viggomaniac- I agree, I love a helpless Aragorn. Who are they? Whoever "they" are, they seem to run our lives. "They" dictate how I should write a bibliography, how we should set up a library… Off track. I'm writing as fast as I can!
Bill the Pony2- I'm on your favorites! I'm flattered!
QueenofFlarmphgal- You are so kind! A writer wishes all her readers were as pleased as you. I hope you like this chapter!
Caracandal- Thank you, mellon nîn! I know how busy you are, and your approval means a lot. I hope you enjoy this too! Orange heart, my sister.
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.
Tithen stood at the top of the stairs, pondering a problem that was pleasantly pointless. There was nothing at stake in her decision, only a philosophical debate on which choice would grant her the most amusement. The question at hand was, how should one get one feather mattress from point A(The top of the stairs) to point B (the bottom of the stairs)? From point B, the way to point C (the healing room) was obvious, but from point A to B, there were so many delicious options.
She could simply shove it and watch it flop down the stair, landing with a comical fwump at the landing. No, too noisy, she thought.
She could slide it down the stairs, or better yet, slide it down the stairs with her on it. She giggled like a small girl and then stopped herself. While definitely the most fun option, it also included the most risk to herself, namely that she would add so much mass to the mattress that she would ride the mattress straight into the wall. She did not need that. She would try that another time.
This time, she settled on the least amusing, but the most silent and safe. She leaned it against the stairway wall and walked alongside as gravity pulled the bulky mattress towards the earth, which, at least so far as Tithen was concerned, was the first floor landing.
When they arrived at the bottom of the stairs, she let the mattress fall to the floor with a flop that somehow made her feel better and kicked it down the hall. By no means the most efficient way, she mused as she gave it a particularly badly aimed kick and sent it scooting into the wall. But it was a wonderful cure for a stressful day.
Tithen negotiated the passage of her mattress through the door and placed it near the fireplace and near to one wall. She liked to have a wall within arm's reach when she slept, though she wasn't sure why. This position also happened to allow her to keep an eye on Estel without being so close as to frighten him if he woke in the night (or what's left of it, she thought ruefully.)
She quickly made up a bed for herself with sheets she had brought down from her room and blankets from the cupboards. On top, she spread an old, handmade quilt of intricate design and many delicately woven colors and patterns. It was generally colder on the first floor than on the second, and on the floor itself, it was colder than in a bed.
Tithen mulled over this and also what she would make for breakfast the next day, and when she would find the time to wash and mend and clean and cook while tending to a half-dead ranger and other mundane, but important things necessary to keeping her household, small though it was, running as smoothly as the Anduin.
Satisfied with a lumpy, nest like bed for the night, she checked on Aragorn again before she went upstairs to clean herself up for bed. He was sleeping peacefully, both in body and spirit. Tithen feared that the fever would continue to rise within him, so that by dawn she would have to fight it. But for now, she felt she could catch at least an hour's worth of sleep before getting up, and waking him to make sure he still could.
Tithen dragged herself up the stairs again, pulling off her outer tunic as she stumbled wearily into her chamber. She sighed as she undid the lacings and buttons to her skirt and overdress, and shivered as she stripped off her warm shirts, dividing them into clean and dirty piles as she went. Dressed in camisole and underskirts, she walked down the hall to the bathing room, mentally thanking her forefather who had been clever enough and enough of a tinkerer to install not only running water, but heaters for that running water, that used the heat from the chimney network to keep the water warm.
She gazed longingly at the tub—she wanted so badly to draw a hot bath and sink into it, let the water ease off the grime, and soak away the tension in her shoulders, not to emerge until she was as red as a tomato and wrinkled as a dried apple slice. But she shoved these lovely thoughts from her mind. She knew it wasn't wise, tired as she was, to get into a tub of seductively warm water; she could fall asleep all too easily and drown, or breathe in enough water to cause her a good deal of trouble. Tithen contented herself with washing her aching feet and raw hands in the sink, and rubbing a warm, wet washcloth over her face and neck. It was not the best, but it was better than flopping into bed completely filthy.
Tithen went back to her room and pulled a warm, wool nightshift over her head. She also slipped into a loose wool skirt, to add another layer of warmth and let her appear to be dressed, for her own comfort. She didn't like to look like she was caught unprepared. Her hair, she decided, could wait until morning. She was tired, and besides, it was in a braid.
oxoxoxoxoxo
Tithen flopped onto her bed and pulled the blankets over her head. After a moment, she poked her head and a hand out and smashed her pillows into a comfortable shape. She glanced at her charge one last tie before mumbling "good night," and promptly falling asleep.
oxoxoxoxoxo
She was not particularly happy. Stupid roosters. Why did they have to make such a racket at such a blastedly early hour? She was also irritated with the sun. Dawn, she believed, had purposely come too early this morning, when she had only gotten to bed at three in the morning.
Tithen rolled onto her back and let go of a soft groan. Holding a man onto a racing horse for more than six hours, kneeling and standing in uncomfortable positions for interminable lengths of time, and lack of sleep had all made her muscles ache and her head sore. The fact that she had had to divide herself for so long, and divide her strength, had all made the situations worse. None of her complaints were more than a good night's sleep and a few days of rest would take care of, which was more than she could say of Estel's troubles, but she did not have days, or even hours to revive herself, because she had to tend to Estel.
Tithen stared up at the dark, carved beams on the ceiling and tried to assess Estel's health. She had woken him up twice in the three and one half hours since she had sought after sleep, rising each time the clocks chiming in other parts of the house had woken her. She was not sure whether to be worried, or relieved by what he had said to her upon being woken.
The first time, he had said nothing, merely looking at her with tired eyes until she had bid him sleep once more, whereupon he did so.
The second time, he had rolled his head away from her voice and mumbled, "ss too early," and upon her insistence that he wake, had murmured, "don't wanna go lessons. Tired." She was encouraged by the fact that he had spoken, but troubled by his disorientation and confusion. Tithen tried to tell herself that it was because she had woken him from a deep sleep, but a small nagging voice in the back of her head warned that it could just as well be the sign of a head injury, or fever, or sickness yet to surface.
Tithen sighed and rolled out of bed, taking some of the covers with her. She kicked herself free, shot a glance over at Aragorn to make sure that he was still asleep (and breathing), shoved her feet into a pair of sheep's fleece slippers, threw another log on the fire, and began the process of beginning the day.
She wandered blearily into the kitchen and brought the embers in the fireplace blazing to life, feeding them with kindling and logs. She filled a large kettle at the sink and set it over the fire. Raiding the pantries, Tithen brought out a large bowl of dried fruits—apples, pears, peaches, various wild berries—and chopped them until they were a fine, sticky mass. She added the fruit into the pot of simmering water along with some cornstarch she had moistened into a paste. After cooking for an hour or more, she knew it would become a smooth, fruit mash, soft enough for the weakened man to swallow, that could be thickened or thinned at need. Aragorn would want sweet things at first, because they were easiest to eat. Then, providing he followed the pattern of every other patient of hers, he would crave salt, and the sign that he was on the mend would be that he wanted savory things, meat soups and stews.
Putting a lid on the pot to ensure that it would not boil dry, and pouring hot water from a small kettle that always hung by her fire onto tea leaves to make a strong cup of the reviving brew, Tithen headed upstairs. She looked in on Estel as she passed the door to see him sleeping peacefully, as though it were a warm spring morning after planting was finished.
oxoxoxoxoxo
Tithen drew a tepid bath. She wished it could be warm, hot even, but if it were, she would rapidly lose track of time and she could not afford that. This morning, she needed it only to be warm enough to get rid of the smell. Not the smell of horses or sweat, for they were good smells, not pleasant, but good—the same smells that she knew after a day's planting or harvest. No, the smell she wanted to wash down the drain was the coppery, sickly sweet smell of blood. There was no time, no image in her mind, no memory with which she could associate the smell of blood with something good. If she could smell blood, or taste blood, someone, or herself, was bleeding, wounded, hurt, that the life was fleeing from the veins where it belonged to where it was not supposed to be.
She scrubbed her skin with lavender soap until she was red, freed of the smell of gore, and the water had turned milky white. She dried herself and dressed in a warm, cream colored shirt, pale brown tunic, and brown skirt. Over everything, she layered a sleeveless overdress. It would be cold everywhere in the house except the kitchen and the healing room; she would have no time to keep the fires burning in other parts of the house.
ovovovovovo
Aragorn wanted to stay were he was. He didn't want to follow the voice that called him towards the light and consciousness. With consciousness came pain, pain that he did not want to deal with yet. He was enjoying it here, where it was dim, quiet and pain-free. He wanted to stay, maybe even to retreat further into the darkness.
But the voice called. The same voice that had woven itself through his dreams. Were they dreams? Aragorn tried to collect them, and separate the real from the unreal. He remembered orcs, orcs attacking him, him winning, but he was hurt. That was real. He remembered riding, being cold, and dizzy. That was real too, although it seemed distant, somehow less real than the orcs. Someone came, he remembered. A young woman, with strong arms, calloused hands and gentle fingers. She had rode with him, taken him to a house. This, too, seemed somehow unreal, but he knew it was. She had washed his feet. That was real. He had been so shocked by it, it was so unlikely it could only be real.
She had called him Estel, made him feel as though he were home in Rivendell. What had she called herself? She had said many names, and the only one of which he seemed to be able to connect with her made no sense, "Tithen". She was not little, yet none of the other names had been said more than once.
Pain. Unbearable, burning, stabbing pain that had threatened to strangle him. This memory was searingly clear. He had struggled, to fight and to get away, he did not recall which had been uppermost. Something had held him. No, someone had held him. Tithen. She had held him still. This made no more sense than her name to Aragorn. How could she possibly hold his mind, speak and comfort his spirit as though she were speaking and holding him in body? He had felt the same thing with elves, his father Elrond in particular, but never had he met a human with this gift. And yet, she had. She had held him in her strong arms, told him that all was right, that she had caused the pain when she had cleaned the wound in his chest. She had begged him not to struggle, or to stray into the darkness. She had asked if he trusted her, if he would obey her wishes. He had agreed. Then something strange happened.
Warmth and strength, hope and light, they had all entered into him in an instant. Aragorn did not know what Tithen had done. She had given him the strength he needed, and the hope that kept him fighting through the night, when the darkness called. She seemed to be tired, wearied after he had gained strength, as though it were her strength that he had been given. She had returned twice more, to warn him when she cleaned the wound on his arm, and set a bone. He had not realized he had broken his arm, so distracted had he been by the blood flowing from his side.
But the voice called. It was insistent that he come up towards the light to meet it. It called him back to reality, away from dreams and memories, from the past to the present. Aragorn did not truly wish to obey it, but knew that he had to follow. He felt drawn to the light of consciousness, and as he was, the clarity of his thoughts faded as the pain broke across him like a wave. Pain in his chest, his arm, his head, his throat. They stole those clear thoughts from him, even as he fought for the light.
ovovovovovo
Tithen sat on the edge of Estel's bed, one hand resting lightly on his right hand and the other smoothing his hair away from his face, gently tucking his long dark hair behind his ears and stoking his cheeks as though he were a child. She was mildly concerned that he had not woken at her bidding, as he had done before, but was encouraged when his breathing began to deepen, signaling that he was beginning to awaken.
"Estel," she said sweetly, "It's time to wake up, mellon nîn." He stirred slightly, but still did not awaken. "Estel," she commanded firmly, "Wake. Morn has broken. It is time to wake. Awake, Estel."
Aragorn seemed to shake his head slightly, and a worried look passed over his features. He began to murmur something, so quietly that Tithen had to strain to hear.
"No, ada, I swear. I didn't put the frog in Elladan's bed, it was Elrohir! I didn't do it!" he insisted to someone in his dream. Tithen smiled. He was caught up in a dream of, no doubt, a misdeed of his childhood, a pleasant escape for someone who had been as badly hurt as he.
Tithen smoothed her hand over Aragorn's hot forehead and rested her fingers on his cheek. "Estel, wake up," she said soothingly, and then changed to a teasing tone, "I do not care who put the frog in Elladan's bed, since I do not know him, and I am most certainly not your father. Wake up, Estel, and look at me, see where you are."
ovovovovovo
Aragorn woke with a start. What had he been saying? His eyes snapped open, only to snap shut again as the world swam in and out of focus, and the room spun around him. He tried to collect his thoughts, which wasn't easy because of the ache in his head and the white-hot daggers that lanced though his arm and chest. Had he just said out loud what he had said in his dream?
ovovovovovo
Tithen smiled as he finally opened his eyes, and then frowned as he quickly shut them again. She once again began to gently stroke his hair, unobtrusively massaging his temple to ease the headache and dizziness.
"Shh. Don't move yet, Estel. Everything will be fine. The room will stop moving in a moment, and your vision will clear, I promise," she murmured soothingly. "Open your eyes, slowly, that's it. Now, can you follow my finger?" she asked, and watched his eyes as they sluggishly followed her fingers, left, right, up and down. He was a little slow in reacting, but that was expected. He was tired, he had lost a lot of blood. All in all, she was fairly happy with his condition. If only his fever hadn't risen quite so quickly.
"Well," she said as she put her hand down and sat on the edge of the bed as though she were having a pleasant conversation over a cup of tea, "I'm glad you could join me this morning, Estel. You had me quiet frightened last night. Do you remember my name?"
Aragorn nodded. At least, he thought he remembered her name. "Tithen," he croaked, his voice raspy and hoarse. His throat was dry and sore. It felt as though someone had burned his throat with liquid fire and then scrubbed it with sandpaper. The pain pulsed with his heartbeat, sending throbs of pain up and down his throat and into his ears.
Tithen nodded curtly. "Good. You do remember my name." She rose and went over to a table, pouring out a glass of water. She returned to sit on the edge of the bed, and placed the water on the side table. "Here, don't you try to sit up. Let me do all the work."
As much as Aragorn loathed being helpless, he did not argue, and gratefully acquiesced. Tithen slide her arm behind one of his pillows, and supporting his head and chest, eased him into a semi-upright position, quickly stuffing more pillows behind him to keep him there. Apparently, she was aware, even as he was, that he was incapable at the moment to sit up without support. His chest protested against the movement, but not nearly as much as it would have screamed had he tried to move himself. Tithen had raised him slowly and smoothly, never jerking him.
Tithen outwardly smiled that Estel had not protested or tried to move himself, but inwardly she was troubled. She knew enough rangers, and she had treated enough of them, to know that they were the stubborn kind of people who would refuse help unless they were in so much pain they were near delirium, or they were unconscious. The fact that Estel hadn't protested to her helping him, but was obviously not delirious, was disturbing.
Tithen pressed the mug of cold water to Aragorn's lips, firmly keeping his good arm on the bed with her left hand.
"Drink. Slowly, that's it. Sip it, you don't want to start coughing," she said as Aragorn greedily drank the water, sending cascades of cool relief over his painful, parched throat, momentarily ignoring the waves of nausea that surged and then slowly receded. "I see I was right to spike it."
Aragorn cast her a suspicious glance. What had she put in the water?
Tithen placed the cup of water on the side table and began to straighten the bedclothes. "Don't worry, it's not a sleeping drug. It's just something to calm your stomach, in case you drank too fast," she said, giving him a pointed look.
Aragorn visibly relaxed, obviously glad to be able to stay awake for a while, and so Tithen proceeded with her next question.
"Well, you know my name, but I still don't know yours. What do you call yourself, my friend?"
Aragorn thought quickly. She had already, by an incredibly lucky chance, stumbled upon his childhood name, and he did not want to give her his real name, until he knew her better, and if he got into trouble, he probably would not respond to the name he called himself in Gondor, which was too long to say right now anyway.
"Estel," he whispered, his voice still raspy despite the water.
Her face registered mild surprise. "Hmm," she responded slowly. "That's…strange…lucky…an incredible coincidence, really. Or, perhaps someone is looking after you, mellon nîn."
She stood up, sighed, and pushed wisps of hair out of her face. Standing with her hands on her head, she looked down at Estel and asked, "How do you feel?"
"Fine," came the dry, and blatantly false answer.
Tithen stood there for a moment, then let her hands fall to her sides with an exasperated sigh. "Alright, we'll go about this another way. I tell you how you feel and you fill in anything I left out."
Aragorn elegantly raised an eyebrow at her, a trick he had learned from his elven foster father and brothers.
Tithen calmly returned the gesture. "Normally," she said, turning to the fireplace, "I would enjoy staring pointedly at you and carefully wheedling out how you really feel, but this morning, I am tired, your throat is sore, and I don't think either of us feels awake enough to enjoy the humor such a contest of wills would likely provide." She began to fill two bowls full of the fruit mash she had made earlier and set on the hearth to keep hot. "That being said, your chest feels like an orc is twisting a crooked blade in it, your arm feels like it is on fire, you ache all over, there is a cave troll trapped in your head and trying to bang its way out, and the world is probably still spinning. As I said before, your throat is raw, your lips are cracked and bleeding, and you are freezing cold," She looked up from where she knelt by the hearth. "Did I miss anything?"
Aragorn shook his head slightly, and then decided that that was a bad idea.
"Good. Now, having exposed your weaknesses, I will now not mention them again except at need, and after you are better, forget they ever were," she said, as a way of making him feel more comfortable. She did not like having her weaknesses exposed, she knew he hated it, but she had needed to establish that he couldn't hide behind such a transparent façade with her.
Aragorn licked his dry lips and mulled this over in his mind. She had exposed just about all his weaknesses, and then stopped just short of apologizing for it. She had, however, missed one thing. He also felt as though an oliphaunt were sitting on his chest. But he had revealed enough of his weaknesses to her. Suddenly, a thought struck him out of nowhere in particular.
"You're not," he said hoarsely, rolling his head to one side so he could see her bending over a pot on the hearth. She paused in the act of ladling something into a bowl to look at him.
"Not what?" she asked, puzzled.
"Little," Aragorn clarified. Tithen stared blankly ahead for a moment, then blinked. She laughed as she finished ladling the fruit mash into the bowl, and brought them both over to the bedside table. She sat on the edge of the bed and absentmindedly fussed with her hair for a minute, trying to make several flyaway locks of hair stay up and out of her face.
"I guess my name doesn't make a lot of sense," she said, picking up a bowl and spoon. Aragorn tried to reach out and take them with his good arm, but Tithen pushed his hand away and ignored his feeble protest. Stirring the mash to cool it, she slowly began to help Aragorn eat the soft warm fruit, distracting him with her unfolding tale, and hints at others. "Or, at least, it doesn't make sense if you don't know my full name. When you know the other half of the name, it makes sense," she paused. "I'll make you a deal. I'll tell you the story of how I got my name, which is fairly strange, when you are well enough to eat a fresh-baked scone for breakfast, instead of fruit mash. Is it a deal?"
Aragorn swallowed thickly. "Big Sister Trick?" he asked with a crooked smile, which Tithen returned.
"Of course it is part of the Big Sister Trick. An important past of that trick is the harmless, but interesting, bribe," she gave him a mock serious frown, which threatened to turn into a smile at any moment. "But I warn you, I also know the Sergeant-Major trick, and the Overworked Healer's trick. I don't like to use them. Don't make me!"
Aragorn returned her mock serious frown. He knew of the other two healer tricks as well. The Sergeant-Major trick was basically saying "Do what I say or else. I say rest. Rest!" The Overworked Healer's trick was to simply drug the patient. He would avoid giving her cause to employ either.
Tithen smiled at him gently. "Well then, how about I tell you how I got one of my other names as compensation for waiting?" Aragorn nodded. Any distraction would be welcome, and her voice reminded him of the voices of elves singing in the distance, at home, in Rivendell.
"My given name, the one my parents gave to me, is 'Meren'. 'Joy'," which, she thought to herself, seems as strange to one who knows me as "Tithen" does to one who knows me not. "My mother had had my two brothers before me, and as happy as she and my father were to have sons, they also wanted a daughter, a child who would not be so likely to go off to war and get killed. My father hoped that I would be a calming influence on my brothers, who seemed unable to get through a year without breaking a bone, or getting into other serious trouble. My mother hoped for this as well, but she wanted, too, a daughter to pass her heirlooms to, and to learn the secret recipes that had been passed down through our family. Anyway, on the day I was born, the midwife said to my mother 'it is a daughter!' and my mother cried out "Meren!" and my father, who had been listening at the door since he hear the cries of a child, burst in and at the same time as my mother cried, 'Meren!' The midwife, who did not speak elvish, thought that my parents had chosen a name for a daughter, and so pronounced my name to be 'Meren', to which my parents agreed. Strangely enough, the birth of a sister was not joyous news to my brothers. Though, I think they got used to me," she finished the story shortly after she finished helping Aragorn and now began to feed herself.
Aragorn was thankful for her story. It was the kind of family story which he had always loved to listen to as a child, and it was a wonderful distraction from his pain and helplessness.
Abruptly, the oliphaunt on his chest started to dance a jig and he began to cough, deep, hacking coughs that would not stop, that sent shock waves of pain through his entire body, jolting his arm, stabbing his wounds, and sending the cave troll in his head banging about from side to side.
Tithen instantly put her food down and helped Aragorn to sit up more and lean over a bit. She gently rubbed his back in calming, steady circles, trying to ease the spasm that racked his body. She whispered calming words, intoned all the words she knew to ease the coughs that threatened to tear Estel apart inside, to rip open his wounds, to break his fragile ribs.
Tithen remained outwardly calm, but inside she was panicking. This was what she had feared the most.
AN: Another cliffie, evil little me! It's not a big cliffhanger, but maybe it will convince more of you to review (cough cough). Also, sorry it's taken me so long to post lately. Life (i.e.- tests, big nasty, two day tests) caught up with me, so it's taken some time away from writing frantically. However, as compensation, this chapter is about 60 longer than most of mine. So, please, don't yell at me, just go review!