Faramir Fiction Archive

Tales of the Telcontars (PG-13)

19 September 2011 | 56124 words | Work in Progress

Title: Yuck
Author: Susana
Series: Desperate Hours
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Rating: PG-13, for somewhat graphic violence in a short skirmish.
Warning: AU
A/N: Set when Arwen is young, probably around T.A. 300, when she is about 90 years old.

Arwen crouched, waiting. Waiting. Now. She flew from concealment, using moves she had practiced thousands of times but never used in earnest, never before.

It was enough. The light in the bandit’s eyes went out, and he collapsed. Arwen pulled her sword free, and looked around.

Elrohir held up his hands, “Well-fought, muinthel-laes. The one you dispatched was the last.”

Adrenaline fading, Arwen looked around more carefully. Their party was intact, unharmed. She turned back to the man she had killed. Second born, but kin and kindred none the less. All the more so, to a child of Elrond Peredhel. A wave of sorrow overtook her, and it was just too much.

“Clean your blade.” Elladan prompted gently from beside her.

Arwen shook her head, and looked to her sword. It was covered in blood and something thicker, more viscous. “Yuck.” Arwen commented, heart-felt. It wasn’t the grossness; it was the fact of the death she had dealt. But the twins seemed to understand.

“It is yuck.” Elladan agreed gently, “Wipe it on the grass, like so.” Arwen did so, feeling clumsy, awkward, sick.

“It will come clean, muinthel-nin.” Belemir comforted, suddenly beside her. “It will be well, I promise. Not now, but soon.” He squeezed her hand. Arwen nodded woodenly.

That night, she put her bedroll beside Belemir’s, and he held her while she cried. But she would love her brothers, all three, forever, for helping her make it through that moment, that afternoon, through til that night, when no one but her own closest brother knew she had wept. Not because she was afraid to show weakness, but because that was what she would have wanted, what she did want. To hold herself together, until then. And the twins and Belemir, Valar bless them, knew that because they knew her, and helped her.

Arwen never met their equal, until Estel. And Estel’s sons, Faramir and Eldarion, who were her sons as well. Both her sons, by bonds of love, though only Eldarion was hers by blood.

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