The healer (Legolas love story)

Chapter 9: Moria

It was evening, and the grey light was again waning fast when they halted for the night. They were very weary. The mountains were veiled in deepening dusk, and the wind was cold. They sat under a hill and in the shelter of a few trees and ate food and tried to warm themselves with their cloaks and blankets.

Nestarel saw Gandalf stood and walked a little away from the group. The desperate look in his eyes burnt her heart. It was hard for her to see her old friend like that. She stood and went after him.

"Mithrandir!" she called him gently and put her hand on his shoulder. Gandalf turned to her and smiled. "Oh, Nestarel!" he said. Nestarel smiled back at him. "How are you, my dear friend?" she asked.

"Well, if you want to know my health condition, I'm fine, but ..." he didn't continue his words and looked ahead instead. Nestarel took his hands in hers. "Do not carry this weight alone, Gandalf, for you are not alone," she said and Gandalf raised his head and peered into her blue eyes. "We are all responsible for the fate of Middle Earth. Don't think you are alone in this. We are all with you."

A light of hope shone in Gandalf's eyes and he smiled. "My dear Nestarel!" he said softly. "You don't know how much your words mean to me."

Nestarel smiled as well. "Let me wash away your weariness as well. We need our leader in his full power." she said and let her healing power to flow in Gandalf. He sighed in relief and closed his eyes for a moment. He felt like all of his exhaustion and pains vanished at once and comforting feelings took its place. Once he opened his eyes, his eyes were shining bright again. "Thank you." he said and Nestarel bowed her head respectfully. "Tell me how is your wound? I think you can feel the power of the Ring more these days. I've seen you walking with Frodo and taking his hand whenever I think he feels the foul power the most." he asked.

Nestarel dropped her head. It was true. In the past weeks, since they had been set from Rivendell whenever she had felt pain in her chest, she had seen Frodo somehow agitated and tired. On those times she had tried to be at his side and release his mind from the power of the Ring with her own power and that made her tired beyond measure and she always had a terrible headache after, but she had not let it be seen in her face.

"It must take a lot of power from you." said Gandalf. "I want to help him as much as I can." she said in low voice. "And I'm grateful for that. You have done great." said Gandalf. "Take care of yourself as well, Nestarel. We still don't know what the dark spell can do to you."

Nestarel nodded. "I will." she said. They heard the wind hissing among the rocks and trees, and there was a howling and wailing round them in the empty spaces of the night. Nestarel and Gandalf looked around suspiciously and walked to the others.

Suddenly Aragorn leaped to his feet. "How the wind howls!" he cried. "It is howling with wolf-voices. The Wargs have come west of the Mountains!"

"How far is Moria?" asked Boromir.

"There was a door south-west of Caradhras, some fifteen miles as the crow flies, and maybe twenty as the wolf runs," answered Gandalf grimly.

"Then let us start as soon as it is light tomorrow, if we can," said Boromir. "'The wolf that one hears is worse than the orc that one fears."

"True!" said Aragorn, loosening his sword in its sheath. "But where the warg howls, there also the orc prowls."

For their defense in the night, the Company climbed to the top of the small hill under which they had been sheltering. It was crowned with a knot of old and twisted trees, about which lay a broken circle of boulder-stones. In the midst of this, they lit a fire, for there was no hope that darkness and silence would keep their trail from discovery by the hunting packs.