as she quietly walks out of the little room, is that you wish to heal everyone, and sometimes you find yourself wishing to heal wounds you are not able to, wounds no one is able to heal. Or at least to apply a soothing balm to the wound and numb the pain.
She shakes her head at the comparison, which is fitting, but absurd. Still, this is one of these moments she wishes she could do just so. She longs to do so.
Yet even ages given to her to live would not suffice to understand how Men feel, to understand the despair with which they love, yearn, mourn. With which they live. it reminds her of fire which burns only briefly, but oh, so brightly.
She is more like herbs and water. She can warm up, she can soothe, but, alas, she will never burn.
II
Her boots are grey with road dust from her travels across what used to be the kingdom of Arnor, and further away, to Imladris, and back through the grim plateaus and sharp desolate mountains of Angmar. There have been many fights, and she feels tired and oddly older, though there is not even a single wrinkle on her face and no threads of silver in her hair.
Tint – Spark, in Common Speech, not a particularly elvish name, but the dwarf called the cub that and the name has stuck somehow – the lynx she saved once in the Blue Mountains and has taken with her, now all grown up, a skilled hunter and her faithful companion, glances at her curiously with his golden eyes. She scratches the lynx behind his furry ear.
"Not far now," she says softly, encouraging. Neither of them is fond of Angmar pathways.
They climb up slowly, approaching the hidden outpost, and she cannot help but think of the weight of the sword she has been carrying from Imladris. A broken blade reforged to reforge anew a broken life.
During her journeys she sometimes caught herself thinking of the grim Ranger, wondering what he was like before – the man she has only seen for a briefest while, not broken even by months of captivity but felled instantly by his daughter's death like a tree struck by lightning.
Laerdan, the Ranger's friend, suggested reforging the sword, and she hopes it will help. Every sword counts in the fight against Angmar, and every man broken is a triumph of the Enemy.
And, though maybe it does not matter that much in the grand scheme of things, she is a healer, and she wants to heal. She is a living being, and where one life was lost she dreads to lose another. She is a gust of wind, and she would see the flame fanned up to its lost brightness.
She is a scholar, and she wants to understand. But this is not a matter of reason, she knows, and maybe that is why it leaves her so baffled. Maybe when he will wake back to life she will stop remembering his grim face and eyes dull and dimmed like a misty morning. Maybe she will cease wondering how it feels to burn, like a flame, like the Edain. Maybe she will no longer have to worry for him, like a healer for her ward, like a warrior for her friend in arms, like a soul for another. Like all of them and not quite any of them. If she was not startled into awkward amusement by the mere thought of it, she would say she cares.
When she presents the Ranger with the armour set, he seems moved, in his subdued way, and when he sees the shield he admires the craftsmanship. But when she gives him back his reforged sword, a spark lights up in his eyes.
"It will avenge my daughter," he says fiercely, and the vengeance blazing in his eyes is the first semblance of life that has been there in months.
Something of the fire Laerdan has spoken of is back there and she can see it, and she is baffled. Fire is not an element of the Eldar; Fëanor had fire in him and his descendants too, and Lúthien had another kind of flames burning within her, and it had brought them all nothing but death. Perhaps that is why people are like fire, she muses, so intense, perhaps they are all like fire because they are all marked by death from the moment they are born?
"Thank you for bringing me back to the realm of the living," he says quietly, and then speaks her name. This time, his thanks seem heartfelt, as least to a point. He looks at her differently, too, as if he noticed her for the first time, appraising, curious even. It only lasts a while.
Brought up among the safe walls and elegant towers and friendly winds of the Grey Havens, she does not even pretend to understand what life of a Ranger of the North is like. She knows legends and tales, but her own life has been so different that she does not even attempt to understand.
They have a common purpose for but a moment, a single point in the vast expanse of the years. She is content to help, and watch quietly; her knowledge of herbs has long ago taught her that some components go together, while some never fit, and such is the way of nature, the course of the world. And some do go together only in specific circumstances, and the circumstances are all but favourable now.
There are ages between them, in all possible meanings of the word, lengths of space and time than cannot be breached. But for a moment they fight together, her staff alongside his blade, and for a moment the pieces of the puzzle fit and she can glimpse the picture.
The Enemy's banners are rising up again, and suddenly all the Free Peoples – the Eldar and the Edain, the Naugrim and the Halflings – all they have is but a moment, for if they do not stem the tide of darkness, their time will come to an end. She is suddenly all too aware that her time in this land might end soon, as might theirs, and – something she has never experienced before – she feels the press of time. And with that comes understanding and – it comes unexpected and strange and painful in all the worst and best ways somehow melded together, but oh, so welcome – she burns.