When the Uruk-Hai releases the bowstring to set the arrow free, I have enough time to fall backwards on the floor before the the arrow drove into my skull. But that didn't mean the metallic taste of blood was fake. The tip of the arrow sliced the left side of my forehead which sent a tingle of stinging pain through my whole body. My left face felt wet with warm blood while my left eye was blinded by red.

Lifting myself up with my elbows, I saw the orc sprinting towards me with my good eye. The arrow I shot at it still rested deep in his arm. His arm! I was so angry with myself because before I ran towards him to save Boromir; I aimed for his neck but my arrow only traveled to his arm which was pathetic.

After it slams into me the only thing I see is its animal like face with its bright yellow eyes darting down into my amber ones. I was pinned down with his hands holding my arms down tightly and his weight resting on my legs. Then I felt my whole body freeze with shock when he gave out a loud lion like roar in my face. Its breath smelled like blood and raw animal flesh, a scent my lungs were drowning in right now. But just looking at its sharp teeth made my mind blank with nothing but the word fear repeating in my head. I felt as if this was a horror movie and I was the next victim to die, but not short and quick death, a long and painful one. Then my mind went from blank to a vision about the next scene.

The orc will bite into my throat and rip it apart to make me bleed to death, and then it will travel to my face and claw at my eyes to make me fully blind. I'll be died after a few minutes and my body will look unrecognizable with blood and ripped up clothes covering me.

When I close my eyes to get prepared for what's about to come, I feel the orcs weight disappearing from a great force pushing it down and loud cries. I open them and look to the left to see Aragorn on top of the Uruk-Hai away from where I laid. Aragorn saved me!

I push myself up with my arms as I watch the two wrestling with each other. I was free and the first thing I do is crawl over to Boromir's body that rested by a tree. The three arrows sticking out of him make my heart drop because I know there's no way he was going to survive through that. When I reach him, I see him struggling to breathe and I feel sympathy for him. Looking down at his face, we make eye contact and I see his eyes beginning to mist and lose their color. He's surprised by my injury but seems to ignore it. "They took the little ones," he shoots out. The little ones- The hobbits!

"All of them?" I ask sounding very worried.

"I-I only saw them carrying off Merry and Pippin." So maybe Frodo escaped, but what about Sam? The expression on his face is disappointment and failure which makes my stomach drop uncomfortably again. Then my blood starts to drip on his cheek like rain drops. I use my free hand to wipe the blood away and then travel it down to his palm to give it a squeeze of comfort. We stood like that for a minute until I saw Aragorn behead the orc. I looked away so I didn't see the headless body fall to the ground; I had enough death for one day.

"At least I will die looking at something beautiful for the last time." What Boromir said surprised me. Was he referring to me? "And touching the fires of Firehart," Now I know it was me because I'm the only one with a skin hot like the flames of a fire. He probably didn't care that my skin was burning his. I just look at him with a blank expression not knowing what to say. Maybe it was better if I didn't or maybe a simple thank you would do. Instead, I keep silent.

When Aragorn comes over to us, I let go of Boromir's hand and back away from the two. They were talking but I couldn't hear about what. I used my arm to swipe the blood off my face but it was no use because another waterfall of red will cover it again. I didn't know how long I stood there but it felt like forever. I didn't even hear Legolas and Gimli come in but I sensed their presence behind me. I watched as Boromir took his last breath, his body became still, and Aragorn kiss his forehead.

Boromir. The man who kept to himself a lot, who stared at me with admiration when I sang, who I shared my fish meat with and said I was different from other woman, who tried to take the ring away from Frodo, was now dead.

I felt someone gripping my arm and turn to face Legolas. I think I started to fall and he caught me, well, I did feel weightless right now, almost empty inside. I felt my brain begin to pound against my head again and my blood boiling from my heat. Then my world started to shift to the right and I almost fell again, but Legolas held me up. My heat was rising high and I was losing blood. I needed to stop the blood from flowing and my heat needed to lower quickly or I'll pass out.

This happened before at the institute on Testing Day and the scientist wanted us to sprint twenty miles, something very impossible even a mutant can do. I blacked out on the fifteenth mile from exhaustion and my heat rising extremely high. I know what I need in order to lower my temperature because the scientist did this before. "W-Water…" I push Legolas' hand away and stumble forward to get back to the river. "Water, I need water."

The only one who seemed to understand me was Legolas because I felt him gripping my arms again, keeping my body straight as he helps me walk. He says something to Gimli, something about taking me to the river and telling him to stay with Aragorn. Then we walk straight, away from the scene that will soon become a memory to us.

As we walk, the world shifts again to the left and my body falls in that direction. But Legolas just holds me up tightly as he whispers, "Ignore it mellonamin, and distract yourself with happy memories. It will help." I ignored the fact that he spoke in something elvish, and decided to do what he says. Think of something happy Astrid, something that will calm you down.

And I do. I think of my friends. Friends I'm willing to fight for and protect. Maia who was like an older sister to me, Channing who always worried about us when we did rebellious things, Bella, so young and pure, who wanted to sleep with me the first night we became roommates, and Ben the first boy who ever kissed me. Ben. My best friend since I was thirteen and he was fourteen, the one I tell me secrets too, the boy who could've kissed any girl at that institute and chose me to be his first.

I come back to earth when I see the river in my view, but it didn't look familiar to me. Maybe this was another bank and we weren't far from our camping area. But I didn't care because looking at the clear, flowing made me push Legolas away and run to it. I was desperate to touch the freezing liquid. That's what the scientist did before when I was overheated; they put me in a cold (extremely cold) bath to lower my temperature, which worked of course.

I kicked off my boots, stripped down my dress and threw them to the ground, not caring if Legolas saw me in my undergarments. Then I run into the bank until the water reaches up to my shoulders, and like I predicted, the temperature of the water was doing its magic and cooling my heat down.

My skin was covered in blood, dirt, and some black stains, but they will soon wash away and I'll be refreshed. I forget about the deep cut on my forehead and dunk my head under to clean it off naturally. Under water, it feels different then the surface. I felt deaf and weightless with nothing holding me, but as I was floating it also felt like I was flying something I always wanted to do. At first, the cut stung and pained my head, but I did what Legolas told me to do and thought of a happy memory. And the only one that seemed to enter my mind was Ben and I two years ago.

The Browns stole a key from a guard that enters to the roof of the institute building and they gave it to me and Ben to try it out. It was risky because we had to dodge the views of many guards and scientist, but we soon made it. The roof wasn't as exciting as you would think, but it gave a beautiful view of the forest and the mountains behind it. Ben and I decided to stay after we saw the sun go down into a beautiful orange sunset. So we sat down on the ledge and just watched. I remember the color of the sky; it was a mix of yellow and orange with a hint of red at the bottom. The color reminded me of the flames from a fire, so beautiful to look at but dangerous at the same time. Then a conversation began after I noticed a couple chantlings flying by.

"Why can't I be like them Ben, why can't I grow wings and fly away from this place?"

"Because you'd look funny with little bird wings attached to your back." He joked.

"I'm serious," I say defensively. "Then I would be free and do whatever I want."

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

"I don't know, see the world like a normal person, run this place down, eat so much food until I throw up." He laughs at my last comment and I can't help but dive a small smirk.

"What about getting married and having kids?" he said so sudden and my smirk falls to a frown.

"I don't think a life like that will ever happen."

"Sure it will, if you meet the right person." Why was he bringing this up? The thought off me getting married and having kids was more like a fantasy because no one would love a monster like me. Even if it did happen, I'll be endangering them because the institute will track me down and hurt the ones I love. And I was too young to even be thinking about this. So I continue the conversation.

"That won't happen Ben, meeting the right person, getting married, and having kids. The possibility would be impossible." I say emotionless because it was the truth. But then he says something I'll never forget.

"What if the right person, was right in front of you?"

And the memory ended with me silent and confused. I never understood what he meant by that, but after that kiss I think the pieces were put together. What if the right person, was right in front of you? He meant himself! All my years of living in torture and getting treated like an animal, I never noticed that maybe the right person was Ben all along. No not maybe, was the right person. I guess I do have feelings for Ben, feelings that show I'm attracted to him. But then I remember the kiss and how shocked I was to even know how I was feeling about it. I wish I could kiss him again, just one more time because I want to see if he is the right person for me.

I didn't know how long I was underwater, but I feel something pulling me to the right. Then I feel air enter in my lungs which makes me cough violently. I'm wet from head to toe when I'm pulled out of the water and my left eye wasn't covered with red anymore, but I still felt blood gushing out. My undergarments were drenched and my braid was now ruined. Someone was holding me and I knew because sitting on the rocky ground, I feel one hand holding my back up while the other uses a rag to stop the blood from flowing. Then I feel a wrap go around my head which gives me a sign that the person was trying to bandage me up. Who is it though?

When I look up and I see his grey eyes looking down into my amber ones as he holds me close to his chest. I hear his heart from my right ear and it's a beautiful sound. Ben was here. Here, alive, and holding me. My stomach exploded with happiness just by looking at his face. He was here, just as I wanted, and pushing myself up closer to his face I closed my eyes as my lips began to touch his.

This was my first time kissing a boy. Ben was the first boy who kissed me; this was the first time I wanted to kiss someone else. And right now, this was the best first kiss in my life.

Ben's lips felt softer than before and I liked it. I felt his lips getting warmer against mine and figured it was my heat again. My power was rising, but not dangerously like before, it was more of pleasure and he didn't seem to mind the temperature. I titled my head and pushed my lips against his a little more. My body was going crazy right now. A tingling sensation was running from my chest to the tip of my fingers and I loved the feeling. I felt my heart exploding like fireworks and all I could think about were how Ben's lips felt like I was kissing heaven.

But the only thing that was ruining the moment was that he wasn't kissing back. I was confused, didn't he want this? Am I doing something wrong or was it too soon? I finished my kiss and pulled away to look at his face again and see his reaction. The only problem was I wasn't looking Bens face. I was looking at Legolas'.

*Author's Note-Haha, I'm so evil! I leave you all with a cliffhanger! Oh don't worry, you'll see what happens next chapter and to add a bonus, the next one will be longer, MUCH longer. But I wanted to get this chapter out because I wanted to start Astrid and Legolas' relationship with a BANG (something not so many authors do). Anyway, this is the end of the Fellowship of the Ring so we'll be on the Two Towers. Yeeah!

For Elvish Translation;

Mellonamin-My friend

For Fan Mail;

-Thanks for liking my lullaby and I didn't created a beat for it. It was more of a poem that came to me and I just put in a chorus to make it a song.

Saren-Dipety-Thank you for your support and the cookie, I enjoyed it. Haha!

KristalikeaDragonfly-I'm back! Well, I was never really gone I just needed to finish a lot of other important stuff before I came back to this story.

Gigigue-Your comment made me laugh so thank you for that! Lol!

Again, please review and I'll update the next chapter in 2013. Happy New Year!