Black Death

Ring around the rosies,
Pocket full of posies,
Ashes,
Ashes,
We all fall down.

A group of kids stopped dancing in a circle, dropping to the ground. There giggles dancing through the air. Not one care came to mind, not even one spec of worry. Getting up they began to dance around in a circle again, singing the same chant gleefully.

A woman rolled over, coughing up blood that seemed to come with no end. An open wound on her neck showed the signs of disease. One that will kill her come a short time from now. A dark time was coming to Middle Earth, one that many would strike from memory. All record will seem to disappear into the halls of time. No one wanted to remember the time when hundreds upon thousands of humans perished, and few elves actually got sick. A disease known well as the black death. It came in three different plagues:

Bubonic, lesser of the three evils, attacks the lymphatic system. Bubonic is the more known of the plagues. Pneumonic the most virulent of the three, it attacks the pulmonary system. Pneumonic, unlike the others is passed by air, and not fleas on rats. Last but not least quickest killer, Septicemic. Septicemic plague attacks the circulatory system, enabling it to kill the infected person in mere minutes. All three plagues travel as one, but what type of plague that strikes a city, or village, depends on how it is spread.

All the precautions couldn't even keep the safest elven city of Imladris, also know as Rivendell, safe. For the disease crept in with rats of a passing caravan of humans. Rats that carried fleas, fleas that spread it to humans, and elves. I choose to tell the tale of Rivendell, not because elves got it. Many never realized they were sick from the plague, which in Rivendell came as Bubonic. I choose to tell it for a little kid known as Estel, who would contract this deadly disease.

The door to Elrond's study opened slowly. A young boy, six years of age, entered quietly. Moving without knowing as stealthly as most elves. Estel wiped sweat off his forehead, which began to drip down. Tiredly he looks at his elven father.

"Father." Estel whimpered.

Elrond, as long as Legolas, Elrohir, Elladan, Glorfidel, and Figwitt looked up from their conversation. Looking unhappily at the boy who stood in the room. Quickly Elrond gave Legolas an apologetic look, he didn't come all this way from Mirkwood to be interrupted by his youngest son.

"Estel what have I said about interrupting in meetings?" Elrond asked clearly annoyed.

"I'm sorry father I-" Before Estel could finish he dropped to the floor.

So the story begins.

(*)

AN: Always had a fascination with the black death. So it was only fitting that eventually I did a fic to it. Here it is, hope you like. I'm an egg head to the black death, yeah I know I know I'm nuts. Oh and um about elves getting sick. Considering how lethal the forms of the plague are I figure elves would get a tiny bit sic, but nothing major. Even some humans have a genetic leg up on the plague. Be it a single or double copy of a genetic mutation. Yeah nuff before I babble you all to death, questions email me.