I did not create Middle Earth, Imladris, Luthien, Lord Elrond, Estel/Aragorn, Erestor, nor Noldo, Sindar, or Silvan elves. Tolkien did, and I am grateful to him for it. I did, however, create Mellolaes and Cuilbron.

This story is for entertainment purposes only, so please read and be entertained.

He sat next to his friend's graying face. He wondered if his own was becoming the same shade. He picked up his friend's hand. It was growing cooler. He glanced down at the dark pool forming by the soldier's leg. The liquid still gushed from the gash.

He reached out to dip his fingers in the pool. Then he rubbed their tips together. Warm. Warmth was leaving his friend with his blood. He had to stop it.

He took out the one thing he had managed to keep when he leapt in the sea his measuring line. He stared at the cord and stone. Then he set it aside. They would need it later. Like his father before him he would help measure and straighten strong, beautiful walls. Unlike his father's creations, his would have to keep out Morgoth's servants. They would have to prevent battles and wounds like this one. He took out instead the cords from the boats.

Feonor had been insane. Burning the boats, leaving the rest, his own brother, even if only half-brother, behind. What "he" himself wouldn't give to have all his brothers with him now, the strong rider, the strong wall builders, but it was just him, his friend and his friend's brothers. And all of the latter were out chasing down the servants of Morgoth and leaving them here.

"Do not be too hard on them. That is what they came do to after all to follow the sons of Feonor in their quest. Tis no other's fault I couldn't keep up. If you had a longer weapon, I would have insisted you go with them. If I had taken one of their swords instead of just trying to use my own blades, I might have avoided this wound."

He did not look at his friend while the older ellon spoke. Instead, he drew out the ropes he'd taken from the ships before they were torched and began to cut at them with his own knife. "You may be able to read my face, mellon nin, but you will never convince me to follow your brothers rather than you."

"Rather than sit beside me you mean. What are you doing?"

"I am going to stop the flow of this warm, red river sweeping out of your leg."

"How?"

"As you always stop the flow of a river, with a wall."

"Of rope?"

Erestor knelt down, lifted the injured leg, made a loop and then raised it over the wound and above it. "You must always go upstream to complete such a task …" He tightened the loop with a jerk. The other ellon's body jerked. A hiss echoed from him. He turned his face away. When he looked back, his features were creased in an expression of fury Erestor had only seen twice. When his friend learned the truth of the battle to gain the ships and when he learned how they were to be burned instead of sent back for those they might never see again and who could well have helped defend his brothers on these strange shores.

He could tell his friend's teeth were still clenched when he spoke next, both from seeing their connected white rows flashing in the light of the stars and at the sound his voice made. "You are very lucky, I had regained control just after yanking 'this' from it's sheath."

His friend lifted his dagger in the starlight. He glanced over it and turned away to see if his action had had the intended effect. "You should be keeping it out in case any of Morgoth's slaves slip through those out chasing them down."

His friend's expression of anger melted away into one of humor and despair. The older ellon shook his head as his hand clenching the blade's hilt lowered to the ground. "You amaze me, friend."

"We are all going to die on this shore, mellon nin. I might as well die by your hand here as anywhere else by anything else." He kept staring at the stream coming from the leg. It "had" slowed to a stream, now it was a trickle, now it disappeared. As he kept staring, his friend's voice entered his ears again.

"Yet, you have saved me …"

. . .

Save you …

With the ropes from the burnt ships and his new knowledge of how to bind up and stop the flow of blood from limbs, he had been a prize for any wounded to have nearby before the moon rose over Arda's shores. Now though …

Erestor looked down upon Estel lying in his bed. A white, no, cream, hand appeared and dabbed away at his face again. Then it disappeared to dunk the cloth it clutched back into the bowl he held out. He watched the hand travel back to the boy's brow. So white was the manling's skin, too white, like theirs, but not like there's. His hair had turned darker in the dimness of the night and slicked with water from the bowl and sweat. Strands, even whole locks, were plastered to the pale skin.

It was better this way. The elleth had the soft, musical voice. He never seemed able or willing to sing himself. She had the healer's touch which all the knowledge of the world had not allowed him to gain. He held a bowl. While the healers scurried around keeping athelas steam rising from every container they could keep warm, he held out the bowl for her to dip cooling clothes in. Otherwise he was useless.

And I did this …

. . .

"Where is he?! Where?!"

The mouth in the face (he could barely call it a face) curled up into a smile revealing pointed teeth through the barely existent lips. Black eyes stared back into his. "He keeps the master company and his forge warm. He makes plenty of nice blades, short blades, for finishing your kind off after we've already sent their blood flowing into the ground … or our mouths, with longer pointy things."

"You lie!"

He tightened his grip on the scrawny throat and thrust the small orc's back into the boulder's side again. Their new captain spoke softly behind him. "Brother's heart-brother … if you bash all breath from our prisoner and keep him from gasping-in new, we'll get no answers from him."

He reluctantly loosened his grip. After a wheezing breath, the orc lifted his gaze and leered at him again. "He's beyond your reach making pretty things, dangerous things, for the master on his forges burning-hot. He keeps the master's forges white-hot for him now, always."

"He does not!"

He bashed the orc back into the stone again. Two hands then snatched his wrists and pulled him back as the tip of a sword appeared at the liar's throat. He was then jerked even farther back from the slave of Morgoth. A familiar, too familiar, voice whispered behind him. "Enough! We've kept him from crying out in this dangerous place till now. We have traveled too far already toward Morgoth's gate! Now you will call his other slaves down on us simply by beating him against this rock as though it were a drum!"

At the release of his wrists, he turned upon their new captain. "Then maybe they will capture 'us' and take us to 'him'."

The captain's slight frown fell away. His expression drooped in despair instead. "And then what? Should we all make weapons with my brother on Morgoth's forge?"

The loudest sound any of them made in that quest, was the smack that echoed from his strike against the highest ranking soldier's cheek. The mouths of the other four soldiers fell open even those of the two guarding the orc who looked on with gimlet, gleaming eyes and a twisted smile. The captain only raised his own fingertips to the place turning light pink. He gently prodded the area before speaking again. "I deserve that … especially for what I am about to say."

"Then do not speak it at all."

The captain raised his eyes and met his gaze. "We have to go back."

"We will not."

"We must. There is no way to … We cannot succeed where Feonor's sons failed."

"Yet, his nephew succeeded."

"Morgoth will not hang my brother from a cliff-side after how doing so with another prisoner turned out for him. Besides … it is as our prisoner says." He nodded to the orc, but quickly looked back to meet his gaze again. "Morgoth would use my brother's skills at his forges. He is good enough for that as we both well know. And I would not blame my brother for appeasing his captor that way. The last thing he called out to me, though, was to keep the others safe, and I intend to. If my brother is truly making weapons and armor for Morgoth now, then every soldier will be needed at the forts you helped us build to keep him safe."

"You believe it. And you are going to abandon him."

"It is all we can do now. All any of us can do now is look after each other as he would have wished."

"You are all cowards."

"'You' are going insane with grief, but I cannot afford to, not if I must follow his last instructions to me."

He had turned from his friend's "brothers" and begun to walk toward Morgoth's gate, when he heard the whistle through the air. He looked back to face it. Then all went black.

He opened his eyes next and tried to move, but he was bound. He opened his eyes hoping to smell the filth of orcs and see the gate of Morgoth's fortress opening to welcome him, but no. There were the five familiar backs of his heart-brother's blood-brothers. Their own fort rose from the horizon. Their captain spoke. He must have heard his muffled snarl through the gags. "We killed the orc after questioning him a little farther. He described my brother very well and while we can never know for certain, I believe he spoke the truth. But perhaps it as you say, and he did not. Perhaps my brother is truly dead. If none of his work appears among our enemies, we can know our prisoner lied and you believed ... knew the truth. You always did know and love him better than us."

. . .

Erestor gazed at Estel. He was never awake now, but never quite asleep either. The manling's mouth constantly remained open. His chest heaved just as constantly with tiny, wheezing breaths.

Erestor bowed his head.

One job. His most important job failed … again. Nothing he could do afterward would compare to the enormity of this. No success would wipe this defeat out.

"Erestor …" He looked up. The Silvan elelth was raising her patient up into the easiest angle to breathe again. She smiled gently at the ancient ellon. "I have seen manlings worse off than this."

"And they lived?"

"Some …"

He bowed his head into the bed-spread again. He felt a soft fingertip prod him. "If you are too weary now, go to bed, the mattress itself holds the bowl nicely."

"No … I will not leave my failure before it is complete."

"You have not failed. We have not failed. And if we are to succeed we will need our strength."

He looked up at her. Her own soft expressions and lowered eyelids spoke of tiredness. He swallowed. "This is not your fault. You have done much already and I do not believe he recognizes or knows anything now. Go and be where you can find the most comfort. You should not be forced to watch him die."

A smart slap echoed through the room. Healers turned from their other tasks with open mouths. Erestor's own mouth was open. The elleth glared and spat in Noldo. "We will not speak of death till death has come and especially not before the patient. Who knows what he knows? Do you? Are you in his head Noldo?"

"He is not Noldo."

Mellolaes turned wide eyes upon Cuilbron behind her. The healer shrugged and continued. "He is Luthien's kin."

The elleth turned widened eyes back to him. He lowered his gaze, a slight flushed changed the shade of his cheeks, but he remained silent. She quirked up an eyebrow. Suddenly, the manling nestled in the crook of her arm stirred.

All pairs of eyes swung to and focused upon him. His little lips moved, though barely any breath passed through them. Everyone frowned in confused concentration, save for the elleth holding him. She dropped a kiss upon his hot brow. Then murmured over him. "I am sorry mellon nin. Sorry. I will try not do it yet again."

"You understood him?"

She smiled. "He said, I promised not to fight with Erestor again."

Smiles flitted across the elves faces, save for one. He merely reached and took the boy's hand clutching it. Then he spoke in Noldo. None of the elves were very surprised by this. An academic ellon who saw to many tasks, including the passing on of knowledge from history, would know the language, and it was important to keep the patient from understanding some of their words at times. But Mellolaes herself frowned at them. Erestor's voice was more filled with emotion than she had ever heard it before. "I too am sorry mellon nin … I am sorry I have not kept your life from flowing away."

. . .

Dawn crept through the window. Erestor's face was turned from it so it warmed only the back of his head. One of his cheeks rested in a nest of blanket and mattress. His back rose and fell in long, slow breaths of sleep. His eyes were closed showing he needed it. Then his breathing hitched. His face flew up. His eyes started open. A fingertip had gently poked his shoulder.

His gaze focused upon the smirking face of a Silvan elleth. Her eyes laughed, though her lips pressed together to keep the ripples of it from leaving them. How could she?

Just before her own gaze flitted there in gesture, he turned his head to see. His little friend's chest rose and fell not in as deep, slow breaths as his, but steadily and silently. He placed a hand upon the boy's brow. Cooled … The skin beneath his hand had cooled. This time, his heart was gladdened by the sensation.

He began to laugh. The sound filled the room and startled healers sleeping across the hall. Mellolaes' lips parted and brow furrowed. "Erestor," she nearly spat. "You will wake him!"

Sure enough, a small moan came from the tiny, slightly open mouth. The manling turned over before murmuring in a sleepy voice. "Stop fighting. .."

If you liked this chapter please tell me. If it still need work tell me what to fix. :)

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes