a/n: this short series is based on a request sent in by @blissful-swift. This is also for @nutella-hitler who requested to be tagged.
summary: you are captured by the band of Uruk-hai that are tracking down the Fellowship. after being maimed and left for dead, with an aching heart, Aragorn tries to heal you. but will his efforts be enough to save you?
warnings: mentions of battle, descriptions of wounds, blood/gore, sad lil' Aragorn :(
word count: 2.2 K
music: Searching for Peeta or Katniss Afoot by James Newton Howard
PART 2
The thundering footfalls of the Uruk-kai settled into the distance as Aragorn glanced around him throughout the forest. Within mere minutes, they had lost three members of their Fellowship, while two more fled farther east to complete the quest. Boromir, son of Denethor, had been slain and now drifted homeward on the river Anduin. Merry and Pippin had been captured by the Uruk-kai, uprooted where they had stood, and carried farther from the banks of the river and into the vast landscape of the south.
But there was one more member that had not been accounted for.
Aragorn sharpened his gaze and studied the tracks on the ground, but found no trace of your footsteps amongst the earth that had been trampled under the boots of the Uruks.
“Gimli! Have you seen (Y/n)?” Aragorn called out as he caught glimpse of the red-haired warrior. Discomfort twisted itself in his gut; you weren’t one to wander off alone.
“No, tha’ lass disappeared just before Boromir did. Before the ambush,” Gimli’s gravelly voice replied, his own concern putting weight upon his tone. His expression turned stern as he mulled over what predicament could have prevented your return. “You don’t think she-”
“I caught sight of her chasing after the hobbits after they were captured!”
Aragorn turned to the river at the sudden sound of Legolas’ voice. The fair-haired archer made large strides up the bank, his voice slightly strained from the exertion. When he stood level to Aragorn, he dipped his head in the direction that the hobbits had been taken. Aragorn followed his gesture and faced the southern path through the forest.
“So she’s ahead of us,” Aragorn added, but the queer feeling in his gut swelled. As he watched the flickering light of the sun scatter itself about the forest floor, an image formulated in his mind. A terrible, haunting image of you, dead upon the muddied terrain, your blood mixed with the earth. He cleared his throat and followed the path that the Uruk-kai had formed into the ground.
“What’s our plan, then? Search for tha’ lass?” Gimli huffed as he jogged up to Aragorn, who was studying the ground as he walked. Upon Aragorn’s silence, he looked to Legolas.
“What do you think? He’ll not so easily leave her behind. She’s a member of our Fellowship and his friend.” Legolas said, an incredulous look on his features.
“Well, I’d like tah’ know where I’m goin’, if ye’ don’t mind!” Gimli scowled, looking ahead at the trodden earth that had been washed into mud under the heavily armored boots of the Uruks.
“We find (Y/n) and then we track the party of Uruk-kai. We’ll not abandon Merry and Pippin, either.” Aragorn answered, carefully watching the ground beneath him as he went on ahead. It wasn’t long before he knelt to the ground and picked something up that had been buried under the mud. When Legolas caught up to him, a gasp escaped his thin lips.
“Her dagger.”
“So she’s without ah’ weapon,” Gimli added, eyeing the beautiful silver as Aragorn wiped the mud from its hilt and blade. When both Aragorn and Legolas turned and gave him a frown, he stepped back. “What? Did I say somethin’ wrong?”
“She has a longsword, Gimli. She’s not defenseless. She’s just lost this,” Aragorn said, sliding the dagger into his belt, next to his own. However, despite the fact that you, as far as they knew, still had your sword, it worried Aragorn that you had dropped your dagger. You seldom ever misplaced or left your things behind, especially your weapons. “Come on, we’ll lose daylight quickly enough.”
“How could you forget about her sword? She nearly decapitated you with it when you threatened to throw the halflings into the river.”
Gimli only grumbled in return of Legolas’ inquiry.
From then on, Aragorn only mumbled his findings to himself, whether the movement of footsteps or the outcome of your fight. He could tell the difference between your shoeprint from the Uruks, as well as their own. He knew Boromir and Legolas had come this far to fight off the hoards of monsters, but your shoe shape was akin to his, although smaller.
For hours they tracked as they ran, following the scents, the prints, and the path made through the forest and onto the open plains. They did not rest but to check their path and what lie ahead, without a morsel of food. After what seemed like long hours as the sun shone and began to descend in the sky, Aragorn finally stopped in his tracks and dipped his fingers in one of many darkened puddles that littered a pattern into the stretch of the plain. When he lifted it to his nose, his features pursed.
“Orc blood.” He said, wiping it on his pants as he studied the ground nearby.
“How can ye’ tell without lickin’ it?” Gimli asked.
“It smells of rot,” Aragorn replied, following the paces of the Uruk that had been injured. He assumed it had been injured by none other blade than your own.
“Look, up ahead! There are bodies!” Legolas exclaimed, running ahead of them towards a cluster of large rocks buried in the hilly terrain a half kilometer away. When they finally reached them, Aragorn could tell you had cut down many Uruks. Not just by the bodies that lay strewn around the path, but from how you had cut them down. By the work of the blade, he could tell the fatal blows were the work of your longsword. His guess was clarified when he found your same prints all around them, showing where you had stood and fought, and what moves you had made.
In one pair of prints, he saw how your toes had dug into the earth further, which indicated that you had lunged on one of them from behind. A few yards away, a big brute laid dead on his stomach with a gaping gash drug down his back. In another, he saw how the right sides of your shoes had dug in, showing that you had ducked and dodged, possibly making a low cut. A few feet away lay another Uruk, a slice through his lower abdomen.
“They’ve not been dead long, she should be nea–”
A bloodcurdling scream broke across the plain, cutting Aragorn’s words short, and encouraging the fowl to scatter from the trees of the nearby Fangorn Forest. Without a second thought, Aragorn sprung to his feet and ran as fast as his long legs would allow, sprinting toward the source of the sound. However, no matter how fast he ran with his companions close behind, the sound of your screams kept eluding him. Each time your cries entered the air, they seemed to move further south. You weren’t dormant upon the ground as you would expect someone injured to be.
They had you in their grasp.
“Aragorn, they’ve captured her!” Legolas observed. He could not only hear your screams and what their elusive distance indicated, but also the scuffling of another fight and the coarse laughter of the Uruk-kai.
“Quickly!” Aragorn yelled, trying to pace his breathing as he pushed himself to run as fast as his feet would carry him. Another cry was heard, this time louder and more pained, with the hitching of sobs, and then it abruptly stopped. “(Y/n)!”
As they ran, Legolas could hear the resume of heavy boot falls.
“They’ve started south again!” He yelled over the sound of their own feet hitting the earth.
When they reach the edge of the jagged rock faces that dipped off onto a slope, Aragorn could see traces of a bright red liquid upon the rocks and spilled onto the ground. He looked up and could make out the black shadow of the Uruk-kai making their way across the plain, very near the border of Fangorn Forest. Legolas, with his keen elven eyes, could see that they only carried the two halflings with them.
“They don’t have her,” He said, squinting his eyes. “But they’re taking the hobbits to Isengard!”
“She’s down there, laddie,” Gimli’s voice was solemn as he pointed downwards. When Aragorn followed his line of vision, the breath in his lungs was stripped from him. He turned his feet sideways and began to shuffle down the slope, over the rocks and loosened earth. “Aragorn! You don’t know what you’ll find!”
“Do you think she’s dead?” Legolas whispered, taking in the sight of your body that was lying still upon the earth. He had rarely ever looked upon the sight of death, apart from his enemies, so the image of not only Boromir’s dying body, but also yours, was enough to break the golden-haired elf’s heart. He recalled the smile you often bore around Aragorn, the laughter that the ranger invoked from you, and the way Aragorn tenderly spoke to you.
“They would have no reason to keep her alive, but tah’ let ‘er suffer,” Gimli concluded, looking for a way to follow Aragorn down the slope. He planted his foot over the loose rocks, only for them to slide underway and lurch him forward. With his quick reflexes, Legolas clutched the dwarf’s arm, steadying him. Had the situation not been so serious, Gimli would’ve wrenched himself free of the elf with a snide comment, but he only nodded at him in thanks and followed where Legolas stepped.
When they reached Aragorn’s side, they could see the blood that stained grass crimson red, the torn and battered state of your clothes, and the longsword that lie shattered on the ground only feet away from your body. As Aragorn turned you from your side and onto your back, your mouth was open and your face was covered in all manner of dirt, grime, and blood. They were unsure if it was all your own or the result of the wounds you had inflicted upon the Uruk-kai.
When Aragorn reached forward and pulled the hair from your face, your eyes fluttered open. As relieved as he was, Aragorn could only sit up straight and suck in his breath, eager to keep you conscious. No words would formulate upon his tongue, not even the taste of your name.
“Aragorn?” You whispered, although it was barely audible amidst the strain of pain and the gurgling of blood in your throat. “I’m sorry-… I-I’m so sorry, I couldn’t-…”
“No, no, no, (Y/n),” Aragorn said, pulling your weak body against his chest. The tears flowed from his eyes in a hot rampage of fear and regret, flushing his cheeks and taking the grime from his face with them. “You must rest. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“But the hob-…hobbits. I could-couldn’t save them. They’re go-gone.” You shivered in his arms as the blood in your body ran cold and your vision stirred into nothingness.
“Shh, stay quiet. We’re going to help you.” He said in the most soothing voice he could muster as he motioned for Legolas to unroll their bedding. He would need all the help he could get if he was going to save you.
“Aragorn, it hurts, it-…it hurts so much,” You whimpered against his chest, wincing every time you took in a breath. “Help me, please, don’t let me di…”
“(Y/n), hold on,” Aragorn pleaded, his voice cracking. The way you repeated your words over and over, as if you weren’t sure if you had said them or not scared him. The way the blood trickled through your clothes terrified him, and the extent of the wounds he had yet to examine made his gut sink further with dread. What would he uncover? “I can heal you. I can heal you, (Y/n)! Do you hear me?”
“Arag-…” His name faded from your speech as your eyes rolled to the back of your head. Your body went completely limp in his arms.
“(Y/n)!” Aragorn yelled, but to no avail. You were unconscious, and if he didn’t act fast, you would remain that way for all of eternity. “Gimli, gather some firewood. I’ll need a fire to boil the water over. Legolas, I need the herbs from my pack, and find some yarrow. I saw some nestled near those boulders we passed up on the hill.”
When Aragorn stood, he picked you up as gently as he could, trying not to mar your wounds any further. He laid you down as softly as he could on the bedding Legolas had prepared, careful to unravel your hair from under your head. Then he unraveled the woolen shirt that had wound itself up and around the gash in your stomach. When he revealed the wound, he heard Gimli gasp. When Legolas returned with the yarrow, he knelt by the fire and watched silently, unpacking the herbs and ointments Aragorn had buried in his satchel.
Forcing himself to stray a small distance from your side, he set up a pot of water over the fire Gimli had begun to stoke. He enlisted Legolas’ help with applying pressure on the wound to your abdomen while he sterilized the cloth that he had torn from his own shirt. While he waited for the water to come to a boil, he began examining the rest of the horrible wounds and torture the orcs had inflicted upon you. As night set in around him, Aragorn never tore himself from your side.
“I’m not going to let you die, (Y/n), I swear to you,” He said, placing one of the sterilized cloths on your abdomen as he clean the blood from the wound. “I swear on my own life.”
