God, this is so scary. My first fic. Anyway, it's set post LotR, ignoring the Appendices pretty much completely (yes yes, I read the appendices, I like the appendices, but they got in the way of this story), but I haven't read Silmarillion (sp?) so if I make mistakes on that count, sorry. Premise is, I don't know how, I don't know why (but I will! Someday I will!) Legolas, Aragorn, Arwen, are (with A and A's kids--one son Eldaron, twin daughters Analera and Eva--because I hate cutesy matching twin names) in some big hall. It's in Sauron's palace. They're fighting to get out. Or anyway, that's what I think they're fighting for at the moment. It's probably part of some larger struggle. It always is. Sorry about all the funky explaination necessary, but I take 'em likes they comes to me. And I swore I'd never use bold! anyhoo, I want tons of reviews, please make all criticism constructive--you don't have to be nice, I can take it, but please tell me how to make it better because I'm always trying to improve.
Disclaimer, you know the routine, and by the way I wrote this in twenty minutes and I have no beta reader (who wants to be my beta reader?) so it might suck ass. Goodbye!
"Get the children to safety!"
"Arwen! Get back! You'll be killed!"
"Get the children to safety, Aragorn! You're wounded! Take the children and get out!"
"I can't leave you!"
Legolas could do naught but watch his King and Queen, his dearest friends, wantonly wasting precious time for one another. He could do naught but fight beside them.
Aragorn could see with terrifyingly clear vision what would happen to Arwen in a moment if he didn't get to Sauron's archer in time. He didn't hesitate, ignored the blood dripping steadily out of him, ignored his growing weakness and the black edging his vision. He launched himself at his foe, locked in a vacuum with his wife and her impending doom. He saw the smiling black-clad marksman cock an arrow, and his blade flashed out, killing the minion.
One second too late. Arwen was slain, as was her killer.
Legolas watched in horror, leaving himself open to attack but lucky enough to dodge a near-fatal blow. Aragorn was spinning, stumbling, making his way to his fallen Queen. The children had had the sense to hide above, in a balcony, and had seen nothing.
"Take them alive!" Lord Sauron's voice rang out. "Take them ALIVE!"
Needing no longer to fear death, Legolas followed Aragorn across the marble hall, gaining on him quickly, overtaking him, catching him as he fell at his now-fled Tinuviel's side.
"She does not breathe," he murmured. "Why does she not breathe?"
"You are bleeding, Aragorn. Let me bind the wound." The one surviving elf in the room tried to pull an agitated Elessar away from Arwen, catching a suprisingly strong blow across his mouth for his pains. Spitting out blood, he saw Aragorn desperately cradling Arwen, dissolving into an incoherent fool and finally fainting, the puddle of his own blood growing until it blended with that of his fallen love's; and looking beyond, he saw the minions of Sauron, swarming, coming with chains; and beyond, the sobbing children of King Aragorn Elessar, being borne away from the chamber of battle where they had just lost so much.
------
I fear for Aragorn, for his life, for his sanity. It has been two nights and a day, and he does not wake. A fever burns in him now, since this dawn. Even if he does wake, I do not know if he will still be the Aragorn I love.
The relative freedom and humane treatment we have been granted in this house of evil both delights and worries me. I delight in being allowed to care for Aragorn and to comfort and care for the children, but I suspect of Sauron some grand and terrifying doom to come.
The children have barely stopped crying, except to sleep. The twins, Analera and Eva, I do not think will remember this period later in life, they being yet only three winters in the world, but for the boy, Eldarion, Darry, at an exceptionally old twelve, I fear this will be a source of prolonged sorrow.
The grief for me now is strong as well, but I may master myself for our survival. I held Arwen dear. It is a great comfort to me that we shall meet again, and I ache for Aragorn, whose race gives him no such assurance.
I dearly hope these noble children shall not now lose both mother and father.
------
He lives. The fever has broken and only lightly troubles him now.
At first when he awoke, he was full of confusion and concern for me (I must appear more haggard and careworn than I realized. There are no mirrors in this dark house), and I had not the heart to tell him what had passed. I need not have torn up my soul over that, for he remembered of himself in a few moments. He seemed to see some vision of her death, gazing into my ocean'd eyes, and he began to tremble. "She is dead," he murmured, then louder, "She is dead." He did not see me any longer. "She is lost to me. She is lost to me forever, she is gone." No tears fell for a long moment, a long tense while. When he did begin to weep, it was no healing, calm flood of tears. It was an angry burst of feeling that seemed to rend him into two parts.
I could not help him to peace.
He lay back out of pure exhaustion and pain finally, glassy-eyed. Someday I hope he shall find peace, but at least for present there is none.
------
He does not cry any longer. He remains in sullen silence all the day long, still unable to rise from his bed. I do not let the children near him.
Eldaron presses me to grant him audience with his father. I did not want to explain to him that Aragorn is no longer the father he has always known and loved.
------
He wastes away, growing weaker by the day it seems, and I do not see how it happens. We are all of us fed regularly, but while the young ones grow hale and strong and I remain as well as ever I was on the suprisingly wholesome food here, but Aragorn grows sunken-cheeked and spare, sallow and I fear he soon will be at death's very door.
I grow angry with him. He is not the man I know and care for. I understand that he had always planned on losing himself far before Arwen, and I do not think Arwen herself would have grudged a switch of his death for hers if she could see now how he is.
And yet I am angry. Does he not recall that he has three bairns to care for yet?
------
I have discovered it at last, and I feel heavy now.
His food has been going to one of the young vassals that bring us our daily fare.
"He looked malnourished," Aragorn explained to me in a rational and bored voice in the face of my wrath and concern. "I get more satisfaction from his enjoyment than I would from the food itself."
"Why are you bent on causing your own death?" I shouted.
"You know the answer, Legolas," he sighed.
"You have three children, Aragorn! They will not raise themselves! They need a father."
"You are there."
"I cannot care for your children. They love you. They will hate me if you die and I live. They love you, they need you, Aragorn, as do I. Do you not remember your children? Do you not remember the joy they brought you?"
He was cowed into silence. After a long pause, he said meekly, "I think I could stomach a little bread."
And still I am not as glad as I should be. He was ruled by me. If he yet had the strength and will I loved in him, he would never have made such a concession.
I feel selfish and guilty, and yet I can only hope I shall someday have the old Aragorn back with us.
Glad that's over and done with. PLEASE review. PLEASE. I'm a review whore. There's more where this came from, but of course, if you don't tell me that you would like to see more, I will assume that nobody wants to see it and I will not update it. Well, thanks for listening, if you did listen, and please tell me how to make it better!