The Hobbit / LOTR -oneshots

Mend - Elrond

Warnings: injuries, arrow wounds
Word count: 1900
Other: Another one of these "role reversal" fics, reader is a princess and Elrond is a common elf, a healer
Requested: nnnope

When your horse arrives at Elrond's secluded hut one night, he nurses you to health with no idea who you really are.

When Elrond heard the neigh of the horse, at first he assumed that he was hearing things and kept working on de-stemming the herbs, but when it sounded again, he abandoned his work. As he stepped out of the door of his small wooden hut, he saw a brown horse, carrying a slumped figure in his back. He hesitated to approach until he saw the blood running down the horse's fur along the shoulder. He hurried towards it, and luckily, the horse turned out to be friendly. He gently led him across his yard, tying him to the post and hurrying to gently pull the woman down from the saddle.

Her clothes were torn and tattered, her dress bathed in blood as he gently inspected her wound. It was on her shoulder, the snapped-off tip of an arrow sunken deep, the serrated head lodged into her flesh. The wound didn't appear to be infected or very old, and he was able to remove the arrow neatly and bind the wound, after treating it with every healing herb he had in his stores.

You woke up in the early morning of the next day, gasping for air, the horrors of the attack flashing in your mind. The horrified neighs of the horses, blades clashing against one another, the cries of dying soldiers. You remember the pain of the arrow sinking into your shoulder, and then everything went hazy. You could only remember clinging to Harron as he galloped away before everything went black.
"Miss, you need to lay down, you were severely injured." You jump at the foreign voice and groan in pain as your wound throbs. A gentle hand lands on your shoulder and pushes you back down onto the soft pillows.
"You need to lay still, you are still healing." The voice is gentle, and even though you cannot see who is speaking, you relax into the pillows as something cool is placed on your forehead. You are too tired and disoriented to shake it away. Even when you try and fight the exhaustion, it wins, covering you in a thick blanket of sleep, despite your resistance.

- - -

Fourteen days had passed since you had arrived in Elrond's care, and you were almost to full health. He continued to care for you, tending to your wound as it slowly healed. Elrond had deemed that the arrow had been poisoned, and that was the reason for the slower healing process. When he saw the startled expression on your face, he hurried to explain that the poison would not kill you, it would just make healing a little more tedious process than normal. He promised that you would be on your feet in no time. Your shoulder was still healing, but the fever had passed and the wound didn't ache anymore, you just had to rest your arm. You still slept with the help of herbs, to make sure that you didn't move too much in your sleep and then damage your shoulder even further.

You hated just laying still and watching him do all the work after he had worked day and night to get you back to health. But you had also learned that Elrond was not an easy elf to sway when he had set his mind on something.
"I am serious, Elrond, I can help you ground the herbs. My arm is almost healed and I will go crazy if I have to keep watching you do everything for me." You huffed in irritation, tapping your foot against the floor.
"Absolutely not."
"Then let me do something else. My muscles will wither away if I don't use the arm at all." Elrond sighed as he considered your words. You were right, your muscles needed some strain so that they wouldn't stiffen and shrink, but he was still hesitant. It was clear from your gestures and movements that you weren't used to much manual labor. He had already guessed it when you had arrived by the coats of arms that decorated your horse's tack, but you had just confirmed it. He hadn't brought it up with you, he didn't want to startle you and make you think that he was after something. He had taken you in because you were hurt, not because he had sensed there would be a reward for it.