Disclaimer: Tolkien owns the Silmarillion *sobs*
Pairings: none
Characters: Orodreth, Celeborn, random Teler, Beleg (mentions of Morgoth, Melian, and some other random noldor and sindar)
Warning: canon-compliant sort of, sort of explicit descriptions of death/murder and wounds, blood and gore
Song: 90 Minutes of Sad Music
Words: 1,305
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health (noun): the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit; especially freedom from physical disease or pain; the general condition of the body
Elves did not get sick. They did not die.
It was a very basic fact of life. At most, in the years of everlasting light and peace, one needed to know how to care for bumps, scrapes and the occasional broken bone or burn. There was no bloody, painful ravaging of bodies, impaled upon blades, rent and torn apart through violence and hatred. There had never been a need for healing. For healers.
Until Alqualondë, Artaresto had never seen anyone die of wounds before.
Or die at all.
But what he did remember more vividly than anything was standing on the docks overlooking the blood-stained harbor and feeling... helpless. Bodies were strewn about, and he tried hard not to focus his eyes, not to allow himself to make out entrails peeking out of slit stomachs or brain matter dashed against stone. To pretend that all these elves were just sleeping.
The willful delusion was not to be. He remembered hearing a breathy, gurgling voice, remembered kneeling next to a man, barely breathing, with a spear embedded in his stomach.
---
Reaching out, his hands hovered over the shaft where it split open flesh and poured blood onto the earth below. Despair burst in his chest as he leaned over the stranger, touching a blanched face with shaking fingertips, his gaze meeting half-hooded, pain-hazed eyes. Red slowly dripped from the corner of softly moving lips.
"I cannot..." He shook his head and felt his eyes sting. He couldn't understand what the other elf was trying to say as those lips moved, more splatters of dark spreading down onto unblemished white.
He could do nothing more than sit there, than stare into vibrant, terrified eyes and watch their brilliance fading into death. Such wounds could not be treated with mere bandages. Artaresto's hovering hands settled, instead grasping the fingers of the poor dying creature before him, not knowing what else to do but wait for the inevitable.
Gently, weakly, the other elf squeezed back. A tiny smile twitched on those lips.
The breathing ceased.
And Artaresto could do nothing. Nothing at all. The hands gripping his went limp and slipped down to rest on the ground, still and free, empty of life.
---
The young elf had had many a nightmare about that death, and many more deaths after. The feeling of helplessness--of uselessness and barrenness--never dissipated. He wanted so badly to help, to do something as he watched those around him dying, falling to the ice or the cold or the spears of the enemy. He wanted to help his people, protect them, guard their health and well-being, keep them whole.
But he could not. Each time another perished before his eyes, he would think back and remember the elf on the dock, and his heart burned.
Menegroth was a welcome respite.
There was peace within the Girdle of Melian. Certainly, they had warriors, but they had safety as well. There was not a new report of the death toll each evening, nor were there tents littered with warriors, struck down by weapons or by festering wounds, and no one to attend to them, no one to help them. It was quiet, the trees cradling their small world, housing them inside, blocking out the darkness and the light, leaving them in an eternal dreamland.
And then one day there were shouted words. A warrior was carried into the city, his entire left side bloody, a ragged wound stretching from shoulder to hip, part of it down to the bone, showcasing ribs lined with the marks of a vicious blade. It made Artaresto's stomach turn.
He didn't want to watch again. He could not.
The young noldo turned away, and he didn't look back.
---
"The warrior from yesterday, I mean... How... How is he?" Artaresto's throat constricted. He must have looked pale, drawn and sleepless, for Celeborn sent him a confused and slightly concerned glance. A hand settled on his shoulder.
"Beleg?" the prince said. "He is doing well for having taken such a nasty wound."
Well? Surprise must have shown on his face, for Celeborn continued. "Are you quite well, friend? You look like a ghost."
Indeed, his face was probably the color of spilt milk. All the blood had drained from his cheeks. "I just... Well, it did look quite serious when he arrived." Artaresto bit his lower lip and looked anywhere but at the prince. "I have seen warriors die from lesser wounds."
"Our healers are quite skilled in such matters," his companion soothed. "Beleg will be well within a few weeks, and probably out on patrol again shortly after."
Artaresto was hardly soothed in the least. This was the first time he had heard mention of healers. Healers? They had healers? Something visceral shuddered through his body, a strange sort of delight, of eagerness that bordered on pain. His eyes widened as he beheld the prince. "Healers?"
"Indeed." Celeborn laughed softly. "Do your people not have healers as well, Orodreth?"
"No. There was never any need."
Shock. And then... "What do you do when your warriors come back injured from battle?" he burst out, indeed sounding as though Artaresto had said something horribly scandalous. "I know that your people fight often with the Black Enemy. Surely you must..."
"There was never any need," Artaresto repeated. "We do our best, but none of us has ever had to treat such severe injuries before. Until leaving Valinor, the worst wound I had ever seen was a broken arm. My cousin had fallen out of a tree."
They lingered in silence for a long moment. "Perhaps," Artaresto continued, licking his suddenly dry lips, "Perhaps you would show me to... to wherever your healers are?"
"The Healing House," the other said automatically. "Of course, I will show you."
---
The fascination was immediate.
His first steps into the quiet sanctuary were like steps into another world. A world that he came to love all too quickly. So much so that it consumed him.
He loved learning about medicinal remedies to sooth the pain of those around him. He loved learning to ease suffering, to fix, to heal... to save. He loved standing at the bedside of his patient and watching his hands work as if from a great distance, watching the days pass, watching those under his care become hale and whole again. When his patients departed, he loved seeing them on their own two feet, cheeks flushed with healthy color.
And he loved feeling that helplessness that had haunted him ever since Alqualondë slowly drain away, the empty chasm behind filled instead with satisfaction, with affection, with delight.
Equally, the loss of a patient was terrible, like the loss of a good friend. But it was not a loss through helplessness, through inability to act. Even then, he could rest quietly knowing that he had done all that he could to ease suffering, to send his dear patients into Mandos' arms as gently as he could bear, knowing they would at least be somewhere without war and death and blood.
Artaresto did not think he could stop even if he tried.
He was saving them, protecting them. His family. His people.
This was where he belonged. Not on the battlefield with a sword in hand. Not in a war council with maps and strategies and thoughts of death in his mind. He belonged in the Healing House, smelling of sweet herbs and the airy open windows letting in fresh air with thoughts only of helping his fellow kinsmen, of patching up their hurts and weariness.
Artaresto did not doubt this for even a moment.
He was a healer.
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Because in my head-canon Elrond cannot possibly be the only elven healer worth mentioning ever. And let's face it, Orodreth wasn't made for war. He listened to Túrin's advice about how to fight war against a vastly more powerful and numerous enemy, after all. Yeah, Túrin, that mortal with the really, really, really bad luck (See Children of Húrin if you want to know more about how badly his family was cursed).
Anyway, this is how I imagine Orodreth personally. Feel free to disagree with me, ne. I just love him like this. It makes me happy. Here's some artwork: Noldorin Family Birthday Chibis 2 by *avi17 on dA. See that bookworm in the corner? That's how I imagine Orodreth, only with slightly more silvery hair (like his mother, the lady in the blue dress).
So yeah. Was listening to sad music as I was writing this. No one song today really, but overall it's all very lovely. Still, I have to say the first song on the video stuck with me the most. 90 Minutes of Sad Music composed by Nights Amore. Absolutely lovely and refreshing.
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