The Last Dreamwalker

Hear My Heart Stop

Through harsh desert sand and sun Gandalf, Lessien, and Pippin had travelled through for the past day and a half. The sun's rays had beat down relentlessly and the loose desert sand had attacked open eyes and crevices ferociously.

Lessien could feel the grainy stuff eating at her skin, irritating her beyond measure.

Pippin dozed in Gandalf's arms, lulled by the steady beat of Shadowfax's hooves beneath him.

Lessien envied him for being able to sleep so peacefully. She tried to recall the last time she had slept without nightmares plaguing her. Ironically, she remembered then, that the last time she had slept soundly had been but two days ago, when she had been so close to Legolas.

At the mere thought of his name, the beginnings of a vision began to cloud at the front of Lessien's mind.

She shook her head ferociously, determined not to have even a glimpse of Legolas.

He was her past. Her future was ahead and it was set in stone.

Lessien grit her teeth as she admitted to herself, I am the future Savior of Middle Earth. I may die in the process. Legolas is a mere memory.

Beneath her, Lessien's mount, Ormë whinnied impatiently. She could sense the annoyance in his protest and Lessien understood why. They had traveled up into the mountains, deciding to cross over the few that lay in their path to Gondor.

The higher and higher they had gotten, the more the loose dirt paths slowly mingled with freshly fallen powder snow. The chill of the mountain air was biting, nature's way of twisting the knife.

It was now that the two horses, hobbit, wizard, and half-elf waded through two feet of ever-accumulating snow.
Shadowfax, being Rohan's best horse, had no trouble with the incredibly harsh weather. Ormë, not being as trained as Shadowfax was, grew weary.

Lessien could sense he wanted rest and food but Gandalf would not allow Ormë to so much as slow his pace. She felt bad for her horse but knew that what Gandalf ordered, went.

Now, as Ormë loudly complained, Lessien wished to join him. The weather was miserable, completely and utterly miserable. The snowflakes filling the cracks of her broken heart.

Sharp, piercing flurries cut at Lessien's cheeks and clung to her hair. The biting storm turned her face a girlish pink and soaked her hair so it appeared darker than it was. Her lips were chapped to the point of bleeding, the moisture sucked from the air before she could so much as moisten her abused lips. Her fingers turned blue at the fingernails and her teeth chattered so violently that Lessien feared she would chip a tooth.

Ormë tossed his head impatiently, slowing a significant amount in rebellion.

Lessien clicked her tongue and kicked his side. "No! Continue on, Ormë!" She ordered this sternly. It seemed her mount was at wit's end with her so he reared back, trying to throw her off.

Lessien, who's fingers were so cold they were too stiff to move fast, could not hold onto the reins to save herself. Neither could she squeeze with her legs, for the leather saddle was too slick to grope.

Lessien's cry was lost to the wind as she fell, flat on her back, to the icy floor.

It seemed in slow motion she fell. The first thing she remembered worrying about was the irrational fear her spine might snap. Lessien worried that the cold made her bones so brittle and frozen that they would all shatter on impact.

When she hit the ground and there was no
hideous snapping noise, she instantaneously thanked the Valar for granting her mercy. As soon as this thought had formed, it was lost with the wind as easily as her scream had been. For two more important realizations hit her.

First was the angry idea that the supposed second best horse in Rohan had thrown Lessien off its back, simply because it was tired.

Second, and more important of the two, was the fact that Ormë was no longer visible. He and Gandalf had been swallowed up by thick flakes of snow.

Lessien cursed loudly, scrambling to her feet with great difficulty, having a hard time getting a grip on the textureless ice. Having stood, she lifted an arm to shield her eyes from the piercing ice flakes, a surprised exclamation escaped her mouth when she slipped on the slick ice.

She felt the cold panic creep up on her as she fumbled to her knees. Cupping her mouth, she screamed with all her might, "Gandalf! Pippin!"

And suddenly a vision hit her in a rush.

Legolas, kneeling and yelling into the distance after small specks on the horizon. He was tearing up and it hurt her deeply, for Lessien had never seen him cry before. It was something so strangely sad and beautiful, so filled with emotion that it made Lessien never to want to see him in pain again.

No, he was not just tearing up, he was crumpled over, the expression he was making more deep and painful than his crying. He just looked so heartbroken.

The vision began to fade out.

There were brief glimpses after that, both the happy and the sad. Legolas trying to love her and Lessien telling Legolas to leave because she could not love him back. Though the vision was not the most vivid of visions nor was it the longest, it still hurt Lessien more than any vision she had had before.

With these visions, she realized that Legolas had always loved her unconditionally, even with the danger that followed her around and that Lessien herself could never accept the pure love, for she had always had to work to achieve affection.

Somehow, her attempts of keeping him safe had gotten in the way of her being able to love him at all. Glimpses of her pushing him away, pulling away from him kissing her, and him shoving her up against a wall, in a fit of anger.

The tone of her dream changed and various happy scenes began to flash before her eyes. Legolas and Lessien sitting beside a fire, she was blushing as she buried her face in his shoulder and he was smiling ever so softly as he kissed her head.

The first time they had met.

Legolas peering at her lovely drawings. The image of him kissing her, more roughly and more desperate than ever, laying her down. Of her kissing him on the cheek. It all ended on a rather disturbing image of a bloody rose.

Lessien snapped back to reality, frozen tears plastered onto her cheeks, still kneeling in the snow, storm still raging around her. Looking up, she saw Gandalf on Shadowfax, gazing down at her with an expectant look in his eyes. He held out his hand for her to take and as she stood up, Lessien asked, "How did you know I would be here?"

In his other hand were the reins of Ormë, who now seemed completely calm.

"Your vision of Legolas. You shared it with me."
Gandalf paused after shouting over the storm. "You could have kept him. The time you had with him is likely to be the only time you will have with him."

Lessien slowly reached for him. "All I had, is all I'm going to get," she sobbed dryly as she mounted Ormë.

Gandalf gave her a sorry look and Pippin, now awake, tried to reach for her, to give her a comforting hand but Lessien shot off, wishing she could forget it all.