To Live Again: The Road to War {Lord of the Rings Fanfiction}|

14. Níos mó ná mo Bheatha Féin

Coldness... I just feel... cold. The world around me has slowed down so that every movement seems exaggerated, every voice too loud and out of place. I was moved this way and that, someone cleaned me, attended to me - though I don't know who? The bed was remade and I was relocated to another bed to rest...Oropher's? I know I haven't left my home, and I know there is a female healer close to me, testing my temperature and checking me over every few minutes. I know her face as she smiles at me with pity, holding a warm flannel to my face and neck. She whispers things, but I don't listen, I just stare glassily at the ceiling above me.

"Oh no! Oh, Clara!"

Another female voice, one that makes me respond, my eyes slowly sliding their gaze to the doorway. Gilron?

"I am sorry, if you are not family you cannot enter, the Princess is doing very poorly," the other elleth briskly reprimands a shocked and paled Gilron.

"I am her family...or as close as she will have!" Gilron snaps back and pushes her way towards me, ignoring the grumblings of the healer. She reaches my side and drops there, clutching my hand in hers and visibly weeping. Her silver hair loose and cascading down her back in shimmering waves, she is wearing only her nightdress and a dusty lilac robe... she must be half frozen. Someone must have roused her from her bed?

"Oh Clara," she sobs softly and runs a cold hand through my hair, "Can you hear me child? Are you well?"

"It is useless. She has not responded, we have tried to revive her, but...I fear her heart knows the truth," the healer murmurs and presses two fingers to the inside of my wrist again.

"What truth?" Gilron cries, her eyes filled with a sudden anxiety which makes me return my gaze to the ceiling again. "What do you know?"

"The infant is too young, too small, I would not imagine that it will survive long," the elleth says and takes a deep breath. "We should all prepare for the worst."

"You do not know of what child you speak," Gilron suddenly answers back fiercely and my head jerks to the sound of certainty in her voice. "The parents of this child have survived great feats, far greater than even you and I could dare to comprehend. Her Father survived war and flame, her Mother overcame death and is blessed with the gift of life. This infant will live, where is your hope?"

There is silence for a long minute and then the healer mutters an apology and returns to the far side of the room. Gilron remains by my side and quietly brushes my hair away from my face and smiles encouragingly at me now, as my eyes remain locked with hers.

"I know you are not fading Clara, I know you are just weakened," she tells me through a teary smile, and I find myself giving her a very weak one in return. She starts to weep again but with a relieved look, as she brushes her tears away with the back of her hands. "You will start to feel better soon, I promise."

I nod once in agreement and give into the exhaustion mingled with the comforting sensation of Gilron smoothing my hair and quietly humming to me. I focus on this, the gentle quietness, so full of hope. It soothes me. I can actively think around the coldness now, as Gilron's presence seems to chase its bitterness away. I can remember the image of Thranduil cradling something small and delicate in his arms, the stained towel it was wrapped in. If I let my mind really focus, I can make out the shape of the tiniest and most beautifully formed little hand, pressed against the skin of his chest, leaving an imprint. My imagination runs riot as I use these little pieces of knowledge to try and piece together in my mind's eye what my daughter looks like, but no one idea fits and I only begin to yearn for her. An instinctual need so strong, that it completely unsettles me, and I quickly realize that I will not be settled until I can hold her, until I can be with her and she with me.