#candaith

This is from last November! Inspiration kicked me in the face and I had to draw this scene of the Lads leaving the Last Homely House to go to their Doom... I am still completely obsessed with the way Lord of the Rings Online expanded upon what is only a footnote in the books, and took us on a journey of angst and heartbreak; so my plan is, as I replay the content, to illustrate every step and write a fic about my own character's involvement in it.

But yea. I cannot imagine the Grey Company without the Ranger NPCs from LOTRO anymore.. <: They are now canon and beloved to me. Here we have Lothrandir on tiny grey Mithul, Tirirandir (who is my character) on his borrowed horse Pîn, his best buddy Candaith on a liver chestnut I don't believe has a name (?) and Halbarad the gigachad with Arwen's banner.

The cold stays with him from dreams to reality. So does the dark.

Candaith blinks gritty eyes into the blackness, and only then knows he is awake.

For I— I am the heir of Isildur!

It rings in his head. He hears all the desperation, the bravado, the hope. One cast-all plan to get them out of here, and he can hear the stark lie dripping from his own voice echoed back. Of course they didn’t believe him.

Soft blue light lifts the void in stages. No raging wind or voice accompanies it this time; the ghosts settling back into their Age-old curse. They pay him no heed. Britou, still brandishing the sword that ran him through, does not glance his way.

The dead have no concern with the living.

Numb, barely conscious, watching the frozen blood around the wound slowly turn his flesh necrotic, Candaith wonders how long that will apply to him.

He wonders how many more of his kin are dead or dying for his folly.

The frost reaches his chest. Muscles seize and cramp under its tightening grip. His heart beats faster in its death throes, and at last he feels the pain. I’ve watched this, he thinks, it should hurt more. Garan had been screaming in the last few minutes. But it’s been a few years since he last saw a death by wraith. He might remember wrong.