Aragorn walked with purposeful strides into the room where Nimoë was laid. The grey pallor of her skin was the first thing to strike his notice, and he moved forward, gently lifting Legolas' body off of her. "I think it would be best if you waited for me outside, my friend."

Legolas shook his head and stood his ground. "I will not leave her."

Aragorn sighed. "As you wish." He knelt down beside her bed and felt the side of her neck. Her skin was unnaturally cold and there was no life pulse to be found. As he listened for breath, not a sound reached his ears. Carefully, he folded back the blood-soaked tunic, revealing the gaping hole in her side. Blood had ceased to flow from the wound and, while the crusted scabs proved that her body had tried to heal itself, there could be no doubt in his mind. Nimoë was gone.

Aragorn stood and took Legolas firmly by the shoulders, regarding him gravely, then he shook his head with deep sorrow. "I am sorry, my friend. There is nothing I can do, for she has already passed beyond all aid."

The Elf Prince felt his last remaining hope fall from him, and his legs would no longer support him. He crumpled where he stood, and reached out his fingers to grasp Nimoë's dead hand, which lolled over the edge of the bed. He bent his head over it, clinging as if his own life hung in the balance. "No," he shook his head vehemently. "I cannot lose her."

Aragorn reached down and gently passed his hand through Legolas' long, silken hair. "I am so very sorry. I must go now, for there are others who need me." Then he left the room, almost grateful to be away from the heart-wrenching scene.

Pulling himself off of the floor, the Elf Prince sat himself on the edge of her bed, where he bent over her, softly brushing her hair back from her brow, caressing her beloved face, the curve of her jaw, the full swell of her lips. Her eyes he had closed, unable to bear the lifelessness that he found there. "Nimoë," he pleaded, "I cannot live without you. Without your smile the sun will never again be warm upon me, for what is its light when compared to yours? You fill my soul, and if you are gone I will become an empty shell, with no heart inside me. How can a body live when it has no heart? There is no way. If you leave me now, I will not be long for this world."

Tenderly he bent down and laid a soft kiss upon her icy brow. "Can you condemn me to death, dear heart?" He reached back and took her hand in his, continuing to caress her cheek with the other. "You cannot leave me like this."

Legolas closed his eyes then and bent to place one last kiss on her gentle lips before they stiffened in death. His tears rolled down his face and fell into her softly parted mouth. At last, when he could bear the sweet suffering no longer, he raised his head away from hers.

He pressed her fingers tightly in a final farewell, then froze in place. Although it was as soft as the fall of a rose petal, she had returned the pressure! "Nimoë," he whispered, not able to believe what he had felt. "Nimoë, can you hear me?"

While he still could sense no motion of breath in her lungs, he perceived that her skin was beginning to lose its greyish hue. "By all the Valar…" He leapt from the bed. "Hold on, Nimoë," he pled, "Hold on."

Then he ran from the room, shouting at the top of his voice, "Aragorn!"

#

Cold. Biting, chilling, life-killing cold. Frost clung to every inch of her body, freezing the blood in her veins, stilling her breath, sending all thoughts into icy oblivion. Her body did not exist. All that remained was the searing pain of ice. All except for one small thing.

Something salty and wet fell upon her deadened tongue. A wisp of memory floated about her, like a dream, but more remote. This was something that she had tasted before. Something sorrowful. Painful. An unfamiliar slow pounding began within her, pulsing warmth throughout her body. Strange that she could not place the taste and the odd sensations it evoked. Strange that such a bitter sip should waken the heart.

A new feeling crept into her awareness. Pressure. Some place, immeasurably far from her consciousness, there was something pressing against her. Muscles stirred reflexively, flexing with their newfound freedom from numbness and pain.

Then the pressure was gone, and a terrible sense of loss crashed over her. Alone! So terribly alone. Lungs which she had forgotten how to use screamed for air and her rib cage expanded, bringing tearing, wrenching pain.

Life was tingling back into her body, stabbing her with excruciating arrows of agony. Vainly she struggled to move, to speak. Anything. Panic began within her as, with her new awareness of life, came the realization that she was paralyzed. Something was keeping her mind from controlling her body.

Blackness was the only thing she could see and she realized that her eyes must be closed. Or perhaps she was blind. Maybe she was dead? No. Death could not involve such agonized torment. What was happening? She was so very alone, and so very frightened.

Suddenly, a warm, comforting presence melted into her awareness. It was like the sun, rising after a long, frigid winter, melting the ice from her body, releasing her limbs from their frozen rigidity.

Sounds began to filter into her mind, music low and urgent, which she recognized as voices, but it was as if they spoke words she had never learned. One of those voices was the sun. All of her being strained towards it, aching to reach out and pull it closer, for the chill of death was still upon her, and surely such a powerful heat could break through the last bastions of winter which held her captive.

It was back! The welcome pressure on what she now recognized as her hand. Fingers which rebelled against her commands grasped weakly, although she wanted to cling to it like iron to a lodestone. Once more a voice spoke and this time she thought that she understood some of what was said. "Call to her, Legolas. I think that only you can bring her back from wherever it is that she now resides."

Then the voice with the power of daylight resonated through her mind, echoing about like the deep tones of a mighty bell. "Nimoë, my heart, it is Legolas. I need you to fight. Fight like you have never fought before. I am here beside you and I will not leave your side. Hear my voice and come to me. Take all of my strength, for it belongs to you. Can you feel my hand, my love? Feel it pulling you back to me. As long as I hold fast to you, you cannot fade away. Nimoë, I need you. You are my world and my life."

All the while that the voice pleaded with her, Nimoë struggled to grasp onto it, to pull herself along the line of harmonious resonance and out of darkness. When the last sentence was spoken, she knew that she could not help but obey. Her eyelids fluttered open and one word fell from her lips, so softly as to be almost inaudible. "Legolas."

#

Almost, he did not hear his name as it came out of her mouth on a soft sigh, "Legolas." Almost. But hear it he did, and he saw her eyes flutter open, and they were no longer clouded and glassy. They gazed up at him wonderingly, as if his face were the only thing they had ever seen, or wished to see.

The joy which welled up inside him threatened to overwhelm him. She was alive! By some miracle he could not begin to fathom she had returned from the jaws of death. Still, she was gravely wounded, and even as he looked down into her glistening eyes, Aragorn was working feverishly over her, sealing her wound with an herbal poultice and then with needle and thread.

Nimoë did not seem to feel the pain, and she did not remove her gaze from him, as if she feared that if he left her sight she would never find him again. He could feel from her limp hand how very weak she was, and he silently offered her his strength, wishing that he knew how to transfer his life force, the same way that she did, for gladly would he have traded places with her at any time, even while he had thought her dead.

Ever so slowly, the corners of her lips curled upwards, and her eyes smiled. "Legolas," she whispered again. Then her lips kept moving, but he could not make out what she said.

"Say it again," he beckoned, leaning his ear down close to her lips.

She drew a shallow breath and spoke again, and this time he understood her words. "Never leave me."

He wanted to crush her to his chest, but he knew that he had to be gentle with her, so he satisfied himself with squeezing her hand and pressing a fierce kiss onto her brow. "Nothing in this world could drag me from your side. Never have I been more frightened in my life, and I swear that, were the world crashing down around us, I would hold you close and we would face the end together. Without you life is not worth living."

It seemed that it was reassurance enough, for she nodded minutely. Then her eyes fluttered shut again, but it was into a healing sleep, and Legolas smiled over at Aragorn, tears of gratitude and joy flowing freely down him face. "She will live?"

Aragorn nodded, although wonder was hard upon him. "She will live."