Odo

Before he had a chance to move, one of her hands had grabbed him just above his right elbow and pulled him down close to her face. He had only a thin sleeve covering his arm and her fingernails quickly dug unto his flesh as he tried frantically to remove his arm from her grip.

            The other doctors descended upon her and tried to unclench her fingers, which were now drawing blood from the prince's arm. Legolas cried out as she pulled him down so closely that his ear was only separated from her mouth by a hairs' breadth.

            "The man with black eyes! The man with black eyes sees you!" Her voice was frantic and urgent and she spoke in the Westron tongue of Man. Legolas could barely discern the words through her heavy breathing but as soon as they passed from her lips she fell back against the sheets, releasing her hold upon his arm, and appeared to be sleeping again.

            "Master Legolas!" Andoion flew to his side and held a compress of cool water against the deep cuts on his arm. "I am so sorry my Lord, her sleep usually lasts for complete hour intervals- she was not yet supposed to arise!" He pulled the cloth off to reveal it was stained deeply with blood.

            "You shall have to go to the House of the Healers to have that cared for." Laifen motioned towards the marks, which were already spreading an angry red color down the length of Legolas' arm. For his part, Legolas hardly heard their words at all. Had she spoken to him? He hadn't imagined it…had he? As soon as Andoion rubbed a cleansing ointment on his open cuts he was startled back to life and turned his arm to see what she had done.

            Five marks. Four on the inside of his arm in a jagged row and one set apart from the others, nearly on the opposite side of the first. The top two on the inside were bleeding freely as was the single one on the outside of his arm. He looked at his sleeve and found five hole marks where her frantic nails had simply cut through the flimsy material.

            "Please see the healers and allow them to tend to those." Andoion pointed towards his arm but in the urgency of his tone Legolas found himself wondering if they were not trying to rid themselves of him as quickly as possible. However, the pain in his arm was growing more acute and therefore he gratefully took his leave, escaping through the secret door but not before catching one last glimpse of the presumably sleeping woman.