A/N: I know it's been ages. Well, a month. To-may-to, to-mah-to. First of all, thank you for sticking with this story despite the slow updates, and for reviewing/following/favouriting.
A few notes on the new chapter (technically, the second part of Chapter 8)
- Thranduil's and Elrond's friendship is purely my headcanon. To be fair, there is probably not much evidence to the contrary, either, but my version is definitely pure conjecture.
- For the medical stuff I've mostly relied on my own experience. Still, don't try it at home unless you've spoken to a medical professional.
- Not much action, but it all serves a purpose. You'll see.
Also, I've been asked about the timeline of this story, especially as it relates to my other piece "Home Truths". This one plays out just under two years after Celebrían's rescue. I imagine it was about a year before she decided to sail, around a month before she actually did, and a period of three to four months for Elrond's near-fading and recovery. In my mind, Elrond wrote the letter to Thranduil after Celeborn and Galadriel left for Lothlorien with Arwen in "Home Truths", so we're at around 17-18 months after Celebrían's rescue. Add in the months of Thranduil's stubborn refusal to travel to Imladris and we're at just under two years ... roughly.
Disclaimer: I'm neither Tolkien nor Peter Jackson, I'm just playing in their sandbox.
Chapter 8 pt. II
It would always be beyond Elrond why people – men, elves, dwarves, and halflings alike – were so terrified of bleeding injuries. Dangerous though they could be, their treatment was fairly straightforward: find the source, patch it up, keep it clean, done. To Elrond, the truly scary wounds were those you couldn't discern at first glance. Internal injuries, for example, when one moment the patient appeared to be relatively stable and was dead only minutes later. Or poison, which showed its effects but was hard to treat or counteract. Or illnesses of the mind. Or, as in the case at hand, conditions where even an Elven body was so out of balance that it started waging war against itself.
"Welcome to the valley of Imladris, travellers from the Greenwood. I am Lord Elrond. You seem in need of assistance?"
The two guards – Feren and Elros, if memory served – stepped aside in visible relief after returning the elf lord's greeting, clearing the path for him to approach their charge.
"Lord Elrond! You are a heaven-sent!", Sadron called out, rising from his kneeling position by his patient's side and rushing to meet him. "We are in dire need of help greater than what I can provide!"
The Greenwood healer greeted his former teacher in customary fashion before launching into a summary of the situation: "His system is completely overtaxed. The pain has been so bad, I had to keep the king sleeping every other day during our journey here. He has not eaten in almost a week because the sleeping medicines made him so nauseated, and he refuses to drink more than the bare minimum, so his muscles are cramping up even more. He insisted on riding on his own for the last stretch of the journey, but his horse misstepped on the rocks, and apparently his spine was jolted so hard that either a nerve got pinched or the splinters in the wound moved. He just slipped off his horse onto the ground, and he has been as you see him now for nearly an hour."
Both healers shot another look at the picture of misery that the proud Elvenking presented at this moment: on his knees, curled in on himself, his forehead pressed into the hard ground, visibly trembling in pain, while his son knelt next to him, helplessly running his fingers through his father's sweat-soaked hair in an effort to calm him down even a little. Sadron drew in a shaky breath and continued: "I do not know how to help him. He is in so much pain, I doubt he even understands what I am saying. Legolas has been trying to reach him through their bond, but it seems Thranduil shut him out."
The explanations were given in a quiet voice so they wouldn't be overheard, but Sadron's tone left no doubt about the direness of the situation. "Please, Lord Elrond," he finished, despair written all over his face. "Please, help him!"
Elrond gave a curt nod and briefly put his hand on the other healer's shoulder in reassurance. "I will do what I can." And finally the Lord of Imladris approached the two ellyn on the ground.
"Lord Elrond! Thank goodness!" Legolas choked out when he looked up and recognised the elf lord. He bent down so his lips were close to his father's ear and repeated in a gentle voice: "Did you hear that, ada? Lord Elrond is here. He will help you."
But the only response he got was Thranduil's ragged breathing, painfully punctuated with a soft whimper on every other shallow exhale.
Elrond swallowed hard at the pitiful sight before him. He had known Legolas from birth, and Thranduil for almost as long as he could remember. They had stood side by side through many battles of war and life. When his brother Elros died, Thranduil had been there, a steadfast presence in the storm. When the Greenwood queen died, fading after her twin sister was brutally slain by orcs, Elrond had been the only one whom Thranduil allowed to see his grief and anger.
And until about a century ago, the two families had been regular visitors in each other's homes spending the most wonderful times together and seeing their children grow up to be as great friends as their fathers.
Then, with no apparent reason, things had started to grow distant between them after the Greenwood monarchs' last visit to Imladris, when Legolas had just been on the cusp of adolescence. Thranduil started to politely decline Elrond's invitations and offered none of his own any longer.
When the troubling visions started a few months ago, and shortly after that Sadron's letters concerning an anonymous patient arrived, Elrond immediately suspected that this was somehow about Thranduil. Seeing the confirmation of his suspicions literally before his eyes was hard to take in nonetheless.
With a deep breath Elrond strode forward and knelt down next to the Elvenking, opposite Legolas. "Thranduil?" he asked in a firm but low voice so as not to startle the distressed ellon. "It is I, Elrond. Sadron told me what happened. I will try to help you, but in order to do that, I need to examine you. Will you let me do that?"
He ran his right hand along the king's forearm that was tucked into the small space between his head, chest, and knees, until he found his friend's hand. With gentle pressure he wrapped his fingers around the clammy, cramped digits and rubbed his thumb over the too-prominent knuckles in order to elicit a reaction.
After a moment, the fingers beneath his own uncurled a little and moved to return the pressure, however weakly. A barely audible, slightly slurred word made it past the Elvenking's lips. "Please!"
Elrond's heart clenched in his chest at the quiet plea. Without breaking contact he straightened a little, satisfied to see that the guards had already created some privacy by setting up a makeshift screen of tent poles and canvas. "Start a fire. Boil some water. Rest a little. This might take a while," he called out to – Galion, was it? – who was watching anxiously from a distance.
Then he turned back to his patient, for that was what his old friend had to be for now if Elrond was to help him. After feeling the racing pulse and the irregular, much-too-fast, much-too-shallow breaths, he went about examining Thranduil's back. Studiously ignoring the scarred side of the king's face, which Elrond knew only to be visible due to the enormous amount of pain he was in, he slid one hand under Thranduil's forehead. "Try to relax a little," he instructed. "Let me do all the work." Cradling the head carefully without lifting it too far off the ground, he gently turned and it left and right, keeping a close eye on the reactions in Thranduil's body.
Then the process was repeated, with Legolas moving his father's head and Elrond, his hands sliding under the king's loose-fitting tunic, intently following the movements of the cramped muscles around his neck and shoulders.
With the experience of thousands of years as a healer, Elrond's skilful fingers traced vertebrae and muscles down the spine and up again until he was certain that he had found the immediate cause of the king's agony. "Fold a blanket in half lengthwise and roll it up very tightly," he told Legolas, who complied instantly, glad that he finally had something to do.
"What are you going to do?" Sadron asked as Legolas hurried off.
"The blanket roll goes under his breastbone to correct the position of the vertebrae by creating some pressure on the ribs. Then I am going to locate the point where the worst spasm originates and force the contracting muscle into relaxing by exerting counter pressure," Elrond explained patiently, as much for Thranduil's benefit as for Sadron's. "It will not remove the cause of the problem, but it will bring you a fair amount of relief, mellon-nín," he then said to Thranduil, all the while keeping a comforting hand on the king's rigid neck.
A tiny nod indicated that Thranduil had heard Elrond, Sadron noted, and that was a whole lot more of a response than he or Legolas had got out of the Elvenking over the past hour. Maybe he had indeed been wrong in his assumptions concerning the perceived rift between the two ancient elf lords, as Thranduil had suggested that fateful night.
He didn't have much time to dwell on these thoughts, however, for now Legolas returned with the rolled-up blanket.
"Very good," Elrond praised. "Now, Thranduil, your son and I will lift your upper body a small distance, while Sadron slides this blanket roll underneath, aligning it with your breastbone. It will work best if you relax as much as you can. You might feel some vertebrae or cartilage moving. That is precisely what we want, so do not be alarmed."
Thranduil listened intently to his old friend's deep, soothing voice, trying to take in the meaning of the words despite the overwhelming pain. He struggled to slow his breathing, but it was hard. Suddenly the hand on his neck moved down to the centre of the pain between his shoulder blades, and another hand mirrored its position on his chest. They were not the slender, muscular hands of his son, nor the smooth, nimble hands of his head healer, but the strong-yet-gentle, battle-worn-yet-sensitive hands he'd known for most of his life – the hands that had brought him comfort and healing even from the most devastating wounds.
"Try to breathe against my hands," Elrond instructed. "Deep, steady breaths."
And indeed: the hands on his chest and back gave Thranduil a sense of position and direction in his fog of agony. With every exhale, he felt his heart slow down a fraction from its frantic racing and his chest felt a little less tight.
After a few moments, Legolas' arm slipped underneath his shoulders and lifted his upper body a few inches. The blanket roll was slid under his chest; then he was lowered back down.
He noticed exactly the second when the full weight of his torso came to rest on his breastbone. There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage in his back; pinched nerves were released, and a liberating lessening of pain followed.
A sob slipped from Thranduil's lips and tears of relief ran down his face.
"And now for the muscle spasm," Elrond said, a smile in his soft voice. Again his right hand slid towards the injury while his left hand rested, lightly and soothingly, on Thranduil's shoulder. He briefly traced the cramped muscle to find the precise spot and then forcefully pressed two fingers into the tightest knot.
There was a short flare of pain that made Thranduil gasp, and then blessed relief as the spasming gradually stopped, the muscle became soft and pliable again, and wonderful warmth spread across his back.
"Thank you," he whispered when Elrond eased the pressure and transitioned into a light massage, and if the healer had not been so close, he would not have heard.
"I am glad it has helped a bit", Elrond replied kindly before turning to Legolas, who was staring at them with wide, unbelieving eyes. "My prince, could you go and see whether there is already some hot water, please? If so, wet a towel in it and bring it here." Legolas nodded and hurried off, eager to help.
"Sadron," the Lord of Imladris then continued, "would you please set up a cot for the king? I would like him to rest some more to give his body the chance to get used to the corrections. Also, he needs to take in water, and maybe a little light nourishment if possible. Nevertheless, I would like us to ride for Imladris as soon as possible, even through the night. The king needs more care and treatment than I can provide here."
"Of course, Lord Elrond. I will relay your instructions to our party right away," Sadron agreed, his relief and gratitude plain to see and hear.
As Sadron left, Legolas returned with the hot, wet towel, which Elrond placed on Thranduil's back, putting crushed athelas leaves on it before folding it over and finally covering the king with a warm blanket.
"Thank you so much, Lord Elrond," the young warrior said, bowing respectfully before the ancient healer.
"It has been my privilege, my prince," Elrond replied, a genuine smile crossing his careworn features.
He then briefly repeated what he had arranged with Sadron before leaving father and son for a few minutes to go and speak with Glorfindel.
When Elrond returned he was pleased to find Thranduil already resting comfortably on the cot, still on his stomach so as not to dislodge the athelas compress on his back, but sipping water through a straw. The entire Greenwood party looked tired but considerably less tense and worried, and all of them uttered words of thanks as he passed.
Kneeling beside the cot to look after his patient, Elrond noted with satisfaction that the sickly pallor had disappeared and some small amount of colour had returned to Thranduil's haggard face. He was breathing easily and his heart beat at a normal rate. "How do you feel, mellon-nín?" he asked the Elvenking after releasing his wrist from counting his pulse.
"Much better. Hannon le. I cannot thank you enough for what you did," Thranduil replied, his voice already regaining some of its usual strength. "I do not know what we would have done if you had not arrived when you did." He paused, searching Elrond's face. "Do not think I take it for granted that you came personally, especially given the circumstances."
Elrond inclined his head almost imperceptibly to indicate that he understood what Thranduil meant, but the Elvenking was not quite finished. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around Elrond's, squeezing lightly and holding on. "I am so sorry for your loss, mellon-nín," he said earnestly. "And I am deeply sorry for not being there for you when you needed me most."
A/N2: To be continued, hopefully soon. (Hey, I'm curious to see how this plays out, too – and I am the one WRITING the story!) Reviews are chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream!