Sword and Arrow

Chapter 22

Night had fallen over the land of Lothlórien once more and the Fellowship prepared to sleep in a comfortable bed for the first time in what seemed like years. They all wore the new, clean clothes provided by the Galadhrim (the dirty clothes that Beruthiel and Legolas had washed hung from a clothesline that she had somehow procured), even Beruthiel, who had been peer-pressured into wearing the rather revealing dress by Legolas and Aragorn.

Legolas turned up to the trees. No starlight pierced the dense foliage, but the blue elf-lights that glittered high in the branches were a fair approximation of the stars' glory. "A lament for Gandalf," he said, tilting his head to the side as he quickly translated the words.

"What do they say about him?" Merry asked, also looking up to where the haunting melody came.

A shadow of grief flickered across Legolas's face as he shook his head, looking down. "I have not the heart to tell you," he whispered. "For me, the grief is still too near."

Beruthiel understood. She had never known Gandalf very well — in fact, she had never even met him until the fateful Council — but she felt that every sentence that mentioned him was picking open the scab that she had painstakingly formed over the fresh wound.

"I bet they don't mention his fireworks," Sam said, crouching down beside Merry to unroll his bedroll. He stood up and started speaking in a faltering voice, accompanied by the rhythmic grating of Aragorn's whetstone against his blade. "The finest rockets ever seen, they burst in stars of blue and green... or after thunder, silver showers... come falling like a... rain of flowers."

Beruthiel swatted at Gimli's head, eliciting a grunt from the dwarf. He had long since dropped off to sleep and was now snoring very loudly.

Sam sat down again, sighing. "Oh, that doesn't do them justice by a long road."

"You're sleeping here?" Legolas asked Beruthiel. "I would've thought that you were tired of us menfolk by now."

Beruthiel nodded, spreading out her bedroll beside Legolas's. "I should be. But I've gotten used to you sleeping with your head on my feet."

Legolas grinned sheepishly. "Sorry." And as Beruthiel laid down and promptly fell asleep, he laid down a distance from her and closed his eyes with his head on his legs. But that was okay, considering the fact that the hobbits quite literally slept in a pile.

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Beruthiel was dying. She died on a field of grass before the walls of a white city. The grass was stained with blood, the blood of orc and Gondorian and Haradrim.

"No. No, no, no, no, no." The man leaning over her, clothing her hand to his chest and pressing his other hand against the gaping wound in her stomach was Aragorn, but he looked different. Less like a Ranger and more like a king. "Don't you dare leave me, Ruth, don't you dare." His voice cracked.

Beruthiel drew a shuddering breath, her chest rising and falling. "Aragorn," she gasped. "Aragorn."

"Yes. Yes, I'm here." A tear dropped from his cheek and fell to her chest. The battle raged on around them, but they stayed there, unbothered, the eye of the hurricane raging about them. Aragorn threw his head back and called for ansurgeionz but none came. "I'm so sorry, darling, I'm so sorry," he frantically said. He pushed his hand against her wound while tearing a long strip of cloth from his jacket. Dim sunlight glinted off something silver in Beruthiel's failing vision — her right eye had been pierced and blood trickled into her left. Was that a crown on his head?