Whiskey Lullaby
This little fic is a bit of an experiment, and was inspired by the song ‘Whiskey Lullaby’ by Alison Krauss and Brad Paisley. Each of the chapters is a drabble, of exactly 100 words. Once again, I own nothing except my imagination. Please let me know what you think. Mature themes explored. Also my first LOTR fic in years.
Prologue
Aragorn was weary; long had his road and his toil been, and he had been looking forward to a rest in his childhood home of Imladris for many months. But it was not just his weariness that had his spur his horse on; it was also the prospect of seeing his beloved Evenstar again, for it had been many a year since they had last met. He had not laid eyes upon his love since they had plight their troth on Cerin Amroth. Since then he had travelled much, and he felt old. He needed her to feel young again.
Chapter 1
He approached her chambers with the nervous excitement of a teenager in the throes of his first love. When he rapped on the door of her sitting room there was no answer so he let himself in. The room was empty, so he also let himself into her bedchamber, and his heart stopped. The sight of his beloved in the throes of passion with another man, an elf he didn’t recognise scorched his eyes. His jaw slackened and his heart shattered into a million tiny shards. Quickly he left the room, Arwen’s cries and apologies following him, haunting his steps.
Chapter 2
Fornost, and the sanctuary of his people was where Aragorn headed. He wanted to hide, to forget everything he had ever felt. Most of all he wanted to forget the images playing round his head. The months passed by and he threw himself into his work, and his journeys, but even falling into bed exhausted couldn’t make him forget. So Aragorn started drinking; wine, spirits, anything to try and make him forget, to erase the pain and allow himself a decent nights sleep without the dreams. His friends were worried about him, but he brushed them off, and kept drinking.
Chapter 3
Eventually the Dunedain were forced to take action against their leader. Aragorn had been drinking more and more, and was now a liability in battle. So they took him to the only place he would be safe; where there was help. Rivendell. Once there his problem only worsened. One night, when he’d had enough, Aragorn downed a bottle of whiskey and walked up a ravine in the valley. He stood at the edge, and let himself fall. They found him the next day, face down in the river; a note in his pocket saying ‘I’ll love her ‘til I die’.
Chapter 4
Arwen watched them bury him in a grove of trees he’d loved playing in as a child. She blamed herself for his death, how could she not? The day of his funeral she picked up one of his half drunk bottles of whiskey and finished for him, in his memory. Whispered rumours passed between the elves that is was her ‘affair’ that had driven him to kill himself. They pointed, they stared, and they blamed. She drank to block out their accusing gazes, to block out the guilt and the pain. She hid her problem, but it only grew worse.
Chapter 5
In her hand was a sketch she had done of Aragorn, years ago when they’d still been happy, and full of love. She took a sip of her whiskey. She missed him, so much it hurt. The guilt was too much. Her life was long, but without him it was unbearable. That was why she had decided to do this. She cut her wrists with a silver knife, and let the wounds bleed, sipping whiskey as she bled. They buried her beside her lost love, and it seemed even the Valar sang a lament for the deaths of the lovers.
Epilogue
The years wore on and passed into the War of the Ring. Here the deaths of Aragorn and Arwen were felt most keenly. Gollum was never captured and taken to the elves of Mirkwood. The kingdoms of men remained scattered, divided, leaderless; Gondor and Rohan were both razed to the ground. The Hobbits never made it to Rivendell with the ring. The Nazgûl found them and Sauron took back what was his. There was no Fellowship to stop him. He covered Middle Earth in a darkness that would last until the ending of the world.
Thus ended the Third Age.
