Author: eena_angel2001
Email: [email protected]
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None really for BTVS. Two Towers for LOTR, but I'm changing things.
Disclaimer: Whedon owns BTVS, Tolkien owns LOTR.
Summary: Response to Quickie Challenge, Pairing #130.
"A horrible battle happened here."
He sighed, looking down forlornly at the ruins around him. He climbed nimbly over the fallen rocks, looking here and there, taking it all in. Again.
"You are right," he finally murmured to his companion. He couldn't bring himself to look her way just yet, wanting to immerse himself in his past before having it clash with his present. She respected that, standing just a bit off. He could hear her skipping over stones, murmuring to herself in amazement. A smile touched his lips as he heard her give a little squeak, having found some horrifying spider crawling over the stones. She was afraid of spiders, deathly afraid, even more so than frogs.
She wasn't one you would take to Mirkwood. If in fact, Mirkwood still stood.
Another sigh left him and he finally turned, reaching a hand out to her. A sweet and grateful smile was shot his way as she accepted his help. A warm feeling filled his heart at the sight of her smile, a feeling he had been forced to deal with over the past few months. The time in which this little sprite won his love for all time.
He was well aware of the complications of it. He loved her, but she would die. However, he finally understood why some of his other brethren risked it. A mortal lifetime with her, nothing more than a snippet in his life, was much better than being without her at all. He knew nothing but pain would follow him after her death, until the end of his long days, but it was a small price for the happiness now. The warmth, the love, the very feel of it all, was worth any amount of pain he would have to bear later.
"Are you okay?"
She looked so concern, eyes wide as she looked at him. He loved her eyes, they were green as emeralds. So clear, and so filled with everything that she felt.
"I am fine," he assured her, clutching her hand in his own. "There are plenty of memories here. Far too many I fear."
"Is this where it happened?" she ventured cautiously. He nodded, pulling her clear into his arms as the sights overtook him. The stones lying on the ground, they didn't belong there. They had been all together, forming the tallest wall people of this land had ever seen. It had been a fortress, one that had not been breached ever.
Until that day.
He remembered falling on that fateful night, feeling the pain in his back and in his side. He remembered the dazed vision, the heart-breaking sight of so many of his fellow Elves dead at his feet. The bodies intermingling with the deformed bodies of the Orcs, blood everywhere. He had felt despair that day, a hole appearing in his heart as he started falling back. And then he fell back into the arms of his comrade and he felt no more.
Until he woke up in a strange land, naked and buried under the fallen leaves of the high trees. He blinked a few times, trying to brush dirt out of his eyes as he tried to find his bearings. Unprepared was he for the sight of her, the little redheaded mortal girl kneeling not too far off at his side. Her mouth had dropped open, forming the tiniest �O� in surprise. Her green eyes had been wide and somewhat fearful. Fear melting into curiosity as they traveled to his ears.
They might have stayed like that forever, but she started at the cry of some songbird above. She jumped to her feet, babbling rapidly in the Common Tongue of man he had learned long ago. She handed him a cloak, a scarlet blush coming to her features when she noticed his nudity. He accepted it, still in a haze, but feeling not one speck of danger from this strange creature.
She had huddled him along, sneaking her into a contraption he later learned was a �car�, which had replaced horses as a method of travel in this foreign world. She had taken him back to her home, a large house she shared with several other people. Several other people who all came home and crowded around him, voices tinged with awe. He wasn�t able to register much, only them bombarding the redhead with questions.
�Did it work? Is this him?�
Yes, it worked. Yes, this was him, the person they had been waiting for. But he did not know what they were talking about. His mind was still in a muddle, unable to understand anything beyond the fact that he had died. He had died on the wall, and now he was here.
Was it the afterlife?
But it turned out to be anything but. In fact it turned out to be a hellish nightmare of a place. He never heard of a place that could be darker and more evil than Mordor. But now, he was living there.
The monsters were frightening. But even more so was the sight of all the ignorant innocents outside. At least in his world, people knew the dark existed, they knew they had to prepare for it. But here, these people ignored it, denied it, even onto their own deaths.
His hosts seemed to be just a small number of those who knew about the dark, ones who acknowledged the evil out there. And ones who made it their mission to fight that evil where they found it.
That�s why he was there.
It had taken a month to recover. He had in fact been dead, and one does not recover from that lightly. It had been a week before he could even walk around the home his redhead lived in on his own volition. And even then he had been winded.
But a month passed and he deemed himself strong enough to hear what mission this group of mismatched warriors had for him. His redhead had protested, concerned over his well-being. She wanted him to rest some more, but he had firmly told her he did not need it. Elves heal far quicker than normal humans. He was well enough to at least listen to the purpose of his presence in this world.
Finally, their leader, Buffy, had told him everything. A week or so before his summoning, the group had come across a strange magical orb. They knew not what it was and had searched for an answer. One that led them directly to magic as their only solution. His sprite had performed the spell, one that would bring them the person who could deal with the orb or at least explain. They presented to him shortly. He was shocked to find it was a Palantir, one of the magical stones of his world.
How the orb landed in this strange world was beyond him, but he knew it could not remain there. The Palantir allowed uninterrupted surveillance, and its presence here only meant one thing. Someone was watching this world. And he knew it could not be anyone good.
He told them as such, informing them they would do best by returning it to his world. Which sent them on a two-month research spiel to find out exactly where his world was and how to send it back. Two months passed and he found the most alarming thing happening. He was falling in love with the redheaded sprite.
She made him laugh, caused him to feel a warmth down in his centre. Something he had not felt with any of his own kind. Surely it meant something if she could move him unlike any of his own brethren had ever been able to.
By the end of it, he could not imagine life without her. And he knew she felt the same, though they had not yet acted on any of their feelings. It was her best friend who finally had enough, telling them to kiss or get out of his sight. It was a jest surely, but moved him to act. After all, he had the permission to court her from the man she thought of as a brother. So why shouldn�t he kiss her?
She blushed whenever he kissed her, held her, or even told her he loved her. It was not out of embarrassment, more out of habit. And an endearing one at that. One would not think by looking at this girl she held the power that she did.
But she did, a power that would rival some of the wizards he had met in his day. She was able to do the spell they found, to take them both here to return the Palantir to where it belonged.
It shocked him to find the war was over and many of his own had sailed over the seas. Some remained, mainly those of the Ring Fellowship, but their time was coming to an end as well. Middle Earth was changing quite drastically, no longer the place he remembered it to be.
His return had shocked them, stunned them. He was dead, long ago buried in this world. But there he was, standing strong as the day he was cut down in battle. And with a Palantir nonetheless.
Their business was done quickly, and he was left with a decision to make. Remain in this world, eventually sailing over the waters to return to his own people. Or return the world he had just come from, with his redhead.
�Are you ready?�
The words were whispered, almost apologetic for breaking into his thoughts. He looked downwards, smiling softly at her. He nodded wordlessly, looking back at the fallen ruins of Helm�s Deep. He looked to the left, a barely standing ruin of the wall. He had fallen there, he had died there.
�I am ready,� he consented, turning away from the sight. He smiled down at her, brushing a lock of red hair away from her face. She smiled, blushed, and then frowned.
�Are you sure?� she ventured, uneasiness in her eyes. �I know that this is your home-�
�I�m dead here,� he interrupted. �I died right there. I live in your world now. With you, my Willow.�
That brought the smile back to her lips, and another blush. He laughed, capturing her lips quickly before taking her by the hand and leading her away from the ruins.
Haldir gripped her hand in his own, smiling when he heard her starting to whisper the words of the spell. Lights appeared before him but he remained unfazed, continuing to walk forward. As she chanted, they walked from one world to the next, ending in the same forest in which they had met.
They were home.
The End