Story Downloaded from Open Scrolls Archive (https://www.openscrolls.net)

Title: Destiny (#2656)
Author: Ottis413
Chapters: 1

Archive: Tolkien
Category: Alternate Universe (AU)
Description: I had finished this story and then decided not to post it, it seemed a bit off 'cannon', but since things are a little slow I thought I'd post it anyway. Hard to describe without giving the end away, it's an AU set between 'The Hobbit' and LotR, let me know what you think...
Published: 16 Apr 2006
Updated: 16 Apr 2006
Warnings: Very AU
Type: Drama
Characters: Old favorites


Chapter 1 - Destiny

Destiny

Adapted from a short story by Jane Yolen, named "Angelica", Published 1979

By Ottis413
Special thanks to GhettoElleth.

The boy could not sleep. It was hot and he had tossed and turned the entire night. Having been sick for so long, the heat only added to his discomfort. All night his head had throbbed, painfully, until finally, he gave up trying to sleep at all. Sitting up, he managed to get out of bed without waking his mother who was asleep in a nearby chair.

His head swimming with fever, he made his way to the front door, and managed to do so without stumbling. Then slipped from the house without disturbing the slumber of his family.

Elated at his progress, he sat off at an unsteady pace down the hill, his goal was the riverbank, he had not been there in almost a month.

No one else in the family ever went there, and he had always considered the riverbank his own, even though he was afraid of going in the water. He liked to sit with his feet in the damp earth and make patterns in the mud. The riverbank was cool even on the hottest days of summer, and right now he felt very hot indeed.

Heat lightning flickered across the sky. The boy sat down on a fallen log and picked at the bark as he would an old scab. He could feel the log imprint itself on his backside through the thin cotton nightclothes, wishing, and not for the first time, that he would have been allowed to sleep outside in warm weather.

The silence and fever enveloped him, it felt as if a hundred pins were pricking his face. He closed his eyes and dreamed of sleep, but his head still throbbed. He had never been out at night by himself before. The slight touch of fear was both pleasure and pain.

He thought about fear, the fear of the night seemed such a silly thing now. Overhearing someone tell his mother that such a high fever could damage his mind, that had scared him. But he wasn't scared now, for he felt certain he would soon die, having seen the despair his mother's eyes as she sat by his bed, and in the hopeless gray expression on his fathers face when he looked in the bedroom door.

When the faint came upon him he tumbled slowly from the log. There was nothing but river bank before him, nothing to slow his descent, and the boy rolled down the slight hill and into the river, not waking till the shock of the water hit him.

It felt shockingly cold. Thrashing about, the muddy water got in his mouth and made him gag.

Suddenly someone took his arm and pulled him up onto the bank, dragged him up the slight incline.

The boy opened his eyes and shook his head to get his curly, wet hair from his face. He was surprised to find that his rescuer was a woman, about twice his height, in a white silk robe and jeweled belt, she also wore a brooch in the shape of a sliver leaf. Her cloths were not muddied at all from her efforts. His one thought before she heaved him over the top of the bank and helped him back onto the log was that she must be quite marvelously strong.

"Thank you," he said, when he was seated again, and then did not know where to go from there.

"You are welcome." Her voice was low, her speech precise, almost bell like in its clearness. He realized that she was not a woman, and that she might well be a Elf.

"You fell in," she said.

"Yes." he stammered, looking at the ground between his feet.

She sat down beside him and taking his chin in her hand, looked into his eyes, smiling. He wondered how he could see so well when the moon was behind her. She seemed to light up from within like some kind of lamp.

Her outline was a golden glow with blonde hair falling in straight lengths past her shoulders, and her eyes appeared to reflect a galaxy of stars.

"Are you an Elf?" The boy asked, he loved stories about Elfs, but had never seen one.

"Yes, it so happens that I am."

"Oh, what is your name?"

"I don't think you could pronounce my real name," she said.

"Could I try?"

She told him her name, she seemed to shimmer and grow at her own words, but the boy thought that might be the fever in his head, though his headache has lessened somewhat.

He turned the name over in his head, his mind could not stumble around it. There seemed to be something blocking his tongue. "I guess I better call you Lady for now," he said.

"For now," she agreed, with a thoughtful look on her face.

The boy smiled shyly at her. "My name is..," he started.

"I know your name little one." she said with a smile.

"How do you know? How do you know that?"

"I am very wise," she said. "And names are important. There is a bit of destiny in names." She smiled again, but her smile was not so pleasant any longer. She started to reach for his hand, but he drew back.

"You shouldn't boast," he said. "About being wise. It's not nice."

"I am not boasting." She found his hand and held it in hers. Her touch was cool and infinitely soothing. She reached over with the other hand and put it first palm, then back to his forehead. She made a 'tich' sound against her teeth and scowled. "Your parents should not have let you out with such a fever."

"Nobody let me out," said the boy hanging his head. "I snuck out. No one knows I am here, except you."

"Well, they would be very worried if they knew." She stood up and was suddenly much taller than the boy again. "Come. Back to the house with you. You should be in bed." From the folds of her robes she withdrew a silver bottle that hung on a fine chain about her neck. "You must take a sip of this now. It will help you sleep."

"Will you come back with me?" the boy asked after taking a drink, the liquid had felt cool to his parched throat, and almost at once the prickling sensation left his face.

"Yes, I should not want you to lose your way." She held his hand as they went.

He looked back once to see his footprints in the rain-soft earth. They marched in an orderly line behind him. He could not see hers at all.

"Do you believe, little one?" Her voice seemed to come from a long way off, further even than the hills.

"Believe what?"

"In destiny. Do you believe that our movements, our very lives, are predetermined?"

He thought for a moment, it was easier now that his head felt better.

"I think we always have a choice, though, I've never really thought about that before."

The lady smiled, "That will do, for now," she said.

There was a tone to her voice that made him turn and look at her. She towered above him, all white and gold and glowing. The moon haloed her head from behind.

"What are you?" he whispered.

"I told you once, but in your condition I guess you can't remember, you may not recall any of this by morning."

"Am I going to live then?" he whispered, stumbling as they neared his home.

She lifted the boy up and cradled him in her arms. She sang him a lullaby in a language he did not know. "Yes, it is necessary." She sadly whispered to the sleeping child.

Galadriel walked on without a sound to the Gamgee house and left little Samwise sleeping, feverless, in his bed.
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