Immortalitui // Faramir 🥀

Chapter Seventeen - Rivendell

Word Count: 2,327 words. 

Warnings: None. 

"You say it was a Morgul blade?" Elrond asked, running a gentle hand along the skin around his sisters wound.

She held the side of her shirt up, wincing in pain as her brother got too close to the pain. "It was a Wraith, and they are the blades they carry, are they not?" she explained.

Elrond leaned away from Arathiel, worry blossoming across his features as he settled into the chair. She let her shirt fall back across the wound, moving from her seated position and walking away to face the falls of home.

After reuniting at the entrance to Rivendell, the siblings had quickly found a quiet spot to talk. The she-elf had a home when she was there, a small place at the furthest point of the haven. No one would disturb them there.

"If you were pierced by a Morgul blade, I would have been able to heal it," he explained, only confirming what Arathiel already knew. "Have you spoken to Mithrandir about it?"

Arathiel nodded, back still to her brother. "He was there when I was stabbed. A force of orcs had invaded a town near Minas Tirith, they threatened to move past the gap, they still do. I trained their soldiers, attempted to prepare them for orcs, none of them had fought those monsters before, but they didn't stand a chance. We drove them back but... we lost more than we killed."

Elrond rest a hand on his face, finger running along the underneath of his bottom lip. "What were the Nazgul doing fighting a battle that small?"

Taking a deep breath, Arathiel leaned her head against the strong column at her side. The half-elf closed her eyes for a moment, trying what she could to let the light of the sun run through her.

"I believe that they were looking for me. That they knew I was there," she began, now turning her gaze to look at her brother. "He speaks to me Elrond. Through the darkness inside me, he speaks."

The worry that Elrond had for his sister only grew as he rose from his chair. "You cast him out thousands of years ago."

She only nodded. "And yet his power still calls to me. You do not know what it felt like. The darkness. With it, I could do anything I desired. It is not so easily quenched."

Elrond approached her side, hands behind his back as he looked upon his home. It was a place that no longer felt like that. Like home. This place was only as strong as his family and he was slowly losing that.

"He wishes for you back in his army," Elrond added and Arathiel nodded again, wrapping her arms around herself.

"I must follow the Ring," she admitted. "I do not know who will take it to Mordor, but it must be destroyed. Without it, Sauron will die, and his forces will die with him. I will carry it myself if I must."

"All those touched by his darkness will be killed once that Ring is destroyed," he explained, believing that his sister did not completely understand her own words. The tired expression she gave him told him that she knew exactly what she meant.

"We have a chance to end his evil," she argued softly, tears pricking at her eyes. "Do no deny me that chance."

Elrond shook his head. "I will not lose you."

"And so you would let Middle-Earth suffer under his hand?" she posed.

Her brother's eyes met hers, saddened. "Do not make me choose between my family and this land."

Turning away, Arathiel spotted the main entrance to Rivendell. "Do you remember the last time I visited?"

Elrond followed her gaze, knowing where she was going. "You arrived with dwarves and hobbits at your back."