A/N: I know someone is going to think that it would be impossible for the Thurin Tirith Captain to knock a warg out with his fist. I must tell you that I saw a 5'7" man take down a full grown horse the same way after the horse bit him. By-the-way, the horse never bit anybody again. The Thurin Tirith Captain in this story stands 6'6" tall and weighs about 300 pounds so taking down the warg with his fist should be within the realm of possibility.
Chapter 20
Wargs In Nen
"Your insistent meddling in things that are not your concern is starting to annoy me!" He was speaking only to himself, for he allowed no one near him when he used his mind's eye to check what was happening in the world. Things were not going according to his well thought out plan - and he blamed it all on the she-elf; it was all her fault. And that was something he was not going to tolerate for much longer.
"Let us see if we can liven things up a bit for you, my dear." Closing his grey eyes, he silently called to his service, those who were nearby.
8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
"Wargs!"
It only took a few moments after hearing the scream for the five elves to reach the outside of the tavern. Though they might have expected to see many things, especially considering the many mysteries the town had already shared with them, a dozen wargs complete with vicious orc riders riding down the main street of a quaint little town in the middle of nowhere was one thing they would not have anticipated.
The Townspeople were in a total panic, running about mindlessly, their only purpose seeming to be some rather awkward attempts to get away from the large, slobbering, ugly beasts with the very long teeth that were running after them.
In the moments before Anayah and her guards could draw their swords and long knives and join the melee, two wargs each grabbed a human, shaking them both like dirty rags before discarding the lifeless, broken bodies back onto the bloody soil beneath them.
Before engaging the creatures, the four Thurin Tirith warriors and Anayah widened the distance between each other so they could better cover a larger area during the upcoming battle. Drawing her long, curved dagger with one hand and her sword with the other, she walked towards the street where the wargs were chasing the frightened humans. One beast finally saw her approaching and changed his direction, prodded into doing so by his rider.
With the tip of both sword and dagger pointed at the ground, she waited patiently for the warg to come to her, feigning helplessness, enticing it to come to her, as best she could. Then, when it was almost upon her, when she could almost feel its hot, rancid breath in her face, she calmly stepped to one side, letting it go by her - almost. She plunged the dagger she held in her left hand deep into its tiny eye and into the brain beyond, killing it instantly, while with her sword, she blocked the downward slicing blade of the rider's scimitar.
The warg fell chest first in the dusty street, throwing its rider over its head and before the stunned orc could get its bearing, she was beside him, separating his head from the rest of his body.
Before Anayah could turn and find another target, something big and heavy hit her from behind. It was her turn to go face first into the dusty street all-the-while chiding herself for not paying attention to what was happening behind her. At any moment, she expected to feel the orc's blade or the warg's sharp teeth slice into her and so was surprised as well as relieved when the next thing she did hear was a squeal of pain from the orc followed closely thereafter by a grunt of pain from the warg who then collapsed on the ground beside her.
Quickly rolling over onto her back, her sword held defensively in front of her, she was surprised to see Súrion standing over her, hand held out, offering to help her rise.
"Are you all right?"
Grabbing his outstretched hand, she gratefully allowed him to pull her up.
"Yes, thanks for bailing me out of that one!"
With one last nod to each other, both elves returned to the battle.
Two wargs jumped at Rahan and although he managed to kill one and its rider shortly thereafter, the second warg managed to hit him just hard enough to make him drop his sword. For a moment warg, orc, and warrior stood, staring into each other's eyes then, without warning, Rahan drew back his arm and slammed his fist into the side of the warg's jaw, dropping the beast on the spot. Grabbing the surprised rider on both sides of his head, the Captain quickly snapped the thing's neck, then discarded the body in the dirt. Retrieving his sword from where he had dropped it, it took him no amount of time at all to dispose of the dazed warg.
All five elves were now engaged in battle, slashing and stabbing while dodging both teeth and scimitars as the wargs and their riders fought back viciously. Slowly the elves began to reduce the number of their enemies until the 12 wargs and riders became eight, then six, then five.
Her guards were now fighting by her side but though the battle was drawing closer to its conclusion, they were all still taking it very seriously. Then a strange thing happened.
The remaining five wargs and their riders drew off a short distance and stopped, watching the five elves intently, for it seemed they were gathering themselves for a last concerted effort to kill the beings before them. Guessing at their real intent, Rahan had his guards array themselves in front of a protesting Anayah. When the wargs began their charge, Anayah noticed something strange about the formation they were in and the realization came to her that Rahan had been correct and that, in fact, they were coming for her, and so she squared herself around, set her feet and prepared to meet them.
As per the wargs prearranged plan, a warg ran directly into two of her guards, a second warg ran into the other two and a third warg came directly at her. Although she managed to wound it, the creature did not veer off as was the normal habit after an attack, but swung its head around, knocking her off her feet.
As she fell to the hard packed earth, her sword flew from her hand with her dagger following closely behind. Then, before she could regain her feet, she felt an agonizing pain in her leg as if someone had set it on fire. The warg that had attacked her swung around after knocking her down, bit into the calf of her leg then began to pull her away with it as it ran. The pain paralyzed her, taking away her ability to defend herself.
8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
It did not take long for the other four elves to kill the wargs that had run into them and while three of the guards went after the final two wargs, Rahan looked around for Anayah, finally seeing her as the warg drug her towards the edge of town.
"No, no, no." He kept saying the words over and over again as if saying them would make what he was seeing into something that was not happening. Then he reacted and began to run at the warg in a path that would intercept it as it attempted to drag the she-elf away.
As he intercepted the fleeing warg, Rahan grabbed the beast's harness with his left hand with the right hand, grabbed the surprised orc rider and quickly threw him off the warg's back. Then drawing his dagger from its sheath with his free hand, he repeatedly plunged the deadly weapon into the warg's side, dragging the jagged blade upward each time he withdrew it. Soon, he could feel the beast slow, and as it did so, and before it finally hit the ground and lay still, it released its hold on its victim's leg.
Before he released his own hold on the warg's harness, Rahan watched in horror as Anayah rolled away from the warg, and kept rolling, until her head came in contact with the first step of a nearby building.
He picked himself up off the ground and immediately ran in the direction of his young charge and was somewhat relieved when he saw her trying to raise herself to her knees. When he reached her side he grabbed her shoulders and turned her over, gently forcing her to lie still until he could see what damage the warg had done to her leg.
The other three warriors fought their way over to the pair to defend them until they either removed themselves from the field of battle or rejoined the fight. As Anayah tried to get her fuzzy vision to focus, Rahan was busy tearing off a piece off his tunic to wrap her leg with in an attempt to stop, or at least slow down the bleeding.
Against his advice, and finally with his help, she managed to stand, then bending over to draw a particularly nasty looking knife from her boot, she tried to return to the battle. Rahan finally had to put his foot down.
"Staying to fight is not an option. You will fight no more this day, young one."
"And who, exactly is going to stop me, Rahan. You?" She did not exactly make much of a statement, especially considering the angle at which she was standing. Besides, it was not her fault that the ground kept insisting on moving around underneath her feet.
Frowning and shaking his head, he turned and yelled to the other three.
"I am taking her back to the Inn. Follow when you finish here!"
The others nodded without speaking or taking their attention off the remaining wargs. Rahan then scooped the vehemently protesting young elf into his arms and carried her off in the direction of the Inn, chuckling to himself at the variety of unladylike curses that were coming out of her mouth.
8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
After the two elves had reached the Inn and subsequently their rooms, Rahan carefully laid the semi-conscious she-elf down onto the soft bed then, grabbing various healing supplies he quickly moved back to the bed to try and treat her injured leg. With his knife, he carefully split her leggings to the knee baring the long, deep gash that the warg's teeth had made in the calf of her leg. He frowned when he saw the torn flesh and muscles as well as the filth from the warg's mouth and dirt from the street that filled the gaping wound. Carefully, the Captain irrigated the gash, trying to clean it. Then, after mixing certain herbs in warm water, he irrigated the wound again, after which he tried to get it to stop bleeding so that he could stitch it.
Several minutes later, the other three warriors entered the room and while he was still trying to stem the bleeding in Anayah's leg, his second-in-command gave him his final report. All the orcs and wargs had been destroyed, only two humans had been killed and the town's healers were now caring for those who seemed to have received nothing more than minor cuts and abrasions.
Rahan nodded as he continued his attempts to care for her leg which was refusing to stop bleeding, a fact tha was frustrating him more as more time passed.
As she became more alert, Anayah recognized the gravity of the situation and gently tugged on the Captain's sleeve.
"Rahan, get the healing supplies out my pack."
He did as she requested without question, while Saeros continued to apply pressure to her leg. Handing her supplies to her, she reached inside for her herbs, searching for a particular packet and blinking her eyes repeatedly as her vision again turned fuzzy, making it difficult to identify which herbs were which. Finally, she found what she wanted and handed the packet to her Captain after which she weakly dropped her hand to the bed and closed her eyes. Saeros and Rahan looked at one another, puzzled, until she once more opened her eyes.
"Sorry. I seem to be having a problem remaining awake."
Smiling, Rahan gently brushed the sweaty and dust-covered strands of hair off her forehead as her eyes again drifted shut.
"What am I supposed to do with this herb, young one?"
Tiredly, her eyes came open once again.
"Sorry. That is athelas, a very good plant to get to know. Take two or three of its leaves, depending on the size of the wound, chew them, do not eat them, chew them until they are soft and place them on the wound. It should help..."
Having closed her eyes again, Rahan shook his head then gently placed his hand on her shoulder.
"And then what?"
"What?"
"It should help what?"
"Oh, sorry again. It should help slow or stop the bleeding. Remind me to teach you more about it. Right now I just..."
Rahan looked at her sharply as her voice once more faded away then turn to look at Semoro.
"She hit her head awfully hard after the warg dropped her so try and keep her awake and as alert as possible. If you can, see if she will let you look at it and see if it needs any cleaning and stitching."
With a nod, Semoro went about complying with his brother's wishes and though she tried, she was not successful in batting away the elf's hands as he gently turned her head to look at her head wound.
"Stay awake young one."
Anayah tried very hard to comply but her eyes just did not want to cooperate and now on top of everything else, a company of dwarves seemed to have taken up residence in her head and were busy trying to chisel holes in the wall of their new home. The resulting intense pain was threatening to drag her into unconsciousness.
Finally, it was done. While Semoro had cleaned and stitched the large gash at her hairline, Rahan had managed to stop the bleeding in the wound on her leg and had stitched the wound closed.
Groggily she blinked her eyes at the fuzzy blur in front of her that spoke using her Captain's voice.
Gently he stroked her head as he spoke to her about an hour after he had brought her back to the room.
"Well, I think you will live."
She tried smiling.
"I also think it will be ok for you to go to sleep now. We will all be here making sure that nothing disturbs you."
As she finally closed her eyes and drifted away, the last thing she heard was the soft sound of her Captain's voice saying, "Go to sleep."
8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
She was having the strangest repeating dream about running from a warg on a hot summer's day, tripping and falling as she ran, then regaining her feet, turning around and finding the warg right behind her, breathing down her neck. Her dream repeated itself over and over again until, during the last repeat, where the warg had almost gotten her, she had swung at the beast and had connected - then she woke up.
She found herself sitting up in bed with someone sitting behind her with their arms wrapped tightly around her from behind, restraining her arms. When she finally realized where she was and what was going on, the arms released her - and that was when she heard the laughter.
Looking at Saeros who had been the one sitting behind her, restraining her, she then looked to Semoro and Súrion who were both doubled over with laughter. Looking at Saeros for an explanation, he just smiled ruefully and pointed to a spot just over the edge of the bed.
When she looked, Anayah gasped.
"I am SO sorry!" She extended her hand to help the elf up but Semoro, not wanting her to hurt herself suddenly rushed forward to help his brother rise from the floor.
Rahan sat on the edge of the bed, tenderly probing what was already threatening to be a spectacular, black eye. Beginning to laugh himself, he brushed her hands aside when she attempted to see the damage she had caused.
"Did I do that?" If she had not already been flushed with fever, she would have probably turned a bright pink. "Rahan I am so sorry!"
He smiled at her then pressed her shoulders back until she was again laying flat on the bed then, taking a cloth, he dipped it in cool water and again began to bathe the sweat off her face.
"Not to worry, Anayah, I just happened to turn my head for a moment and the next thing I knew, I was laying on the floor. I must admit that you pack one heck of a punch - Eru help me if you try to hit me when you are healthy! Now, I want you to go back to sleep, that is unless you want me to fix you something for pain?"
"I'm not in any pain," she whispered as her eyes again began to drift shut, "just leave me alone - mother." Smiling at the elf above her, she finally dropped into an untroubled, healing sleep.
TBC
COMING NEXT: Black Eye: She was staring at him, wide-eyed.
"What?"
She clamped a hand over her mouth trying to strangle a laugh that had almost escaped from her mouth. After a moment, when she had regained control of herself, she spoke.
"I am so sorry!" She reached out and touched his black eye, again almost laughing.
grumpy(): Thank you for your review. I am glad you enjoyed the interaction between the spirits of the little girl, her father and the rest of the group. The dedication the Healer and his young daughter had felt and displayed in life was carried on even after their deaths. Although the little girl clearly understood Aragorn's importance her first priority was to Aragorn the man. Notice that she did not bow to him until after she had healed him the final time.
DesolateAznVamp: Thanks for the review. I am pleased that you liked the little girl. I almost made myself cry the first time I read the entire ghost story from beginning to end. Hope you enjoy this chapter as well.
Chapter 20
Wargs In Nen
"Your insistent meddling in things that are not your concern is starting to annoy me!" He was speaking only to himself, for he allowed no one near him when he used his mind's eye to check what was happening in the world. Things were not going according to his well thought out plan - and he blamed it all on the she-elf; it was all her fault. And that was something he was not going to tolerate for much longer.
"Let us see if we can liven things up a bit for you, my dear." Closing his grey eyes, he silently called to his service, those who were nearby.
8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
"Wargs!"
It only took a few moments after hearing the scream for the five elves to reach the outside of the tavern. Though they might have expected to see many things, especially considering the many mysteries the town had already shared with them, a dozen wargs complete with vicious orc riders riding down the main street of a quaint little town in the middle of nowhere was one thing they would not have anticipated.
The Townspeople were in a total panic, running about mindlessly, their only purpose seeming to be some rather awkward attempts to get away from the large, slobbering, ugly beasts with the very long teeth that were running after them.
In the moments before Anayah and her guards could draw their swords and long knives and join the melee, two wargs each grabbed a human, shaking them both like dirty rags before discarding the lifeless, broken bodies back onto the bloody soil beneath them.
Before engaging the creatures, the four Thurin Tirith warriors and Anayah widened the distance between each other so they could better cover a larger area during the upcoming battle. Drawing her long, curved dagger with one hand and her sword with the other, she walked towards the street where the wargs were chasing the frightened humans. One beast finally saw her approaching and changed his direction, prodded into doing so by his rider.
With the tip of both sword and dagger pointed at the ground, she waited patiently for the warg to come to her, feigning helplessness, enticing it to come to her, as best she could. Then, when it was almost upon her, when she could almost feel its hot, rancid breath in her face, she calmly stepped to one side, letting it go by her - almost. She plunged the dagger she held in her left hand deep into its tiny eye and into the brain beyond, killing it instantly, while with her sword, she blocked the downward slicing blade of the rider's scimitar.
The warg fell chest first in the dusty street, throwing its rider over its head and before the stunned orc could get its bearing, she was beside him, separating his head from the rest of his body.
Before Anayah could turn and find another target, something big and heavy hit her from behind. It was her turn to go face first into the dusty street all-the-while chiding herself for not paying attention to what was happening behind her. At any moment, she expected to feel the orc's blade or the warg's sharp teeth slice into her and so was surprised as well as relieved when the next thing she did hear was a squeal of pain from the orc followed closely thereafter by a grunt of pain from the warg who then collapsed on the ground beside her.
Quickly rolling over onto her back, her sword held defensively in front of her, she was surprised to see Súrion standing over her, hand held out, offering to help her rise.
"Are you all right?"
Grabbing his outstretched hand, she gratefully allowed him to pull her up.
"Yes, thanks for bailing me out of that one!"
With one last nod to each other, both elves returned to the battle.
Two wargs jumped at Rahan and although he managed to kill one and its rider shortly thereafter, the second warg managed to hit him just hard enough to make him drop his sword. For a moment warg, orc, and warrior stood, staring into each other's eyes then, without warning, Rahan drew back his arm and slammed his fist into the side of the warg's jaw, dropping the beast on the spot. Grabbing the surprised rider on both sides of his head, the Captain quickly snapped the thing's neck, then discarded the body in the dirt. Retrieving his sword from where he had dropped it, it took him no amount of time at all to dispose of the dazed warg.
All five elves were now engaged in battle, slashing and stabbing while dodging both teeth and scimitars as the wargs and their riders fought back viciously. Slowly the elves began to reduce the number of their enemies until the 12 wargs and riders became eight, then six, then five.
Her guards were now fighting by her side but though the battle was drawing closer to its conclusion, they were all still taking it very seriously. Then a strange thing happened.
The remaining five wargs and their riders drew off a short distance and stopped, watching the five elves intently, for it seemed they were gathering themselves for a last concerted effort to kill the beings before them. Guessing at their real intent, Rahan had his guards array themselves in front of a protesting Anayah. When the wargs began their charge, Anayah noticed something strange about the formation they were in and the realization came to her that Rahan had been correct and that, in fact, they were coming for her, and so she squared herself around, set her feet and prepared to meet them.
As per the wargs prearranged plan, a warg ran directly into two of her guards, a second warg ran into the other two and a third warg came directly at her. Although she managed to wound it, the creature did not veer off as was the normal habit after an attack, but swung its head around, knocking her off her feet.
As she fell to the hard packed earth, her sword flew from her hand with her dagger following closely behind. Then, before she could regain her feet, she felt an agonizing pain in her leg as if someone had set it on fire. The warg that had attacked her swung around after knocking her down, bit into the calf of her leg then began to pull her away with it as it ran. The pain paralyzed her, taking away her ability to defend herself.
8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
It did not take long for the other four elves to kill the wargs that had run into them and while three of the guards went after the final two wargs, Rahan looked around for Anayah, finally seeing her as the warg drug her towards the edge of town.
"No, no, no." He kept saying the words over and over again as if saying them would make what he was seeing into something that was not happening. Then he reacted and began to run at the warg in a path that would intercept it as it attempted to drag the she-elf away.
As he intercepted the fleeing warg, Rahan grabbed the beast's harness with his left hand with the right hand, grabbed the surprised orc rider and quickly threw him off the warg's back. Then drawing his dagger from its sheath with his free hand, he repeatedly plunged the deadly weapon into the warg's side, dragging the jagged blade upward each time he withdrew it. Soon, he could feel the beast slow, and as it did so, and before it finally hit the ground and lay still, it released its hold on its victim's leg.
Before he released his own hold on the warg's harness, Rahan watched in horror as Anayah rolled away from the warg, and kept rolling, until her head came in contact with the first step of a nearby building.
He picked himself up off the ground and immediately ran in the direction of his young charge and was somewhat relieved when he saw her trying to raise herself to her knees. When he reached her side he grabbed her shoulders and turned her over, gently forcing her to lie still until he could see what damage the warg had done to her leg.
The other three warriors fought their way over to the pair to defend them until they either removed themselves from the field of battle or rejoined the fight. As Anayah tried to get her fuzzy vision to focus, Rahan was busy tearing off a piece off his tunic to wrap her leg with in an attempt to stop, or at least slow down the bleeding.
Against his advice, and finally with his help, she managed to stand, then bending over to draw a particularly nasty looking knife from her boot, she tried to return to the battle. Rahan finally had to put his foot down.
"Staying to fight is not an option. You will fight no more this day, young one."
"And who, exactly is going to stop me, Rahan. You?" She did not exactly make much of a statement, especially considering the angle at which she was standing. Besides, it was not her fault that the ground kept insisting on moving around underneath her feet.
Frowning and shaking his head, he turned and yelled to the other three.
"I am taking her back to the Inn. Follow when you finish here!"
The others nodded without speaking or taking their attention off the remaining wargs. Rahan then scooped the vehemently protesting young elf into his arms and carried her off in the direction of the Inn, chuckling to himself at the variety of unladylike curses that were coming out of her mouth.
8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
After the two elves had reached the Inn and subsequently their rooms, Rahan carefully laid the semi-conscious she-elf down onto the soft bed then, grabbing various healing supplies he quickly moved back to the bed to try and treat her injured leg. With his knife, he carefully split her leggings to the knee baring the long, deep gash that the warg's teeth had made in the calf of her leg. He frowned when he saw the torn flesh and muscles as well as the filth from the warg's mouth and dirt from the street that filled the gaping wound. Carefully, the Captain irrigated the gash, trying to clean it. Then, after mixing certain herbs in warm water, he irrigated the wound again, after which he tried to get it to stop bleeding so that he could stitch it.
Several minutes later, the other three warriors entered the room and while he was still trying to stem the bleeding in Anayah's leg, his second-in-command gave him his final report. All the orcs and wargs had been destroyed, only two humans had been killed and the town's healers were now caring for those who seemed to have received nothing more than minor cuts and abrasions.
Rahan nodded as he continued his attempts to care for her leg which was refusing to stop bleeding, a fact tha was frustrating him more as more time passed.
As she became more alert, Anayah recognized the gravity of the situation and gently tugged on the Captain's sleeve.
"Rahan, get the healing supplies out my pack."
He did as she requested without question, while Saeros continued to apply pressure to her leg. Handing her supplies to her, she reached inside for her herbs, searching for a particular packet and blinking her eyes repeatedly as her vision again turned fuzzy, making it difficult to identify which herbs were which. Finally, she found what she wanted and handed the packet to her Captain after which she weakly dropped her hand to the bed and closed her eyes. Saeros and Rahan looked at one another, puzzled, until she once more opened her eyes.
"Sorry. I seem to be having a problem remaining awake."
Smiling, Rahan gently brushed the sweaty and dust-covered strands of hair off her forehead as her eyes again drifted shut.
"What am I supposed to do with this herb, young one?"
Tiredly, her eyes came open once again.
"Sorry. That is athelas, a very good plant to get to know. Take two or three of its leaves, depending on the size of the wound, chew them, do not eat them, chew them until they are soft and place them on the wound. It should help..."
Having closed her eyes again, Rahan shook his head then gently placed his hand on her shoulder.
"And then what?"
"What?"
"It should help what?"
"Oh, sorry again. It should help slow or stop the bleeding. Remind me to teach you more about it. Right now I just..."
Rahan looked at her sharply as her voice once more faded away then turn to look at Semoro.
"She hit her head awfully hard after the warg dropped her so try and keep her awake and as alert as possible. If you can, see if she will let you look at it and see if it needs any cleaning and stitching."
With a nod, Semoro went about complying with his brother's wishes and though she tried, she was not successful in batting away the elf's hands as he gently turned her head to look at her head wound.
"Stay awake young one."
Anayah tried very hard to comply but her eyes just did not want to cooperate and now on top of everything else, a company of dwarves seemed to have taken up residence in her head and were busy trying to chisel holes in the wall of their new home. The resulting intense pain was threatening to drag her into unconsciousness.
Finally, it was done. While Semoro had cleaned and stitched the large gash at her hairline, Rahan had managed to stop the bleeding in the wound on her leg and had stitched the wound closed.
Groggily she blinked her eyes at the fuzzy blur in front of her that spoke using her Captain's voice.
Gently he stroked her head as he spoke to her about an hour after he had brought her back to the room.
"Well, I think you will live."
She tried smiling.
"I also think it will be ok for you to go to sleep now. We will all be here making sure that nothing disturbs you."
As she finally closed her eyes and drifted away, the last thing she heard was the soft sound of her Captain's voice saying, "Go to sleep."
8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
She was having the strangest repeating dream about running from a warg on a hot summer's day, tripping and falling as she ran, then regaining her feet, turning around and finding the warg right behind her, breathing down her neck. Her dream repeated itself over and over again until, during the last repeat, where the warg had almost gotten her, she had swung at the beast and had connected - then she woke up.
She found herself sitting up in bed with someone sitting behind her with their arms wrapped tightly around her from behind, restraining her arms. When she finally realized where she was and what was going on, the arms released her - and that was when she heard the laughter.
Looking at Saeros who had been the one sitting behind her, restraining her, she then looked to Semoro and Súrion who were both doubled over with laughter. Looking at Saeros for an explanation, he just smiled ruefully and pointed to a spot just over the edge of the bed.
When she looked, Anayah gasped.
"I am SO sorry!" She extended her hand to help the elf up but Semoro, not wanting her to hurt herself suddenly rushed forward to help his brother rise from the floor.
Rahan sat on the edge of the bed, tenderly probing what was already threatening to be a spectacular, black eye. Beginning to laugh himself, he brushed her hands aside when she attempted to see the damage she had caused.
"Did I do that?" If she had not already been flushed with fever, she would have probably turned a bright pink. "Rahan I am so sorry!"
He smiled at her then pressed her shoulders back until she was again laying flat on the bed then, taking a cloth, he dipped it in cool water and again began to bathe the sweat off her face.
"Not to worry, Anayah, I just happened to turn my head for a moment and the next thing I knew, I was laying on the floor. I must admit that you pack one heck of a punch - Eru help me if you try to hit me when you are healthy! Now, I want you to go back to sleep, that is unless you want me to fix you something for pain?"
"I'm not in any pain," she whispered as her eyes again began to drift shut, "just leave me alone - mother." Smiling at the elf above her, she finally dropped into an untroubled, healing sleep.
TBC
COMING NEXT: Black Eye: She was staring at him, wide-eyed.
"What?"
She clamped a hand over her mouth trying to strangle a laugh that had almost escaped from her mouth. After a moment, when she had regained control of herself, she spoke.
"I am so sorry!" She reached out and touched his black eye, again almost laughing.
grumpy(): Thank you for your review. I am glad you enjoyed the interaction between the spirits of the little girl, her father and the rest of the group. The dedication the Healer and his young daughter had felt and displayed in life was carried on even after their deaths. Although the little girl clearly understood Aragorn's importance her first priority was to Aragorn the man. Notice that she did not bow to him until after she had healed him the final time.
DesolateAznVamp: Thanks for the review. I am pleased that you liked the little girl. I almost made myself cry the first time I read the entire ghost story from beginning to end. Hope you enjoy this chapter as well.