Death of the Last-King by Kaylee Arafinwiel

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.

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.