Disclaimer: Refer to Chapter One
Chapter 10: Slipping Away
"Moraelin, we have to go." Legolas urged, his clear eyes slightly frustrated.
"I'm nearly done." She replied with false calm. As her capable hands bound the wound with strips of cloth cut from her blanket, her mind churned with potions, symptoms, and a dizzying attempt to calculate the impact of poison on an elf compared to a mortal. But, there was no way to know how it would affect Legolas. She had scrubbed as much poison from the wound as she could as Legolas clenched his fists against the pain. She had also packed the wound with a special mix of leaves the Rangers used in these cases. But, if the poison was already in his blood, it would do him little good. He looked strong now, but she closed her eyes for a moment and drew in a quiet breath. It would take him eventually, this vile weapon never missed its mark. She thought that of the entire arsenal of the orcs, the moonroot poison was particularly cruel. How many fighters had left a battle, relieved that they had taken no more than a small wound, only to collapse soon after? How many families had been forced to watch someone they love slip away, death stealing them with cold, merciless hands?
She straightened, looking down at Legolas where he slumped on the ground. She reached down to help him to his feet, but he just stared up at her for a moment. Something was wrong, it was in the way she stood, the stern set of her face. There was something she wasn't telling him. But, he took the hand she offered and rose. He lowered his shirt back over the bandage and whistled for Embryn.
"Legolas, you shouldn't ride, you . . . lost a lot of blood." Moraelin bit her lip, "Just stay here. Rest. I have to find a swamp, there are some herbs I need for your fever."
"We can't stay, you know that. It might still be unsafe here." Legolas lifted a hand to her face, rubbing his thumb lightly over her cheek, "I'm all right. I'm not going to leave you."
Moraelin nodded, turning quickly away from him. She climbed into the saddle more slowly than usual, her spine still sore where the orc had dropped a knee into it.
"If you start feeling sick, I want you to-"
"I know," Legolas said patiently, "I will tell you."
* * *
"Will you stop doing that?" Legolas said testily. Moraelin had brought her horse alongside his so she could feel his forehead with the back of her hand. She had done so about every ten feet for the past two hours, and Legolas was beginning to tire of it. After a few moments, he reluctantly said, "Well?"
Moraelin eyed him in confusion.
"Well," Legolas said, "Am I any worse?"
Moraelin stared straight ahead, her face strained, "You're beginning to get warm. We should stop soon and . . ."
She looked over at Legolas to see him tipping to the side, his eyes glassy, and she had to grab a handful of his shirt to stop him from pitching out of the saddle. "All right, we're going to stop right now."
Legolas shook his head briskly, "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. I'm fine, we can continue."
"No." Moraelin said firmly. She dismounted and reached up to help Legolas down from his horse. As she wrapped an arm around his back to keep him upright, she felt the heat beginning to radiate off of his body, and had to hide her alarm. The poison had not affected him right away, but now the symptoms seemed to be moving at a startling rate.
"We have to find somewhere to camp where you'll be safe." She pulled his arm up over her shoulders and began walking with him along the rushing stream. His steps faltered, and he was leaning more weight onto her smaller frame. Through a copse of trees, Moraelin could see a misshapen pile of rock and moved toward it. To her relief, she found it was another watchtower, but this one had completely fallen in, having surrendered at long last to the elements. As she half steered, half carried Legolas to it, she scanned the ruins for shelter.
"You just wait here," she ordered, helping Legolas sit on a stone slab. Dizziness took him again, and he leaned precariously forward. Moraelin stopped him with a hand to his chest and eased him to the ground, "Maybe you should just lie down."
Legolas nodded in agreement, but his face was tired, blank.
Moraelin turned from him, taking a brief moment to steel herself. Fear was clawing through her like some feral beast, but she could not show this to Legolas. She had to appear calm.
Scrambling over the haphazard maze of fallen stone, Moraelin tried to find somewhere that they might make a fire and be sheltered from the elements. Soon she found a pile of tall stone blocks that had collapsed against each other in such a way that left a large space between them. She crawled beneath them and found the opening to be the size of a small cave, and the stones leaned in to make a roof above her. Leaving, she gave a few sharp kicks to the stones, and convinced that if they had not fallen in over the past thousand years they weren't going to tonight, she returned to Legolas.
When Moraelin neared him, she saw he leaned weakly against a stone. His head was tipped back against it, and his face was pale, his eyelids drooping in exhaustion. She kneeled before him, brushing a few golden hairs back from his burning temples. His throat constricted as he swallowed loudly, his throat bone dry.
"Come on," she commanded gruffly and hauled him back to his feet. He proved even more difficult to move now, his feet dragging and his arm limp across her shoulders. She grunted and gripped him harder around the waist, "I thought elves were supposed to be light," she mumbled.
"I thought dwarves were supposed to be strong," he murmured back, and Moraelin smiled in relief. Surely if he was well enough to tease her he had some strength left.
As she settled him beneath the huge slabs of stone, his throat ground again with difficulty. Moraelin took a water bag from across her shoulders and helped him to take a deep gulp of water. He nodded in gratitude, but he seemed too weak to speak. Moraelin swept away a few stray drops of water from beside his mouth, daring to meet his eyes. He stared back up at her, his bright blue eyes seeming to churn like burgeoning storm clouds, doubt and pain mingling with that unreadable emotion that was always there when he gazed on her. Moraelin's fingers lingered on the heated skin of his face. Her chest tightened, and she could barely choke out the words, "I will not let you slip away. I will make you well again, I swear it."
Legolas reached up and curled his long fingers around her hand. His grip was surprisingly strong, and Moraelin gave him a watery smile. Dropping a quick kiss onto the back of his hand, she pulled away from him.
"There is a marsh not far ahead, I can smell it. I need to gather some things, so you just rest for a few minutes, all right? I won't be long."
Moraelin unclasped her cloak and draped it carefully over him. She turned then and left him before his eyes could hold her there. While she thought he might still be able to see her, she moved at a brisk walk. But, once out of sight of their camp, Moraelin broke into a dead sprint. She hurdled over a few weathered stones, her sword clattering at her hip. Rock, looking up from taking a leisurely drink from the stream, sensed his master's urgency. Moraelin leapt on his back and kicked his sides sharply. The horse responded, rearing onto two legs for a moment before driving forward. Moraelin hunched low over his neck and whispered fiercely into the wind, to whatever spirits cared to listen, "Don't you take him yet. Not when I've just found him again."
* * *
As the marsh opened before Moraelin and Rock, she felt a groan creep up from within her chest. It sat in a wide valley between the canyon walls, a huge reeking backwater of the stream. The biting flies had swarmed her before she was even in sight of it, and she had known that could not bode well. She dismounted, and Rock swiftly turned and trotted in the other direction.
"Oh, you'll leave me to do this on my own? Fine. Wonderful." She grumbled, but she knew he would stay near enough to return upon her call. She still wished she had someone to share the bug bites with.
"I hate swamps," she muttered, but started into the rotten mud without hesitation. There was little time for complaints, her mission was a vital one.
Moraelin's leg was sucked deep into the hungry mud, and she lost her balance. Tipping dangerously, she flailed her arms. A great splash dispersed the insatiable insects for a brief moment as she went under. As she burst sputtering from beneath the stagnant water, grainy mud and thick algae dripping from her face, the bugs settled back in about her unfazed. She trudged forward, dragging her legs through the mire and hauling herself up onto a clump of grasses. Through several such pools she struggled, and did not spot the plant she needed. Soon, her grumpy frustration was replaced with slight panic. Night was closing in, and Legolas did not have time to wait, she had to return to him. She could not allow some blasted mud to stand in her way.
Collapsing onto a tiny piece of dry ground in between slimy green pools, her chest heaving from the effort, Moraelin looked up. There it was. She nearly cried with relief and struggled to her knees. Drawing a dagger from her belt, she cut several of the purple tinted leaves with care that bordered on reverence. When they were wrapped in cloth and stashed in a pouch at her belt, she stood on shaky legs.
Three sharp birdcalls echoed across the marsh, and Rock galloped toward the signature call. As he reached the edge of the water, he paused, tossing his head and stamping his feet against the persistent flies. He stared across the distance at Moraelin with baleful eyes, as if to ask, "Must I?"
"Come on, you cowardly beast, don't just stand there staring at me!" Moraelin yelled. She had long ago stopped worrying about what others might say of her if they heard her speaking to her horse as if he were a person. The difficult animal had more personality than most people she knew, for better or worse.
When Rock stood before her, chest deep in muck, she rubbed his nose and climbed into the saddle. "You're the best horse that ever lived, have I told you that yet today?"
He grunted, and if a horse could make a sound of cranky disbelief, that was it. He set out across the marsh, bearing Moraelin and an even more precious cargo back to the ruins.
* * *
Legolas's face twisted in displeasure. "It tastes terrible," he rasped.
"Do you have any idea what I went through to get this for you? Ungrateful elf."
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his face seeming even more wan in the dancing firelight.
"I was joking, you know that, Legolas." But, she scratched briskly at an insect bite on the back of her neck, aware she was only half joking.
Legolas obediently downed the rest of the thick drink, feeling it slide down his throat and leave a gritty film over his teeth. He was feeling improved now that he was off of the road and allowed to rest. But, a frustrating weakness had sapped his limbs, and he could do little more than lean back against Moraelin's saddle and watch her in the orange glow of a small fire she had used to prepare his medicines. Just looking at the fire reminded him of how his body burned, and the warm drink she had forced him to consume did not help. He looked away, a slight frown on his face.
"What?" Moraelin stopped picking dried mud from behind her ears long enough to see the darkening of his face.
"It's so hot," he said.
Moraelin crawled to his side and unbuttoned his shirt, helping him to sit up slightly so that she could remove it from his back. She leaned backward to dig a piece of cloth from her pack and wetted it. Slowly, she drew the cool cloth across his face and neck. As she moved on to his torso, her eyes followed the path of the cloth along the sculpted muscle visible beneath skin turned a pasty white by illness. After several minutes, she folded the cloth and draped it over his forehead. She placed another cool cloth behind his neck.
"Your fever is worsening," Moraelin admitted softly, "But, once it breaks, you will be all right." She swept a hand across the side of his face, her touch soothing him.
"You have a healer's touch, just like your father," he said, his eyes burning into hers for a moment. "Do you remember when we were just children and your father took us fishing? You were very small, you might not remember . . ."
A slight smile spread across Moraelin's face, a dreamy glint in her eyes, "Father put us up on a tall white horse. When he set me in front of you he said . . ."
" 'Hold onto her tight, Legolas, she's a squirmer,'" Legolas finished the sentence for her in an uncanny approximation of her father's baritone. Both dissolved into a fit of nostalgic laughter.
When their mirth had faded, Moraelin winced, "I remember . . . you broke your arm. A bee stung the horse and it bolted and we both fell."
"Yes," Legolas said with gentle eyes, "Your father cared for me, just as you are doing now. He was always so calm; he helped me to be strong. You are so much like him, soothing, composed."
Moraelin's chin shook and tears filled her eyes until they glittered with the reflection of flickering flames. She whispered, "When you broke your arm, you didn't cry, not a single tear. You were so brave. I remember, I was scared, I-I started crying and you said . . ."
Legolas's eyes had glazed, his voice a faint exhalation, "I said, 'Don't cry, little one. I'll be all right. Don't cry.'"
His head dropped back against her saddle with a soft thump.
"No," Moraelin choked, crawling wildly to lean over him as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her face twisted into a grimace, "Don't you tell me not to cry."
She pressed a hand to his face, slapping his cheek with her fingers, calling his name. He would not respond, he did not move. A wrenching sob tore up her throat and she dropped her ear to his chest. She could feel it move up and down, hear the beating of his heart as his fevered skin burned her ear. He lived, but barely.
Moraelin wet the cloth again and bathed his neck and face. Sobs shook her, she had not cried so in a very long time. The cloth kept slipping from her shaking hands. But, for the next few hours, she drew the cloth over his skin, slowly, unthinkingly, not knowing what else to do. She cried until her chest felt bruised and her face was puffy and raw. He was too still, he should have been mumbling, thrashing, hallucinating, anything. Instead, he was simply dying. Finally, she sat and cradled his head in her lap. She brushed a hand over his fine hair but soon she dropped into an exhausted sleep with her neck bent awkwardly against a rough stone block.
* * *
Moraelin's head shot up, her eyes darting to the entrance. She could smell a foul odor entering the cracks between the stones. Not orc, more rotten, like the concentrated stench of carrion. Something had circled the tower, and was still out there. Waiting.
Moraelin looked down at Legolas's ashen face where it rested in her lap. She gently put his head against her saddle again. Placing her cheek very close to his mouth, she felt the tiny breeze of his breath fan across her skin. The relief that she felt strengthened her, and she leaned in to kiss his fiery forehead. She framed his face with her hands, brushing her thumbs along his jawline, and then turned away from him. She arrayed her weapons on her back in the darkness, the well-worn handle of each suited to her hand alone. As she crawled from their shelter, she glanced over her shoulder at Legolas, who lay motionless beneath his blankets. A moment of pained hesitation and then Moraelin left him, creeping into the forbidding night.
* * *
Thanks SO much to my marvelous reviewers: cara20, Rinoa36, and TigerLily, and Dragon-of-the-north
Chapter 10: Slipping Away
"Moraelin, we have to go." Legolas urged, his clear eyes slightly frustrated.
"I'm nearly done." She replied with false calm. As her capable hands bound the wound with strips of cloth cut from her blanket, her mind churned with potions, symptoms, and a dizzying attempt to calculate the impact of poison on an elf compared to a mortal. But, there was no way to know how it would affect Legolas. She had scrubbed as much poison from the wound as she could as Legolas clenched his fists against the pain. She had also packed the wound with a special mix of leaves the Rangers used in these cases. But, if the poison was already in his blood, it would do him little good. He looked strong now, but she closed her eyes for a moment and drew in a quiet breath. It would take him eventually, this vile weapon never missed its mark. She thought that of the entire arsenal of the orcs, the moonroot poison was particularly cruel. How many fighters had left a battle, relieved that they had taken no more than a small wound, only to collapse soon after? How many families had been forced to watch someone they love slip away, death stealing them with cold, merciless hands?
She straightened, looking down at Legolas where he slumped on the ground. She reached down to help him to his feet, but he just stared up at her for a moment. Something was wrong, it was in the way she stood, the stern set of her face. There was something she wasn't telling him. But, he took the hand she offered and rose. He lowered his shirt back over the bandage and whistled for Embryn.
"Legolas, you shouldn't ride, you . . . lost a lot of blood." Moraelin bit her lip, "Just stay here. Rest. I have to find a swamp, there are some herbs I need for your fever."
"We can't stay, you know that. It might still be unsafe here." Legolas lifted a hand to her face, rubbing his thumb lightly over her cheek, "I'm all right. I'm not going to leave you."
Moraelin nodded, turning quickly away from him. She climbed into the saddle more slowly than usual, her spine still sore where the orc had dropped a knee into it.
"If you start feeling sick, I want you to-"
"I know," Legolas said patiently, "I will tell you."
* * *
"Will you stop doing that?" Legolas said testily. Moraelin had brought her horse alongside his so she could feel his forehead with the back of her hand. She had done so about every ten feet for the past two hours, and Legolas was beginning to tire of it. After a few moments, he reluctantly said, "Well?"
Moraelin eyed him in confusion.
"Well," Legolas said, "Am I any worse?"
Moraelin stared straight ahead, her face strained, "You're beginning to get warm. We should stop soon and . . ."
She looked over at Legolas to see him tipping to the side, his eyes glassy, and she had to grab a handful of his shirt to stop him from pitching out of the saddle. "All right, we're going to stop right now."
Legolas shook his head briskly, "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. I'm fine, we can continue."
"No." Moraelin said firmly. She dismounted and reached up to help Legolas down from his horse. As she wrapped an arm around his back to keep him upright, she felt the heat beginning to radiate off of his body, and had to hide her alarm. The poison had not affected him right away, but now the symptoms seemed to be moving at a startling rate.
"We have to find somewhere to camp where you'll be safe." She pulled his arm up over her shoulders and began walking with him along the rushing stream. His steps faltered, and he was leaning more weight onto her smaller frame. Through a copse of trees, Moraelin could see a misshapen pile of rock and moved toward it. To her relief, she found it was another watchtower, but this one had completely fallen in, having surrendered at long last to the elements. As she half steered, half carried Legolas to it, she scanned the ruins for shelter.
"You just wait here," she ordered, helping Legolas sit on a stone slab. Dizziness took him again, and he leaned precariously forward. Moraelin stopped him with a hand to his chest and eased him to the ground, "Maybe you should just lie down."
Legolas nodded in agreement, but his face was tired, blank.
Moraelin turned from him, taking a brief moment to steel herself. Fear was clawing through her like some feral beast, but she could not show this to Legolas. She had to appear calm.
Scrambling over the haphazard maze of fallen stone, Moraelin tried to find somewhere that they might make a fire and be sheltered from the elements. Soon she found a pile of tall stone blocks that had collapsed against each other in such a way that left a large space between them. She crawled beneath them and found the opening to be the size of a small cave, and the stones leaned in to make a roof above her. Leaving, she gave a few sharp kicks to the stones, and convinced that if they had not fallen in over the past thousand years they weren't going to tonight, she returned to Legolas.
When Moraelin neared him, she saw he leaned weakly against a stone. His head was tipped back against it, and his face was pale, his eyelids drooping in exhaustion. She kneeled before him, brushing a few golden hairs back from his burning temples. His throat constricted as he swallowed loudly, his throat bone dry.
"Come on," she commanded gruffly and hauled him back to his feet. He proved even more difficult to move now, his feet dragging and his arm limp across her shoulders. She grunted and gripped him harder around the waist, "I thought elves were supposed to be light," she mumbled.
"I thought dwarves were supposed to be strong," he murmured back, and Moraelin smiled in relief. Surely if he was well enough to tease her he had some strength left.
As she settled him beneath the huge slabs of stone, his throat ground again with difficulty. Moraelin took a water bag from across her shoulders and helped him to take a deep gulp of water. He nodded in gratitude, but he seemed too weak to speak. Moraelin swept away a few stray drops of water from beside his mouth, daring to meet his eyes. He stared back up at her, his bright blue eyes seeming to churn like burgeoning storm clouds, doubt and pain mingling with that unreadable emotion that was always there when he gazed on her. Moraelin's fingers lingered on the heated skin of his face. Her chest tightened, and she could barely choke out the words, "I will not let you slip away. I will make you well again, I swear it."
Legolas reached up and curled his long fingers around her hand. His grip was surprisingly strong, and Moraelin gave him a watery smile. Dropping a quick kiss onto the back of his hand, she pulled away from him.
"There is a marsh not far ahead, I can smell it. I need to gather some things, so you just rest for a few minutes, all right? I won't be long."
Moraelin unclasped her cloak and draped it carefully over him. She turned then and left him before his eyes could hold her there. While she thought he might still be able to see her, she moved at a brisk walk. But, once out of sight of their camp, Moraelin broke into a dead sprint. She hurdled over a few weathered stones, her sword clattering at her hip. Rock, looking up from taking a leisurely drink from the stream, sensed his master's urgency. Moraelin leapt on his back and kicked his sides sharply. The horse responded, rearing onto two legs for a moment before driving forward. Moraelin hunched low over his neck and whispered fiercely into the wind, to whatever spirits cared to listen, "Don't you take him yet. Not when I've just found him again."
* * *
As the marsh opened before Moraelin and Rock, she felt a groan creep up from within her chest. It sat in a wide valley between the canyon walls, a huge reeking backwater of the stream. The biting flies had swarmed her before she was even in sight of it, and she had known that could not bode well. She dismounted, and Rock swiftly turned and trotted in the other direction.
"Oh, you'll leave me to do this on my own? Fine. Wonderful." She grumbled, but she knew he would stay near enough to return upon her call. She still wished she had someone to share the bug bites with.
"I hate swamps," she muttered, but started into the rotten mud without hesitation. There was little time for complaints, her mission was a vital one.
Moraelin's leg was sucked deep into the hungry mud, and she lost her balance. Tipping dangerously, she flailed her arms. A great splash dispersed the insatiable insects for a brief moment as she went under. As she burst sputtering from beneath the stagnant water, grainy mud and thick algae dripping from her face, the bugs settled back in about her unfazed. She trudged forward, dragging her legs through the mire and hauling herself up onto a clump of grasses. Through several such pools she struggled, and did not spot the plant she needed. Soon, her grumpy frustration was replaced with slight panic. Night was closing in, and Legolas did not have time to wait, she had to return to him. She could not allow some blasted mud to stand in her way.
Collapsing onto a tiny piece of dry ground in between slimy green pools, her chest heaving from the effort, Moraelin looked up. There it was. She nearly cried with relief and struggled to her knees. Drawing a dagger from her belt, she cut several of the purple tinted leaves with care that bordered on reverence. When they were wrapped in cloth and stashed in a pouch at her belt, she stood on shaky legs.
Three sharp birdcalls echoed across the marsh, and Rock galloped toward the signature call. As he reached the edge of the water, he paused, tossing his head and stamping his feet against the persistent flies. He stared across the distance at Moraelin with baleful eyes, as if to ask, "Must I?"
"Come on, you cowardly beast, don't just stand there staring at me!" Moraelin yelled. She had long ago stopped worrying about what others might say of her if they heard her speaking to her horse as if he were a person. The difficult animal had more personality than most people she knew, for better or worse.
When Rock stood before her, chest deep in muck, she rubbed his nose and climbed into the saddle. "You're the best horse that ever lived, have I told you that yet today?"
He grunted, and if a horse could make a sound of cranky disbelief, that was it. He set out across the marsh, bearing Moraelin and an even more precious cargo back to the ruins.
* * *
Legolas's face twisted in displeasure. "It tastes terrible," he rasped.
"Do you have any idea what I went through to get this for you? Ungrateful elf."
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his face seeming even more wan in the dancing firelight.
"I was joking, you know that, Legolas." But, she scratched briskly at an insect bite on the back of her neck, aware she was only half joking.
Legolas obediently downed the rest of the thick drink, feeling it slide down his throat and leave a gritty film over his teeth. He was feeling improved now that he was off of the road and allowed to rest. But, a frustrating weakness had sapped his limbs, and he could do little more than lean back against Moraelin's saddle and watch her in the orange glow of a small fire she had used to prepare his medicines. Just looking at the fire reminded him of how his body burned, and the warm drink she had forced him to consume did not help. He looked away, a slight frown on his face.
"What?" Moraelin stopped picking dried mud from behind her ears long enough to see the darkening of his face.
"It's so hot," he said.
Moraelin crawled to his side and unbuttoned his shirt, helping him to sit up slightly so that she could remove it from his back. She leaned backward to dig a piece of cloth from her pack and wetted it. Slowly, she drew the cool cloth across his face and neck. As she moved on to his torso, her eyes followed the path of the cloth along the sculpted muscle visible beneath skin turned a pasty white by illness. After several minutes, she folded the cloth and draped it over his forehead. She placed another cool cloth behind his neck.
"Your fever is worsening," Moraelin admitted softly, "But, once it breaks, you will be all right." She swept a hand across the side of his face, her touch soothing him.
"You have a healer's touch, just like your father," he said, his eyes burning into hers for a moment. "Do you remember when we were just children and your father took us fishing? You were very small, you might not remember . . ."
A slight smile spread across Moraelin's face, a dreamy glint in her eyes, "Father put us up on a tall white horse. When he set me in front of you he said . . ."
" 'Hold onto her tight, Legolas, she's a squirmer,'" Legolas finished the sentence for her in an uncanny approximation of her father's baritone. Both dissolved into a fit of nostalgic laughter.
When their mirth had faded, Moraelin winced, "I remember . . . you broke your arm. A bee stung the horse and it bolted and we both fell."
"Yes," Legolas said with gentle eyes, "Your father cared for me, just as you are doing now. He was always so calm; he helped me to be strong. You are so much like him, soothing, composed."
Moraelin's chin shook and tears filled her eyes until they glittered with the reflection of flickering flames. She whispered, "When you broke your arm, you didn't cry, not a single tear. You were so brave. I remember, I was scared, I-I started crying and you said . . ."
Legolas's eyes had glazed, his voice a faint exhalation, "I said, 'Don't cry, little one. I'll be all right. Don't cry.'"
His head dropped back against her saddle with a soft thump.
"No," Moraelin choked, crawling wildly to lean over him as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her face twisted into a grimace, "Don't you tell me not to cry."
She pressed a hand to his face, slapping his cheek with her fingers, calling his name. He would not respond, he did not move. A wrenching sob tore up her throat and she dropped her ear to his chest. She could feel it move up and down, hear the beating of his heart as his fevered skin burned her ear. He lived, but barely.
Moraelin wet the cloth again and bathed his neck and face. Sobs shook her, she had not cried so in a very long time. The cloth kept slipping from her shaking hands. But, for the next few hours, she drew the cloth over his skin, slowly, unthinkingly, not knowing what else to do. She cried until her chest felt bruised and her face was puffy and raw. He was too still, he should have been mumbling, thrashing, hallucinating, anything. Instead, he was simply dying. Finally, she sat and cradled his head in her lap. She brushed a hand over his fine hair but soon she dropped into an exhausted sleep with her neck bent awkwardly against a rough stone block.
* * *
Moraelin's head shot up, her eyes darting to the entrance. She could smell a foul odor entering the cracks between the stones. Not orc, more rotten, like the concentrated stench of carrion. Something had circled the tower, and was still out there. Waiting.
Moraelin looked down at Legolas's ashen face where it rested in her lap. She gently put his head against her saddle again. Placing her cheek very close to his mouth, she felt the tiny breeze of his breath fan across her skin. The relief that she felt strengthened her, and she leaned in to kiss his fiery forehead. She framed his face with her hands, brushing her thumbs along his jawline, and then turned away from him. She arrayed her weapons on her back in the darkness, the well-worn handle of each suited to her hand alone. As she crawled from their shelter, she glanced over her shoulder at Legolas, who lay motionless beneath his blankets. A moment of pained hesitation and then Moraelin left him, creeping into the forbidding night.
* * *
Thanks SO much to my marvelous reviewers: cara20, Rinoa36, and TigerLily, and Dragon-of-the-north
