[Firefoot]

The Orcs had come. Unable to cry out, she watched her father cruelly slain from behind. She was in the midst of a battle. This time, she let out a despairing scream as she was helpless to save her friend from being stabbed in a weak spot in the armor. "Let me know you are safe..." She held her fiancé in her arms as he breathed his last. Then she was running. She was running. The advancing Orc horde was nearly upon her, but she barely saw them through her blurred sight. Everything was burning. Her brothers... where were they? Where was anyone? Dead, all dead, never to be seen again. The cries of battle raged around her. Arrows flew. She thought she had already lost everything, but she hadn't: Beluf was dead, Gelding was dead. It could not be possible. She came upon Sjorging being held back by a soldier - a familiar one, but this did not register with Adranel.

"Come, Sjorging," she said fiercely, though her voice was shaking. "They would not have us waste our lives needlessly. Let us avenge them while we still have breath!" That was how she could go on. Beluf, who had helped her see the value of a life worth living, would not have wanted her to die in such recklessness. She did not wait to see whether Sjorging heeded her words but hurried up to where the main force of Gondor was making a final stand. Here was the end.

Looking out, she saw that there were Orcs who were fighting themselves and not the Gondorians. The realization did not present her with hope; there were too many other Orcs still pushing on towards their goal: the destruction of Men. She fought on, however, and notched another arrow to her bow. There were only three arrows left. Her tear-filled eyes could not focus on particular targets, and so she simply aimed into the midst of the Orc mob. By chance, all three arrows found targets, but it was like pulling leaves off a tree. Why had her family, Hergon, and Beluf died, yet these... monsters lived on?

She had thought to avenge Beluf's death, but she had no means to do that now. She wished that she might be a little girl again, and crawl onto her father's lap and cry. The familiar wave of emptiness threatened to wash over her again, but she pushed it back. She needed to remember the times that she had had with her family and friends with joy, not despair over their deaths.

A black feathered arrow whizzing past her head brought her back to the present. Now was not the time for grief. She realized that as she had stood motionless the battle had moved around her. She was near the edge of the Gondorian forces, a few ranks back. She spotted Sjorging in the front lines, grim faced but fighting still. She realized the tide of the battle just might be turning. Imagination had perhaps made the Orc forces out to be larger, but what she saw before her was not an impossible battle. A new light entered her eyes. The final element she had been missing had now returned: hope. She would not despair now.

Adranel surveyed the area nearby and spotted what she was looking for: a full quiver of arrows of one of the slain. Quickly but not so as to dishonor the dead, Adranel moved the arrows into her own quiver. They were slightly longer than she was accustomed to using, but they would work fine. With new purpose she sought out marks among the Orcs. What she saw now encouraged her: the sizes of the two forces were nearing equal. The balance was beginning to tip in their favor, and soon it would all be over.

Yet so also would it all begin. She had lived a thousand years in one week, in which all of her former beliefs had been swept from their foundations and replaced with firm convictions about life. No longer did she desire death, but she was ready should it come she was ready. She could go on; perhaps she would move to Dale and start a new life there. She would grieve for those she had lost, and the sorrow would never fully depart, but she would go on and live to the fullest. It had taken some hard knocks, but in the midst of death, she had found life.