Lies, treachery, betrayal, then a bloodied knife and an elf's arrow hitting its mark. Such was the life, and death, of Grima Wormtongue.
It was a dishonorable fall from graces-if it was even grace that he fell from.
He'd slithered his way into occupying the seat beside the King's throne in the halls of Medusled as chancellor, the closest he'd ever come to holding the kingly power he'd come to lust after. But what power he did possess was abused deliciously, tearing the kingdom of Rohan-the very kingdom that tore him apart until all that remained was the abhorrent worm they so desperately wanted to see him as-apart from the inside out like a venomous, rotting parasite. And how thrilling that power had been, making Theoden King his own personal marionette, a hollow husk that was puppeteered by the seething whispers hissed into his ear. It'd been a rush Grima relished in-and loathed, because it made him loathed, more so than he had already been.
But with being skewered at the end of an elven arrow, his hands and soul coated in the flesh, blood, and sin of the wizard he'd slain, none of that mattered now. While Saruman had met his end tumbling towards flooded earth with blood staining his ivory robes, Grima had remained stranded atop the dark tower, to bleed out and await his own wretched death.
But that death never came.
He'd bled until his world faded into darkness, and he didn't know how long it was until he awoke within the chambers of the golden hall. Not his chambers, but rather an infirmary-where commoners were treated, the nobodies of Edoras. And the world around him laid beneath a blurred veneer, being nothing but a sea of incoherent colored shapes and silhouettes that vaguely resembled wavering torches and human bodies.
He was back in Edoras, or at least he prayed to whatever gods looked down upon him and saw him deserved of mercy that he was no longer trapped in the cold clutches of Isengard, of that wretched tower and its even more wretched wizard. He had once spat upon a hand offered to him out of mercy. Why would it decide to show itself to him again?
Grima lost all sense of time, trapped in the fogged delirium of infection. The only indicator he had of any time passing was when the infirmary grew dim and needed to rely on torchlight during nighttime hours, but he couldn't keep track of how many times those lights burned brighter. It'd grown nearly impossible to distinguish what was night and what was day, what was a waking nightmare and what was the cruel torment of his subconscious.
Awake or asleep, venomous whispers surrounded him. They were incomprehensible, chafing mumbles that tried to drive Grima into heated madness, and all he could ever come to understand was that war had been one and that no one rejoiced in his return to Rohan. No one ever would, this much Grima knew. They wouldn't even rejoice in the fact that *he* had slain Saruman. The white wizard met his fate at the end of Grima's blade, not at the end of a rider's spear or a ranger's sword or a dwarf's ax or an elven arrow. It was Grima that had killed the wizard. But who would hail him a hero for doing so? Grima wasn't meant to be embraced by the golden warmth of heroism. Too long had he been banished to haunt and lurk in the depths of loathed shadows to make such kindness and celebration known to him.
With every passing day, infection ate away at Grima's flesh, and soul. The arrow that pierced his shoulder was by no means venomous, but it wasn't hard for a wound to become poisoned if it had been left exposed to ghastly air-like the air of Isengard. And the healers of Edoras wanted nothing to do with the man known as Wormtongue. The effects of his duplicity lingered in the kingdom, and no one wanted him alive. If it weren't for the King's demands that Wormtongue was to make a recovery, they would've left him for dead, allowing that infection to consume him in the painful, delirious death serpents like him deserved.
But those were Theoden's wishes. Eomer was king now. There was a just need to uphold that wish, and Eomer wanted to be as merciful and just and virtuous and *loved* as his uncle. But he also knew Grima couldn't stay in Edoras forever. The wounds of hatred and bitterness and disdain and distrust surrounding him were still fresh, and it would only take time until there was an assassination. He needed to be sent away. Banished, Eomer debated, though decided that the spirits of kings before him-of Theoden-wouldn't look down on him too kindly for that (though the temptation for revenge for his own banishment had been growing more potent with every passing moment).
If Grima were to be sent away, he couldn't be sent as a dying man that'd become a corpse to rot elsewhere, infecting some other realm with his villainous stink. He needed to go somewhere for healing. Somewhere far from Edoras, from Rohan and its surrounding lands.
They could send him to the elves. Elves would've heard of Wormtongue's name, yes, but they wouldn't understand the weight behind it the way the realms of men would. They could nurture him with little bias, their hearts not holding the same hatred for him as Rohirric hearts. As far as Eomer was aware, elves remained in Lothlorien, the only elves he felt he could've trusted, his people having fought so closely beside them during the Battle of Helm's Deep.
"Wormtongue is to be escorted to Lothlorien," Eomer had declared to Baldor, a young, flighty, but kindly diplomatic man, and also Eomer's new chancellor, the afternoon he'd allowed himself to visit Grima in the infirmary. The image of a man eaten away by pestilence and infection occupying the cot of thin cloths and furs remained imprinted in the forefront of his mind, and he winced whenever he remembered. "I wish for a messenger to be sent there. I am sure the lord and lady will eventually hear of his arrival even without a message but," he shrugged a bit, "it is a courtesy."
Baldor bowed lightly at these orders, providing no snark or chilled gaze the way Grima would've done with his uncle.
"Send a courier now. For tomorrow, Wormtongue is to be sent away from Edoras-and that I do not wish to see him return."