Chapter 24

Drewen and Hadley, two young stars, were gazing down from the sky. Hadley was blonde haired with bright blue eyes, and Drewen was red-haired with striking green eyes. They had heard from Tristan and Yvaine that their daughter, Elaine, a good friend fo theirs, was safe in Middle Earth. So they were doing their best to find her.

That was when something terrible and unexpected happened. Hadley fell. Drewen wasn't entirely sure how it happened, nor was Hadley, but she fell. Tumbling down to Middle Earth. Drewen screamed in horror before she fell too. She didn't fall, exactly though, she was more pushed. As she fell, she glanced back and saw what appeared to be a bit of shadow near where she and Hadley had been moments before.

We were pushed! But why? And who would do something like that?

Elaine raised her sword to defend herself. The battle had already begun. Shortly before it had started, Legolas and Aragorn had made up, and Haldir had shown up with a bunch of elves. And now they were all fighting for their lives. She blocked a blow, the force resonating through her arms, making them ache. She was highly regretting not going to the caves.

"Elaine, behind you!" Haldir yelled, and she whirled around, her sword slicing open an Uruk that had been about to kill her. Her eyes widened in horror. She had just killed it. She had never killed anything before. Everything seemed to fall silent. All she could hear was her heart thudding in her chest, echoing painfully in her ears.

"Elaine, focus!" Haldir yelled, just in time to pull her out of her shock so that she could defend herself.

Why didn't I go to the caves? Why?

Aragorn saw her, and felt sorry for her. She had wanted to help, and was now clearly regretting it. However, she was doing better than he had thought she would. She was clearly brave,her fear coming from the lack of training and experience. He recalled that she had held up quite well against Saruman and Grima. She would be fine in battle once she got used to it. He regretted knowing that she would need to.

The battle raged on, bloody and horrifying. Elaine grew more homesick by the minute. After a long while, however, she saw something. A shooting star. No, two shooting stars. Dread instantly filled her.

Oh, no.

"Elaine!" She whipped around, and cut down another uruk, eyes wide with fear. It was Legolas. "What are you doing? Focus!" he yelled.

"Two shooting stars!" she replied, eyes still wide. "Two!"

"And your point is?"

"What if they land here? They won't know about Sauron!" she shrieked.

"Why don't we just focus on surviving for the moment and worry about that later!" Legolas suggested, shooting down two uruk-hai that had tried to kill Elaine while she had been talking.

Elaine lunged with her sword stabbing and killing an uruk that had snuck up behind Legolas. "I think I can manage that," she replied as Legolas looked at her, impressed.

"Good, because battle is the last place for conversations!" Legolas told her, shooting another uruk.

"I can see why," Elaine remarked, slicing open another of the uruk-hai.

There was a momentary break in the fighting, and the two looked at each other. Then, without knowing why, Legolas wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, startling the star.

However, Legolas was quite easily more startled than she was, as she began to shine.

"Drewen? Drewen!"

Drewen slowly opened her eyes to find herself gazing up at the sky. Gazing up at it. Not down from it. She turned her head and saw Hadley.

The blonde star was looking at her, lying on her side several feet away.

"Hadley," Drewen gasped. "You're hurt!"

It was true. There was a gash on Hadley's left cheek that was bleeding heavily. Drewen tried to stand, but found that she couldn't. So instead, she settled for crawling over to her friend.

"You're hurt too," Hadley croaked. Her throat was clearly sore and dry. Drewen wondered how long they had been lying there unconscious. No more than an hour or so, she guessed. Probably less. Otherwise, Hadley would be far worse off from the gash in her cheek.

"Not as badly as you," Drewen replied, tearing some fabric off from her silvery white dress to bandage Hadley's face.

"I feel so weak," Hadley gasped, her voice still hoarse.

"You're losing a lot of blood," Drwen murmured, kneeling beside her friend, folding the long strip of cloth over the gash, trying to stem the flow. "Stay here, I'll go find some water. I'll try to be back as soon as I can."

"No, don't leave me-"

"You need water, Hadley," Drewen insisted. "There must be some nearby.|

"Drewen-"

"I'll be back soon, I promise."