Death of the Last-King by Kaylee Arafinwiel

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Fanwork Notes

Many thanks to Lyra for the plotbunny - this story was written to the Canoe/Kayak prompts and I hope I succeed in being the first to have an Arvedui/Lossoth OC pairing.

 

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Arvedui Last-King found second love in the frozen lands of the North. Now, though, he has determined to go home, despite his lover's misgivings. Is braving the Ice Bay worth the risk when Angmar's sorcerer King is on the move?

Major Characters: Original Female Character(s), Arvedui

Major Relationships: Arvedui/Original Character

Genre: Het, Romance

Challenges: Middle-earth Olympics

Rating: Teens

Warnings: Character Death, Mature Themes, Violence (Moderate)

Chapters: 1 Word Count: 400
Posted on 20 July 2021 Updated on 20 July 2021

This fanwork is complete.

Death of the Last-king

My fellow LOTRO players who have reached Forochel will probably recognize names and terminology used here. Saija is the name of a Lossoth wise-woman encountered by the player character, but she is not the same Saija as Arvedui's lover in this story. Locations in Forochel also have their LOTRO names.

Read Death of the Last-king

T.A. 1975, Forochel

Saija paddled her kayak out into the Bay, skirting the edges of the isles at Hylje-leiri. The Great Beast had come, and she held Laiha-herra close as he shivered with the cold.

 

"Are you so determined to climb aboard the Beast, my lord? I do not trust it," she said coaxingly. "Stay until the waters warm. This is folly."

Laiha-herra laughed bitterly. "And thou, Saija, callest me my lord? I thought we had placed such formalities behind us." His heart ached at the thought of what he had lost. Saija's hands shook, and Laiha-herra took over the paddling. "Besides," he continued, "I would fain return to my folk - and I would have thee come with me, Saija of the Lossoth, for I would do thee honour deserved amongst my people."

 

Saija nodded. "I would like to see thy boats, canoes, that thou sayest are built of wood and fly over swift rivers in the warm lands. But this Beast, this great ship of the Fair Folk, I trust it not. Please, for the love thou hast learned to bear me, stay."

 

"I have a duty," Laiha-herra said quietly. "Please, I beg of thee, take me out to them."

 

Exhaling, her breath freezing, Saija nodded. For all she had learned to love him, and accepted his love in return, Laiha-herra would forever be a mystery to her. Arvedui, she turned the foreign name over in her mind. Ar-vedui. Last King, he had told her it meant. The last king of Arthedain. Could he not be King of the Lossoth? Sighing, she brought him to the Great Beast that sat in the water, looming impossibly large over her kayak. Ropes were tossed down, and the Fair Folk descended, raising Laiha-herra with them.

 

"Arvedui!" Saija burst out, and he turned his head back.

 

"Mell nin?"

 

"Good luck," Saija whispered, and lifted her hand in a gesture of farewell. Then the Beast swallowed up Laiha-herra, Arvedui, and he was gone. She paddled swiftly back to shore, as the ship made for the open water.

A storm out of Angmar blew in, to Saija's horror, and ere the Elves had got far with Arvedui, the ship was dashed against the great icebergs. The Beast died there, wrecked, with all aboard.

 

Thus ended the last king of the North, and Saija's heart was broken.


Comments

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Since it was fated that Arvedui's life end then, it is comforting to know that, after all the previous months (years!) of hardship leading up to their sojourn with the Lossoth, he found, shared and enjoyed love in those last months of his life.

Saija's heart, it would seem, was fated to be broken whether he survived or not... although I do hope her heart healed in time and she was able to enjoy a love of life once again.