Living with Death

Chapter 7

Elen woke with a thunderous roar, she sat up straight in her bed and waited silently for another roar. I clashed through her window and she gave a small scream, quickly running towards it she peered out, standing on her tip toes. She saw Lake-town on fire, the columns of smoke ascending to the sky as Smaug tore through the city with ease. As she watched, she began to get rapid visions, people dying here and there, either fire burning them up or wood collapsing onto them. The visions came fast and powerful, she tried to control them but there was too many. She collapsed on the floor, seizuring as her mother and father burst in the room, kneeling next to her and trying to calm her down. When she still wouldn’t stop Randur ran out of the house, sprinting for the healers. Randur still tried to hold her down from her thrashing, and quickly the healers showed up. Randur let the healers take over and rushed to his wife. The healers go out medicine and knives, the younger ladies held Elen down as the older ones gripped her jaw and pride her mouth open, showing some type of herb in her mouth and slamming her mouth shut; the women then held her hand over the mouth and blew on Elen’s nose. Elen jolted back, swallowing the herb and quickly going limp, the healers let go of her and stood. The parents approached the eldest one, she breathed heavily and looked wearily at the two.

“She had a seizure, I don’t know what caused it, but I want her in the healing ward for a couple of days just to be sure.” The two sighed, but nodded and Randur lifted his daughter to carry her with the healers.

“Randur...” Satariel trailed off, walking towards the window where she saw Lake-town being burned. Randur walked to his wife, looking out the window he whispered.

“Esgaroth is burning, people are dying.” he looked down at his daughter, an idea coming, “she must have been seeing their death.”

Satariel whipped her head toward her husband, eyes dark, “She had to see the person in order to get the visions.”
“Maybe the number of deaths was just too much... I mean if the prophecy is true-”

“It’s not true!” Satariel hissed, “she is not death, there is no such thing!” Randur stopped talking, staring at his love with betrayed eyes. He turned away from her, following the healers out of his home. Randur stayed with Elen as the healers examined her again, listening to her breathing and heartbeat. Satariel came in later, unable to look Randur in the eye.

“Did you go tell king Thranduil of this?” Randur asked, his brown eyes forgiving to her for her outburst.

“No.” Was all she said, not moving from her position.”

Randur blinked, confused from her actions, “why?”

Satariel chuckled, going to a chair and collapsing in it, “What will he do? He’s done nothing to help us, only saying something that isn’t true and keeping track on where Elrond is, which is not here.” Randur didn’t know what to say about this, he only looked at Elen, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. I should tell the king, he debated, he needs to know, he cares for Elen almost as much as us.

He looked up at Satariel again, who was petting Elen’s hand and told, “I’m going to tell king Thranduil. He  has a right to know, him caring for Elen too.”

Satariel shot her head up, eyes blazing with fury, “He doesn’t care for Elen! He only cares about keeping his kingdom in order, if Elen were to be cured or killed, he wouldn’t care!” Randur again didn’t know what to say, but he stood, turning to the door and walking towards. He placed his hand on the door when Elen lunged forward, gripping his arm and spinning him to see her fury, “He doesn’t deserve to know! For all we know he’ll stick a sword through her skull because he’s tired of dealing with us! I see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice! Don’t let him take our little girl away from us.” Her eyes softened, getting watery as she spoke and was soon sobbing onto Randur’s shoulder, but he let her stay. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close and tried to reason with her.