CHAPTER TWO -- Feeling Again
I blinked at myself because I had just referred to it as ‘he’. I sighed a little, it was never good to get attached. I usually never saw them again. I made that mistake once before with someone who had been captured with me. They were now dead. I gazed down at the helpless creature. He should -not- be here, this halfling. There I did it again…my hand went to his curls and stroked the top of his head gently. He murmured in his half-delirious state. He was burning up, and it was unlikely he would be coherent even in twenty-four hours.
I swallowed, cleaning its face, the creature was rather beautiful with high cheekbones and slender limbs, not much of a hobbit, I’d say. Too thin, for one thing. I began to bathe and tend his other wounds one by one, and at every touch it shivered and flinched, crying out in little pathetic whimpers.
“What’s your name?” The hobbit begged me suddenly, gazing up at me. I don’t really know what it was seeing. Maybe it was just happy I was not an orc. “P-Please…I want to know…”
“….” I did not answer right away. “I don’t think you need to know. It does not matter.” I shook my head at it and continued with my work. One of its’ tiny hands was trying to touch my arm, but it was very weak, and it was a half-hearted attempt before it fell back to the floor and it sniveled a little.
“Why are you helping me?” tears were building in its eyes as it looked at me, trying to find some kindness in an unkind world. Helping it…I had to suppress a laugh. I was helping my master…not it. I was … making it so that my master could continue interrogate the small creature. I was not helping it, and it was far too innocent to understand.
“It is what I was told to do.” I shrugged simply, finding it hard to keep my eyes from looking at his.
Hope was fading from its eyes, I could tell. It knew that I was another prisoner, but it had been wishing that it was somewhere else. The hobbit closed his eyes, shutting out reality. I think it finally began to understand a little. I was not its friend, or its mother…or someone there to take care of it. I was simply there to dress its wounds. I don’t think that the hobbit had ever had such an experience.
“It burns…” Frodo moaned as I packed the herbs against its wound. There would only be more tomorrow. I sighed. “I…I’m afraid. C-cold…Very cold…” The hobbit knew that words were not really of any use right now, but it spoke anyway. “I never thought it would come to this. I-I don’t h-have the c-courage. I just w-want to do die.” it shivered. “I don’t w-want them to t-touch me again. Please…take me away, or kill me…or just let me be…let me die…I can’t bear for them to touch me again…”
The pathetic sound of its pleading was making me wish they had chosen someone else. Elbereth only knew…I stopped myself…Elbereth had abandoned me long ago. Why was I thinking about her now? I bandaged the wound . I saw the bruises forming on its ribs and sighed. Cold and wasted…that’s how I felt after all the years I had been here. I was no person to care for such a small delicate being. I had long since turned from the light that had left me alone.
“I can’t let you die.” I did not speak its name, nor did I try to comfort it. If I did…it would all be lies anyway…The hobbit would face more torture and worse things tomorrow at the hands of my master. I was a prisoner and a slave…there was nothing I could do. “I can’t tell you everything will be alright. Because it won’t be. Its going to get worse.”
Immediately I was sorry, for there was such pain Frodo’s eyes that it nearly caused me to feel for the small creature. I had not felt sorry for anything in many years. I had not cared about anything in many years. I tried hard to steel my heart, but when the tears spilled over his eyes and he looked away into the darkness in despair I found my hand once again stroking its curls.
“Elleth…” Frodo turned back and looked up at me. “Thank-you…for being with me…e-even…if…Even if y-you don’t really want to be.” The hobbit gulped a sob back in its throat and buried its face into my lap, wincing in pain and sobbing. The creature’s shoulders shook with its wrenching cries and I knew that it wanted to be held and rocked and soothed. “I w-want to g-go home.” it whimpered.
I cleared my throat, and for the first time since even before I was captured, I began to care. My hands trembled as I lifted up the frail creature and gathered him into my arms. He fell into them eagerly, clutching his arms around me and crying softly. I stroked his hair and did not speak, rocking him gently in my arms. I had given him 24 hours of freedom from pain…but that would not be enough to help him live. I doubted…doubted that he would live through another session with my master regardless of how much I was able to heal him..
“My name is Merilas”
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