A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Forty-One - The Reasons We Cry

I could smell blood, first, and sweat second. I also smelled the proof of death, in the urine and other things that happened when our bodies could no longer hold themselves together. The rug all around my face was wet. My right arm felt wrong.

Sound was muddled, I wasn't quite back yet. The floor vibrated as people walked across it, knees thumping into carpet or stone. My face felt stuck. My arms felt tangled.

Hands wrapped around my ankles and dragged me out from behind the armchair I had toppled behind, ripping my bleeding face up from the rug. I turned, my head swimming, and lifted my arms to fend off whoever it was. My right arm fell back across me with a whimper and someone gently caught the left by my wrist.

"It's all right miss, it's all right!" someone quickly said, speaking softly, soothing. "I'm here to help you. Can you tell me what's wrong?"

My face had lines burned into it from my left ear forward and across my brow. My right arm felt cracked up the middle. But I hadn't even focused enough to open my eyes yet.

Whoever had grabbed my wrist and ankles helped me with that step, lightly peeling up one of the eyelids, and the other blearily came with it. I lifted my left arm again and weakly gripped his arm, as if I could shove him off. He had his fair hair tied back in a fraying bundle, and tears sprang into my eyes.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you, Miss," he said, picking at something caught in one of the gouges in the side of my head. "Can you tell me your name? Are you from Erebor?"

My head tipped sideways, trying to look around, and I saw that the maid I'd been trying to help lay on her side behind me, a stained sheet draped over her. I only knew it was her because of the bracelet on her wrist—she and I had gushed over it last year when her soon-to-be-betrothed gave it to her. Pale green stones, polished to a misty round perfection, with clear ones in between. She had such pretty hands, even without the bracelet. I sniffed, chest heaving.

"What's your name?" he asked again, as if I'd said it and he just hadn't heard. He checked his blood-smeared pocket watch, not seeming to mind that his helping others was ruining it. He tucked the silver and glass watch away then did something unexpected to my arm, and I went rigid with a short scream.

He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. "You're all right now, your arm just needed to be straightened out. I'm going to brace it and wrap it now, but the worst is over."

"Mabyn!" I cried. "My name. My name is Mabyn."

He briefly checked the watch again. "The Mabyn? Well imagine that. Mabyn, can you move all your fingers and toes for me?" I felt his hands pinching at the ends of my boots so he could tell if I moved everything like I was supposed to. "Try one more time, Mabyn." I did so, and heard him sigh. "Fantastic. I'm going to wrap these cuts on your head now, all right? Just hold still. You got a good bump on the head and I want you to just lie still until someone comes for you, all right?"

"I want to go home."

"Not yet, Mabyn, I don't want you getting up." He produced another roll of pale linen and lifted my head with a hand under the back of it, trying not to tangle my hair. He wrapped the linen around and around, obscuring my left eye. I made a face because the linen against the cuts stung, but I vaguely remembered him smearing some sort of goop on them....at some point. I couldn't remember. He moved too quickly. He tied his bandage off. "Still with me Mabyn?"

"Mm."

"I know you want to go home, but you need to wait here for someone to take you home or for a healer to tell you you can get up. I can't tell how much blood you lost but you're too disoriented now to walk on your own. Just lie here and be as still as you can, all right? Does anyone know where you are?"