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At night, he dreams of her.
He sees her in standing in the middle of a field of flowers on a spring eve, laughing as she spins a much younger Theo around, her hair blowing in the wind. He sees her standing under the light of a new moon, a look of wonder on her face as she stares up into the starlit sky. He sees her sitting at her work table, brows furrowed in concentration as she sorts through the assortment of herbs in front of her.
He sees her smiling at him, wide and open and joyful. And he can almost feel her touch. He can almost feel the ghost of her kiss.
He never thought they’d have time. But for a moment, just one brief moment, he’d let himself hope.
It started in the dim light of a tavern with orcs surrounding them and her blood pouring from a wound in her chest that she was never meant to survive.
He’d been certain he’d lost her then, when for the longest moment her eyes had remained shut and her body impossibly still. But then she’d finally, finally opened her eyes again and the arrival of the Númenoreans had saved them from certain death. And when they’d survived even the world exploding into fire and ash, he’d suddenly dared to have hope.
A fresh start, he’d said and dreamed of a little cottage with a garden and new life to plant.
But they were never supposed to have time.
It’s easy to blame her exhaustion and shortness of breath on her injury and the blood loss at first. Bronwyn is quick to assuage him, too, and reminds him that she is a healer, that she knows her body and that she just needs time.
He offers to help her change the dressing on her wound but she insists on doing it herself and he relents, knowing how difficult it is for her to depend on others.
She’s always been stubborn, so it’s a surprise when she doesn’t fight him too much when he finds a horse for her, that she lets him bring her food before everyone else has eaten and doesn’t insist on taking watch at night.
He only manages to organize one cot and even if it’s too small for the both of them, she presses him to join her on the nights that he isn’t tasked with keeping watch. At night she sleeps curled into his chest, her heartbeat strong under his fingertips. She’s always kept herself guarded but there, in the dead of the night, where it is just them and the stars she lets him kiss her and she lets him hold her close until there is no space between their bodies, until they are one.
In the morning he wakes before her and even when he knows they have to rise and prepare for the day ahead, he always lets her sleep a few minutes longer, relishing in the weight of her body against his and watching the rise and fall of her chest.
And ever so slowly, he starts to believe that maybe his dreams can become reality.
He takes the night watch on the fourth night, and Theo joins him. Arondir knows how much Bronwyn has struggled with seeing her boy so grown, but he also knows she rests easier when Arondir is with him. She hasn’t been feeling well that day, looking even paler than the days before, but when he asks her about it she merely says that she didn’t sleep well and has been overexerting herself.
“I am fine, I promise,” she says and there is a certain defiance to her voice, one that has been missing recently. It’s the Bronwyn he’s known all these years, the one who always stood taller than herself and never wavered, never backed down.
So he lets it go. Instead he wraps his arms around her and pulls her close and presses his lips to hers. When he steps back she is smiling, but there is a certain heaviness to it, to the way in which she carries herself. It makes him linger for a second longer until Theo calls out his name and he turns around at last, lifting his hand in farewell.
It’s the first night since they set out that he has not slept next to Bronwyn and he feels himself growing restless with every passing hour. Arondir has always loved the stars but tonight they provide no comfort to him. There is a feeling of dread settled deep inside him, something that he cannot place but that makes him pace back and forth until at last, in the early hours of the morning with the sky already a soft tinge of red, one of the men takes pity on him and sends him back to the tent early.
As soon as he has stepped inside it he knows something is wrong. Bronwyn is lying on the cot, shivering heavily. She has pushed away the blankets in her sleep and she’s moaning. Arondir is by her side immediately, touching his hand to her face and finding it hot under his fingertips.
“Bronwyn”, he calls out, softly at first and then more desperate. Her eyelids flutter but she doesn’t wake. Sweat is running down her forehead, drenching the fabric of the pillow beneath her.
“Bronwyn,” he says again and she cries out softly, a low, strangled sound. Her fingers curl weakly against his arm and he leans forward to press his lips to her temple.
“You have a fever”, he whispers against her burning skin. Once again, she doesn’t reply, her eyes remaining closed, her breathing shallow and strained.
There is a gasp and Arondir looks up to see Theo standing in the entryway of the tent, gaze fixed upon his mother.
Calling for the boy to fetch him some water, Arondir quickly props Bronwyn up on the cot and carefully peels away her clothing and then the bandage that still covers her chest. The arrow wound is a deep purple, the skin around it swollen and tender and when he presses on it gently, pus seeps out and she moans in agony.
Panic surges through him. For a brief second, he is transported back to the tavern and those endless seconds where her body remained unmoving and he was certain she’d died. But then Bronwyn cries out in pain again and it’s all it takes to spur him into action.
Jumping up, he strides out of the tent quickly and stops the first person he sees, a young Númenórean girl.
“Athelas,” he calls out to her. “Do you know athelas?”
The girl nods, a confused look crossing her face and he sighs in relief.
“Try and find me some. Hurry.”
The girl seems bewildered by the urgency in his voice, but she doesn’t question it, simply nods. He doesn’t wait for a reply, doesn’t wait for her to leave, simply rushes back inside where Theo is already kneeling by his mother’s side again, a wet rag pressed to her burning skin.
There is fear on the boy’s face, the same fear he knows is mirrored in his own eyes and Arondir reaches out to grab Theo’s hand. Theo looks down briefly, then back up at Arondir’s face.
“What happened?” he asks finally, voice wavering.
“She has a fever,” Arondir answers quietly. “Her wound must have gotten infected.”
Sitting up straighter, Theo pulls his hand away from Arondir’s.
“But how could she not have noticed? How could you not have noticed?”
Silence stretches between them as the accusation hangs in the air. For a moment neither of them speaks before Theo recoils and silently turns back to his mother.
Arondir does not reply because there is nothing he can say, not when this is all he has been able to think about ever since he stepped into the tent. How could he not have noticed? He is not a healer and he is not a man, but he saw how pale she looked, how much slower she moved and still he let her appease him because he wanted her to be fine. Because he needed her to be fine.
Because deep down, anything else was simply not something he was willing to consider, not after everything they had already endured. Everything they had survived.
Arondir has never been a dreamer. He has seen his first home swallowed by the Sea and the second one engulfed in flames and ash. He has borne witness to the horror the beings of this world can unleash on each other. The cruelty and the hatred. Instead of letting it harden him he chose to fight, even knowing that this was maybe a fight they could not win.
He has never been a dreamer, too grounded in reality. But there has never been anything he’s wanted this much.
He has never loved like this before.
And he wishes nothing more than to be able to promise Theo that it will be okay. He wishes nothing more than to be able to promise Bronwyn that it will be okay. He wishes he possessed the skills of the High Elves, to heal what has been broken. He’s planted trees and he’s tended to them and watched over them as they grew but this is beyond his skillset.
Bronwyn moans again and he squeezes her hand, lets his lip find the sweaty skin of her forehead, her nose, her lips.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed before the girl returns with the athelas. Theo watches quietly as Arondir soaks it in water before softly pressing it into Bronwyn’s wound. She groans again in pain, but doesn’t move, doesn’t wake.
The shivers have stopped in the past few hours, her body becoming unmoving and her breathing quieter, even if it still sounds harsh and labored. Theo remains settled by Bronwyn’s side, a stoic figure in the dim light of the oil lamp. Eventually day turns into night and the boy falls asleep. There aren’t any blankets left so Arondir fetches Bronwyn’s cape instead before he crouches down and gently covers the boy with it, letting his hand linger for just a moment.
Sitting down beside Bronwyn, he gently pulls her head into his lap. He takes the now lukewarm cloth off her forehead and exchanges it for a fresh and cold one. His fingers find the lines of her face and he traces them softly, her cheeks, her nose, the curve of her jaw, committing them all to his eternal memory. Bronwyn’s fever hasn’t broken yet, but her breathing has evened out. In the darkness of the night it’s the only sound he can hear. In, out. In, out. His other hand comes to rest on her sternum right above her heart. It beats quickly, but her heartbeat is still strong and steady under his fingertips. It’s soothing and after a moment he dares to let his mind wander. He imagines an old, run-down house with an overgrown garden, near the water and the mountains both. He imagines the three of them working together to turn it into a real home, something that is theirs. Clearing the garden of shrubs and weeds and then planting new seeds. He thinks of slow mornings filled with soft touches and kisses and long evenings sitting by the fire and all of the other memories they still want to make.
And he hopes, and he waits.
Outside it has started raining, a cacophony of sounds. Bronwyn never liked the rain, because it made the world darker and her work more tedious. But she told him once that she liked what comes after, the first rays of sunlight, a new beginning, the dawn of a new day.
But this time the rain does not stop and the night does not end. Outside the world remains dark and unyielding.
Afterwards he won’t fully remember just when he began to understand. That this will not be a new chapter of their story, another time that they defy the odds.
Maybe it’s the small hitches in her breath, or the way her face turns paler and more ashen with each passing hour.
But by the time morning comes around and Theo wakes, looking up at him in hope and expectation both, Arondir knows. He knows that this is how it ends.
There is no grief, not yet. For now there is only emptiness as he softly shakes his head at the boy and watches Theo’s face break. As he takes the boy’s hand and places it gently on Bronwyn’s chest.
Together they sit in silence and watch as she takes a shuddering breath and then another one and another, until finally she stops breathing altogether and her body grows completely still under their fingertips. Just that this time, her eyes don’t open again after a few moments. Just that this time she doesn’t wake.
Arondir breathes in, then out. The world around him has narrowed to this, Bronwyn lying on the cot, looking so peaceful, so at rest. As if she was merely sleeping.
For a moment it’s as if time has stopped. It’s Theo’s loud wail that pulls him back to reality, a blood-curdling scream. That’s all it takes. Grief floods him, dizzying and all-encompassing. It spreads through his body like fire, scorching everything in its path. The world swims out of focus, it swallows him like the ocean and then he’s drowning, he’s drowning and there is no anchor, nobody to save him. Just Bronwyn’s hand in his, too still, too heavy.
She’s gone.
Arondir closes his eyes and he sees her smiling at him. He sees her standing in the watchtower, tall and unflinching as she calls on her people to join him. He sees her spinning around in a field of flowers. He sees her looking at the stars. He hears the light ring of her laughter. He feels the ghost of her embrace, her kiss.
He sees Bronwyn, alive and unharmed, in a little garden by the mountains and the sea.
They were never supposed to have time. He knew what would happen if he let himself fall in love with a mortal. But it was not supposed to end like this. He was supposed to see her grow old. They were supposed to have this at least, these years together. Instead all they got was a beginning, the first chapter of a story that will forever remain unwritten. It’s not enough.
It’s not enough.
Arondir leans forward and he buries his head in her lifeless chest and he weeps.
They bury her by the side of the mountain, in a little field. It’s early spring and the flowers are just now beginning to bloom.
It’s just Theo and him and they work in silence in the setting sun. Theo hasn’t said anything since his mother’s death and Arondir hasn’t forced him. There aren’t any words that could breach the distance between them now.
It’s dark outside when they are finished. Arondir steps back and looks up into the starlit sky.
From the small bottle around his neck he pours the remaining Alfirin seeds into his hand, the ones he saved for the garden they had intended to plant together. Wordlessly he sprinkles them over the grave.
Soon flowers will grow here, new life in defiance of death.
Arondir knows he will not return to this place, a nameless field in the shadow of a tall mountain. It doesn’t matter though, because he will carry her with him wherever he goes, up until the world grows dark and his eyes weary.
It’s all he can give her, all he can promise her.
Drawing his gaze away from the sky, he looks at Theo, who is still staring at his mother’s grave, his expression blank.
“Come on,” he says to the boy and reaches out his hand.