Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2
AN-Merry Christmas/Happy Channukah/Happy Kawanza/Happy Rahmadan/Happy Micellaneous Winter holidays!
Gwenneth sat once again at the foot of the dream-bed she had created as surroundings for her, Aragorn's and her sister's spirits. She had sent Aragorn back to his much needed sleep. She knew he would need to be well rested if he were to help carry out her, what were they? Dying wishes? She was already dead. Commands? Orders? That implied she had power over him, which she didn't--there was no way for her to force Aragorn to help Meren.. Requests? That did not seem to be the right verb either.
Gwenneth gazed with love and sadness at her sister, who was sleeping peacefully in Aragorn's arms, thanks to the drugs he had given her. Gwenneth wanted to tell her that it was all fine, that she had not caused her little sister's death, but knew that it would not do any good for her to cleanse her spirit in a dream. Dreams could only heal so much.
But, Gwenneth thought as she picked her way over the cats to her sister, they can help the healers in the real world.
Gently, she reached out and touched her sister's forehead. "Meren, awake. I would speak with you. Muinthiel, awake," she said softly. Her sister woke almost immediately, since this was truly a dream.
"Gwenneth!" she gasped and embraced her, her body left behind in Aragorn's arms.
Gwenneth returned the embrace, surprised by how much Meren had grown since she had last hugged her. She wished the Valar had permitted her to appear as she would have been, had she lived. It would have been much easier to hold and comfort her sister as a twenty year old comforting a twenty-four year old, than a six-year-old comforting the twenty-four-year-old.
"Shh, shh, Meren, it's alright," Gwenneth said soothingly, stroking her sister's hair as Meren sobbed. "My death was not of your making. There was nothing anyone could have done. It was my time. I did try to tell you, but I did not have the words, muithiel nin. I heard the call, and I surrendered."
Meren was consumed by emotion, unable to answer her sister other than to repeat her name again and again. "Gwenneth, Gwenneth, I'm so sorry, so sorry Gwenneth, forgive me…"
Gwenneth continued to stroke Meren's hair and shush her gently. "There is nothing to forgive, dear Meren. And any forgiveness that needed to be given I gave to you long ago. Meren, listen to me," she gently tilted Meren's head so their's eyes met. "Meren, you must tell Aragorn. Tell him what happened, why you tried to end your life. Yes Meren, you must," the six-year old insisted to the woman, who was shaking her head, "You must tell him. For me, Meren, tell him for me. Meren, the greatest gift you can give me is that you forgive yourself, and live. Live Meren, and love again," Gwenneth could feel the dream starting to fade as dawn approached and Aragorn and her sister began to awake. "Tell him, Meren. Forgive yourself. I love you. Always remember that."
Gwenneth lay her hand on Meren's head in blessing as the dream faded and she slipped back to the house of her fathers, thanking the Lady that she had been allowed to help her sister and her sister's healer.
Aragorn woke slowly, slightly dazed by his experience. Somehow, he thought to himself as he stretched his neck, which ached from sleeping upright, he would never get used to talking a dead girl, even if he repeated his experience.
As Meren began to stir in his arms, he remembered Gwenneth's last words to him, a request—force Meren to tell him what happened. It was not a thought he relished, knowing how stubborn she was, but he agreed with her sister, if she did not relieve herself of the burden she carried, she would never heal her spirit.
"Meren, awake. Dawn has come," he informed her softly, deciding to use her true name, the name by which her sister called her. He gently brushed her long brown hair out of her eyes, and was surprised but thankful to find that her fever had broken; she was only slightly warm now.
"Mmm, can't be. 's too early," she mumbled, and tried to snuggle down into the warm bed before the pain of her wound stopped her movements. "Ugh. Aragorn, if you ever try to kill yourself, don't do it by stabbing."
Aragorn could have laughed to hear her say that. Not because of her morbid words, but because her sense of humor had returned to some degree, and she recognized him as Aragorn, and not as her father.
"I'll keep that in mind. And it's not too early. You've been asleep almost three days now. Perhaps a cup of tea will brighten your mood," he replied, easing her off him and settling her against the pillowed. She hissed as the movement jostled her broken ribs.
"You wouldn't think that jagged bone scrapping raw nerve would hurt, but it does. Like acid on a scrape. Tea would be most welcome," she concluded wearily, trying vainly to wrap more blankets around herself. "It is like ice in here," she said, shivering.
Aragorn threw a few more logs on to the fire, which had burned low during the night and dragged the couch he had brought in from one of the sitting rooms closer to the fire. He carefully wrapped a quilt around Meren and picked her up as though she were a newborn infant. Being as gentle as he could, he settled her on the couch, placing pillows behind her head and as many blankets over her as he thought her chest could stand.
"Thank you," Meren grunted as she settled into her new position and waited for the waves of pain to subside. "I never meant for you to have to tend me. I…had meant to wait until you were gone…"
"I am thankful then that you did not wait. Gondor would be a far poorer land without her mountain healer," Aragorn replied as he poured the boiling water over the tea leaves. Meren snorted, and then gasped as it sent shooting pains through her chest and gripped her as though she were in the grasp of a sadistic troll.
Aragorn lay a comforting hand on her shoulder as they waited for her pain to subside. When she was finally able to relax a bit, he handed her a mug of milky, sweet tea, which she took gratefully, wrapping her hands around it and breathing in the warm, fragrant steam.
"Thank you, mellon nin," she murmured into her mug as she sought to absorb as much heat from the tea as she could while she waited for it to reach a drinkable temperature. She gave a heavy sigh. "That was probably the most foolish thing I have ever done."
"Yes," Aragorn replied seriously. He had wanted to tell her that, but knew that it would not be wise to criticize her in her current fragile emotional state. He laughed to lighten the tension that now hung in the room. "Though, it just barely passes jumping off the barn roof to prove your brother wrong."
"Gwenneth did not approve of that either. She told me that a better way to prove to my brothers the worth of a sister was to beat them at sparring," she said, much to Aragorn's surprise. Was it possible that he was not the only one to receive a visit last night? It was the only explanation he could think of to explain why Meren was suddenly so open. Silently, he wondered whether her little sister was helping him help her sister, and decided it was time to pry a bit.
"Meren, what happened to Gwenneth?" he asked gently as he knelt on the floor beside her, holding her eyes in his own. "What happened that day?"
Meren sighed, a tears slowly falling into her half-empty mug. It went against all her instincts, all her carefully constructed emotional barriers to tell Aragorn what had happened that day, fourteen years ago; but Gwenneth had asked her to, told her to. She could not deny her little sister. She never could.
"It was so…sudden…unexpected," Meren began, still talking to her mug of tea. It was some how easier to tell her story, to unburden her heart to a cup of tea and her flickering reflection, knowing that Aragorn was listening, than to look him in the eye. "She had been so healthy for the past two years. The winter before, when she was five, was the first winter Naneth and Ada let her go outside to play and she was fine. She had played with us in the fields since she was four. She was never as strong as the rest of us, but she was better, and she hadn't come as close to death as she had when she was two again. Until that winter…"
She paused, silent tears falling onto the blankets. Aragorn wanted to hold her comfort her, and bid her to continue to release the poison from her spirit, but knew it was best to wait for her to be ready to continue.
"It was very cold that winter, and a terrible storm was blowing in when…she started coughing…That was the most fearful sound in the world to me," she shuddered, remembering the deep rasping, rattling, choking sound that came from her little sister's lungs, the sight of the strangling coughs racking the frail six-year-old frame that only that summer had swum to the small island in the lake with her. Her sister had not been strong, but she could swim like a fish.
"I did everything I could. I slept next to her to keep her warm, I held her upright in my arms to help her breathe, I fed her warm broths and soothing teas, I rubbed her chest with eucalyptus salve, I poured as much of my power and life-force into her as she would accept, but she just grew weaker and weaker…" she broke into sobs at the memory of her little sister, her Gwenneth, her baby sister wasting away in her arms, coughing up green fluid speckled with blood, her lips blue-tinged as she fought for breath.
Instinctively, Aragorn knew that this was the moment for him to reach out to Meren, as a healer, as a friend, and as a brother. Moving softly as Meren continued to weep, he sat behind her on the sofa arm and lay his hand on her shoulder. Immediately, he felt his own healing gift awaken and flow out to this woman he looked on as a sister. He silently poured understanding, comfort and strength into her, even as he felt the tidal wave of grief, pain, guilt and longing flow out of her. It amazed him that she had carried her burden alone for so many years. There were few people in Middle Earth he knew of who could carry such a burden for so long.
Meren was scarcely aware of Aragorn behind her until he placed his hand on her shoulder. Then, gradually at first, like the first trickle of water through a dam wall, then rushing between them, she felt the pain she had carried all these ease, the crushing guilt grow less heavy, the grief become more bearable, the longing and need for an empathetic companion dissipate. She felt comfort flood her heart, understanding that eased the ache that had taken residence that day, and strength, strength to go on, to live, learn to love again, to forgive herself, and accept the forgiveness of her sister. Strength to escape from her past, which had not merely haunted her, but trapped her.
Several moments went by before she spoke again, still receiving the strength Aragorn was giving her, her eyes closed in an attempt to stem the flow of tears.
"Ada thought it was too much for me, that I would kill myself, that I shouldn't be trying to take so much responsibility…I don't know what he thought…that's just what he told me as he dragged me away from her to help him get the Healer. I tried to fight, to stay with her, but Ada was too strong, I was too small, too weak, too tired…," she paused as remembered all too clearly struggly vainly against her father's arms as he picked her up out of her sister's bed and wrapped her in his cloak, all the while she cried and begged to be left with Gwenneth. With vivid clarity she recalled the look on her sister's face…a look of aged resignation and sorrow, as though her sister were twenty times her age, and knew that she would soon leave the confines of this world, and was only sorry that she would never see the small child weeping in her father's arms again…a look that she had vowed she would never again see on her sister's face…"We rode for hours, and I fell asleep…
"When we were approaching the village, I felt Gwenneth…slip…" How could she describe what she had felt to Aragorn, to anyone? The tugging, yanking feeling, like someone had been holding her hand and suddenly walked off a cliff, and was now pulling at her arm. She had somehow known at that moment that her baby sister had fallen into a coma and was closer to death, but all she could do was try to pull back on the tugging sensation…like she was trying to pull her fallen companion up onto solid ground.
Aragorn could sense her distress. She had come to realize how badly she needed to tell her story, but could not find the words to describe the feels that so few in the history of Middle Earth had felt.
"Meren?" he asked softly.
"I couldn't do anything. I couldn't…do…anything. I tried to hold on to her, keep her alive, until I got back. I held her while we got the healer, but all I could do was urge them to go faster…she was slipping, slipping, and I couldn't stop her!" she broke off again as she remembered the agony she had felt, and still felt to some degree, especially whenever she remembered that day. The feeling of being torn in two, as though one arm were caught on something on the cliff's edge, and her other arm was being torn off by the weight of Gwenneth, who had fallen off…that she was being stretched…that she was near to breaking like a over tight bow string. Being pulled apart, then her arm dislocating out of it's socket, then her shoulder. The ligaments, tendons and muscles that held her together slowly tearing, snapping, giving up the attempt to keep her arm and everything attached to it attached to the rest of her.
"We were almost home, I thought we had made it, that I would be able to…save her…but…," she swallowed nervously and took a deep breath, steeling herself for the pain she would feel at the memory, and for the rebuke, the condemnation of Aragorn at hearing of her failure. How could he not blame her for Gwenneth's death?
"We were only a half a mile, maybe less, when…I felt her…break away…tear away from me…d-d…die," she choked on the last word. "I ran to the house, I touched her, I followed her, but she was on the other side, and they wouldn't let me take her back and they wouldn't let me follow her, and and and, they sent me back! I couldn't save her!" she broke down into sobs. "Oh, Eru, I miss her so much!"
Aragorn gently drew her head onto his lap and smoothed her hair from her face as he let her cry. At last, he no longer sensed the guilt, nor the overwhelming burden, nor the gnawing agony, only sorrow and loneliness in her. He softly shushed her, telling her over and over again that it was alright, it wasn't her fault.
Meren let herself be comforted as she let her guilt and anguish flow out of her. She knew now that Gwenneth didn't blame her. Somehow, there was hope once again in her life. There was still pain, much pain, but it would no longer tear at her…she would heal…Gwenneth would help her, Aragorn would help her…she would be made whole again.