The Edge of Night

What the Mirror Showed

The advancing army was almost at the wall before Aragorn cries out his next order. "Tangado a chadad!" (Prepare to fire!) Elfwyn watches as the elves around her take out their bows, nocking an arrow and drawing back the string, waiting for the command to fire.

Sending up a final prayer, Elfwyn waits with bated breath while Aragorn shouts out the order to fire. "Hado i philinn!" (Release arrows!). While many Uruks went down, it was not nearly enough to put even a dent in their forces. Rohan follows with a volley of arrows but once more, it is not enough.

She has just enough time to duck as Haldir pushes her out of the way when the Uruks start firing crossbows into the causeways where they stood. "Pendraith!" (Ladders) Aragorn yells and she can hear Gimli's yells of excitement.

Unsheathing her sword, she readies her stance as the ladders raise into view, and those upon them begin to drop down from the sky. Before they can even set foot on the causeway, Elfwyn slices through two of them, taking some joy in the gurgles of their screams as the life fades from them. "Do not leave my side." She yells to Haldir who has just a brief moment to nod before continuing the fight.

The night gets eerily quiet as a lone soldier runs into the drain pipe and a loud boom echoes throughout the quarry as pieces of wall and Elves and Men rain down on the troops in the valley. The vibrations of the blast cause Elfwyn to fall to the ground and the ringing in her ears confuses her even more.

A hand enters her vision and she's vaguely aware of Haldir pulling her to her feet. "Meleth Nin, are you alright? Were you hurt?" (My love).

"I am well." Elfwyn states although neither she nor Haldir is fully convinced. She looks out over the field in just enough time to see the encroaching forces walking up the gangway to the entrance of the fortress. "The Gate!" she yells and over the din of the fighting, her father hears her.

"Brace the gate!" he yells as the battering ram slams into it, causing the doors to creak under the pressure and the men to scream out as they try to do all they can to keep it closed and in one piece. "Hold them! Stand firm!"

The ringing in her ears has subsided and the fighting around her continues as she does her best to stay beside Haldir, her eyes never straying too far from his fighting form. They are quickly getting over taken when an order yelled from the ramparts rings through. "Aragorn! Fall back to the Keep! Get your men out of there!"

Rushing wind courses through her ears as the beginnings of what the Mirror showed her start to unfold. "Haldir!" Aragorn shouts. "Nan barad!" (Haldir! To the Keep!) As Haldir gives the same order to the Elves on the causeway and runs his sword through an Uruk advancing on them, he misses the one to his side, gasping in pain as it runs its sword across his side.

"No!" Elfwyn yells out, pushing through the crowd and placing herself behind him, just as she did in her vision, catching a sword across her front. And so it came to pass, exactly as she had foreseen. She feels herself being lifted from the ground and muffled voices around her before she is placed back on the hard ground and Haldir, her father, and Legolas all came into view. "I am sorry." She struggles to get out.

"You were not supposed to do this my love."

"I could not let you die, not like this." She whispers to him before turning to Legolas. "Do not let him die, Legolas Greenleaf."

"You have not given me much of a choice." He says bitterly.

"That may be so. But I'm entrusting this task to you." She turns her eyes to her father's. "This was my choice. It has been made for weeks now. I'm sorry I'm leaving you like this."

Theoden cannot find his voice, cannot bring himself to speak the words they both know she needs to hear, before it is too late and she breathes one last breath before her eyes turn to the ceiling, unseeing, and her hands grow cold, dead.