Hi, here comes chapter 13 and I hope you like it. Please drop me a line or two, in any case.
So, on with the chapter. It is called "Despair".
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Imaginigma
Title: Delw yomenie (Deadly encounter)
Characters: All Peredhels, mainly Strider, Legolas……and something/someone deadly….
Timeline: Before FOTR
Rating: T (!)
Warnings: Cruelty and maniacal behaviour. WIP.
Summery: Our Middle-Earth friends encounter something deadly…..
A/N: Many thanks to Trinilee for her beta work!
Feedback: YES! Please! looking-like-little-Estel-when-he-wants-something.
Chapter 13 – Despairxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the works of Tolkien. Neither books, nor movies. I just borrow them and try to give them back in one piece later. I make no money with this story. Please, do not sue me.
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He felt the great relief vanish quickly like smoke in a storm, as he assessed his friends prone form. No muscle twitched in the ranger's body, his face was pale and still, the dark hair tangled and dishevelled, the eyes were closed with dark circles under them and blood covered the whole of his friend's left arm and leg.
Legolas swallowed thickly, then leaned down and brushed a strand of hair out of his friend's face. "Estel," he whispered, hoping to get a reaction from the man. But it was not to be. Estel lay unmoving on the ground, oblivious to the world around him.
Bending over his human friend and taking one of the ranger's hands in his own, the elf felt the coldness of the skin and his stomach churned again. The prince tried again and again to wake his friend, to bring him back to the world of the living; calling his name all the time and lightly squeezing the human's hand. Nothing worked and even when the elf shook his friend's shoulders lightly, the human would still did not wake.
Sighing in his helplessness, Legolas gently took his friend's shoulders and rolled him over onto his back; making the Aragorn's head loll from side to side for a short moment. The sight sent shivers down the archer's neck.
The first thing the elf noticed was the dark crimson blood that had trickled down his friend's face, coming from a large scratch to the man's forehead. The wound was not deep or life threatening in any way, but the dark red contrasted starkly against the paleness of the human's skin. Although the injury was minor, Legolas could almost feel the strength that was undoubtedly needed to put it there; most likely causing severe concussion.
Not stopping his examination with this wound, the blond elf let his gaze travel over Estel's body, starting with his shoulders, then the chest and moving further down to the man's legs. Ignoring the marks on his friend's neck for the time being, Legolas' eyes settled on the human's left arm.
He could not see it clearly in the darkness that enveloped him, but the sleeve of his friend's tunic seemed much darker than the rest of the fabric. The cloth covering the left arm was, well, almost black. No, not almost, the elf corrected himself, it was black.
When he reached out and touched the sleeve to lift it, the elf felt that he could not do so. His stomach churned again and the elf felt sick to it when he realized why it was impossible for him to do so. All of the cloth that covered the left arm of his friend was burned, and to Legolas' worry and horror, it had stuck to the human's skin.
Screwing his eyes shut at the sight before him and averting his head for a moment, the elf tried to ignore the thoughts that came unbidden to his mind. Pictures of burning flesh, of his friend lying in a fire, of his screams and the pain that had been caused by the licking flames. It was a horrid feeling and Legolas just hoped that his friend had been unconscious when he had gotten this injury.
After steeling himself for what he was about to do, Legolas looked down at the arm again and then, with sweaty fingers, he started to peel off some of the fabric. He had only moved a very tiny part, when the human under his hands started to moan in pain and weakly tried to snatch his arm away.
Releasing his friend from his grasp, Legolas bent down once more: "Estel? Can you here me, mellon nin?" But Estel had not woken and when the pain in his limb had subsided, he lay still and unmoving once more.
It cost the elf all the inner strength that he possessed to go on with his task. Leaving the injured arm for the time being, Legolas remembered the words the two hunters had spoken near the fire. They had spoken of an arrow, and then the elf remembered, the bloody arrow he had found only a short ways away from the hunters' camp. A bloody, black, shattered arrow.
Crouching lower to see his friend more clearly in the almost complete blackness, the prince let his gaze travel to his friend's legs. As he had feared, a dark spot marked his Estel's leg and when Legolas took a closer look at it, he saw that it was the human's blood that had coloured the leggings in a deep red, and not only the area around the wound was saturated in the life giving liquid. The whole side of Aragorn's leg was covered in it and to the elf's horror, a rather large part of the ground was also covered in his friend's blood.
Oh, Estel. What have they done to you? Why is it always you? The elf thought. Placing one of his hands on the wound on the ranger´s leg, Legolas tried to see if the arrow had gone through or had been stuck in the flesh. Finding no exit wound, the prince assumed that the arrow had not gone through clearly but had rather been stuck.
When the blond archer pulled his hand away, it was smeared with blood. Staring at it for a moment or two, Legolas felt his heat beat faster and he had to take a deep breath to calm himself down.
He had to stay low now. Rushing out of the tent and trying to kill all those humans that had hurt his friend would do nothing. It would neither help Estel, nor the twins or himself. So, with a resolute gesture, the elf wiped his hand clean on his own leggings, then turned to the unconscious ranger again.
Since Legolas had touched the burned arm, the human had neither stirred nor moved and an uneasy feeling had crept into the archer's stomach. The arrow wound must hurt fiercely and surely his probing and examining must have caused his friend some pain.
Normally, when Estel was injured, he moaned and groaned in his unconscious state as soon as someone touched him. He would then struggle to wake and fight for the light, but not this time. Still and unmoving Estel lay on the ground, as if he was already dead.
Furrowing his brow, the prince swallowed and crouched down near his friend's face, eager to wake him and to show his mellon that he was not alone; that he had to fight and to hold on, that help had arrived and that he would not leave him until this all was over.
For minutes Legolas talked to his friend, calling his name and desperately waiting for any sign of waking. None came. Defeated, the elf placed his slender hand onto his friends brow, feeling his own helplessness and then, with sudden alarm, the hot skin of his human friend. Estel was running a fever.
Another wave of despair nearly overwhelmed the fair being. Not this, not now. He was no healer, but even Legolas knew that a fever in his friends already weakened body could most likely mean his death if not treated immediately.
He had to do something, now. Although he wished for nothing more than to help Estel, deep inside Legolas knew that he had to hurry. Outside, the camp seemed to wake up; he could hear muffled voices and heavy boots walking on the wet grass. The hunters had been given the order to break camp and sooner or later one of them would enter the tent to see if the ranger was still alive.
Glancing again at Estel's ghost-white face, Legolas took his pack from his shoulder and began to search for his medical supplies, the bandages and herbs, before the thought hit him that he could not use them.
Devastated, he sat back on his heels, his pack opened in his lap, all the things he would need to help his friend laying before him. It would be so easy to just pick up a cloth and clean the blood from the wounds. But he could not. The hunters would certainly notice if he did and then they would know that he had entered the tent. It would endanger the twins and Estel.
Shaking his head in his helplessness, Legolas let his pack slide to the ground. It was just not fair. How could the Valar be so cruel? If he wanted to survive, he would have to let Estel down. And if he wanted Estel to survive, he would have to give himself away. Normally, this would have been an easy question to answer. The prince would give his life for the human.
But in the current situation he had to think of the lives of the twins, too. If he helped Estel now, the twins would be in grave danger. Not knowing what to do, Legolas cursed his luck silently and placed his face in his hands.
This just could not be true.
Suddenly, the elf's head flew up, turning towards the tent flap. Footsteps were approaching. It seemed the humans had finally finished with whatever they had had to do and were now going to check on their prisoner.
With the speed given to the firstborn by the grace of the Valar, Legolas snatched up his pack, shouldered it and turned to the back of the tent to rush out into the cold night. Before he left, he glanced back over his shoulder at the still form of his friend, silently vowing to get him out of this situation.
The prince rushed into the bushes that grew outside the tent and lay himself flat on his stomach, not willing to leave but unable to stay either as he knew that the longer he stayed near the camp the higher was the chance that someone saw him.
The sound of laughter floated to his sensitive ears. The two men who had just entered the tent he had just left were laughing; at his friend! Pressing his forehead to the cold forest floor and shutting his eyes tightly, Legolas could only wait. Wait and hope that the twins could do more than he had been able to do this night.
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Some moments ago, two gruff looking humans had entered the twins tent and had then loosened their bonds. That was, one of the men had unbound them, the other had made sure that they did nothing foolish and had pointed a crossbow at them all the time.
Being unbound, the hunters had pushed them out of the tent; Taran still settled in the younger twin's arms. The child was afraid of what was to come, but he was quiet and had not started screaming.
Ignoring the gleam in the men's eyes and the way they smirked while pushing the elves along, Elladan and Elrohir walked in front of their captors to one of the other tents. The tent in which they knew their brother was, to be more precise.
Quickening their steps, the twins reached the tent in no time and, when the hunters behind them only smirked, entered the tent through the tent flap.
Both felt immediately how cold it was inside and they shuddered. Not only because of the temperature, but more from the images the cold produced inside their heads; the image of a grave.
Then the spell was broken and with anguished cries the brothers rushed forwards to kneel beside their brother on the floor. They did not notice how the two men that had guided them to the tent left them alone inside and instead stood guard before the tent, joking about the state the ranger was in, not caring if the two elves heard them or not.
But the two brothers were too occupied with their little brother to notice anything around them. They had knelt down beside Estel, Elrohir placing the child absentmindedly onto the floor and taking a position near Estel's head.
After brushing away strands of dark hair the younger twin lovingly stroked the ranger's forehead, feeling the unnatural heat, then placed Estel's head onto his own lap and cradled it close.
"Oh, Estel. Saes (please) wake. Estel, please." An anguished plea left the younger twin and lay waiting in the air.
But the ranger would not wake, neither to the younger elf's plea nor to his soft touch. The fever that had settled in his body had made the human weak and tired and combined with the blood loss and the pain that would awake as soon as the ranger's senses returned to consciousness, it was no wonder Estel could not return to his brothers.
Elladan, eager to do something to help his brother, began to rip his own tunic to shreds to make bandages out of them. Of course, the hunters had stripped them of their packs upon entering the camp and had not given them back now.
Having no water and no herbs or any other healing supplies, the older twin wanted to clean the worse wounds as good as was possible and then bind it tightly to stop it from bleeding and prevent a further worsening of the injury.
Bending down low, his brother's soothing whispers in his ears, Elladan placed the cloth on the arrow first wound, pressing down hard and soon had stopped the blood flow which had been tiny and weak. Nevertheless, Estel had lost a great amount of blood and Elladan hoped that it was not too much for the ranger.
Cleaning away more of the blood and also removing some of the dried blood that had built around the arrow wound, the older twin reached down to take a closer look at his brother's injury.
He could scarcely see in the darkness that reigned in the tent, but after some moments of intense probing and testing, Elladan righted himself with a grim expression. He glanced at his twin who still held the ranger's head in his lap, stroking his forehead gently and whispering soothing words into his ears.
The sight made the elf's heart heavy. Estel seemed so, so lost. The paleness made him look younger than he was and the crimson stain from the head wound made his face look so vulnerable, so fragile. Swallowing, Elladan did not know how to break the news to his twin.
What he had found out made his own heart yearn for relief of the pain he felt and even more for help, as he felt inferior and powerless to do anything. His brother must have felt his twin's concerns as he lifted his own head, his eyes bright in the darkness, unshed tears glimmering in them. With a voice full of compassion and suppressed fright, Elrohir asked his brother: "What is it, Elladan?"
Facing his twin in the darkness, Elladan did not feel as if he could lie to Elrohir and he did not want to. His twin had a right to know, but nevertheless, speaking the truth would make it so final, so, well, true.
"When the arrow was pulled out of Estel's leg, the tip broke off, but it sits too deep for me to remove it. Without even a knife….." Elladan trailed off as there was no need to go on. His brother knew as good as he did what this revelation meant.
Elrohir bent down again and looked at his little brother, the human he loved most in all of Middle-Earth. With a choking voice he whispered to his brother who lay unmoving in his arms: "Promise me, Estel, promise me that you will hold on, that you will pull through this. Seas (please) Estel. Promise me, will you."
Then, with a last gentle stroke to his brother's forehead, Elrohir placed his own forehead on his little brothers and let the tears that had long wanted to spill have their way.
Of course Elrohir knew what his brother had wanted to tell him but had not. If the tip of the arrow truly was embedded in Estel's leg, then any movement could cause it to wander in the flesh, to go deeper and cause even more damage. Furthermore it would most certainly cause an infection. But most importantly, as long as the sharp tip resided inside the leg, the wound would neither close nor stop bleeding.
And in a situation like theirs, Estel would have bleed to death before they had even reached the outcroppings of the Misty Mountains if they could not manage to stop the wound from bleeding. Their little brother would perhaps die in their care and all they could do was stand back and watch.
Although they were not bound by any ropes anymore, the hunters had bound their hands by taking away their supplies.
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For nearly an hour Elladan had worked on his little brother, binding his wounds and keeping constant pressure on the arrow wound to keep it from bleeding. The human's arm made the elf worry too, as the skin was burned badly and without any water or healing salves, Elladan could do nothing more than bind it tightly.
His heart hurt deeply at the thought of the pain his brother would be in once he awoke. Both twins had noticed the high fever their sibling was running and it seemed to increase with time. But once more, the elf could do nothing.
The cold inside the tent made Estel shiver in his unconscious state, it was caused by the cold, but the twins did not know that, but they hoped it was so.. Anything else would be more frightening.
Taran, the little adan, had stayed put where Elrohir had set him on the ground and had silently watched the elves, now and then sniffing sadly.
Finally, the oldest brother sat back and took a look at his work. All visible wounds were bound and taken care of. He could do no more. Therefore, he turned to the child, lifted him from the floor and into his arms, hugging the child to his broad chest and resting his cheek on the boys head.
So they sat, Elrohir stroking Estel's feverish forehead, Elladan silently staring at his younger brother's still form and Taran nestled in the older twins arms; all waiting for the human to open his eyes and to return to them all.
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When the first early birds prepared themselves to welcome the new day, in the hour before the moon finally bent its head and bid the world a good day and went to its own place to rest, the ranger stirred in his brother's arms.
No sound escaped his lips, no muscle twitched. Only the soft flutter of his eyelids indicated that the man was waking. Further and further the human struggled to the surface and then, with a slow movement, very much like a feather that flew on a mild summer breeze, the human opened his tired eyes to the waiting world around him.
Blinking tiredly, Estel brought the world slowly into focus. He felt no pain. More precisely, he felt nothing at all; neither the hot and burning sensation that ate his arm alive, nor the piercing pain that lashed at his leg or the soft thumbing of the broken rib or the dry feeling in his throat.
No, the ranger felt none of the signals his body sent him, because there, right before him, sat his brother, Elladan. And Elladan was smiling down on him, relief and joy in his eyes, although he also saw grief and pain in those deep brown orbs the ranger knew so well.
When Estel was more aware of his surroundings, he felt that someone was stroking his hair and his forehead. Someone with slender and cool hands that soothed him and made him feel at home. There was no need for the man to turn his head to see who was sitting above him. It always was Elrohir who knew how to ease his pain.
Closing his eyes once more, Estel felt like living in a dream. A dream that had replaced the nightmare he had lived in upon the first time he had awoke; alone in the darkness. But as all good dreams did, this would have to end sooner or later. And for the injured ranger, lying on the cold ground in an even colder tent, shivering from the temperature and his high fever, this dream ended all too soon.
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Both elves felt the pressure that had been lying upon their hearts and souls lift with the first tentative flutter of their brother's eyelids. And when the human had finally opened his silver eyes to look at them, their hearts had sung in joy and relief.
But when their brother had closed his eyes again, only to reopen them, this time filled with pain and anguish, they both had felt how the old enemies i.e. despair and helplessness had overwhelmed them, leaving them hurt and broken.
The ranger moaned now softly in his pain, trying to take a look at his leg and arm. The movement seemed to cause him only more pain and, gasping, Estel let his head fall back into his brother's lap, feeling exhausted and weak.
"Sh, Estel, easy. Do not move. Stay still." Elrohir soothed him, wanting the human to stay still so as not to open the arrow wound again. The elf felt his brother tremble under his fingers and he also felt how his brother tried desperately to control his harsh breathing.
After what seemed like an eternity to the twins, their brother's breathing had steadied and the trembling had eased a bit. Opening slightly blurred eyes, Estel looked directly at Elladan, who sat before him. Estel was too tired to turn his head and look at Elrohir who sat above him.
With a voice that even sounded weak to his own ears, he asked them: "Are you well?" The smile that flashed over the older twin's face was answer enough. "Good." With that, the ranger closed his tired eyes once again.
The pain that he now felt was enough for him to wish for unconsciousness and the feeling that something was crushing his chest did not make the situation any easier for the human. The same moment his eyes slid shut, for, what he secretly hoped, a long time, the ranger felt strong hands at his shoulder, shaking him gently but stubbornly, hindering him from falling into oblivion once more.
"Estel, no, stay awake. Please Estel; you have to stay with us." One of the twins was pleading with him. His mind was too tired to sort out which one it was, but the elf sounded worried and alarmed.
The ranger, not wanting his brother's to suffer because of his own weakness, struggled for a time, and then opened his eyes to see Elladan's face hover before him.
The ghost of a smile fluttered over the human's face: "Don't worry. I will not leave. I promise."
Only a short time later the tent flap was thrown open. A dark shadow stood before it, and then a face came into view. It was smiling cruelly and, upon seeing the ranger awake and resting in the elf's lap, he smirked sadistically: "Time to go and start our game."
End of chapter 13
Tbc…..
Chapter 14 is called "Towards the Misty Mountains"