You Must Have Faith

Chapter Twenty-Five

Third Person POV:

The final dregs of the battle raged on, but Thranduil was unresponsive to it.  His captains rallied the troops and fought back, clearing the battlefield and taking care of arrangements for the dead and wounded, all without a word from the great Elvenking.  Vera remained unresponsive, weakening by the hour as Thranduil fought to staunch the bloodflow.  Those who had never seen elvish healing would have thought that nothing was happening, but as an hour passed, the blood slowed and finally stopped, brought to bear by an invisible force produced from Thranduil's force of will.  As the final words left his lips, healers came running to him, frantically checking over their king.  With a harshness that hadn't been seen from him since Vera's arrival, he shoved them aside, angrily directing them towards her still form.  Reluctantly, they turned to the still skin-changer and began to sing, lifting her body with incorporeal hands and carrying her to the healing halls within the palace.  As soon as she was taken from his grasp, his entire body seemed to sag, sinking to his hands and knees and panting heavily, limbs trembling.  

A healers apprentice appeared by his side and pulled one of his arms over her shoulders.  The elleth half helped, half carried him inside, lowering him onto a spare table and carefully examining his wounds.  A few whispered words and an athelas poultice later, his few wounds were carefully patched and he was left to rest.  As minutes passed, however, he realized that he would be unable to rest until he knew of Vera's fate.  To his dismay, he was too far from the table where she lay to hear what the healer's were saying.  So, with an exhausted grunt, he pulled himself to his feet and wandered among his wounded troops, offering condolences and praise to his men.  He could feel that he was cheering up as he walked, the joy his men felt at seeing him alive and well was contagious.

After making a wide circle of the vast healing halls, he collapsed back onto his bed, staring at the frantically moving bodies that were surrounding Vera's bedside.  Chants and healing songs filled the air, the smell of athelas permeating his nostrils from the fragrant poultices that were being applied to the gaping wound on her side.  The sweet, soft smell of the herb eventually lulled him to an uncomfortable resting state.

***

A violent shaking startled him from his light rest, and his instincts jumped in.  With a feral snarl, Thranduil gripped the wrist of the person shaking him, swinging them around onto the table and pinning them there.  With a shock of surprise, he recognized the apprentice that had brought him back up from the battlefield.  He quickly let her go, helping her up from the pallet he had been laying on.  She jumped up, gripping his arm and dragging him with her.  As he was tugged, he quickly noticed that Vera was no longer on the table that she had previously been on, and a surprising bolt of fear went through him.  

"Quickly, my Lord!  You must see this for yourself!"  She was nearly giddy from excitement, and gave Thranduil no time to respond.  With a final shove, he was guided into a separate room that, to his relief, Vera was in.  He was apparently just in time to see something that had caused the healer's to watch with wide-eyed shock.  The female skin-changer, still in her feline form, was glowing again.  But instead of the harsh, attacking glow of the battlefield, this glow felt more like the glow from a fireside within a small home.  At first he didn't notice what amazing thing the healers in the room were watching, but upon closer inspection, the gaping wound on her side was...healing?  The flesh was knitting itself back together, until after fifteen more minutes of silent observation, all that was left was a a silvery scar barely visible under the bloodstained fur.  With a great heaving gasp, her breathing, which Thranduil hadn't even noticed was absent, resumed.  The entire room gave a great sigh of relief, as Thranduil turned to the head healer.

"Explain."  

"Well, my King, Lady Vera stopped breathing a few moments before your arrival.  We had started to send the apprentice to go get you and inform you, when the glow began to emerge from her paws and encompass her body.  That was when we noticed the wound healing at an abnormal rate, and sent her for you.  That is all I know."