26. Palantír: Cousins

Aragorn felt a pang of sorrow, even though it was someone like the Witch-king who Sauron grieved for. He knew how it feels to loose someone...

Smoke from a little campfire rose between the elms.

"Hold still!" Halbarad's annoyed voice could be heard.

"I'm trying to!" Aragorn's voice sounded weakly. "You are terrible with the needle!"

"You are the one careless enough to get injured, so don't complain!"

There was silence for some time then.

"Aragorn? Aragorn! No, you can't sleep now! Talk to me!"

"Sorry…" came a slurred reply, followed by a relieved sigh.

"You know I don't mean it seriously, don't you? I'm just trying to keep you awake…" To keep the fear of losing you out of my mind, so my hands won't shake when I try to stitch your wound… trying to keep it cold and impassionate like the sky in winter…

"Of course I know that, cousin…"

"Denlad will bring horses soon, and then we will get to the others and take care of that wound properly."

"W-Where will we go?"

"Archet is closest from here. Well, the inn is not the best, but at least they have a roof and relatively clean beds."

Aragorn smiled wryly. "There wouldn't be any decent wine, would there?"

Halbarad's blood on the Pelennor fields looked like wine, red wine seeping into the soil... The same field where the Witch-king has been defeated. Yes, Aragorn understood Sauron's grief, and he he had an unpleasant feeling that Sauron will use it against him.

A/N1: For this chapter, I borrowed Cairistiona's OC Denlad as a response to the prompt "use the OC of another author in your story"

A/N2: I'm going "away from civilzation" now. I apologize for the lack of updates in that time, the next chapter will be posted on July 25th. But I can promise you that the "palantír fight" will end soon and the plot will move forwards.