A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry One - Hallelujah

*This is an account of what could have happened in Mabyn's imagined life if she hadn't died. I'm not fully satisfied with the beginning, so it is subject to change. Since this won't be short enough to be classified as an alternate ending I'm going to leave its description as it is. I may have to make a proper story of it, but thus far it will be more of a tale of snippets of her life as it could have been if somehow she could have continued her life in Middle Earth.

*

I was no longer aware of my surroundings, so in truth I never met Galadriel when she came with Elrond to visit me. I had never met them before, but if I had their bearing alone would have made me straighten and back right into a corner. Galadriel, as a woman, was slightly less intimidating to me, but it was clear that between the two of them she had the higher power. All Elrond had to do was be a man with power to make me want to shy away from him. He had a stern bearing, which reminded me much of Thorin.

Of course though, I never truly saw them. I was unconscious permanently now, and had no idea of my visitors. Galadriel swept gracefully, all in white, around the end of my bed to look into my face, utterly ignoring my injury. She bent just enough to lay one long, pale hand against my cheek. Her eyes were even paler than Thranduil’s as she gazed into mine, which were opening as though they didn’t need my permission to do so.

She spoke something musical and magical to Elrond, who responded in kind. They had a quiet conversation as Elrond bent to better examine my back. Something of the way he did so, without ever touching my pulped skin, made me believe he saw far more than even Oin did when he was trying to save me. The two spoke again, and the pale elven woman sank like a lily petal to kneel before me, now with both hands on my face. Elrond remained where he was behind me, speaking in low tones.

The two began to sing. Warmth surged through me and for several minutes I thought that I would drown, and that even if I did, that would be all right somehow.

I did not know what they were doing, but regardless I was in no shape to stop it. At one point I thought I heard a whisper in my mind, but I could not understand the words.

After some time the warmth began to fade, and the ethereal music too, and the lightness in my body that their words had created seeped away as though I had been suspended in water and the water was draining. They and the light they had brought with them left, and I remained in the gloom their departure seemed to leave behind.

I then closed my eyes and didn’t move for four days.

When I next stirred I was lying on my back, which in itself was strange. I hadn’t been able to lie on my back in weeks. Stiffly I twisted just far enough sideways, purposefully and uncomfortably keeping my back straight, I reached underneath and behind myself, between the open flaps of my unbuttoned tunic. My fingers were tentative, skimming as lightly over the skin as possible so to avoid as much pain as I could. I had to stretch farther than I thought I could, and winced just out of habit, until I realized my fingertips had reached my spine, when they should have reached the equivalent of ground meat. I twisted, less carefully this time, frantic, to find what was killing me before it did, falling to my side as my arm worked around beneath me. There was nothing.

I wrenched off the bed in a tangle of blankets around my legs. I hit my knees hard but I greatly preferred bruises to finding, when I raced to the tall, dusty mirror in the corner, that my injury hadn’t gone, but my mind had. As it was I tripped again, spun so my back was facing the mirror, and put my chin on my shoulder so I could see, holding the two sides of my tunic apart.

My back was entirely clear, unmarked by the storm of my infection. A cloudy line showed the furthest reaches of the burn and rotted skin, like the terminal moraine at the furthest reaches of a glacier. My entire body went hot with astonishment, and I craned from side to side, making sure it was entirely gone.