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*You and I are not illusion
Please realize it, touch it not with body but with heart*
It had already been quite some time now since Celine had decided to join The Fellowship and so far, she did a remotely splendid job in trying not to get anyone killed to the best of her abilities.
This resulted to majority of them not only looking up to her but easing in her presence as well despite of her sporadic detachment.
The first ones to fall into this were the hobbits whom she had looked after, especially Frodo himself. They've all figured out ever since day one that apart from the hobbits, Celine had also shown strange resilience to the ring's evil -a fact that Aragorn, of course, just couldn't shrug off all that easily.
Second was, surprisingly, Boromir himself. It was that time where they were ambushed by the Uruk-hai and were split into groups.
The swordsmaster had originally been with Legolas and Aragorn but upon hearing the urgency of The Horn of Gondor, she had been quick to disappear and jump into the man's aid after one arrow had hit his shoulder. They were surrounded, Merry and Pippin were there and Boromir was injured and yelling at them to run off. He was loosing too much blood and Celine could only do so much on her own and in such a dire situation that she wasn't able to do much for the hobbits as they were taken away.
Not when she herself had been hit by arrows -one that made its mark a mere inch from where her heart is and another straight through her left leg.
Needless to say, she lost more blood than Boromir had.
The Fellowship- or whatever was left of it- had never felt so defeated and none of them had ever seen their resident elf so disconcerted.
It all seemed so distant now but Celine was sure she saw worried piercing blues before she blacked out from blood loss.
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Her physical wounds are yet to heal even after the long days the remaining five of them had spent tracking the band of Uruk-hais.
It had still been there as they met up with Gandalf in Fangorn Forest and it did nothing to comfort her even after they've cleared out that the hobbits are still alive and lost some place within.
All those time, Celine had been stilted and Aragorn had enough of his curiosity eating him up from within.
It may have been luck when it just so happened that it was the two of them that had fallen over the cliff to what they would've thought would be their death.
"Valars..." The bluenette groaned as she was the first to rouse and immediately felt pain shoot throughout every nerve in her body upon opening her eyes. It didn't take her long to notice the unconscious body of her comrade lying a few feet away from her and she dutifully crawled her way towards him seeing that her leg would not cooperate now of all times.
Once she was close enough, she turned his body so he was facing her, "Aragorn, Aragorn, wake up," she called out and gently shook him by the shoulders.
The man turned a bit as his eyelids fluttered before fully opening to reveal equally pained orbs of blue, "Celine?" He inquired, voice groggy as he braced himself to a sitting position using his good arm, "Where are we?"
"I haven't the faintest," the swordsmaster answered but then tipped her head slightly at something behind him, "but that creature won't stop nudging you awake. I reckon he had been staying here for quite sometime now. He looks like Brego." She whistled for the large brown stallion who immediately answered her call and was trotting beside her in no time.
Aragorn blinked in confusion before his mind had fully registered how easily the naturally hostile horse had bent to the girl's will without so much as a minute doubt in its beetle black eyes.
"It is him." Came the Dunedain's confirmation before he fixed an amused smile in the girl's direction, "You've got skill not only with the blades but with creatures as well." He wondered out loud as he helped her up the horse, blood seeped out of her leg to his hand as he did so and the bluenette visibly flinched as she realized what just happened, "Your injury-"
"I am quite alright, Aragorn. Let us not fuss over it for now. We ride to Helm's Deep," Celine began, urgency in her tone as she fought with the man for dominance over the reigns.
"You are injured, you should rest." He reasoned, concern softening his features.
"I hardly think I can rest with this much dread, much less perched atop the back of a horse at that too. And no offense but I think I am a faster rider than you are," she spared the ranger a sideways grin before kicking the horse's side with her good leg.
Aragorn knew better than to argue so with a helpless shake of his head, a quirky grin and a "Every woman I have met tells me that. Do I really look that awful of a rider?", he mounted the horse, avoiding the girl's hands on the reigns to balance himself.
To which the girl merely chuckled to, "Arwen's got observant eyes."
"She is an elf after all."
The girl waved him off dismissively, "Yes, yes. And you are an awful rider."
Celine hates any form of physical contact, he and The Fellowship had proven this one too many times before.
Just some poor hand suddenly lying on all the wrong places could result to being thrown into the ground if not a broken wrist, finger or two and a knuckle.
The Dunedain inwardly cringes at the memory of his close encounter and comes to the conclusion that he's already hurt enough as he is right now and he couldn't risk wrapping his arms around one slender waist.
He kept close watch where his hands are touching as well, making sure that his palms would not accidentally slip off leather and land straight into soft fiery death.
"You are being unnecessarily cautious," the girl began as she rode at a faster speed across the rocky plains.
The man tipped his head in curiosity, the sudden attempt for a conversation quite a welcome change for his consciousness is in the verge of slipping off his fingertips like water, "Whatever is it you are talking about, dear swordsmaster?" He asks, his mock-ignorance a bit too indiscreet.
Celine shakes her head. It's not as if the people around her had any choice but to abide by her unspoken wishes lest they would want to get hurt. That's how she got her way most of the time now, more because of fear and apprehension to what she could and would do should they go against her will than anything else. It's the life she had chosen the moment she sat those barriers up.
Her companions being wary in her presence is merely a consequence of her choices and the actions she had taken.
Hadn't she always been big in realizing that whatever is happening to her are all due to the choices she had made and the paths she decided to take?
Then why does the set of consequences for this particular choice of hers too difficult to take in?
Her brows furrowed at the thought and she had never felt so lost in her life.
Celine takes pride in being organized -in body and in mind- all the time. Seldom could anyone find her at a loss for words to say or actions to take. But now, her head is a whirling cacophony of things she thinks she's better off not pondering about and things that concern their quest and everything in between.
It would've been easier for her if all she'd have to think about is the quest at hand, the inevitable wars to come and everyone else's survival -the things that really mattered.
Not promises of the past that should've never been spoken at present because it should already be long forgotten. Things that proved nothing more but nuisances that continuously troubles her otherwise sound mind.
Things that she convinced herself had never really mattered and never will ever again, especially not now. Because of all times, why would it matter now?
It really shouldn't.
It should no longer bother her if she's so different now as she made herself and everyone around her believe. If she's changed and left the pains of the past behind.
But why does the aching throb still there whenever her mind's on subconscious lock down? Whenever she let's her armor drop? Since when does the mask she wore felt so heavy?
Since when had she realized it had all been a mask?
A heavy sigh left her lips as a single thought crossed her mind, 'I am a lost cause...'
"Celine? Celine?" A voice called out and it was only then that the girl was taken off her trance at the sound of her name being called in such a worried tone.
Lilac hues blinked in bewilderment as she steered the horse towards the great walls of Helm's Deep, "We're here..." She stated as if she's still caught in a daze.
"For about a few minutes ago had you been steering us at the right direction. Yes, we would be. Now are you sure you're alright, Celine?" Aragorn's tone was deathly serious as much as it is concerned.
"I can assure you, Aragorn, I am fi-"
"If that is so then what is it about the past that makes you think you are a lost cause?" He asks, suddenly cutting her off.
The girl abruptly snapped her head to turn to look at the Dunedain in the eye, "What did you say?" She halted the steed as they were halfway across the stone bridge that would lead them to the front gates.
The man blinked, trying his hardest not to back down against the intensity that those pair of stony lavenders held, "The past. You had been muttering about it and was so lost in thought because of it that you continued in the wrong direction,"
"Must be the blood loss." The girl shrugged casually and turned back towards the path they are to take as if the blood that stained her entire leg and darkened the side of their mount was nothing.
"It seemed to be of great importance." Aragorn countered and looked down at the weathered state her leg was in, "Your leg looks awful."
The bluenette shook her head as she slowed the steed to a trot, "It's fine. I could barely feel the pain."
"Of the wound or the past?"
"Drop it, Dunedain." Celine commanded, trying to hide the pathetic flinch that slipped pass her guard by putting a dangerous edge on her tone.
"I would not." The man insisted, because as much as he originally never wanted to pry, there was something that seemingly wants to keep him digging until he finds out the truth. As if there was something in her words that he had kept on missing.
And his blue eyes blinked in realization.
Her words had always been a mixture of truth and deceit. It's always both. Sometimes in equal parts and sometimes always more of one than the other.
He smirked, it shouldn't have really taken him this long to figure her out, "You don't want me to."
She froze, the people crowding around them upon their arrival was suddenly nothing more but mere blurs of different colors as she stared at the man who had lowered himself off the horse that they both rode.
Gimli had rushed forth and was beyond shocked in relief as he saw them both alive and breathing, "-you canniest! Bless you lads, we thought you were dead!" He exclaimed and threw his arms around the ranger's waist before looking up at the girl who had not moved an inch from the top of the horse, "The elf had been the most devastated." He breathed out and his gaze softened as lilac hues met his.
"Greetings, Master Gimli," she smiled as she tried her best to shake off what statement the dwarf had said earlier, gently tugging the reigns of the steed as to turn him around.
Aragorn was the least pleased of her aversion but upon noticing the stains that had managed to drop on the stone floor beneath them, he suddenly remembered, "Gimli, please take Celine to the healers while I go have a word with the king." And just before he left, he spared the girl one of his knowing looks as if conveying his eagerness to know more with a mere nod of his head before heading off.
And Celine knew there would definitely be no getting away from this one.
Too caught up in her own thoughts and possible alibis for later, she was vaguely aware of who had taken her off the horse and who healed and bandaged her wounds that it took her a handsome while to realize that the long and slender fingers that gracefully tore her trouser leg was definitely not a woman.
Or a man.
Or a dwarf.
A bit of elvish and athelas and she swears her heart had skidded to an abrupt halt.
'I thought you were dead...'
-----☆To be continued