Light And Memories
This night is now nothing but another memory. He licks his lips, savoring this memory above so many others. Light, against darkness and death and pain.
Fighting. A whirl of bodies, blood, screams and the howls of wargs. Fighting. One of the Rhohirrim falls and another. A horse thrashes on its back, legs flailing and bleeding. Children scream as the people of Edoras flee the battle.
"I thought you'd died."
"No. It would take more than that to kill me."
"The battles-"
"Are over for now. Tomorrow... We may have to fight again. Saruman is still a threat. As is Sauron. Let it lie until tomorrow."
Rain like ice. Shouts and screams and fighting on battlements slick with blood and water. Shooting again and again into a endless sea of bodies. Knives in hand, blood hot against skin. A boy screams shrilly. Too young, too untrained to fight, but fighting anyway. The boy dies, spitted on an Orc sword.
He silences him with a kiss, showing the power, the majesty that shines through the blood of the Kings of Numenor in his face, in his body.
Hands running over bodies, lips and mouths touching, exploring.
All is still now, silent. The wind rustles the grass and stirs the petals of a dozen tiny blue wildflowers. The first of the season. And all of a sudden there's sound, motion. Screaming Men, horses, Orcs, wargs, lying bleeding on the grass and in the mud.
Skin hot against his hands, his mouth, his body.
Lying, exhausted and sweaty, curled against each other, wrapped in a single cloak.
The Orc dies, spraying blood and innards in a wide arc as Gimli's axe cuts it halfway in two. There's another foe and another. Blood and death and screaming. Aragorn calls out commands and orders, his voice hoarse from exhaustion and shouting.
There's a taste of salt in his mouth and a hand shaking his shoulder, forcing him to wake.
Waking to the sight of a bearded face, dark, tangled hair and a fading jewel bright against dark cloth. To bread and cheese, dried meat and water. "Hurry. We ride out today, against Saruman's forces."
The flowers are trampled, crushed into muddy pulp. He thought he was dead. That all that was left was a shining jewel, a memory and promises of things that might never be, with a people no longer in Middle Earth.
Leaving the dead, the dying, the wounded behind once more as he settles his quiver on his shoulder and catches up his bow, preparing to ride out against what's left of Saruman's army.
Light against darkness and death and pain. Pain experienced, pain endured and pain still to come.