Ferdan was abstractly aware that most of the camp was still extremely busy and bustling around to complete all sorts of appointed tasks. But for one of the very few times in his life, he had absolutely no concern that he wasn't being as helpful as possible. As far as he was concerned,
he was already doing the most important job imaginable and nothing would have ever been able to to convince him to move.
Avaleina shifted the slightest bit and Ferdan forgot about the rest of the camp, and the rest of the world instantly. "Shhhhhh, my sweet girl, it is not yet time for you to wake." To help make his point, he resumed to gently and idly run a hand through her hair and adjusted the way in which she was laying so she was as cradled as possible.
He was unable to move his eyes from her face which was momentarily the picture of seren peace. It was enough to bring tears to his eyes as he pointedly refused to allow himself to remember that he literally could not remember the last time she had looked anything but tired, crumbling stress, and heartbroken during her waking hours.
He hated that the fact it seemed likely none of them would survive this final assault upon Dol Guldur tomorrow was almost a relief. Almost a blessing. Because then at least she would be in a land where the pains and the suffering could no longer find her. Where no more of her body would be sliced to pieces day in and day out for another few centuries.
"It's something that will never stop surprising you, I think, no matter how long you're a parent." Celeborn said as he approached from behind the tree that Ferdan was resting his back against. He stopped at Ferdan's left side and crouched down to pass a precariously full bowl of stew, "The moment you think you fully understand how much love you have for them, and all the things you would do for then, and wish for them, they surprise you all over again."
Ferdan took the stew carefully to not spill any of it upon the sleeping Elleth in his lap, the poor creature who still managed to look beyond exhausted even while sleeping.
"Parent by blood or by heart, the love and the pain are the same." Celeborn stood back up, "Fortunately, most of us don't have the horrible duty of leading them into battle. I'm sorry, Ferdan."
Ferdan's eyes had already gone back to Ava's face, a deep cut that was still being held precariously together with uniform precision stitches that he could tell had been done by Farlen.
He waited until he could hear the footsteps of Celeborn fading away before he leaned forward and placed a kiss onto Avaleina's forehead, trying his best to channel every ounce of love and warmth he held for he into it seamlessly and then whispered, "I'm sorry this was the lift you had to live. We tried so hard to help make a better world for you, a better life for you. I'm sorry we could never do it, I'm so sorry.
The smell of blood was so putrid and overpowering that Ferdan's brain had stopped recognizing it altogether. The same as it had stopped recognizing the screams, the suffering, the dying, the desperate. Stopped recognizing the sounds of clash after clash of weapons, the thudding of bodies, or crackle of the fires.
But now everything was quiet, everything was still as if Eru had put the entire world on pause. Except the only spell that had been cast was dumb disbeleif that the battle was over, that any of them at all had been left alive through it all.
That the great fortress of evil that had haunted and plagued their home for so many endless centuries was finally gone. Finally nothing more than a worthless pile of rocks.
His brain started to register noises and sounds sluggishly, vaguely aware of many desperate voices that started to call out for their loved ones.
He could still feel the constant presence of Thranduil in his mind, and so already knowing that he and his realm had not been rendered kingless. There was only one other place it had any interest in: Where was Ava?
Near frantically he began to search every crevice and bump of the battlefield, asking all elves that passed him by if they had seen Avaleina. None had. At least, none had recently.
His pace of search began to increase with every spot checked that she was not in, and his adrenaline began to leak back into his body with every elf who claimed they hadn't seen her. Somebody should have seen her by now, she should have found Thranduil by now. Found anybody.
Ferdan looked down and around himself at all of the unrecognizable bodies, many of them he would not even have been able to tell had been elves if it weren't for what they were wearing. The carangage and destruction of the battle was reprehensible, enough to turn the stomach of even the oldest and most experienced of warriors.
In the distance Ferdan could hear Farlen's desperate calls for Avaleina, his voice sounding as broken as the inside of Ferdan felt whenever even the smallest portion of his brain whispered that she was one of the mangled corpses. One that would never really be found, never really be brought home.
He had done a sweep of the battlefield twice now, and yet nobody had seen her. He began to dry heave out of pure panic and heartbreak, his carefully planned out and logical reasoning melted away. His searching all but became a frenzy of activity. Too fast for even elves to get a proper look at him before Ferdan had vanished off in another direction.
There were some elves that were starting to contemplate how to broach the topic with him that it might be time to stop looking, when without any logical reasoning behind it Ferdan peered over the edge of one of the steep and near straight drops into a deep chasm that laid below the fortress.
There resting limply and unmoving on a small ledge outcropping, a pool of blood seemed to cover all of the rock that lay beneath her and some dripped steadily off the ledge.
Ferdan screamed, "Ava!" to try and see if he could wake her up, try to see if he could tell if she was even alive. When she didn't so much as flutter an eyelash, he leaned forwards and yelled her name again.
Still no movement.
Unwilling to waste any more time and not caring in the slightest that he was not necessarily the best climber around, Ferdan began to scramble down the rockwall towards her. His heartbeat was thumping so fast in his ears that it was as if nothing else existed in that moment other than him and his need to reach Avaleina.
He tested the strength of the outcropping before he stepped out onto it, immediately falling to his knees so that he could check her pulse.
He could have passed out when it fluttered underneath his fingertip.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm so, so, so sorry." Ferdan repeated endlessly in a manner that was not yet sobbing but was far from any natural tone of voice as he began to frantically search her for where the biggest injuries were.
He was just about done dressing the last of her wounds when her eyes fluttered open, swimming with pain and confusion but coherent. Present.
Her voice attempted to be alarmed when it asked, "Are we in the halls?" But it came out mostly as a scratchy croaking sound.
"No," He assured her while he began to run a few of his fingers through her hair in an unconscious attempt to bring her a measure of comfort. "No, my dear, we won. We finally won. It's over."
The expression of utter relief flooded her face, and her eyes drifted closed the same time a smile lifted her mouth slightly. Whatever composure that Ferdan had managed to collect crumbled around him entirely when he recognized the new expression on her face: Peace.
