An Acceptance

The remaining picked themselves up and grouped together back in the center of all this, looking around in confusion. Raina looked around quickly… Legolas and Aragorn were beside her… Merry and Pippin were throwing rocks and the retreating orcs… Gimli was also throwing rocks at the orcs, as well as shouting profanity (Raina grinned at the lot of them)… and Gandalf was behind all of them, watching patiently.

After another moment, Raina understood what was happening as well, and she smiled, the biggest smile since Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday.

“Frodo,” she whispered at first, but as the Gates and the Tower started to collapse, she started yelling and jumping around with Merry and Pippin, throwing her fists up in the air in triumph.

All around them, the ground starting sinking where their enemies ran, and they were thrown into the pits of earth.

Raina grabbed Legolas and hugged him, as well as everyone around her. Yes, even the strangers from Gondor and Rohan. And even kissed Èomer King, whom didn’t really seem to mind in the least. But it didn’t matter, because they were all going to live.

But too soon Raina realized what was happening above them. Mount Doom was collapsing, along with everything else.

The Elf girl stopped dancing, her eyes turned hopeless as she watched the mountain cave in on itself.

Before anyone had noticed what was happening, she sank to the ground, her skirt poofing around her as she bowed her head. Tears formed immediately as the others noticed what was happening.

Beside her, Pippin was kneeling on the ground, sobbing Frodo’s name, causing a wave of tears to pool out of her eyes.

She honestly felt like her world was crashing in on her. If she had died? She had prepared herself for that plenty, especially these past months. Frodo, her brother, the one who had been there her whole life? The one who helped carry her burdens since she was a child? The one who had always been there to pick her up when she had fallen? No. she was not prepared for him to die.

“Oh, Frodo…” she wailed, feeling like a small child who had fallen once more, looking to be helped back up again, but there was no one there. She looked up at the erupting mountain before burying her face in her hands once more with a cry of sheer torment.

**

Raina woke up on Legolas’s horse, with him behind her, guiding the horse towards the great city of Minas Tirith. She blinked a few times, tears still wet in her eyes. She had been riding with Legolas at a slow pace for hours, and had cried so much that she had become exhausted and fell asleep on the horse’s neck. No one could blame her, for they weren’t doing too much better. Especially the Hobbits. They were like vegetables as well.

She rubbed her eyes as they rode into the city and pulled herself together enough to get to the stables, and from there, stride through the city to the Hall with Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn, who was now the King of Gondor.

The people watched in awe, but no one spoke a word. All puffy eyes were gone and no tears were spilt, but it would take an idiot to not realize that something horrible had happened to the King and his friends.

Once they got to the Courtyard, two people were waiting for their loved ones, standing side by side.

Raina ran into Faramir’s open arms, and Èowyn ran to Aragorn. Raina buried her face into Faramir’s chest, letting her built up tears spring loose in his arms and he comforted her.

“What is it?” he whispered. “What happened?”

“Frodo,” Raina choked. “Gone.”