Shadows
Warning- graphic descriptions of wounds in this chapter. Those of weak stomachs, you have been warned.
Elafacwen- Praise from Sir Hugo is praise indeed! (Much Ado about nothing) I'm glad I was able to meet your standard. I agree—why don't more people leave reviews?
Viggomaniac- I'm glad that you are enjoying it. Yes, of course I will explain why Tithen is speaking elvish. I will also explain the enchanted lock, and many other things. Thank you for reviewing!
QueenoffFlarmphgal- Thank you for reviewing twice! It makes me so happy when I see that someone came back to read my stories! And there is plenty of "sisterly healing", laughs about more "dead" socks, and Aragorn angst. I think the first ten chapters will be nothing but. Oh, dear, I'm giving things away. Oh well.
Bill the Pony2 and luinthien- thank you for the praise. I hope that I continue to please.
Lindahoyland- Normally, I would agree with you. A healer would treat serious wounds first, except that, in this case, she has several good reasons for not doing so. First, the wounds were under layers of winter clothes, which had to be gotten rid of first. Second, since she knew the wounds could wait another hour, having waited almost an entire day, Tithen thought it best to gain his trust first, for reasons which will be explained shortly, though not in this chapter, precisely. Thirdly, she wanted to see if he had a concussion, which she couldn't do if he passed out from pain. Please remember, I'm not a doctor, just a frequent patient and a big sister. Furthermore, it is a coincidence that she guessed his name, except that she kept saying, "I hope you survive this" in elvish. Besides, I needed her to call him something! Thanks for the criticism, tempered with much welcome praise.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or places in this story that are the property of J. R. R. Tolkien. I just love them. I do own a few of the characters that appear in this story, however.
Medical Disclaimer: no treatment or diagnosis is described within this text. All injuries, sicknesses and cures are the product of my imagination or what best fits the story.
Quick recap of last chapter:
Keeping in mind how luck they both were, Tithen washed the blood off her hands and began to pull jars of ointment and vials of antiseptic, and poison antidotes, out of her healers bag, and line them up beside piles of pads and bandages. Taking one of the smaller pads and holding it slightly below the wound, she uncorked several jars of antiseptic and began to dribble small amounts of each into the opening.
She could feel Aragorn struggling, trying to either reach consciousness and stop the pain, or retreat deeper into unconsciousness. She cursed herself for not bracing him for the sudden agony the antiseptics invariably caused.
"Stop that!" she shouted at him. He stopped struggling briefly to cast suspicious glance at her before once again struggling to reach the light. She held on to him as well as she could, but she was divided, and her strength was neither fully here, nor there.
She pulled more of herself into the darkness to hold him there, but she knew that she needed to keep most of herself in the physical world, to heal him. Time was running out.
Tithen started to chant—she did not know what language it was, but she continued her singsong chant, hoping it would help, or do something. She did not even know what she was chanting, or why. She just hoped that it would help. She knew she could not remain like this for long; she could neither continue to heal, nor could she detach herself and reassure Estel that everything was all right. She felt herself being torn between reality and the world of spirits and shadows.
And now, back to the story…
Tithen quickly counted her options. She decided to enter the world of spirits again. As pressing as Estel's need for healing was, it would all be in vain if he approached consciousness and went into shock, or delved deeper and became comatose.
Pressing a pad against the wound with her left hand, she laid her other hand across his forehead and drifted.
It was strange, seeing herself slowly materialize next to her arm. When she had brought as much as herself as she could, Tithen tried to hold Aragorn in a tighter grip. She would have slapped him, but she couldn't. The only thing that she could do here was hold, and speak. There was no violence here.
"Estel!" she cried, holding tighter as he struggled. She could not tell whether he was trying to fight or retreat, but either way led to danger. "Estel, listen to me! I am sorry! I did not mean to cause you pain! Stop struggling!"
"Estel!" she cried again, and held as tight as she could. "Be still, mellon nîn, be at peace!" Aragorn ceased to struggle and looked at her tiredly.
"Are you going to struggle?" Aragorn shook his head. He knew it was futile to resist her. "Then I'll let go a bit." Tithen lessened her hold on him and sighed. "I am sorry I hurt you, Estel. I did not mean to cause you pain. I was cleaning you wound, and I needed to make sure that no infection set in. Do you understand?" He nodded. "Do you trust me?" Aragorn nodded slowly. He felt he could trust her, after all she had done. "Good. Mellon nîn, I need you to stay here. If you move, I may not be able to help you. I promise, if I think I will cause you pain, I will come back and warn you. Do I have your word that you will not move?"
Aragorn tried to speak, but ended up merely nodding. He was so tired, even in spirit.
Tithen was worried. The extreme extent of Estel's injuries and exhaustion troubled her. Even with his word, she could not be sure that he would have the strength to fulfill it. Sighing, and praying that this was the wise thing to do, she reached deep within herself, searching until she found the place where her life force was. It glowed like white-hot coals, and it pained her slightly to grasp even the smallest fragment, the tiniest flame and draw it out of herself and place it within Aragorn.
Aragorn did not know what it was that Tithen did, but for a brief instant it seemed to him that the light radiating from her form wavered, and suddenly he felt a new strength.
"Thank you," he said. "For everything you have done. You have my word of honor, I shall not stray.
Tithen nodded, and her heart rejoiced to know her sacrifice had been worth it. She gave Aragorn her arm to anchor himself, for she could see that he was still weary, and she gently withdrew, back to the task at hand.
Tithen reached out and grabbed the bedpost with her right hand with a gasp. She leaned against it for a moment, collecting her thoughts and strength. After a minute or so, she shook her head to clear her head and straightened up. She had things to do.
She removed the pad from the wound and checked that in the time she had been gone, it had not started to bleed again. There was only the slightest amount of blood in the wound and she continued on. She poured a small amount of several antitoxins into the wound, in case the blade (probably orc) was poisoned. If there were no poison, they would do him no harm,
Taking a needle and thread, she carefully closed the wound with small, even stitches, leave a few stitches out of one end of the gash to allow fluid to drain away. Next came several balms to help it heal, and ward off infection. She placed several soft pads over the wound, and bound them to his chest with lengths of bandages, tight enough to keep him still and avoid breaking his ribs, and loose enough not to break them and allow him to breathe.
Bit by bit, she eased the towels out from underneath Aragorn and pulled the blankets up over his chest, leaving his left arm out and being careful of his chest wound. She pulled up as many blankets as she thought he could stand on his battered chest and then layered more across his legs and feet. Tithen had never been able to figure out quite why, but for whatever reason if the legs and feet were kept warm, it helped the rest of the body to keep warm.
Tithen turned her attention (at last! her healer's instinct screamed) to Aragorn's arm. She applied a wet cloth to the fabric plastered to his wound and loosely bound it in place with a strip of bandage. She left the room for a moment and returned bearing a blanket full of snow. She set it down on the floor and spread the snow over a quarter of the blanket, and then folded the fabric back over it. She gently placed the broken arm, still splinted by the stiff leather wrist guard, on half of the quartered blanket and folded the other part over it, surrounding Aragorn's forearm with an effective cold pack. She hoped that it would alleviate any swelling and numb the arm. In any case, "chilled to the bone" was exactly what she wanted right now.
She tied a tight tourniquet on Aragorn's arm above the wound, to forestall any excessive bleeding. That was, she mused, another reason chest and abdomen wounds were so bad—there was no way to tie a tourniquet around then to slow the blood flow. But, she reminded herself as she reapplied the wet pad, that was irrelevant to the problems at hand.
Slowly, slowly, she peeled the wet pad and now wet remains of what had been a sleeve away from the wound, once again revealing a gash in the flesh, containing what looked like current jelly and smelled like copper—congealed blood. She again began the process of cleaning the wound, picking out bits of debris, and lifting up a prayer of thanks that the blade had stopped just short of cleaving through a main artery in Aragorn's arm—if it had, he would have bled to death within minutes. As it was, it was a deep, but not terrible wound. It would heal and with a little effort would become as good as new.
Having remembered to warn Estel of what she was doing, she disinfected the wound, stitched it closed and bandaged it. She removed the tourniquet and turned her attention to the forearm.
Tithen eased the "snow pack" off and away from the arm and replaced it with pillows to keep it above Estel's heart. She thought in time to warn Estel of what she was about to do—the pain of having jagged bone grate against raw nerves was worse than antiseptic.
Being as gentle and careful as she could, Tithen removed the wrist guard and threw it onto the chair. She slit the remains of the sleeve with a pair of scissors and exposed the arm. The sight that met her eyes was far from welcome. Despite her suspicions, she had hoped that she was wrong, that Estel had not broken his arm. The dark bruises, odd lump and unnatural angle at which his arm had come to rest dashed any hope that she had had.
Laying two splints on either side of the arm in readiness, Tithen lay her hands over it and closed her eyes, letting her fingers feel where the bones belonged, and the best way to ease them back, without interference from her eyes, which could not tell her much anyway. They could not show her the bone, where the bone fragments were, or reveal to her the jigsaw puzzle that lay beneath the veil of flesh.
With a quick movement, her fingers pushed the bones back together. A soft moan escaped the ranger's lips, and Tithen hurried to make sure that all the bones in his arm were where they should be before wrapping it in bandages and binding it to the splint.
Tithen sighed and rose from where she had been kneeling on the floor next to the bed. She looked at her hands. They were bloody, and wrinkled from spending so much time in contact with water. As she washed and dried them, small, painful cracks appeared on her knuckles, and tiny drops of blood adorned her fingers like so many small rubys.
"Wonderful," she said sarcastically. She checked on her patient once again after cleaning up her healing supplies. His pulse was weak, but steady, his breathing shallow, but regular. He was no longer freezing to the touch, and the mild fever that had begun to burn within him was only to be expected, and nothing to worry about. She did not need a special gift to see that Estel was in a deep, healing sleep. Of course, she warned herself, she would have to wake him up several times before morning, but that could wait. Wait until she had gotten the horses bedded down for the night.
"And get yourself ready for some rest," she thought to herself as she donned a warm cloak and threw another log on the fire. "Do you realize you have been up for nearly 20 hours without rest?"
She walked swiftly the 200 feet to the barn, where her horse Arod had intelligently, and expectedly, led Estel's horse. Arod had learned long ago how to open the barn door from the outside. He had come home too many times with his mistress rushing off with an injured human and leaving him in the yard to not have figured out the simple mechanism.
Tithen opened the smaller barn door and lit a lantern that she had carried with her, and from this she lit several other lamps, in order to give herself enough light. The barn was fairly warm, considering the frigid temperatures outside. The hay bales and stacks piled high against the walls and heaped in the loft acted as efficient insulation and trapped the numerous animals' body heat, keeping the barn fairly cozy.
Tithen went over to where the two horses had settled themselves in stalls, less for her sake than for the sake of the stalls were where the food was. She removed the saddle and saddlebags from each horse, putting the saddles on the rack to be cleaned (the next morning, she thought wearily) and the bags near the door to go inside.
Taking a brush, Tithen began to brush down Aragorn's horse.
"Well my friend," she said to him. "Your master has you to thank for saving his life. If not for you, I never would have found him. I am calling him 'Estel'. What do you think? Is that a good name for him?" she looked to Arthad for an answer. He nodded his head up and down enthusiastically. He knew that was one of Aragorn's many names. Whenever he ran into Rivendell with an injured rider, the elves always asked him, "What has Estel been up to?"
"Good," she laughed. "Because I don't know what else to call him. I suppose you could tell me, but I am not yet wise enough to speak your language…although Arod has tried his best to teach me, have you not, mellon nîn?" Arod whickered in agreement. He had been trying for years, but had only gotten his human girl to understand the simplest phrases.
"I'm afraid he thinks me terribly slow and thick," Tithen mourned. "I fear he will have to wait until I can visit the elves before he will have anyone on two legs who can understand what he says." She said nothing more as she finished brushing Arthad. "I wish I could ask you what in Middle Earth your master has been up to, my friend. But I suppose I shall just have to wait until he awakens." Arthad swung his head around to look at her. "Don't fret. Estel has taken a beating, but he'll be fine, if I can keep him still long enough. I suppose he is one of those stubborn people who don't like to stay in bed for long?" Arthad simply snorted, as if to say, "What did you expect?"
Tithen laughed. "That's what I was afraid of. Oh well, such is the lot of a healer. Here, my friend, a reward. Two apples," she said, placing one in the manger and holding the other fruit out in her hand until Arthad took it between his teeth and began to munch happily.
"And you, Arod," she said as she commenced brushing him, "Remind me to listen to you more often." Arod snorted. "I'll try to take your advice. And now my friends I need you to help me think of ways to keep Estel down, without tying him to the bed," she stated firmly, as though reading the horses thoughts. She was silent for the rest of the time that she brushed Arod and while she gave him his reward of apples. She said nothing as she checked on all the other animals and blew out the lamps. She walked towards the door with her lantern in one hand and the saddlebags over her shoulder.
"Well," she said as she massaged the back of her neck wearily, "I'll think of something in the morning. There has to be a way to make him rest." Had Tithen looked back as she left the barn, she would have seen the horses roll their eyes. They knew humans—it would be easier for the girl to climb Caradhras than keep the man still.
TBC