The hands of the prince
FO 15
Eldarion choked as awareness came back to him out of the void. He tasted dust in his mouth and felt it clogging his eyes and nostrils. He was lying on his back, and it was dark, he attempted to blink away the debris, but the blackness was so complete that it made no difference if his eyes were open or shut. Sparks danced across his vision and a wave of pain and nausea hit him with the sudden restoration of consciousness. He was held down on his back by something heavy and still. He attempted to move in his confusion and a spike of pain shot up from his left leg. It was painfully pinned and twisted, and he could feel blood seeping into his pants. The prince tried to move his hand and a great cascade of stone rubble fell away from it, there was a heavy slab only a hands breadth from his face.
His breath came more quickly through parched lips as memory returned. They had been in the market, the one with the great carved pillars and the high roof. There was a new caravan down from Erabor and as the heat of the Summer day had waned, crowds of locals had swarmed the market for a look at the exotic dwarven wares. Everyone enjoyed the royal family's willingness to mingle with the common folk and Aragorn seemed to think that these outings were politically important as he had gently reminded his moody teenaged son. So, the evening had found king Elessar and a very pregnant queen Arwen, along with a heavily armed pair of Peredhil twins who passed his infant sister back and forth between them, wandering through the ornate marketplace, walking from stall to stall at a leisurely pace. Eldarion was almost at the age when he would realize that he was handsome, but or now the looks that the young ladies of the city sent him flew over his head like the gulls which circled the tower of Ecthelion. He had all of the gangly build of his mother's people and none of the muscle tone and liked to wear his thick mop of black hair hanging over one eye.
The women had lingered behind, Eldarion reminded himself as his heart began to race in fear. There was hair in his mouth. Arwen had struck up a conversation with a clothier about embroidery and Aragorn had taken the opportunity to whisk his son away to where a dwarven smith had set up his stall further into the great vaulted space. The Smith was a jolly fellow named Tulk who greeted the king graciously with a bow and an unspoken price increase for his royal customers. Eldarion had immediately gravitated to a two-handed spiked war hammer on the back wall with a large purple gem on the pommel and his father had placed a kind hand on his son's shoulder, laughing as he suggested that the fourteen-year-old prince might need more training before he could wield such a weapon.
There had been an explosion. The last memory that the prince could conjure from before he had blacked out had been a terrible boom as the base of the closest pillar dissolved in fire, the screams of civilians running for their lives and looking up, the high stone roof of the market falling towards him, great slabs of masonry folding inward. Aragorn had reacted with battlefield reflexes, tackling his son to the hard marble floor as the boy stood staring in shock. As the building came down around them, he had thrown his arms around his child's head, using his own body as a shield against the falling rubble.
"Ada?" Eldarion choked on dust. His breath was coming in panicked gasps as the weight on his body seemed to increase. He further explored with his free hand, at first touching only the slab of stone above his face and then, to his horror, feeling the fine dusty cotton of his father's tunic. He soon found hair, it was matted with dust and blood.
"Ada?" He gulped air, trying to shift so that he could touch his father's face, "Ada!" he called again, his voice going up in pitch with panic. Aragorn did not respond to his son's voice, even as his cries for his father dissolved into sobs. Eldarion told himself to be brave, but the weight of the earth was pressing down on him and soon he could feel himself hyperventilating. He shook his father by the shoulder, begging him to wake, but the king's head only rolled to lie on his son's chest. Eldarion's groping fingers found his father's bloodied face. A spike of terror went through him as he moved his fingers over the lips which had, with tenderness and enthusiasm kissed his forehead as a small child and sang him to sleep.
He wasn't breathing.
"No, Eru, no." Eldarion begged the Lord of the Music as his eyes suddenly burst with tears that slid through the dust at his temples. His searching hand found its way behind his father's jaw, but his heart was pounding in his own ears and the stale air tasted of limestone and the only thought that filled his mind was that his father was dead in his arms. Was this to be the end of the line of kings? In terror and darkness, struck down by the hand of a nameless coward? He sobbed in fear, clutching the limp weight on top of him, he inclined his head to place a kiss upon his father's silvered brow. A cascade of tiny stones followed the movement. The air reeked of blood and was quickly becoming stale, every panicked breath was less renewing, and the edges of his vision started to fade. There was a worrying amount of blood filling his trousers, but he could not see or reach far enough to tell how badly he was injured. Shock and grief and fear rose like walls around his mind, and he sought out the refuge of his own inner light, fading from reality as his vision filled with dancing fire. "Ada…" he wanted to say something, to beg his father not to leave but his words were swallowed in pained, gasping sobs.
He knew not from where the sudden rush of courage came upon him. The stories of his father's healing abilities had been held as legendary since The War and in a flash of deep knowledge and insight he heard the voice of a long dead wisewoman echo through his mind, " the hands of a king are the hands of a healer."
He had watched Elladan and Elrohir pour their living energy into their patients in the halls of healing, heard their stories about his departed grandfather and had himself felt their healing touch on his childhood injuries. Was he not of the same noble lineage? If his father was gone then that meant he was king, and the king could save anyone if he tried hard enough. He knew that it was an absurd train of thought, but he clung to his childlike faith as a lifeline. He tried to visualize a bright light pouring into his father's body from his own. For too many long seconds nothing happened.
"Ada!" he begged. He was becoming lightheaded, and his breaths did little to clear the sparkling lights from his vision. He laughed in delirium, letting his head fall back and gasping for shallow breaths, "ai Varda," He mumbled as the flashes of light turned to living stars.
He barely heard the hacking breaths as Aragorn choked for air and the prince of Gondor lost consciousness, his energy utterly diminished.
.
Eldarion's mind resurfaced sometime later to the sound of pickaxes and raised dwarven voices. The air smelled a bit less stale, as if the digging workers had moved something and let air into their little pocket. He could hear his father's pained breathing, shallow, wet rasps through the dark.
Eldarion listened in bewilderment for a moment before he could gather his wits enough to cry out.
"HELP!" he screamed, choking on dust. "HELP! HELP! WERE HERE! WERE ALIVE!"
"Eldarion!" It was one of the twins, his voice coming from directly above them. "Here! DIG HERE I HEAR SOMETHING!" the Peredhil was joined by other shouting voices and the hurried sound of digging and shifting rock.
"Ada?" Eldarion asked again. Touching the bloodied curls under his hand. The broken groan of agony that answered him was like a fist around his heart. "I can hear them digging, Ada!"
"'darion," Aragorn coughed and choked around a mouthful of blood, "Are you hurt?" he slurred and grunted in pain squeezing shut his eyes against the darkness.
"I can hear them digging." Eldarion said again, trying to keep his father awake and alert. "Ada. Tell me where you're hurt."
But Aragorn had exhausted his capacity for speech. His son was alive and knowing that, he felt his hold on awareness slipping, his sacrifice had been worth it, and he would go gladly onto Mandos and sing him a song more beautiful than Luthien herself, knowing that his son would live. The trained healer in him told him that he had a severe head injury; he felt his awareness recede from his body even as he took stock of where he was hurt. The whole pavilion had come down in the blast, bringing down the stone structures on either side of the covered market. His last thought as he lost consciousness was that this was a deliberate attack upon his house.
"Eldarion!" This time it was the queen's voice, Arwen sounded broken and panicked with grief and terror. Her voice seemed to revive his father for a moment, he shifted and whimpered but seemed to be fading again towards unconsciousness.
"Naneth!" Eldarion answered her, fresh tears coming to his eyes in the dark.
"Eldarion," he could hear the joy and relief in Arwen's tone, "Eldarion, sweetheart, is your father with you?"
"Ada?" he shook Aragorn gently, but he did not respond, "Ada its Naneth?!" he took a few breaths before inhaling deep enough to scream, "HE WONT WAKE UP, NAN! HELP!" His voice cracked, "HELP!"
There were voices too rushed and indistinct to have any meaning. Someone gave a quick, barked order in kudzul and with a great cascading fall of sand, a beam of light speared into the narrow space.
"Your Majesty?" came a dwarvish voice. Eldarion squinted up through the dusty beam of light. He had never been so happy to see anyone as he was to see his uncle Gimli at that moment. The dwarf's head was silhouetted in red as the light illuminated his hair and beard from behind.
"Gimli!" Eldarion coughed and winced as he felt fresh, hot blood flow into his groin.
"Is your father with you?" Gimli asked. Eldarion looked down to see his father's face properly for the first time since the explosion. Blood painted his face and beard from a dirty gash above his hairline and his skin was grey.
"He's hurt!" Eldarion said, looking up.
"Eldarion!" Gimli was replaced by Arwen who gasped in horror when she saw her husband's still face, "Ai Muk Eru." She swore, "Aragorn?" her voice was trembling, and she seemed about to crawl down into the opening but the dwarf placed a respectful hand hovering above her shoulder
"Nan?" somehow hearing his mother's voice made their predicament seem more grave, "WATER!" Eldarion gasped suddenly realizing that his mouth was parched.
"My lady, I need you to stand aside." The dwarf was saying. A moment later, like a gift from Eru himself, a skin of water was lowered through the opening. Eldarion took it eagerly, and removing the cap, pressed it to his father's mouth, making sure that he swallowed, even in his state of reduced consciousness.
"Ada?" Eldarion pushed his father's sticky hair back from his face, "they're getting us out of here." Aragorn's breathing was shallow and ragged.
"We have to tie a hoist around this slab!" Gimli explained, "But a minute more and you will be free." There was a sound of digging and scraping and another portion of the rubble wall fell away. This caused the slab to shift slightly. Eldarion gasped and screamed as the weight on his leg increased.
"Eldarion!" It was Elladan.
"Quick!" someone shouted, three dwarves holding a length of thick rope dropped down into the crack, they communicated with lightning-fast hand signs and soon had positioned themselves so that the rope wrapped around the slab, and, with a great cascade of stone and sand, it began to lift incrementally. Looking down for the first time, Eldarion stared at the massive war-hammer that had fallen from the display that it felt li he was looking at only a few moments before, had dug into his leg. When they had enough room to maneuver, the dwarves carefully lifted the king's body.
"Careful now!" Gimli sounded scared, "Watch his neck."
"Aragorn!" Elladan called as he took his brother from the dwarves and laid him on a stretcher.
Eldarion felt a strong arm grab his own and drag him to his feet, "Easy now, your highness," he stumbled against Gimli, feeling his arm dragged over the dwarf's shoulders. Another hand reached down and dragged him up, a moment later he was out under the clear evening sky, staggering into his uncle Elrohir's arms.
"Easy!" the Peredhil was saying as he caught the prince slumping into him, "Eldarion?" He leaned into Elrohir's chest while he watched where his father had been laid. Elladan was trying to get Aragorn to respond. But Aragorn's mouth gaped grotesquely, and his eyes would not focus.
"I need to get him into surgery now." Elladan was saying to his sister, she was clutching her belly and watching with a lost expression. Her gaze rose to look at her son but settled at his feet where a deep pool of red was spreading. Elrohir followed her gaze and even as the cuss left his lips, he found himself catching Eldarion's body as he lost consciousness from the blood loss.