To Live Again {Lord of the Rings/ThranduilXOC Fanfiction}

1. The Rescue

I am not dead, how am I not dead? Please, I want to be dead, I can't survive this pain its too much, my chest...it hurts to breathe...I am suffocating!

I hear another voice, an adult voice, and feet and hands. I focus on that, anything to distract myself from the pain.

"Aiya! Little one run and fetch the guards, and quickly! Tell them to bring a stretcher and alert the healers."

I like this voice it is kind but strange, foreign even? Light footsteps scurry off and I feel a warm hand on my forehead...so my skull is not smashed in? Well, at least that's something.

"Can you hear me child? Come now you must wake up?"

I try to answer the voice and to my surprise I feel my eyelids flutter, the searing brightness is too painful to comprehend and I moan loudly.

"That's it, nice and slow, focus on my voice, you are going to be alright my dear you are safe now."

I strain against the disorientating colours until a face comes into focus.  I feel my lips part and a tiny gasp escape.

The face is not human it cannot be, it is an angel, it has to be? I must be in heaven but why is heaven so damn painful?

The man before me has gleaming silver hair, and eyes so bright they look like the blue sky of a summers day. His face is so fair, it is captivating to look at, and he almost instantly steals my pain away. He smiles kindly and his voice is like silk...so soft, so ethereal...I can barely comprehend much else.

"What is your name fair one?"

"Ummnugh," I gurgle in response and taste the metallic flavour of blood on my tongue, he asks me again and I force myself to answer...he deserves an answer;

"Clara," I grunt out, I feel my voice falter and I groan loudly again. I don't know why I say Clara, I have never used Clara as my given name but I just don't want to say Josie. It feels like a forgotten name, something I should leave behind.

"Clara, it seems you have been attacked do you remember what happened?" The kind man asks again, I just want to reach out and touch his long silvery hair to see if it really feels like silk, but instead I shake my head.

"Grandpa! Grandpa!" The high soprano voice startles me again and my head involuntarily jerks painfully toward the sound. "The healers are coming!"

The child stops and regards me shyly, he is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. So innocent, so perfect; with his shoulder length fair hair and sparkling blue eyes, his skin is like fine ivory...he looks like something from a story book...some sort of feä child. I vowed anyone that set eyes on him would fall in love instantly; I reckoned they would happily lay their life down for him.

"Excellent work my boy now come here and take Clara's hand, she is frightened and in need of comfort," The kindly man responds to the child and I feel my brows furrow. The boy had called him Grandpa but this man could be no more than thirty-five, if that?

The child gracefully kneels at my side and I stare in complete wonderment, how can a child be that elegant and composed? He smiles an angelic little smile and takes my hand, I find myself smiling back like a complete idiot, but the kid is captivating beyond words. I would never call myself maternal but this boy pulls on my very heartstrings.

"Do not be frightened Lady Clara," he tells me, his voice so full of confidence, his perfect articulation baffles me for he looks no more than four or five. "The healers are coming and they will make you better, you will be home very soon."

"Home?" I hear myself question in that rasping voice, "Where am I?"

The beautiful little boy glances at the man he called Grandpa with a perplexed look, it is so adorable.