Isulril died that night.
She had been his captive for weeks, had been living in darkness for longer than she could count days. The cave in which he had kept her was so very dark, echoing with eerie, disturbing sounds from time to time. She had endured so much for him, had loved him in her strange, selfish way, had taken all of his torments...and yet.
He had led her out of the cave into a meadow, and she felt as though she was in a fever dream when he set her down on the cool grass. Her bare feet felt it between her toes, and instead of delighting her, it frightened her. He told her that she could stay with him or leave, and she had begged him to allow her to be his wife. She begged to be something to him. Her strange, fervent love for him made her long to be something to him.
She remembered the way he sneered at her and told her he was already betrothed. He had no need for a wife. It broke her, hearing this, hearing the way he mocked her with it. She begged him to kill her, knelt before him and asked to die. He had his crossbow in hand. There was no reason not to do it at this point. He angled its bolt between her eyes, ready to shoot, but lowered it upon second thought.
She rose, then, lamenting the thought that she was not good enough to be a lover, but not good enough to be killed. Musing aloud at the thought, she made her way down the hill upon which they were standing, and felt a sudden pain in her shoulder. He had shot her. She fell then, her body tumbling the rest of the way down the hill. She landed on her belly, motionless, bleeding out.
Her mind wandered then, as the man chased after her and loomed over her. She remembered her childhood, the replacement of her mother with a new mother. She remembered the boy with whom she used to pretend to be a murder victim. She remembered her glory days in Dol Amroth, her lord, the sad times in Minas Tirith, the turn to Bree, the physician, those she had known in Bree...she pondered her life. It had all led to this, and she was dying.
She wanted to die, was ready. "I love you," she had breathed, closing her eyes, her hand twitching after he had turned her over to see her better. He was a healer, she vaguely thought to herself. Why wasn't he trying to heal her?
She lay there until he picked her up and decided to tend to her wounds. He had kissed her. She had asked him to kiss her. She had wanted to die...
And she did. Isulril, though healed by her tormenter, though returned to her home in Bree, had died that day. She was no longer the preening princess she had pretended to be before. She was dead.
