Aiër Chapter 23
Mornië utúlië
Believe and you will find your way
xxx
Shëanon was silent as they rode through the plains of Rohan, for her anxiety of the day before had only grown with each passing hour. As she held fast to Aragorn and Brego bore them over the billowing grass, she was blind to the beauty of the pink dawn behind the sloping hills and deaf to the thunder of the galloping horses. In her mind's eye she saw only Saruman's leering face, and she seemed to hear nothing save for his cruel words.
Laying her head against Aragorn's shoulder, she gazed into the distance, lost in thought. Could all that Saruman had said be true? Could he really have known who her parents were, and what had happened to them? Somehow she was certain that all that he had said had indeed come to pass, and it was with dread that she considered his foul warnings—that her blood was worth more than Aragorn's head; that she would be imprisoned by Sauron.
Aragorn glanced over his shoulder to look into her face, but Shëanon turned her head away.
They reached Edoras at midday, the sun bright and warm as they rode through the gates and into the city. Refugees from Helm's Deep were packed into the streets and let out cries of relief and outstretched their hands as Théoden rode past, the banner of the House of Eorl held high by his men and billowing in their wake. As Aragorn followed the king through the crowd up the steep hill to the Golden Hall of Meduseld and Shëanon sat behind him, she remembered with a pang how she had taken this exact ride before, with Aragorn astride Hasufel, after they had found Gandalf in Fangorn and ridden with all haste to free Théoden from Saruman's spell. How very different she felt now, after so short a time had passed. Aragorn held out his hand to help her clamber down from the saddle and Shëanon thought that she felt like a different person, so heavy was her heart and so consumed was she by the shadow that seemed to stretch before her.
At Aragorn's heels, she entered the hall. Inside it was as crowded as the streets had been, and once everyone realized that the king had entered the chamber, there was a burst of commotion as his people hurried to accommodate him, hailing their lord and lauding his swift return. Soon, their company found themselves seated at the topmost table with food piled high before them. Dishes and spoons clattered as the men gratefully began to eat, and the hobbits and Gimli were clearly so thankful to be eating a hot, proper meal that they looked near to tears in relief.
Shëanon looked down at her plate with knots in her stomach. She knew that she needed to eat, too, but even just smelling what she was sure must have been delicious food was making her feel sick. With a grimace, she sat quietly while the king was filled in on all he'd missed while they'd been gone. It seemed that the journey from Helm's Deep had been much more peaceful for the Rohirrim than the trip there had been, for Éowyn reported mostly stores of food and the numbers of refugees. Shëanon barely heard any of what she said. There seemed to be a ringing in her ears—in her head.
"Aren't you going to eat that, Shëanon?" Pippin suddenly asked, noticing her untouched food. She saw that his own meal was already finished.
With a shake of her head, she slid the dish across the table to him.
"You can have it," she said quietly.
To her consternation, Pippin only stared at her. He traded a glance with Merry.
"You aren't hungry?" Merry asked in bewilderment. She blushed but shook her head again. To her astonishment, however, the hobbits seemed even more reluctant and Pippin nudged the plate back in her direction.
"But there was hardly any breakfast," Pippin frowned.
"I am not feeling well," she muttered. "Eat it if you will; I have no appetite."
"Are you sick?"
Again Shëanon shook her head, and she spent the rest of the meal looking down at the wooden tabletop, her head pounding. Legolas sat beside her, and she was acutely aware of it every time she felt him watching her. Finally, Aragorn cast her a look of extreme worry and leaned towards her on the bench.
"Go rest," he frowned. "That is an order."
Shëanon didn't need to be told twice. At once she stood and made for the door, eager to get away—anything would be better than feeling the eyes of her companions on her—knowing that they had heard Saruman's evil words and agonizing over what they must have thought of her. She had taken not five steps however when another voice called after her.
"I would speak with you, Shëanon Peredhel," Gandalf said suddenly. A hush fell over the table.
Cringing, she turned to meet his gaze. He sat next to Théoden, and he was regarding her with a very peculiar expression on his face. She felt that the others were all looking at her, wondering what the wizard wanted, and she felt her stomach twist unpleasantly. The attention was awful, and she had been so close to slipping away.
"Aragorn has ordered me to rest," she said plainly, her heart pounding. She kept her expression blank as she awaited his reply, although her breathing had become rather shallow. Please, she thought. Let me leave.
Gandalf surveyed her in silence, his eyes boring into her. The sensation this incited was excruciating. She felt that he could see right through her; it was not unlike how he had looked at her in the Mines of Moria, after she had had her vision, except that he appeared even sterner and more pensive than that. She did not like it at all.
"We have much to discuss," he said at last. "And little time."
For one more heartbeat, his piercing gaze was trained on her face, and then he looked back at the king and, understanding that she had evaded the conversation for at least a little while, she turned once more and hurried from the hall.
One of Éowyn's serving ladies directed her to the room she had stayed in before, and at last the door closed softly behind her, and she found herself mercifully, blissfully alone. For a moment she stood still, her gaze roving sightlessly over the chamber, with the fur rug upon which she and Legolas had sat before the fire and the wooden bed upon which she had hit her head, and then at last she began disarming.
Methodically she set her pack down in the corner, her bow and quiver following after. For some reason she felt compelled to fold her Lórien cloak neatly and lie it reverently across her belongings, though she moved as though in a daze and indeed she hardly saw her own fingers as she carefully set aside the garment. Her boots she tugged off and dropped by the hearth, noting vaguely that they were coated in mud and in black, foul blood. With shaking fingers she unbuckled her belt, setting aside her sword and her dagger and her waterskin. By the time she was unstrapping the knife around her calf, her chest felt so hollow that she wondered what had become of her lungs and her heart and everything else that was supposed to be inside of her. She set the knife down beside her pack, staring emptily at the lovely sheath. For a moment she could not even move for all the aching nothingness she felt. She stripped off her clothes, washed and dressed in the only clean shirt and leggings she had, and then at last she turned and climbed into bed.
The room was not cold but still Sheänon tugged the blankets up to her chin, curling up on her side and staring at the smooth stone of the wall before her.
Do you wish a new master, you simpering brat? She burrowed deeper beneath the blanket, and every hour that she lay there seemed to last a small eternity. Her eyes burned with need for sleep, but she saw horrific images when she closed them: her master's face as he bore down on her, his hand raised to strike her; the burning, terrible Eye of the Enemy, wreathed in flame and exploding in her mind; herself locked in the dark room of what she was sure was Barad-dûr; the disgusting scars on her legs and back; the Uruk-hai who had tried to take her; the look in Aragorn's eyes as he had changed her bandages. Legolas, standing beside her in the grasses of Rohan, ordering her to let Aragorn tend to her wounds. No, she could not sleep. And even if she could have, she feared what dreams or visions might have come to her. But even as she feared to sleep, waking was equally unbearable. Saruman's words chased themselves in circles in her head.
Deserving of whip and flame. She had deserved it, she thought brokenly. Certainly she must have. If she had killed her mother, if Saruman the White knew so much about her, if Sauron wanted her and her half-bred blood could be used by him for some dark purpose, then certainly she had deserved it. She could tell that there must have been something very wrong with her, some bad and awful secret that she did not know but which surely existed. It was clear to her then why her sire had forsaken her. Probably he had never wanted her in the first place. Probably she had been conceived solely for Sauron's use.
Her room grew steadily darker. The light that shone through the window blushed orange with the twilight and then began to wane until she lay unmoving in the semi-darkness. Shëanon welcomed it, for it suited her solitude. She used to be locked in the dark, she observed. In the deep recesses of her mind she could remember it—a wooden chest, it must have been. She would scream and struggle and beg, but her master was unyielding as he shoved her inside and slammed the lid. She had cried and wept, frightened and alone and terrified of the close space, of being unable to see, but if she had made too much noise he flayed her back and even as a small child she had learned that the crushing blackness was not so bad as the agony of the whip. She swallowed thickly, waiting for the night.
Her stomach began growling just after dusk, but she still could not stand the thought of eating. In fact, she relished the gnawing pain of her hunger just as she grimly accepted the raw dryness of her throat and focused on the throbbing ache of her wounds. It all distracted her from all the things she feared.
She was just thinking that she was glad to have been undisturbed when someone knocked on her door. The sound was too loud, penetrating the silence of her wallowing like the first crack of thunder breaking the quiet before a storm. Shëanon did not move. She did not want to see anyone. Indeed, the way her companions had looked at her earlier in the day… They had guessed at all that she now suspected was true. She was sure of it.
"Aiër?"
Of course. Her muscles seized in trepidation at the sound of his voice. Behind her she heard the door creak open and light momentarily fell over her before the darkness returned. She could feel that Legolas stood by the bed, but she dared not turn.
"Are you well?" she heard him ask in the stillness. The words felt like daggers.
Shëanon pulled the blanket up to her ears, curling into an even smaller ball on the mattress.
"I want to be alone," she whispered miserably. She could not bear to have him there, knowing that he had heard all of what Saruman had said, that he had surely put the pieces together. He had watched her vomit in the woods, she remembered with a hot flash of mortification. And what had he said to her not two nights before? That it did not matter who her parents were? Surely he regretted that after having heard what Saruman had had to say. She squeezed her eyes closed.
"I know that you do," he murmured quietly. "But I fear that you have been left alone with your thoughts for too long already."
There was a pause during which she remained silent and Legolas did not speak. Then finally she heard him move, and to her consternation it was not in the direction she had been hoping and she felt the mattress dip behind her.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, shocked and looking over her shoulder to see that he sat on the bed by her head, his back leaning against the headboard and one elbow propped up on a knee. He met her gaze with a calmness that alarmed her, merely looking down at her with a steadfast gentleness in his eyes as though this were entirely normal behavior. Her breathing sped up. "Aragorn will be angry if he finds you in here," she bit out, turning back toward the wall again and willing him to go away.
"Aragorn will not be angry."
"He was angry last time," she whispered her retort, her fingernails cutting into her palms as she clenched her fists. Surely he recalled Aragorn's ire to find the two of them together in the night...
"Last time he was unaware of my intentions," Legolas explained without missing a beat. Shëanon felt the knots in her stomach coiling tighter every moment that he remained there with her. She would have preferred anyone else. Anyone but him. Her shame was too great and her hurt too deep; it was agony that he was there with her when he was all that she wanted, not now that she had learned such evil truths about herself. Accursed... Some machination of the enemy... and she thought herself worthy of the prince of the Woodland Realm?
"Your intentions?" she rasped, her lip trembling. She felt that there was ice in her chest and lead in her stomach.
"Yes," he answered. His body was so warm behind her...
"What intentions?"
"Right now they are to help you sleep, Shëanon," he said quietly.
Shëanon bit her lip and swallowed thickly, easing ever so slightly away from him on the mattress.
"I am not tired," she lied in a very small voice. Why could he not have just let her be?
"We both know perfectly well that you have lain awake for the past three nights," he said calmly. She felt him move behind her on the bed. "You are exhausted. Let me help you, young one."
"I am not tired," she muttered again, even while as she lay there she felt so tired she could have cried. The hollowness within her was warring with the terrible aching that his voice stirred, the awful wishing and wanting and the desperate desire that he incited within her. Surely she would not have been able to bear it to be held by him.
"If it were not for the promise I made you in Moria, you would be asleep already whether you wished it or not," Legolas said firmly, sounding a little frustrated for the first time since he had entered her chamber. It did not last but for a moment, however, and as he continued his voice was patient once more. "You have suffered an ordeal. Let your mind rest."
Body tensing, Shëanon could not keep the defensive tone from her voice as she replied.
"I have suffered no ordeal," she whispered at once, shivering.
"A few days ago you were nearly poisoned to death."
"My wounds are healing and I will recover."
Legolas was quiet for a moment.
"And what of yesterday?" he asked at last, his voice very low. The way that he spoke was awful, as though he could tell that she might have been broken by the wrong choice of words. Her already rigid body tensed further, her jaw clenching and her hands shaking.
"What of it?" she whispered darkly. She knew she sounded stubborn and disagreeable and brittle and she resented herself for it. She wanted to deny what she knew he would say, to be hard and unshakeable, but instead she felt that she betrayed her fear with every word that she spoke.
Legolas laid his hand on her shoulder—the first time he had touched her since he had come in.
"You are troubled by what he said, Shëanon," he said gently.
She felt like she could draw no breath as he probed at her thoughts.
"Please just leave," she finally begged him.
"I will not."
"Get out, Legolas," she cried, furious and panicked. He moved behind her on the mattress so that he was leaning over her, his grip tightening on her arm.
"You think I would leave you like this?" he demanded.
"Aragorn told me to rest—"
"You are not resting," he said sharply. "You are tormenting yourself."
Shëanon cringed. She wished she could move away from him, but she was already up against the wall with nowhere left to go.
"That is not your concern," she said coldly.
Even while she could not see him, she somehow knew exactly how Legolas must have looked at her then.
"Your thoughts are bent by exhaustion and fear," he said firmly after a moment, ignoring her brusque tone of voice. "If you would just let me help you—"
"I am not worth your time and I do not want your help," she snapped at him. "I want you to leave."
"Shëanon, to make you feel worthless and alone was Saruman the White's intent," Legolas said slowly. "He chose his words in cunning, knowing what effect they would have over you. You do not see how you have been deceived—"
"I have not been deceived!" she hissed. Everyone needed to stop saying that at once. "And even if I had been, how would you know? You know nothing of this matter! And for your information, I felt worthless and alone even before—"
"I know that you did, Shëanon," he barked, cutting her off. "That is why I worry."
Shëanon held her tongue, shocked. Seldom had she heard him lose his temper in such a way, and she lay frozen and trembling for a moment. Then suddenly Legolas moved, reclining behind her on the bed and taking her into his arms so that he was holding her against him. Every part of her became wary then, for never—not even in Lórien or in Helm's Deep or in the grasses of Rohan—had he held her in such a way. Then he spoke he spoke next to her ear, his fair voice raising chills all over her.
"You are not worthless," he whispered firmly, running his hand up and down her arm. "Nor are you alone. Tell me what troubles you."
Shëanon squeezed her eyes closed and said nothing.
"Aiër, every word that Saruman said to you was a lie."
"He did not lie," she protested.
"He did, Shëanon. He guessed exactly what to say to confuse your mind and cloud your judgment, and your reactions showed him that he had guessed correctly. He wanted to lay hold of you and he would have said anything to force your cooperation."
She felt closed in on all sides, a black wave of dread growing around her, waiting to crash and drown her in it. She could hardly breathe as it was; she felt that icy water filled her lungs and she panted, awash in nerves and anger and dismay.
"I refuse to discuss this," she choked out.
"Aiër—"
"I won't!" she burst, seething and yet allowing him to hold her closer still. Suddenly she felt that she would have died were he to let go of her, and indeed her panic was because she knew instinctively that she could not refuse him. She was truly afraid, for she did not wish to reveal to him those awful thoughts and memories that cut her through, but she could not help but to answer his questions and divulge her feelings to him as though against her will.
"Then what do you intend?" he asked angrily. "You will take your hurting and carry the crushing weight of it in silence? You will lie awake all night seeing your fears in every shadow, and then you will never speak of them in the light of day? For how long will you allow your past to haunt you?"
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she pressed her fist against her mouth in an effort to keep from weeping. Yes, that was exactly what she had intended to do, but to be confronted by it in such a way was too much for Shëanon to bear. The pressure within her became so pronounced that she could not move or speak lest she fall to pieces. Legolas heard her silence and must have sensed her anguish, for when he continued his voice was again tender.
"Do you think it is strength to hide all of what you feel?" he asked, finding her hand and clasping it in his own. "That it is weakness to seek help from those who care for you?"
She wanted to cry. She tried desperately not to.
"Legolas," she pleaded. "Please stop."
"Will you not confide in me?" he asked, and at those words she felt her tears wet her cheeks.
"I cannot," she whimpered. How could she have given voice to it—to speak the words aloud and wait for his judgment? "You will hate me if I tell you…"
"Shëanon," he whispered, holding her closely against his chest so that they were pressed together all the way down the length of her body. "You know the folly of those words."
"No!" she wept. "If you knew—"
"Aiër—"
"I am vile," she cried, wanting to cleave her own skin from her body and be rid of it, wanting to escape from herself.
"You are not—"
"Yes I am! If you knew what he did to me—"
Legolas fell silent. Her quiet sniffles and cries momentarily filled the room, sounding loud in the staggering silence. It was torture for her to lie there, awaiting his reaction while she felt the pillow under her cheek become damp from her crying.
Finally he spoke.
"Do you speak of your back, aiër?" he asked, the words so quiet and careful and compassionate that Shëanon's heart stopped. The resounding quiet was so absolute that she could hear her own panic pound through her veins.
"What?" she rasped, looking over her shoulder at him in horror. He met her gaze steadily, though his eyes were dark and grieving and so intense that she felt the ache of it in her own chest.
With what she could tell was deliberate calmness, he drew her closer and spoke.
"Do you speak of the scars there?" he asked quietly, his thumb moving lightly over her fingers.
In abject horror, she lay unmoving, having no idea how to answer.
"What do you know of my scars?" she asked in dread. No, she thought. Please no.
Legolas's expression was apologetic.
"I have seen them," he said lowly.
For several heartbeats, Shëanon did not move. She could barely manage even simply to breathe, her body going rigid all the way to her toes. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She knew not what to say. How? When? It was her worst nightmare. Of their own volition, her hands moved to cover her face.
"You—?"
"When we carried you into the keep to tend your wounds, you were quickly delirious with the poison. You were thrashing and fighting us, Shëanon. We feared that you would injure yourself further, and Aragorn and the healer could not work on you… I helped hold you still."
Words failed her. While before she had been crying, suddenly she could not even shed her tears. She was frozen in horror.
"Your dreams were dark," Legolas continued. "You were screaming and… crying out."
The knots in her stomach twisted tighter. She suddenly knew exactly what had happened.
"What did I say?" she demanded, feeling sick.
Legolas said nothing, and his silence was answer enough.
Shëanon's jaw clenched in revulsion. She remembered then the look in his eyes when she had awoken at Helm's Deep. She had clutched his hand to her cheek, relishing the comfort of his touch, and all the while he had been thinking of her disfigured, ugly flesh. He had seen the scars. He knew of the terrible things that had been done to her. She felt that her heart was shattered.
"That is why you were acting..." She swallowed thickly. "This is what you meant, when you said I was not ready for the conversation..."
"Forgive me, aiër," he murmured. "It is clear to me that you did not wish for me to see. I ache to know that you were forced to reveal this when you were not yet ready to share it with me."
She lay still. Her ears were ringing and she felt suddenly terribly hot.
"I do not understand," she choked finally, her voice breaking. "In the forest you said—I thought—"
Legolas pushed himself back up onto his elbow, gazing fiercely down at her face.
"I meant all that I said," he said at once, touching her cheek.
Shëanon closed her eyes, unable to withstand the intensity of his regard.
"But you were appalled," she argued. "When I woke in the keep, the look on your face—"
"The only thing that appalls me is that an innocent child should endure such torture," he swore furiously, urging her onto her back.
"I was not innocent," she said hatefully. "I deserved it."
"Because the servant of the enemy said so, you believe that is true?" he asked, his tone of voice making clear how he felt about such a thing.
Shëanon shook her head.
"No," she whispered. "I did deserve it. I was—I am—"
Her voice broke off as she remembered, vividly, her master's words. The things he had said to her. How worthless and undeserving she was—undeserving of life. How unnatural and vile. She had carried those words with her always. How could she not have, when it was all she had heard for the first five years of her life? And after hearing what Saruman had said... It all made too much sense. Sauron wanted her for something. Saruman wanted her for something. She must have been something evil.
"Shëanon," Legolas said gently. "No child deserves such cruelty."
"I killed my mother," she whimpered, tears coming again.
"Even if what Saruman said is true—"
"It is true," Shëanon cried. "Otherwise—"
Otherwise where was she? Why else would she have been left in such cruel hands? She had asked herself such questions all her life. The only plausible answers that she could come up with were that her mother did not want her, or she was dead. And Saruman had been right: she had suspected—she had feared—for some time that her mother had died because of her. To Shëanon's knowledge, all unions between elves and men in middle-earth's history had been between mortal men and immortal ellith. There had been no mortal women bearing Elvish offspring. What if Shëanon's mother had been mortal? Perhaps her body had been ill-equipped to bear an Elven child. And if, as she feared, she had been conceived under dark circumstances...
"I know it in my heart. I know that I killed her," she whispered.
"If indeed your mother died giving you life, it was not your fault, Shëanon," Legolas said quietly. "Many women die in childbirth. Do you blame the helpless babes they leave behind when the birth goes ill?"
Tears ran uninhibited across her cheeks as he spoke, and he brushed them away with his thumbs. Shëanon could not bring herself to answer.
"That is the way of the world, young one. There is grief and suffering even while there is joy. I know that it does not seem fair, but such is the will of Eru Ilúvatar, and no pain is without purpose or reason."
"That is easy for you to say," she ground out, but seeing Legolas's unwavering, solemn regard, she froze.
At once Shëanon put her hand over her mouth, pulling away from him and sitting up. How could she have said that to him when she knew that his mother had taken her own life? Horrified with herself, she bowed her head and drew her knees into her chest, her fingers knotting in her hair.
"Legolas, I... Forgive me, I should not have said that," she stammered, guilty and dismayed. "I did not mean—"
"I do not take offense."
She shook her head, infuriated with herself.
"Well, you should," she cried. "You—you—"
But the way he was looking at her stopped the words in her throat, and before she even realized what had happened, she had burst into tears and was lying curled against him, crying as she had never before allowed herself to cry.
"Goheno nin," she wept, again and again.
In silence he held her against his chest, running his hands over her hair and brushing tears from her cheeks until Shëanon found herself telling him everything she had never before told anyone—everything she had buried in her heart and carried around in her anguish. She did not want to say half of it, but once she had started she could not stop. In a rush, everything came forth. How she could remember nothing from her childhood other than the terrible beatings and the man who had so cruelly mistreated her. How Lord Elrond had taken her in because he had pitied her. The nightmares and the fear and the shame. The words of malice and the feelings of worthlessness that she could not forget no matter how hard she tried. How she could not even bear to look at her own body sometimes for the revulsion she felt. How she feared, when she'd felt the enemy in her mind, that Sauron knew of all her fears and private thoughts. Legolas said not a word, never interrupting. Her sobs came from a place so deep inside her that her entire body seized up as she wept, but he held her only more tightly.
"And Saruman knew—about my master and about—what he did to me," she sobbed. "And how could he have known if he had not been—if I had not been—if he were not involved? If he wanted me so badly and if Sauron needs to use me for something then I must be something awful! Otherwise what use could I possibly be to them? And Saruman said that I would rot in Barad-dûr and I know that he is right because I have foreseen it! And everything I have ever foreseen has come to pass! Even at Helm's Deep when we tried to change what I saw, it still happened and—and—"
She faltered. She was crying so hard—convulsing so badly—that she could hardly breathe. Pain pierced her still-tender ribs. She found herself desperately gulping for air between each sob, unable to temper the terrible rush of emotion.
"I should never have left Rivendell," she wept. "What if the Uruk-hai had taken me at Amon Hen? What if I had been taken to Isengard or Mordor and something terrible happened? It would have been all my fault. Just because I was foolish and I thought that I could help Frodo. All I have managed to do is get Gandalf killed and be a burden on everyone. And Merry and Pippin got taken and Boromir perished when I should have been able to help them, and then so many people died at Helm's Deep when I was supposed to make sure the wall didn't fall and if it weren't for you and Aragorn the Marchwarden would have died too and I went and got myself shot and—and Sauron will—Saruman said—new master—"
"Sauron the Deceiver will not touch you," Legolas hissed suddenly, apparently unable to keep his silence any longer. His fierce voice reduced her once more to weeping, and to her astonishment she felt his strong hands cupping her face and his lips on her skin, against her forehead.
"He will not lay a hand on you," he said furiously. "I will march on the Black Gate myself if I must."
To these words Shëanon found she could not respond. Her fingers clutched desperately at his shirt, his arms so tightly around her that she could scarcely move. For many long moments he allowed her to cry, the broken sounds echoing in the silence of the room while he ran his hands along her shoulder blades and back. After what felt like an hour, she finally could cry no more, her sobs diminishing until she was left sniffling and trembling, dizzy from how hard she had wept.
They were both quiet as she scrubbed her hands over her soaked face. Legolas was stroking his thumb back and forth near the nape of her neck, his heartbeat steady under her ear. His shoulder was wet from her crying.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered tremulously, humiliated by the way she had so thoroughly disgraced herself before him. She felt as though she had been turned inside out and put through a wringer, vulnerable and defenseless and raw. Then, to her consternation, Legolas drew away from her. In a fleeting instant of wild panic, she was certain that he was going to leave her, but instead he took both her hands in his and looked into her face.
"Listen to me," he murmured, his gaze so direct and fervent that she shivered. "What happened when you were a child was not your fault. The circumstances that led to your birth do not matter. It is not your fault if your mother perished. It is not your fault that you were hurt. You cannot blame yourself for what came to pass before you were born anymore than you can blame yourself for the abuse that you suffered. Do not carry that shame in the place of those who truly deserve it."
Shëanon's lip trembled.
"You have been a brave and loyal member of this company," he whispered fiercely. "You defended the hobbits in Moria and at Amon Hen. You pursued a pack of Uruk-hai on foot with broken ribs for more than forty leagues to rescue your companions. You defended the people of Edoras on the plains of Rohan and you fought valiantly during the battle of Helm's Deep."
"It doesn't matter—"
"It does matter," Legolas swore. "Do you think it did not matter to Haldir? Do you think it does not matter to me?"
Shëanon looked at him uncertainly, and Legolas it seemed could see the question in her eyes.
"Do you think I do not know how you came to be wounded?" he continued, his grip tightening upon her hands. "Do you think I do not know that you almost gave your life for mine?"
Shëanon faltered.
"I—I thought you would be angry," she stammered, for indeed she had feared his ire from the moment she'd awoken after stepping in front of the bolt.
Legolas's regard was like thunder.
"Angry," he hissed. "Anger is but a shadow of the fury that I feel just to think of it, and yet how can I condemn you, when I know that I would have done the same?"
Shëanon suddenly recoiled.
"Do the same?" she asked in disbelief. "Are you mad?"
Legolas looked at her pointedly.
"Are you?" he asked flatly.
"How can you say such a thing?" she demanded, sitting up once more in order to draw away from him. "You cannot mean that you would give your life for mine, Legolas. That is folly—"
"You are in no place to say what is folly."
Shëanon looked down at him furiously.
"You are the prince of the Woodland Realm," she seethed, her tears forgotten. "You are the captain of the guard of Mirkwood. You represent the race of the Eldar in the quest for Mount Doom. How could you say you would trade your life for mine? My life does not matter! Worse—it matters to Sauron—"
"It matters to me—"
Shëanon spoke over him. "Which is all the more reason—"
"Reason?" Legolas asked in what she could see was disbelief. "You think my heart can be swayed by reason?"
"It should be! And if not by reason, then by what Saruman said! By all that I have told you!"
He smiled sadly and reached up to brush her braid over her shoulder.
"And what of your heart, aiër? Can it be moved by reason? If it were I that Saruman had sought to capture or if I bore the scars you so dread, would your heart forsake me?"
Shëanon stared, stunned, her words caught in her throat, and Legolas beheld her with eyes that were far too knowing.
He drew her back down beside him.
"It is plain to me that the hurts of your past weigh heavily upon you, Shëanon. I would take them all from you if I could, but I cannot. No matter how badly I wish it, I cannot heal you of these wounds or free you from these fears, for it is not my care that you need, but your own. You have forsaken yourself, young one. Awartho i-dae vin hûn lín. Unburden your heart of this shadow."
In the dark of the room Shëanon scrubbed more tears from her face.
"Go then," she whimpered defensively. "If you think I do not need your caring."
Wordlessly she watched as Legolas reached for her hand and took it in his own, guiding it to his chest to rest over his heart.
"You push me away for fear that I will leave you," he said quietly. "I will not."
She shook her head, at a loss.
"Have we not spoken before of faith together?" he asked. "Never will you escape this grief, meleth nín, if you do not have faith in yourself."
To that Shëanon could say nothing, for even if the look in his eyes had not stopped her words on her tongue, the shock of what he had called her was a jolt so deep in her bones that she felt it in her very soul.
xxx
"Does it hurt?"
"No."
"Would you tell me if it did?"
"Yes."
Aragorn shook his head as he reached for the jar of salve he had set on her bedside table. Gingerly he began applying it to her cauterized wound, as gentle a healer as he was fierce a warrior.
When Shëanon had awoken, it had been midmorning, and her room had been quiet and full of sunlight. Her heart and indeed her entire body had felt tender and battered, like she was suffering from an all-encompassing bruise. Like before she'd had some hard casing, some shell or shielding armor that had been forcibly and suddenly stripped away, leaving her fragile and defenseless. Despite having finally slept, she was weary—wearier perhaps than she had ever felt, drained in her soul, and frightened of what was to come next.
Legolas was gone. She had known even before she'd opened her eyes—she could not feel him beside her anymore, neither the warmth of his body nor the touch of his fëa, and she had been both relieved and disappointed to find herself alone. After what had passed between them in the dark of night Shëanon didn't think she had the nerve to look into his face in the light of day, and she was still reeling from all that she had told him and from all that he had said to her. When she had sat up she had winced and moved to touch her sore ribs, and that was when she'd found that in her hand had been left a piece of parchment upon which, in slanting tengwar script, had been scrawled a single word in Sindarin: Rest.
While she had sat staring at the slope of Legolas's handwriting, Aragorn had knocked on the door and had come in to see to her injuries.
"You are a bad liar," he said dryly now, raising his eyebrows at her as he knelt before her on the floor, she perched at the edge of the low bed.
Shëanon said nothing and instead waited in silence while he worked, heartsick and exhausted, and Aragorn she knew could tell. She wondered if he was remembering their exchange on the way back from Isengard, when he had changed her bandages two nights before, and the words they had spoken to one another. She swallowed nervously as he set to work with new bandages, and suddenly she was afraid of Aragorn as she had never been before—afraid because of how well he knew her, and of what he might say. She suddenly realized that she must have shown plainly on her face all that had passed in the night; was it so obvious to him that she had been weeping? That she felt so lost and overwhelmed? He had certainly known exactly how she had taken the words of Saruman—he had made as much clear already.
As though sensing her thoughts he looked up at her, the same way he had that night in the plains, and she could see the concern in his eyes.
"Shea," he began quietly.
Shëanon cut him off.
"Legolas spent the night here," she blurted, and upon her bandages Aragorn's hands went still. She didn't know what had made her say it, except that she did not want him to ask her if she was alright, or to speak about Saruman, or about what he had told her after bandaging her the last time—One wound I have tended. But there are older ones that I think have never healed.
There was a drawn out moment of silence.
"Did you know that?" she pressed when he gave no answer. She watched as he frowned and set down the jar of salve.
"I had thought that maybe he had gone to you," he conceded, looking searchingly into her eyes.
Shëanon steeled herself.
"And you are not angry?
Aragorn's eyebrows shot up.
"What reason would I have to be angry?" he asked calmly.
She looked at him in disbelief.
"You were very angry to find him in here with me on the eve of our journey to Helm's Deep," she reminded him. "And now you are not troubled at all?"
Before her eyes, he grimaced and shook his head. To her astonishment, he appeared deeply uncomfortable all of a sudden, his mouth set in a hard line.
"I misunderstood the situation before, Shea," he confessed.
He began to peel away the bandages on her arm, looking away from her, his gaze critical as he examined the healing flesh there, but Shëanon's mind raced. Just what had Aragorn thought, when he had found her before the fire with his friend, that so quickly his mind had been changed?
"How did you understand it then, to warrant your anger in such a way?"
"It does not matter now."
Shëanon bit her lip.
"It matters to me."
"Shea..."
She held his gaze.
Aragorn sighed. He rested his arms upon his bent knee, his gaze into her face direct and discerning. To her surprise, he reached out and took her hand in his. Bewildered, she watched for a moment as he looked down upon it, as though deep in thought, and then he leaned forward and drew her hand closer until he had pressed her palm against him, over his sternum. It was not unlike what Legolas had done the night before and many other times besides, and she was confused as Aragorn held her with his hand still over hers.
For an instant he did not speak, still watching her, as she felt the rise and fall of his breath beneath her hand, the beat of his heart, the vitality of his body. His hand was rough—more calloused than usual, she knew, after the long battle they had survived.
Finally he spoke.
"You know my heart, do you not?" he asked calmly, still looking into her face. Shëanon looked back, uncertain.
Hesitantly she nodded.
"And do I not know yours?" he questioned at length, his voice low and serious in the quiet of the room. The way he looked at her then, she felt utterly transparent. "Do you think I do not know what your heart has come to desire?" he asked pointedly.
Gently he returned her hand to her lap.
"It has been plain to me these last months," he told her, as though with compassion.
Even though it had been she who had brought it up, Shëanon blushed and looked away from him, her whole face burning. Oh, what a fool she had been, she could see now, to think she had hid anything from him. For how long had he known? In the mines of Moria, when he had seen her asleep and leaning upon his friend's shoulder, had he known how she'd felt then? Sooner even than that? Perhaps that night in the terrible cold rain, when Legolas had breathed onto her hands in an attempt to warm them, and Shëanon had been speechless and stunned? Had Aragorn watched on, knowing what thoughts she was having about the prince of the Woodland Realm?
It seemed very likely now that he had.
"I did not think that Legolas knew of your feelings," Aragorn said quietly. "I feared you would think..."
Oh.
Abruptly Shëanon grimaced and held up her hand to stop him. She understood exactly what he had thought: he hadn't imagined that Legolas might have come to regard her in such a way, and he had worried his friend might have been unknowingly giving her false hope. The idea was startlingly humiliating, to see it all through Aragorn's eyes: she, blushing and smitten, always stammering and awkward when Legolas was near, and Legolas as composed and gallant as ever. How kind he was to her—his promise to her father, ever watching out for her. And to find them together in her room, perhaps imagining that she had asked him to come, supposing that to Legolas it was just politeness, or friendship, chivalry, or even just the care for he had for his young, untried companion, all the while supposing she might have come to think—
Aragorn had thought she would have her heart broken.
She didn't know what to say.
"It was not my place," Aragorn told her firmly. "I thought I was protecting you—I can see now that my worry was needless."
Shëanon swallowed. The realization that Aragorn had read her so easily made her wonder how obvious she had been to everyone else. Had Legolas known all along, too?
Suddenly he rested his hand upon her shoulder.
"I am glad that I was mistaken," he murmured. "There is no one else I would sooner entrust with you."
Shëanon shook her head, bewildered.
"Aragorn," she bit out. "We are not..."
By the set of his face she knew that Aragorn could tell exactly what she was thinking.
"Did you not just say that he stayed here with you last night?" he asked pointedly. "What do you think you are not?"
"You speak as though he and I are..."
He looked at her steadily.
"Why did you not tell me what happened after the battle?" she asked suddenly. Desperately. Her heart was racing. "Why did you not tell me that Legolas—that he—"
She could not finish, but her meaning was clear: she wanted to know why, when she had awoken after lying wounded, and Aragorn had knelt at her side, he had not told her that she had screamed all her past terrors for all the world to hear—that Legolas had borne such intimate witness, that he had looked upon the marks Aragorn knew still caused her such distress.
Before her he frowned—his brow creased, and Shëanon realized too late that she had steered them back into the very waters she had hoped to avoid when he had come in. But Aragorn said nothing of her scars, or of Saruman, or of what she had done at Helm's Deep. Instead he moved his hand, so that instead of resting upon her shoulder, he touched the side of her face. Shëanon looked back at him tremulously.
"Shea," he whispered. "If I had not known before what he has come to feel for you, I would have known it then."
He held her for one moment more in his gaze, his regard solemn and keen, and then he rose and laid his hand briefly upon the top of her head.
"Get some rest," he said, and gathering the salve and bandages he left her to the shock of thoughts his words had incited in her. Shëanon watched, stricken, as Aragorn closed the door behind him.
For a long moment she sat unmoving upon her bed, absorbing what he had said with the sunlight pouring in through the window, the sounds of Edoras beyond hushed. Then, as though she had planned it all along, Shëanon stood and moved to the table by the hearth, where the day before she had set her belongings. In the calm of the late morning, she dressed and pulled on her boots, buckled on sword, pack, bow and quiver, and then she let herself quietly out of her room.
In the corridor, she turned towards the back door that Legolas had led her through on their first night in Edoras, not wanting to pass through the golden hall and risk an encounter with her companions. She knew Aragorn expected her to remain in bed and would scold her for being up, and she did not want to see anyone else either. Instead she took to the winding path that lead away from the hall and down through the city, keeping her head bowed as she passed the people in the streets, until at last she reached the city gates and passed beyond into the sprawling plains of Rohan.
She went by the mounds of white simbelmynë, under which Théodred son of Théoden had been buried. She passed the place where she had beheld, for the first time astride Hasufel, behind Aragorn, the golden hall of Meduseld. Shëanon kept walking out into the tall grasses. Finally, she came upon a stream that wound towards the city, and she lowered herself to sit upon its bank. For a moment she sat in numb silence, gazing upon the running water and the way the sun shone on its surface, listening to the flow rushing over the rocks and pebbles upon the bank, the sounds of birds overhead. She was surprised to find that she was so out of breath. She had not walked far but still she was exhausted; it was clear that she had not yet recovered from the blood loss and poisoning she had suffered during the battle. Shëanon flinched then as she recalled, with startling clarity, the moment she had looked down to see the bolt embedded in her chest, how it had protruded from her body, the abject horror of it, and the searing pain that had spread like fire.
In the sunlight beside the trickling stream, she winced and laid her head in her hands, shuddering to think about it. The singular shock of the gruesome wound was one thing, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that Legolas might have been present when Aragorn and the Lórien healer had worked on her. Now she felt foolish not to have considered it. In the chaos following the battle, with the healers so overwhelmed by all the countless wounded soldiers—in her mind's eye she pictured it, as he had described: herself, delirious with the poison, screaming perhaps as she did in her nightmares—"thrashing and fighting," he had said—while he and Aragorn tried to hold her still. Had he helped them take her clothes off, recoiled at the sight of her scars? Had he listened in revulsion as she'd cried out in her delirium? And just how much else of her might he have seen?
Resting her arms on her bent knees and laying her head upon them, she tried to quell the sick feeling that clamored within her at these thoughts. She could feel her face burning, her blood rushing in her ears, and her ribs throbbed with her quickened breath as her imagination conjured the scene again and again, each time more grimly than the last. Never had she felt like this before, not before the battle of Helm's Deep, not even after their encounter with Saruman. Closest perhaps was how she had felt in the mines of Moria, but this growing, nauseous anxiety surpassed even that.
The idea of Legolas seeing her in such a state was perhaps the worst thing Shëanon could imagine. It was the most embarrassing—the most terrifying—that he should see her so exposed, gaze upon her marred flesh—that ugly lattice—
She felt that she was being crushed, that she could not breathe. Each time she drew breath it seemed more difficult, like her chest was seized. She realized suddenly that she had dreaded this moment for months—that it had lingered in the back of her mind as they had grown closer, as her feelings for him had grown and grown, that when she'd worried over being too young, or too low-born, or half-mortal—all the parts of herself she feared marked her as less, as undesirable, not good enough—one of the deepest insecurities of all had been this—what she looked like beneath her clothes.
The implications of this floored her. She shouldn't have even dreamed of him seeing—why should she have ever thought of him looking beneath her clothes? But she had, she did, think of it—painfully aware of the scarring, of what would happen if he saw, if he touched—she would want him to look and to touch, wouldn't she, what else happened when two people fell in love, when they—? The way he had caressed her before the fire upon the fur rug... that was what happened, was it not? When elves courted and wed—? Had she thought of it? Of wedding him, of—? And she, mutilated—
Shëanon wasn't breathing now so much as gasping for breath so erratically that she was dizzy.
'Valar,' she thought. 'Valar.'
Desperately, she tried to breathe more steadily. In and out. She opened her eyes to watch the glimmering stream, counting as she breathed—she needed to breathe or else she would faint.
Yes, Legolas had seen her scars. He knew that she was linked somehow to Sauron and Saruman and the ring. He knew about her childhood and all the things she felt tainted and tarnished her, but...
Shëanon scrubbed her hands over her face.
He had come to her the night before, had he not? He had held her, and kissed her forehead. He had called her 'meleth nín' having seen and heard all of it. And that night, on the way to Isengard, when they'd stood together in Fangorn forest? He had seen her scars already but still he had said—Shëanon squeezed her eyes closed.
'Are my feelings so unclear to you?' he had murmured in the moonlight.
She had trembled to hear his voice.
'Looking at you could never be a hardship to me.' All at once, she realized—he had meant—because he had seen. How had he known what she would fear, that he had sought even then to assuage it?
Suddenly Shëanon felt tears wet her cheeks, stunned to find herself sobbing. What did she have left to hide, now? He knew all of it. Orphaned, scarred, half-mortal, and he had not faltered. The blundering mess of her foresight, her encounters with Sauron and the Ring, the dark secret that rested within her blood that Saruman and Sauron sought. The possibility that she had killed her mother. That she had been unwanted and abandoned by her father. Accursed.
And still Legolas remained steadfast.
'You push me away for fear that I will leave you,' he had said. 'I will not.'
"Oh," Shëanon wept, huddled there on the grassy knoll.
He was right, she realized. By the Valar, he was right. And it was not just him, she knew in her heart. All her life, she knew it now. How she had striven with at times manic desperation to prove herself to her father, to show Lord Elrond that he had not made a mistake; all those long hours studying, practicing, training, holding herself to impossible standards, fearing always, she knew, in the deep places of her heart that she did not deserve it, his love, her family—that she would ultimately disappoint him and find it all taken away. How she had worried he did not love her the same as Arwen and Elladan and Elrohir. Even just a few days before, had she not said as much to Legolas? Had she not questioned her father's decision to send Arwen to the safety of Valinor while at the same time allowing her to set forth on a quest that would lead her into the peril of Mordor?
'Why is that, I wonder?' she had said, and Legolas had shaken her.
'Your father loves you. It is your grief that mars your vision now.'
Shëanon sobbed and drew her legs closer, drawing into an even tighter ball.
'You are not my father!' she had shouted at him all that long time ago in Rivendell, and she knew why. It was what she had feared was the truth, what she feared was in his heart.
Perhaps even, at the council, when she had been so young—she felt she had lived a hundred years since then—perhaps, on that fateful day, as she'd stood and joined the Fellowship, this had been a small part of why: if she could protect Frodo and help destroy the One Ring, then maybe, at last, she would be worthy of her family. Worthy of being counted among Arwen and Elladan and Elrohir, of being called daughter by the Lord of Imladris, by the bearer of Vilya.
Shëanon dug her fingers into her hair.
For how many years had she felt like an outsider, an imposter? Comparing herself to her sister and brothers. Oh, how she remembered her dread on the day she and Legolas had met, her self-consciousness standing before Mirkwood's envoys, introduced as Elrond's daughter, fearing that all would see it a glaring falsehood. She remembered refusing to go with her brothers to Lothlórien for fear of meeting their grandparents, how she had been paralyzed with anxiety to stand before Celeborn and Galadriel at last as a member of the company, afraid that they might not accept her.
How she had feared Gandalf's gaze all through their journey, that he might have been seeing in her some failure, that she might have let him down.
How she had found herself always lacking.
How, again and again and again, she had shut Legolas out, refusing to confide in him and holding him at arm's length no matter how many times he proved to her that she could trust him. She had looked upon her growing feelings for him in horror, telling herself from the start that she was not good enough for him, that he would surely never desire her in return, that she was preposterous to entertain the thought even in fantasy, and that if he did, it was only because he didn't know the truth about her, and that once he knew...
'You are ruled by your emotions,' Aragorn had once said, but he was wrong. She was ruled by her fear. The fear of abandonment. The fear of not being good enough. Inadequacy. Rejection.
And for what?
'Have I not loved you as I love my own children?' she heard her father's voice. 'My blood may not run through your veins, but you are my child nonetheless, and you have grown to be all that I could have hoped for.'
Shëanon wept, shaking her head.
'How did you come to have such a low opinion of yourself?' Legolas had asked her upon the fur rug. 'I find it hard to believe that anyone in Imladris would have instilled in you such a feeling of worthlessness.'
Worthlessness. She drew in a sobbing breath.
'For your information, I felt worthless and alone even before—' she had snapped at him in the night.
'I know that you did, Shëanon. That is why I worry.'
Shëanon's heartache was so powerful that she felt it in her bones. She had let the trauma of her past stain her entire life, festering inside her, the voice of her master whispering ever in her ear, just as Gríma Wormtongue had whispered into the ear of Théoden. And as the king was thrall to the White Wizard so too had she lived, confined, imprisoned by her fear, hating herself, never allowing herself to fully accept the love of those who cared for her, terrified that the moment she did, she would be hurt again and find that all those terrible things he had said to her were true.
'You deceive yourself if you think I do not know what fears are in your heart—what doubts you have harbored all your life.'
She squeezed closed her eyes, trembling.
'A wretched, pestilent curse you were born—unwanted and ill-conceived, a squalling brat deserving of whip and fire.'
'What happened when you were a child was not your fault. Do not carry that shame in the place of those who truly deserve it.'
'Disobedient brat! I'll show you to defy me! I'll show you pain! You know nothing of it!'
'You have forsaken yourself, young one. Awartho i-dae vin hûn lín. Unburden your heart of this shadow.'
Sharp pain pierced her cracked ribs as she was wracked by her tears. Futilely she attempted to dry her eyes.
"It was not my fault," she choked, her voice barely audible. As she spoke the force of her tears was renewed, an outpouring of such tremendous grief, of hurting so long-held.
"It was not my fault," she wept, again and again, desperate to believe it. "I didn't deserve it. It wasn't my fault."
'Your father has faith in you, as do Galadriel and Gandalf and Aragorn, otherwise you would not be here.'
'Their faith is misplaced.'
'Do you truly believe that?'
Shëanon hugged herself, rocking back and forth.
'Never will you escape this grief, meleth nín, if you do not have faith in yourself.'
Faith in herself?
'I am no one,' she had told him that night in Edoras.
Furiously Shëanon lifted her head. She uncurled her clenched fist, turning her palm up, cradled in her lap. Gasping for breath, she gazed down at her hand, and at the scar that was slashed across her skin. A tear rolled off her face and landed upon it.
'I journeyed all the way from Imladris,' she told herself desperately. 'I battled through the mines of Moria. I defended the hobbits.' She grit her teeth, squeezed closed her eyes.
'I did not turn away from my promise to Frodo when I had the chance to remain in Lothlórien.'
'I withstood the fire of Sauron within my mind.'
'I was never tempted by the One Ring,' she thought fiercely.
Shëanon laid her hand upon her ribs.
'I ran across Middle-Earth to save Merry and Pippin.'
She touched the still-tender slice across her cheek.
'I stayed to fight at Helm's Deep instead of fleeing as Legolas commanded. I foresaw the battle plan of the enemy and warned Théoden. I fought for the people of Rohan. I stayed to defend the Marchwarden even overrun by the Uruk-hai.'
Sobbing, she reached beneath her shirt to touch the wound upon her chest.
'I stepped in front of a poisoned bolt to save the life of someone I love.'
Shëanon opened her eyes and lifted her face toward the sun.
'I have been terrified from the moment I left Rivendell, but still I have kept going. I have watched my companions die, I have almost died myself, and still I have stayed true to my purpose. I have faced my worst fears and have become stronger for it. I have never forsaken my companions. I have never betrayed who I am or what I believe.'
Her tears rolled down her cheeks as she reached behind herself, and sought under her clothes with her fingertips for the grooves that ran diagonals across her back.
'I did all of this,' she thought, 'despite these.'
'I feared Moria and survived it. I feared Helm's Deep and survived it. I fear my past, but I survived it, too.'
'For how long will you allow your past to haunt you?'
No more. She knew it now. Many trials lay still before her; somehow Shëanon was certain, and though she knew not what they would be, she knew she could not endure them if she did not cast aside the fear in her heart.
'I am not no one.'
When finally she stopped crying, wiping at last the tears upon her face, the sun was westering in the sky, and the grasses of Rohan were swayed by a clean wind from the west. Shëanon sat sniffling, biting her lip, feeling raw.
Then she reached for her pack.
From within she drew it—the gift of Galadriel. The tiny crystal vial glittered in the afternoon, the water within shining. Shëanon ran her thumb over the stopper, glancing back at the stream.
Bathing in the water would heal wounds of the spirit, Galadriel had told her upon their departure from Lothlórien. Shëanon bit her lip. If she were to undress here, to submerge herself in the bubbling stream and bathe herself in the contents of the vial, would the grief of her youth be washed away? Would she emerge new, free forever of the shame and self-hatred? Would she go to Legolas whole and unhindered, cleansed? Shëanon pictured the age melting from Théoden's face when Gandalf had lifted Saruman's spell. Would she be so transformed, to shed the hurts that had bound her, clear at last, as though unveiled? A Shëanon who did not shy away from her own life like a frightened deer? The elleth she might have been without her master?
She turned the vial over and over in her hand. The etched faces of the glass cast prisms upon her skin.
'There is danger in your future, Shëanon," Galadriel had told her. 'You will endure much before the fate of this world is decided.'
Would she at last know peace in herself?
'Use it wisely.'
Shëanon drew in a deep breath.
As the day began to wane, she rose to her feet, her face stiff with the salt of her dried tears, and tucked the vial of healing water back into her pack.
With one last long look at the shining stream and golden plains before her, she turned and headed back toward the city gate.
Translations:
Goheno nin: Forgive me
Meleth nín: My beloved
A/N: Hello, my wonderful readers. I would first like to say that I hope you are all safe and well during these scary and uncertain times. I also want to thank-from the bottom of my heart-everyone who left a review, sent a private message, followed, or favorited over the last five years. I cannot say how very much it has meant to me.
Since my last update, a lot has happened in my life that got in the way of this story. My father's health fell into rapid decline, I suffered a lot with anxiety and depression, and I ended up in an abusive relationship. During that time while I was struggling with my mental health, it was very hard to write this story. I have always felt that Lord of the Rings is about hope and love-things I felt particularly isolated from at that time. Despite knowing what was to happen next, I could no longer connect with these characters, but I never forgot about this story or about Shëanon. I felt extremely guilty to abandon her and this work that I poured so much of my heart and soul into. Over the past year, I have done a lot of healing. I think it is clear that while this chapter is very heavy and emotional and at places dark, it is also the moment when Shea finally begins her own healing, and I think that is why I have finally been able to come back to her and her journey. For many chapters I wrote in my author's notes that she had a lot of growth and development still to come, and this moment of finding her self-worth is I think the most important moment of her story so far, and I hope I have done it justice.
Much of the rest of the story is already written, and I have been frantically writing for weeks in an effort to finish it. I had originally intended to wait to update until it was all 100% done, but due to the current pandemic, I have changed my mind. The state of the world at present has reminded me that life is short and precious, and that we all need to live every day as though it were our last. I think we also need faith now more than ever, which is ultimately what this story is about-both Tolkien's incredible tale that I very humbly borrow, and Shëanon's story as well. I hope in these uncertain times that the new chapters might bring even one person something of worth-hope, happiness, something to look forward to, or even just a distraction from the scary reality we live in right now.
I hope to post the next chapter soon. Much love, xoxo Erin