Remember How I Love You (Sequel to 'Through Fire and Water')

Predator and Prey

Ana’s P.O.V.

I storm through the trees with absolutely no idea where I’m going, no plan, I just want to get away. The very best of my coarse language comes out as I spit out every curse I know. After a while I’ve run out of swears in the languages I’m fluent in and resort to tongues I don’t even speak, having just picked up a few words during my travels. I find myself relying on dwarfish a lot, since I travelled with Gimli for a long time and dwarfish is a rather unrefined language, the people even more so. It isn’t difficult to pick up a few cusses since that is the majority of what they say.

Not satisfied with bad language, I swipe out at various things that I pass. At one point I acquire a rather large stick which I use to attack the surrounding greenery until I beat up a tree which might well be older than Legolas and snap the branch without even denting the old tree’s bark.

After that I kick the tree several times before setting off running, deciding to sprint my anger off. But the thing about anger is it can dissipate faster than anyone would ever admit and I really haven’t gone far before I’m not angry anymore, just upset. But just because I’m not angry doesn’t mean I’m ready to go back, I still need a little time to myself. Legolas and I rarely fight but when we do it shakes us both up completely. We can get really vicious and we can yell for hours and this fight was no different. It started out small, just an offhand comment from me which accidently struck a nerve, but neither of us will back down easily and that one comment became a back and forth exchange of vicious replies. When we finally took ourselves into our bedroom because it was getting too heated and we didn’t want the kids to see us like that, we were ready to explode, and boy did we explode. Thank goodness Nemir was here because I hate to think what would have happened to the kids if she hadn’t been able to scoop them up and take them away from us, out of the firing line.

I walk for hours, just wandering and thinking. I’m going to have to go home at some point. But the danger is that if I see Legolas one of us will start the whole thing up again. But I want my children, I want to pull them to me and hold them tight, telling them I love them and telling them I’m sorry. My children mean the world to me, I don’t know what I’d do without them. And suddenly the realisation of what I’ve done comes crashing down on me. All children hate it when their parents fight and poor Thalion’s only 2 years old. And Estel’s only 6. I terrified my children and then disappeared for hours without an explanation. Their dad’s with them but he can only keep them calm for so long. And it’s getting dark now. Thalion should have been in bed an hour ago but Legolas probably let him stay up a little longer in the hope that I came home.

I am a terrible person, a terrible mother. I turn around and start to run back the way came, hoping it’s the way home. It only takes about a minute to realise what a stupid plan that is. Dad taught me how to find my way in the wilderness so I stop and try to regain my bearings and work out a route back home.

I’ve just about got to grips with which way to go when I sense something behind me, feeling a pair of eyes boring into my back. Spinning round I see the bushes behind me rustling. And then there’s a growl, a sound that is so familiar it makes me sick. I still wake with that sound spinning round and round in my head, trying not to scream so the children stay asleep but shaking and terrified. That sound can only have come from a warg. And then I see it, crawling through the undergrowth, huge yellow eyes fixed on me. My hand instinctively moves to where my knife belt should be, only I don’t have it. I don’t have any of my weapons, no sword, no bow, not even a tiny dagger concealed in my boot to protect myself with. I back away, muttering in elvish to try and calm the beast but I can see its ribs poking out, there is hardly any flesh on its bones. This animal clearly hasn’t eaten in a while, and it’s finally found some prey. Some completely unprepared, defenseless prey. Me.

I keep up my whispering as I back away and then, without warning, I turn and run as fast as my legs will carry me. With a growl the warg launches after me. I sprint for maybe 50 meters, the warg quickly gaining, before the ground starts to slope abruptly downwards. I can see that the slope in front of me is covered in sludgy, slippery mud and, dressed in my simple slip on shoes as I am, I don’t stand a chance of having any grip on that ground. But with the warg practically on top of me I don’t have time to search for alternatives, so I launch myself forwards, not so much running but sliding downwards. In moments I’m covered in mud which has splashed up from the swampy ground to coat me, but I don’t have time to care. The trees around me seem to thin a little and peering ahead I can see the sort of terrain I will face next on this frantic run. Only I can’t see any terrain. The ground just stops. By the time I’ve sighted the other side of the ravine and worked out I don’t stand a chance of jumping, it’s too late. With this slippery ground I won’t be able to slow down fast enough to turn and run alongside the chasm, I’d just fly straight into the abyss. In the few seconds before I fly over the edge I have to formulate a plan, and the only one I can come up with presents itself in the form of a fairly spindly looking tree precariously positioned on the very edge. I stretch out my hand, grabbing a branch and using my momentum to swing myself up into the tree and climb as high as I dare. The warg sees me climb and stops itself running by slamming straight into the trunk of my frail sapling. The entire tree shudders under the impact and groans with the effort of holding me up. The warg slams itself into the tree again and again and then starts digging frantically at the roots. I can feel the tree start to slowly tip towards the ravine and I am held out very unsteadily over the long crevice, the dry and dusty ground a long way below me. I turn to inspect my predator’s progress, just in time to watch him summon all of his strength for another killing stroke. He clearly doesn’t know that if he knocks this tree over then his hard won prey goes flying over the edge and out of his reach. I brace myself as his body slams against the trunk of my feeble refuge. There is a horrifying splintering sound as the roots begin to snap. I realise that if I stay here a moment longer then this tree is going down and me with it. I scramble, leaping from branch to branch to branch in a desperate attempt to get back onto the ground. But my palms are sweaty and I’m trembling from the physical exhaustion I feel after my sprint. I jump down onto a branch. The wet mud all over my shoes makes me slip and I have to grab on with my clammy palms, slipping into an awkward position. I scramble with my feet, seeing the warg back up for what must by now be the final attack, but they just slide out beneath me, my left foot flying off the branch and into the air and my right sliding between 2 branches, the force of my entire bodyweight behind it as my hands lose their grip again. The gap between the 2 branches is only small but the combination of the force behind my foot and the lubricating mud is just enough that my ankle goes flying between them, firmly lodging.

I can’t escape now. Time slows down as I look up to see the yellow-brown form of the warg slamming into the trunk again. Out of sheer panic I curl up into a ball, wrapping my entire body around the thick branch I was trying to land on. There is a snapping, splintering sound which is followed by a sensation of floating. A sick feeling hits my stomach and I cling to my branch even harder, scrunching up my eyes and letting out a brief whimper. Then the floating sensation stops, replaced by falling. The warg is carried forwards by its own momentum and it follows me and my tree as we plummet towards the ground.