Chapter 19 - Hasta la vista, suckerss!!!

Mila woke up with a gasp.

Blinking, bleary eyes fleeted across her dark surroundings. She felt a warm, gentle warrior hands on her skin, his rough palm caressing her cheek. His voice low, dripping with honey, making her shiver.

"Mila," he hummed to her, his lips pressed on her forehead as he trapped her body in his arms.

Ignoring the ache all around her body, Mila searched Glorfindel's face in the darkness of their room. Her voice raspy when she spoke.

"I want to go to the garden."

"It's in the middle of the night," he replied softly, his hand moved to her head, caressing the strands of her dark hair.

"Please."

"It's cold out there tonight. I'll take you there tomorrow, little one. I promise."

"No," she insisted. "Now."

The hidden urgency in her voice didn't escape him. Glorfindel didn't answer right away. A part of him feared her request for a reason that he couldn't comprehend, yet it took only one look from her to make his objection crumble before it even managed to escape his lips.

Wanting to please her, Glorfindel pecked her lips before letting her go. He got off the bed and put on his arm braces that he took from the nightstand, his sword, and put on his boots. He left shortly to fetch a warm cloak and her shoes before getting to her side of the bed. He watched with wistful eyes how her fingers trembled, struggling to clasp the pin that secure the cloak under her neck.

"Allow me."

Glorfindel got on one knee, securing the pin together with a click. Mila gazed at his fair face with adoration. She trailed her eyes at his square jaw. His subtly glowing skin. His prominent cheekbones. His neat dark brows and his beautiful lips–the lips that had both comforted and destroyed her with every imaginable pleasurable ways possible. She noted how the light from the moon shone to the room, making his smooth golden hair looked almost transparent. She burned his image in her memory, not wanting to forget.

"My hero," she murmured, smiling at him with a look of admiration on her expression. Those words sliced through his heart, knowing that he didn't deserve the reverence and love in those beautiful eyes of hers. He offered her a smile and felt like an impostor. A liar. Yet in Mila's eyes, he only grew even more destructively handsome when he smiled. "You are beautiful," she added.

He couldn't remember anyone ever called him beautiful before. He wasn't vain. Though considered fair even amongst the elves, Glorfindel knew he possessed a rather looming, intimidating figure. Compared to his kin, including the warriors, he had broader shoulders, taller figure, more defined muscles and an icy demeanor that easily made him intimidating to most people.

But never beautiful.

"I do not think beautiful is a right word, but thank you," he said with an almost playful smile as he slipped her shoe on her feet. He looked up at her, his striking blue eyes almost silver in the dim light, "I know beauty when I see one. You, Mila, embody beauty more than anyone I've ever met. Every part of you, everything about you, is beautiful."

Mila seemed bashful at his word, undeserving, yet seeing the tangible love and affection in his eyes, she couldn't help but believe him.

"You're very sweet to me," she said as she took his open hand and stood up on her feet.

He held her close, his arms around her waist were both strong and gentle as they walked slowly out of their bedroom. Mila stumbled on her feet once, then twice, before Glorfindel scooped her off of her feet and decided to carry her bride style in his arms against her feeble protests.

"Clumsy little human," he teased her lowly with a raise at the edge of his lips, knowing full well that it wasn't mere clumsiness, but the fact that his beloved was getting weaker day by day.

"You racist," she teased back, making the golden warrior's chest rumbled with his deep chuckle. Mila rested her head on his chest, smiling at how comfortable and right he felt against her. She closed her eyes in contentment.

They passed Variel without her knowing. Glorfindel silently mouthed Elrond's name, and the she elf gave a nod without bothering to greet the two. She knew her captain well enough just from his trapping gaze and the way he clenched his jaw that he wasn't up for pleasantries.

Glorfindel sat himself at one of the bench in the secluded garden of Rivendell with Mila in his lap. He tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear; his heart broke upon seeing the color of her skin. Washed out. Sick. Deathly, especially under the moonlight.

"Look, Mila. The star is shining for you," he murmured lovingly, gently waking her.

Mila opened her eyes and found the expanse of stars spreading across the magnificent night sky. She smiled.

"Beautiful," she breathed weakly, tiny white fog formed out of her lips as she gazed at Varda's creation.

With his keen ears, he heard her faint heartbeat, the way her breathing slowed as she reverently looked at the night sky. The stars were reflected in her dark eyes, captivating and breaking him at the same time.

"Ilya's roses are blooming too," he pointed out, smiling, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Mila hummed contentedly. "I smell them," she said, turning her breathtaking eyes at him, added teasingly at him. "Pretty."

"You think I'm pretty?" Glorfindel replied with a wide smile, his eyes misty with grief at the way she felt so small and fragile in his arms. His keen senses letting him know that Elrond had just arrived, standing a distance away to give them some space.

"I need to reach for it."

The elf warrior followed her eyes to the blue star above them, one that outshined all the other stars.

With her head resting on Glorfindel's upper arm, she had a good look on the star of Eärendil. She tried lifting her hand to it, but the weakness in her arm defeated her. It felt as if she was made of lead. Her hand fell back to her lap weakly, her breathing quickened as if the mere action was draining all of her energy.

The elf warrior saw through their soul bond what Mila was trying to achieve. He clasped her weak hand in his strong one. "Together."

She gave a nod. Holding her wrist, Glorfindel outstretched her hand in his to the sky, reaching for the star. For the salvation of the elf kind. He watched in awe, full of wonder when Mila put her fingers on the star and take it off of the night sky. Astonished, he saw the silmaril in her palm as he gently brought down their hands to her lap.

The silmaril was indeed one of the fairest object ever created. The gem shone brightly, almost blinding, like a miniature sun in her small palm. In this proximity, Glorfindel could sense its pure, unadulterated power encased inside–the essence of the light of the Two Trees.

"You did it," he beamed to Mila as the star illuminated the garden with bluish light.

When he saw her expression, his smile faltered.

"Mila?"

Her eyes were open, yet her expression gave nothing.

"My sweet wildflower," he brushed her hair back, "You did it. Look."

No response.

Glorfindel swallowed thickly, his breaths ragged as he watched her unmoving in his arms, her eyes staring blankly at the night sky. He tried again, shaking her shoulder gently. "Mila." He shook her again with a bit more force. Her head lolled sideways.

Doom befell him, a fate that he refused still to believe. This time Glorfindel cupped her jaw, his whole body trembled with bone crushing distress, looking into the vast emptiness in her usually soulful eyes. He tugged at the thread that connect their fea together.

When he found that there was no one at the other end of their soul bond, his agonized cry broke. He grasped at the side of her head, her hair between his fingers as he shook her to no avail. His pitiful cries turned into a tormented wail as his tears wet her cheek. He pulled her to him, burying his face on her neck as he cried his heart out to her.

The lord of Rivendell watched with pain stricken expression as the sound of his old friend's anguished cry rang in his ears. He heard his sons ran from behind him, their eyes wide with terror, questioning him. When they saw their adar shook his head, both twins had two opposite reactions about them. While Elladan clasped his mouth and turned his body away to nurse his aching heart, Elrohir had tears streaming down his face.

He couldn't save her, no matter what he tried.

Elrond had never heard his old friend cry, nor made such a sound before. His unrelenting cries of anguish shattered the atmosphere with utter despair and torment. It rang in his ears hauntingly, stabbing at his heart.

None of them dared to approach the grieving elf as he cried to his dead wife's chest. They knew what becomes of him now that his beloved had passed. That kind of separation–Glorfindel couldn't handle it. His heartbreak bore no hope to be mended back. The three elves stood at the side, keeping vigil for them for hours.

Glorfindel cursed his existence; at the cruel fate that befell her. Shattered and heartbroken, his grief had somewhat turned into hate.

He wanted the world to burn.

Glorfindel lamented and wept, pressing her lifeless body to his as he buried his face to her neck, unable to let go. Heartbroken beyond mending, the golden one failed to notice the luminous gem that was still lying in her palm. When he caught sight of it, the burning hate in his heart began to dissipate.

His bride had dedicated her life to save this broken world they lived in. With her tears. Her blood. Her precious life. It brought him great shame that he even thought about destroying what she was trying to build. To defile her legacy with his sick mind.

His cries had ceased into sobs when he placed a kiss on her cheek, silently apologizing to her. Glorfindel knew that he too, was fading. But if there was anything he would do before that, was to make sure that her legacy remained. That her sacrifices didn't go to waste.

With woe in his shattered heart, he gave her one last loving kiss to her temple, bidding her goodbye. He turned his eyes to the star in her hand, determination framed his grief stricken face. He decided to finish what she started.

Glorfindel ran his hand down her arm reverently, his fingers almost touched the star, feeling the heat radiating at the tips of his fingers.

"Stop."

Elrond had stepped up, stalking towards him warily, his hand up. Glorfindel caught sight of Vilya, the ring of power that the lord of Rivendell wielded.

"You cannot wield it. None of us can," Elrond said carefully, his eyes grim as he looked at Glorfindel and Mila in his arms, "We'll find another way. We always do."

"This will be my last gift to you, old friend."

Elrond paled when he realized the intention behind the balrog slayer's eerie calm voice.

Acting quickly before the elf stopped him, Glorfindel took the star from Mila's hand. The skin of his palm sizzled, the star burning his flesh with a hiss. With the gnashing of his teeth, he endured the excruciating pain, and brought his other hand to the star, towards his own death.

What grace is given me, he prayed to Eru Ilúvatar, Let it pass into this one task.

The gem cracked under the melting flesh of his hand, and a blinding white light broke through the hairline of the crack, undescribable heat burned his whole being.

Elrond broke into sprint towards Glorfindel, desperate to stop this. To save Glorfindel. An even greater light broke from the golden one's hand, its heat radiated off, turning the icy night air hot.

With his hands outstretched, Elrond let out a battle cry like voice as he ran towards the elf.

"NOO!!!!"

An explosion of light, then total darkness.

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