Chapter Text
The stormy sea crashed against the rocky shore, throwing debris everywhere. The sky was dark and ominous, and lightning lit up the night. Amidst the chaos, a great ship was being tossed around like a leaf in the wind. Inside it, a young elf clung to the lifeline for dear life.
As the ship slammed into a particularly large wave, he was thrown overboard. Struggling to stay afloat as the waves pounded him, he felt a sharp and paralysing pain as a broken piece of wood pierced him like a dagger. Everything went black, and he went under, where he soon lost consciousness.
...
It was morning and she awoke to a grey and clouded sky. She sat up in her bed, holding her breath like she'd just had a nightmare. She sat on her bed, staring into the nothingness, until the howling wind that shook the boards of her window pulled her out of her trance.
She finally breathed and brushed her raven hair out of her face, revealing her full features. In the mirror across the wall, she saw her reflection. Her dark brown eyes stared back at her.
She got up and dressed herself in her garments, listening to the whipping wind. A storm was on the horizon, the dark clouds in the sky a premonition. Only then she remembered what that she had run out of fish. The woman cursed under her breath, throwing her cloak around her shoulders as she pushed open the door of her hut. The cold wind kissed her dark skin, and made her petrol blue dress dance in the wind.
She protected her face with the quick movement of her forearm as she felt tiny drops of water in the strong breeze. It would not be long before it would start to pour mercilessly. If she was to have any luck finding fish, she had to go now.
In a haste, she shut her door and ran to the stall, where her companion stayed.
"Geríon!" she called, "Geríon!"
The horse raised its head from behind the bale, locking eyes with her.
"Come here, boy. We have to make haste." she whispered, cradling the horse's face as she kissed it gently.
"We're riding out to the coastline."
The wind blew her hair and cape back as they rode against the wind, taking speed the closer they got, riding up the hill before Gerion suddenly halted, neighing ang standing on its hind legs, making her cry out in surpise. Yet not soon after, she saw with her own eyes what had stopped the animal from riding on.
A shipwreck lay ahead on the far end of the shore. A huge ship, spit out by the angry waters, its broken pieces of wood and the torn fabric of its sails scattered through the sands.
"Good God...." she whispered. She tightened her grip around the reigns, pulling Gerion farther from the cliff they stood upon.
Her eyes searched the sands, her gut knowing the reason why more than her mind could.
When she heard thunder from far behind in the dark clouds that lured above the black sea, her eyes found what she had feared:
A body, laying in the pale sand.
"No!" she cried,
"Geríon, ride!"
The red-blooded animal stormed down the grass before it manoeuvred the stony road that led to the beach. When she arrived, the rain had begun to pour and the sky darkened as if it had been turned by witchcraft. She jumped off the horse, grabbing fists full of her dress before she ran through the sands, hurrying towards the body, in hopes that it still had life in it.
Her hair stuck against her slender cheeks from the rain and her cloak soaked. She threw herself into the sand, kneeling over the body.
It was a young man, his skin pale and when she examined him further, she found a wound on his side. His shirt was stained by the blood he had lost.
"Where did this ship come from?"
Her mind raced.
In the village, there had been no talks of ships coming in the last time she had been there. But that had been several days past. Living on the outskirts, she could have missed the the announcements. She bent over him and listened for his breath, her hands clasping his wrist for the sensation of a pulse. He was cold to the touch, but not as cold as a lifeless vessel.
She turned her face to look at him. His hair was a dark, sandy blonde, his features sharp. His lips weren't pale, they still had colour in them.
"...are you alive?" she murmured, tears stinging in her eyes. She did not know the man, but something inside her heart clung to him, something inside of her would not be able to take it if he did not live.
She cupped his face with her hand, combing through his hair. "Breathe for me, stranger." she pleased as the rain pounded the both of them.
"Breathe."
When her fingertips caressed his ears, she gasped. They brushed his hair aside and revealed their pointy tips. The man she had found was not a human,
He was an elf.
The ship had come from faraway lands.
Her heartbeat soared and she fell back, her mind unable to think, as if she had done something terrible. She finally caught her breath as the loud rumble of lighting forced her out of her trance. As she looked over her shoulder onto the sea that had blackened, she realized she could not leave him there.
She could not leave him to die. Just as she turned around, she caught his chest rise and fall out the corner of her eye, kneeling over him again, she placed her hand over his heart...and she felt a beat still, even if only weakly.
They had to leave, fast, before it was too late. Struggling, she pulled him to the horses feet, crying out in strain at the weight of his body. He seemed much lighter than a man of full size, but he was heavy nonetheless. When she managed to throw him on the horse's back, she climbed Gerion and commanded him to ride as fast as the wind could carry them away from this place.
As the horse took off, in the distance over the ravaging waves, one boy one, the red light of lanterns appeared...on the board of a black ship.
"Argh!"
She kicked the door open, falling through the entrance, her arms around his chest. She tooka deep breath before she forced herself on her feet again, dragging him in toward the fireplace she had left burning. His body had to warm up, if not he'd have little chance of surviving.
Water dropped off her soaked hair and garments, just as it dripped off his clothes. She knelt over him and began rubbing circles into his chest and shoulders, desperate to give him enough warmth for him to grow livelier.
And it did. The creature began to tremble under her touch, his face stirring before he coughed, water spilling from his mouth. His eyes fluttered open only for an instant, before he groaned in pain, writhing on the wooden floor.
"That's it stranger," she coaxed him, "breathe. Keep breathing."
Her eyes darted to the deep red stain on his torn shirt. When she lifted it, a deep wound revealed itself, a piece of wood lodged inside it. Hesitant, her gaze went back to his face, which was growing pale as if he was sick of a terrible fever. Then they went back to the wound.
What were the chances of it already being infected?
What if she could not save him? What if he was dying right next to her?
She could not let him perish.
She jumped to her feet, running towards the kitchen where all of her herbs hung from the ceiling. She stirred around at first, her eyes wild, looking for a napkin, a towel, anything to cover his wound. She only found her drying undergarments and tore a long piece of fabric out of it, holding it between her teeth. Then she stretched, reaching up for the kingsfoil. She yanked it, hurrying right back to his side.
Pulling the leaves off the curled stems, she rolled them in her palms, freeing its oils, before she pulled out the piece of wood quickly.
In that moment his eyes opened wide, and he let out a cry of terror and agony. She positioned her knee over his arms as to keep him from moving. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he writhed and twisted, new blood rising to the surface.
"Hold on! Do not slip away stranger," she spoke to him.
"Hold on."
She braced herself, before she pressed the kingsfoil into his open flesh. His entire body reacted and he cried out, his eyes widening once more with a terror within them, when he suddenly locked eyes with her.
The woman's mind went blank and her heart stopped. The horrible roams of the thunder and the rain seeped into the background.
In that magical, strange instant, despite the horror of the moment and the blood that stained her hands, all that overtook her senses was the vivid blue of the creature's eyes, before they shut for the final time.
Fade to black.
When she opened her eyes again, she felt as if buried at the bottom of the sea. The gravity seemed heavy against her body as she rose from the hard wood of her hut.
When her weary eyes finally focused, she realized she had fallen asleep on the floor...
right beside the man she had rescued. She found the feeling in her hands and stretched them out beside her, to look at them.
They still had blood on them.
His blood.
She turned her head. There he was, the stranger. The man who was not of men.
The elf.
His face was turned away from her, to the fireplace. His chest, gently rising and falling.
It was so quiet.
Only now did she notice that the storm was no longer. She propped herself up on her elbows. Now, seeing her dress still wet, she knew why she felt so heavy. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him, only saw the sharp form of his nose and cheekbones, the lashes of his closed eye. His features were calm...and he'd regained some colour.
Hesitant and careful, she reached out to touch his skin.
It was still hot at the touch.
"The fever's not gone." she said under her breath. Even still, for now he seemed stable. She could let her eyes off him, long enough for her to come into dry clothes.
She let out a deep sigh as she slipped into the hot water. She leaned back, immersing her hair fully into it. The wet clothes had made her shiver all over. As she closed her eyes, everything that had happened the past night replayed in her mind.
He had mumbled in the depth of his fever; he had mumbled words of a tongue foreign to her. It almost...sounded like he had cried out for someone. Or pleaded to a mysterious deity.
She inhaled, submerging herself underwater, wrapping her arms around her own body.
She had to remove his shirt. She cut it apart at his shoulders, pulling away one sleeve after the other. She placed her dagger under the fabric, right over his lower abdomen, holding her breath before slit through it, revealing his bare chest... and his wide shoulders.
...She had not looked upon a man in a long time.
Her hands glided along her figure, along the dips of her waist, past her hips, coming together at the center of her body. She sank to the bottom of her tub, her head gently resting against it. Holding her breath, she asked herself if that was what it felt like, under the sea.
If he had felt like this.
Or if he'd only felt the cold and the dark, and the lack of air in that moment.
Whether all his mind had been on, was his own death.
She rose back to the surface, gasping for air. She opened her eyes and let her hands come forth, washed free of the blood. As she rose out of the bathwater, her beautiful, dark body glistened. She climbed out and dried herself off, before she slipped into a deep blue chemise.
When she stepped back into the room, he still lay there. She knelt beside him, bowing over his body and placing her ear against his chest. Among all the thoughts that had crossed her mind, she's asked herself if the elf as of the same anatomy as her. If he had a heart just like she did, if it beat differently, if it made a different sound if any sound at all.
As she listened, she heard the same steady heartbeat she would with any other person.
Knowing that, made him seem not so strange less strange.
When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on a bed made of straw in a small, dimly lit hut. The room was simple, with only a few pieces of furniture and a small fire burning right next to him. The first thing he felt was its warmth. He tried to sit up, but a sharp pain shot through his body, causing him to groan and grind his teeth.
"Don't move," her voice was gentle. Elrond turned his head to only see the silhouette woman through his blurred vision.
"You are wounded."
"...Ilyë mahalmar?" he croaked, his head falling to his side as a headache overcame him that sent his vision spinning.
The woman came closer. He felt the warmth of her breath on his skin.
"What did you say, stranger?"
The elf gasped for air before he spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Where am I?" he croaked, wincing in pain as the wound on his side stung and burned.
"Your ship was destroyed. You," the voice spoke to him, "were washed to shore."
He forced his eyes to remain open, still, he felt how weak he was.
"Do not speak," she continued. "You do not have the force...Rest,"
Elrond stirred, mumbling words in elvish, fighting against the fever and the pain.
For the last time, he opened his eyes again, this time able to see her eyes They were of a dark ebony brown. The skin around them, a rich cinnamon colour.
"Alassëa nauva hiruva..."
She saw his lips move, so she inched closer and gently placing her palm against his burning cheek. She mustered his face, feature by feature before her thumb caressed his lips.
"What are you whispering in your fevered dreams?" she murmured, staring into his blue eyes as they lost focus, only finally shut.
"Stranger," he felt a warm hand run through his hair,
"You will tell me your name...after you wake."
Alassëa nauva hiruva...
...you saved me.