The Silver Flame (LOTR)

The White Wizard

As the Riders of Rohan galloped away, their cloaks fluttering in the wind like banners, Visenya's gaze lingered on Éomer, his words still echoing in her mind. His sharp parting remark about the world growing dark left her unsettled. The Fellowship had been reunited for only a short time, but already, the shadows of war stretched far and wide across Middle-earth. The weight of it all bore heavily on her, but there was no time to dwell. The rest of the journey was ahead, and the missing hobbits loomed large in her thoughts.

As the riders disappeared over the horizon, Visenya, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli turned their attention back to the grim task at hand: the smoking pile of charred remains that Éomer had pointed to earlier. The smell of burnt flesh and wood filled the air, and Visenya's stomach churned at the sight of the destruction left in the wake of the Uruk-hai. She had seen much carnage in her time, but the sight of that pile brought a fresh sense of dread. Somewhere in there, her friends might be lying, lost to them forever.

Gimli was the first to move, his stout legs carrying him to the smoking heap as he began shifting through the ashes. His brow was furrowed in concentration, but Visenya could see the tightness in his jaw, the barely contained grief. Legolas stood back, his face solemn, eyes closed in a silent elven prayer.

"It's one of their wee belts," Gimli muttered, holding up a charred remnant of a belt. His voice, usually so filled with vigor, was hollow. The sight of the belt brought a sickening reality crashing down on them.

Visenya closed her eyes, gripping the hilt of her sword tighter. She had fought with everything she had to protect the hobbits during the attack, but when the chaos of battle swallowed them all, she had been torn away from them. The last she saw of Merry and Pippin, they had been scrambling through the grass, trying to evade the brutal Uruk-hai. And now... this.

"Hiro 'thî ab 'wanath," Legolas murmured, his voice soft with reverence. The Sindarin words fell like a dirge over the group, a prayer for the dead. Visenya couldn't bring herself to speak. Her throat felt tight, and the usual fire in her heart was smothered by despair.

Aragorn, however, was not yet defeated. He had been pacing around the smoldering remains, scanning the ground, his keen ranger instincts flaring to life. As Gimli mourned over the belt, Aragorn's gaze locked onto something in the dirt.

"A hobbit lay here," he said suddenly, his voice cutting through the heavy silence. Visenya's eyes snapped open, her pulse quickening as she stepped closer to him. "And the other. They crawled."

Visenya's breath caught in her throat as Aragorn traced the faint impressions in the earth, almost as if he could see the scene unfolding before him. The marks in the ground, the flattened grass—they told the story of the hobbits' escape, a desperate struggle to flee.

"They crawled," Aragorn repeated, his voice full of realization. He moved swiftly, his eyes darting over the ground as if following the invisible footprints of their small companions. "Their hands were bound... but their bonds were cut."

Hope stirred within Visenya as she watched Aragorn pick up a broken length of rope. Her mind raced. Could it be? Could Merry and Pippin have truly escaped? She wanted to believe it, needed to believe it. The fire of determination, temporarily extinguished, flared back to life inside her chest.

"They ran over here," Aragorn continued, his voice gaining strength as he followed the tracks through the grass, "and they were followed."

Visenya's hand instinctively moved to her sword. If the hobbits were being pursued, they were still in danger. A fierce protectiveness surged through her—she had vowed to herself she would not let the hobbits fall into harm's way, not if she could help it.