To Live Again: In her Hands {Lord of the Rings / Thranduil fanfic}

13. Fear Part I

This is the chapter to correspond with the To Live Again Chapter: A Mother's Courage. I will be honest and say that I really am not happy with this and have rewritten it quite a bit. I debated scraping the entire story and staring fresh, but quite frankly I don't have the time to do that...so apologies in advance but it is the best I can really come up with.

Scene set up: Starting immediately at the end of A Mother's Courage, as Clara lies dying in Thranduil's arms.

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"Clara...the stars...look up," I choke and  wrestle with the fear in my voice that is threatening to consume me.  "Clara? Clara...the stars..."

I feel her body go limp in my arms, the last of the fear in her eyes dwindling to nothing but resigned defeat. 

Her breathing grows shallow, her chest barely rising under my palm.  I shake her, gently at first, and then more vigorously, like I can jolt her into action.

"No, Clara, don't do this," I warn through gritted teeth as I tilt her mouth open again and attempt to remove more of the thick soot that has congealed on her tongue, scraping it uselessly with my fingers.  "Spit it out! Dammit, come on..." I order her but she is listless and deaf to my commands.

"Clara?" I timidly call, a swell of panic ready to devour me in one wave.  I shake my head - she is not dead, it's not possible?

A strange sounding sob begins in my chest.  It's not something I have command over as I lay her out straight on the ground, keeping her head on my lap and rhythmically stroking her hair...she is warm, she cannot be dead! 

"Clara?" I call again, only this time my voice gets lost in a broken sob and her face blurs as tears blind her from me.

"Oh Eru no, please - Clara come on!"

In my anger and fear I wrap my hands around her shoulders and give her one  more hard shake.  The physical jolt too jarring for her limp and listless body - I immediately regret the harsh action.

When she doesn't respond I hover my face above hers trying to feel breath on my skin, but there is nothing. 

I seek out a pulse, feeling along her neck until something weak and failing thrums under my thumb.  I search with my feä trying to wrap it around what is left of hers, to hold on to it, to anchor her to the strength of mine...but it's useless for we are not a bonded pair.

I scoop her up into my arms again, cradling her as close as I can to murmur what healing enchantments I know to revive her.  I call to the woods, to the wild, to aid me, to allow the strength of my own spirit to transfer to her, to keep her here and rooted to the earth.  Yet nothing comes of it, what power I possess is rendered useless in the absence of a mated bond.

I could have saved her if we had been bonded, for my spirit would be half of hers, but she is slipping from me and I cannot stop it nor can I slow it down. 

She is dying in my arms, a slow and lonely death, and pride and etiquette prevented me from creating the one thing that would have saved her.

A bond.

My head falls into her chest, the tears falling relentlessly in a torrent that absolutely blinds me.  The choked and frightening sounds that I appear to be making are only a shadow of the pain threatening to tear me apart from the inside out.  In fact I believe this is what a dying heart sounds like - crushed and suffocating.

"Please Eru, no," I beg pitifully as I raise my head only to get lost in the pale stillness of her features. "She is too young, you cannot take something so young? Let her stay, please, do not take her from me...not her...not my light in this dark...please?"