Chapter Text
In their wisdom, the Valar decided to grant each race the Gift of Sight. The elves, oldest and wisest of Eru’s creations, learnt to control these abilities. Their visions came to them by choice, finding ways to trigger them and learning how to interpret them correctly. The rest of the Valar’s creations were not so fortunate. Their visions would often come suddenly and without warning, manifesting themselves in different ways dependent on their race.
With the Hobbits, the visions were spells of emotions and feelings. A sudden sense of joy might fill them, or a feeling that their stomach had been left hanging in the air above them whilst they dropped a great height. Whilst some might have hallucinations depicting personal future events, for most it was only the vaguest sense that something was coming. “I’ve a good feeling about this,” one hobbit might say to another as they set off on a long journey; though whether this meant an outcome of benefit to that particular young hobbit, it was hard to tell. They were only very small people, after all, and had not the will of the elves to try and develop their sight any further.
When creating the dwarves, Mahal had been perhaps a bit more selective. Knowing the possible consequences that a premonition could cause, he gave them to only those he felt best capable to handle them. As such, the gift was much rarer amongst their race. Those who had been granted it held a certain stigma that was hard to cope with at times. For, whilst much like the elves, they could choose when to use their gift it still held the consequence that at times a sudden violent jerking would overtake their limbs. Many an item had been lost or destroyed when a Dwarrow had experienced a more powerful vision than expected and thrown whatever they’d been holding across the room. Still, they fared better than the race of men.
Every child would suffer from a convulsion at some point in their lives. Their temperature would rise as their body twitched and jerked about as if possessed. Whilst the details of their vision might change, as nothing was certain in this world, the concept would always stay the same. For example, if a child saw a vision of a battlefield then that child would find themselves upon a battlefield. However, who they were fighting, when the battle was taking place, and who lay fallen upon the ground was not set in stone.
For some their vision was so powerful that they sadly perished from it, as there was no treatment to stop them from occurring. Amongst those who did survive their vision, it was unlikely for them to suffer from further attacks. The vision would always stay with them and whilst its content might be difficult to deal with, it was nothing they would not be capable of handling. But for a select few the visions would continue for the rest of their days; each attack predicting a new event.
These attacks would manifest themselves differently amongst each of the race of men. For whilst there was not as much cultural difference between the other beings (starlight was just as precious to Silvan Elves as it was Sindarin) it was not so amongst men. They each had different languages, different values, different beliefs and so on. In Gondor, a vision would arrive violently, causing them to fall to the floor as their body jerked uncontrollably. In the South Downs, a person would find themselves no longer quite in control, wandering around aimlessly as thoughts of the future scattered across their mind and whispered in their ear. In Dale, people would suddenly freeze and stare off into space, as though in a daydream; whilst in Rohan, they would lose all muscle control and fall forward onto the ground. This led to special saddles being developed so as they did not fall off completely during a premonition, and horses were given special training to deal with them. For no child of Rohan born with such a gift could be barred from riding as freely as their kin.
Kendra, daughter of Éoád, was one such person. Her first vision had been so powerful she’d nearly died from it, but Eru be praised she’d pulled through. It left her with the image of a small town upon a lake from where she watched two children running around playing. A man, her husband she presumed, held her close and kissed her cheek. His hand rubbed gently across her belly, where a third child was coming into life. To some, it might seem quite mundane. It lacked the glory of battle or the wisdom of council, however it became a source of comfort to Kendra. No matter what happened, she knew that moment of peace and tranquillity was coming to her. She would have a moment of pure unadulterated happiness, which was not something easily found during those dark days.
Kendra’s father was a blacksmith, capable of crafting the most elegant of weapons. As a girl, her and her sister would practice with them, dreaming of going into battle just as the Shield Maidens of Old. Of course, real battles were never as funny or as joyous as a child might imagine, and this would come to be something she would learn all too well.
One day on summer’s eve Kendra was coming home from a journey to a neighbouring village to deliver an order from her father. All seemed fair in the sky as the sun began to set low, but then she heard a distant howl of a warg. They did not usually venture this far from the mountains, and she instinctively drew her sword and spurred Byre, her horse, on faster so as to warn her people. Suddenly, a vision came upon her and she collapsed forward.
Rangers. Ten or Twelve. Caught unawares. Not far from here. Attack. Blood. Fur. Help .
Byre had stopped still as she had been trained to do during an attack and it took a moment for Kendra to come around. She always felt so disoriented after a vision, and it took her a minute to realise that yes now , this was happening now . With a panicked breath, she kicked Byre into a gallop and raced off to where she knew the Rangers to be.
They’d been shocked to see her, no doubt about that. Their camps were meant to remain hidden so how on earth had a simple village girl been able to find them? They knew that a single woman alone at dusk was only a threat to herself, but it still begged the question as to why she was here at all.
“There’s a warg pack on the way.” She explained jumping down from Byre and grabbing her weaponry. “I heard them not far from here. They’re going to attack.”
“And how can you know that?” Asked their leader.
“Saw it in a vision I had a moment ago.”
A few of the men took a step away from her, clearly from villages where sight was seen as a curse and not a gift. She rolled her eyes at them and continued to address their leader:
“My visions have never been wrong. Trust me on this one Captain. They will attack any moment, and you and your men need to be ready.”
“I think we should trust her, Captain,” said one of younger Rangers, about Kendra’s age with long brown hair and something Daleish about his accent.
“My great aunt had the sight. I know first hand how powerful it can be. What harm can it do to prepare ourselves?”
The captain looked between the pair of them. His mouth made a thin line and he gave orders to the men to move further on to a place that offered them a better defencive position. They’d not begun to move far when shouts arose amongst the men and the snarling and clambering of the beasts could be heard by all.
“There must have been a second pack.” Hissed Kendra, drawing her sword. The Ranger from earlier began to pull her behind him for her protection, but she’d snapped out of his grasp. “I am a Shieldmaiden of Rohan, I do not need your protection, Ranger.”
The man blinked at her momentarily, before a smile spread across his mouth.
“Forgive me, Soldier. I was not thinking. It’ll be an honour to do battle by your side.”
“You’ve got that right,” she smirked, readying her shield. He picked up a bow and arrow from their stash of weapons and began firing. Kendra's eyes were not as keen as his, but soon she could hear the pained cries of the wargs as more bowmen fired into the forest. Still the wargs came though, bursting out of the trees with arrows sticking into their thick hide, their snarling red eyed faces angrier than ever. A ranger at the front paused in his attack, appearing minuscule before the beast.
It did not show mercy.
The boy’s blood was still dripping from its muzzle as its eyes sought out its next victim. With a warrior’s scream, Kendra raced towards the beasts to join the rangers in their fight.
Fighting a real warg was not like it was in practice. She’d dreamt of battle, but she was realising that it contained more death than glory. She used her shield to push back the creature’s paw as it tried to slam her to the side, using the momentum to slice her sword up into its chest. The beast fell with a loud thud , causing her to leap back in order to prevent it from trapping her. Using the momentum from her jump, she spun around to see how the others were doing. Daleish was struggling against a beast of his own, unaware that a greater one was stalking up towards him, batting aside anyone who stood in its way as though they were nothing but branches blocking a path.
She ran towards him, shouting out a warning of the beast, but he could not do anything whilst he still battled the smaller one. His skill clearly lay far more in archery than in hand to hand combat, his footwork all over the place and his hits misplaced for this style of fight. She knew she had to draw its attention away from him somehow, and so she grabbed for one of the knives she kept on her hip and threw it as hard as she could. The blade glanced across the side of its face, not hard enough to leave a mark, but enough to get its attention. With a snarl, it turned away from its target and came towards her. She met it halfway, determined to greet her destiny head on.
With her shield she tried to push the creature and stab up into its chest as she’d been taught, but this warg seemed to be an experienced killer. It's face was covered in scars and the blood of its latest victim was still wet upon its jaws. Kendra twisted left and right, dodging the fearsome claws as they tried to slice her down whilst she gripped tightly onto her shield, knowing that a strong defence was better than any attack, blocking it's muzzle whenever it tried to bite at her; however the warg soon grew wise to her moves, and with a snarl, used its full force to knock away her shield. She stumbled backwards off guard, and the creature took its opportunity to pounce. She felt all the air leave her as she instinctively gripped tighter onto her sword, determined that this would not be her time to go. She had that small town on the lake still to come.
With a yell Kendra thrust her sword up into the newly exposed belly of the warg, blood pouring out of it as she withdrew her sword. It gave out a strangled cry as it collapsed on top of her, twitching but dead none the less. She panted as she tried to push the creature off of her, unable to shove any of its weight. The cries of the fight were dimming down now, and she could hear the wargs retreating back into the woods.
“Are you doing alright there?” Asked the Daleish Ranger, bending down to look at her from above. He had a nasty looking gash across his arm from the warg he’d been fighting had landed a final blow before dying; but his boyish grin and twinkling eyes told her that he was fine.
“Oh I’m having the time of my life. Nothing I like more than being crushed by a warg.”
“Well I’ll leave you to it then.” He shrugged and began to walk away.
“Oi! No, come back here! Give me a hand, you can’t leave me like this! I’m the one who saved your life!”
The man chuckled and turned back around, “Fair point I guess.” He waved over at a couple of other Rangers and together they shifted the warg off of her. She clambered to her feet, feeling slightly shaken but still full of adrenaline.
“I’m Bard, by the way, son of Brand.” He grinned at her boyishly, his eyes taking in every aspect of her face. Kendra felt her heart begin to pound harder once more. She brushed down her clothes and straightened her bun, trying to look as presentable as she could under the circumstances.
“Kendra daughter of--”
Skin. Heat. Passion. Moans. Pleasure.
She opened her eyes and saw the concerned face and kind eyes of Bard looking down at her. It took her a moment to gather what was going on as she tried to piece together the moments before and after her vision. She sat up groggily examining her surroundings. It looked as though Bard had caught her and placed her on the floor, taking his jacket off despite the chill so as she could have a pillow. She still felt a tingle rushing through her as the images from her vision came back into her mind again. Oh he’d be taking more than that off, if she had any say about it.
“How are you feeling?” He asked, helping her to her feet.
“Kendra, daughter of Éoád was what I was saying earlier.” She smiled, and stepped closer towards him, batting away his concerns. “And you, Bard, son of Brand still owe me a thank you,” she whispered into his ear.
“And what sort of thank you did you have in mind?” He grinned wolfishly.
“We’ll start with a kiss and go from there, I think.” She smirked and pulled him down towards her. There were a few wolf whistles from the surviving Rangers, but nothing more for they already knew better than to invoke the wrath of a Shieldmaiden. Seer or not.
And so it was, a year later, that Kendra and Bard moved back to his home upon the lake. They’d only been married a month, but already her belly was round with new life. Which, after all, was one of the main reasons they’d been married in the first place. Bard had resisted returning to the long lake, but there was a job waiting for him as a bargemen, away from the life of a ranger. For though Lake Town sat underneath the gaze of a dragon, they rarely had to deal with anything more dangerous than winter.
“Are you sure about this?” Asked Bard as they sat looking out upon the cold dismal lake. “Rohan is a much nicer place to live…”
“Once you factor out the wargs and the orcs yes.” She laughed. She could already see the elements of her vision coming together around the town. “No. This is great.
Just what I’ve been dreaming of.” She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. Yes. This was where her happiness lay, and she would give up all the Mark had to offer in order to find it.
The people of Laketown turned out to be far more superstitious than those in Rohan. They avoided her in the street, and only spoke briefly to her, if at all. Of course that wasn’t to say everyone was like that, Bard’s old friends had always treated her as one of their own, but she wondered what would become of her children if they developed the Gift in such a small and backwards town. Where the purse strings were controlled tightly by a master who cared little for his people. There was a certain sense of pride Kendra felt whenever she got a vision of him falling down the stairs or coughing up a lung over breakfast. It was disgusting to look at, but great to see him suffering. None of this mattered though, for so long as they had each other then nothing could go wrong.
Their first child was a girl whom they named Sigrid after Bard’s grandmother. She was almost a mirror image to Kendra, but had the same cheeky and caring nature of her father; doing her utmost to be the Best Big Sister in All of Arda to her beloved little brother. Bain was seven years her junior, but was always trying to prove himself to them all, challenging everybody and anybody to dangerous dares and duels with wooden swords. Bard often commented that he had Kendra’s fighting spirit and skill with a sword, which was only proved right when Bain declared his desire to become a Shieldmaiden just like his mother.
It did not surprise Kendra that her first two children both had powerful and vivid visions. With her own Sight coupled with that which ran in Bard’s family, it would be a small wonder if their convulsions were weak. Sigrid had suffered hers whilst in the market, falling and breaking her arm in the process causing such a commotion as the whole town gathered around her. Bain’s had been less of a spectacle, though in many ways it had been much much worse. It had lasted so long and had taken him over a week to recover. Kendra and Bard had stayed up night after night praying to the gods that he would survive; for whilst Kendra had seen two children in her vision, that did not mean they were her children. Even her premonitions of when they were fully grown were not a comfort to her, for she knew too well how visions could be altered and changed. The future could never be set in stone.
Thankfully though, both Sigrid and Bain had pulled through and suffered no long-term side effects. Much to Kendra’s relief neither of them developed the Sight in its entirety, going back to being happy and healthy children without the constant worries of the future. However their visions were powerful for a reason, though none of them could even begin to imagine the impact they would have on the whole of Arda. Whenever Bain woke up in a cold sweat having had nightmares about what he’d seen Kendra sat with him as he cried into her nightdress as she explained that though his vision had been terrifying, it was still a gift. For what harm could a dragon do to you if you’ve seen it all before? Equally, whilst Sigrid might not yet understand that the celebrations throughout Dale were down to her choice to marry for love, there would come a day when it would aid her in her hardest choice yet.
The four of them lived a happy life on the lake for many years, just as Kendra had predicted in her Vision. A few months after Kendra and Bard’s thirteenth anniversary, Kendra discovered that she was pregnant again and she felt as though she was the luckiest woman in all of Arda. Everything from her first vision was falling into place until it finally arrived, the day when everything was perfect. Her children were playing outside in the sunshine whilst her beloved husband stood over her shoulder rubbing at her belly as they felt the baby kick for the first time. The feeling of peace was better than she’d ever imagined and she wished that all people could get a chance to feel as blissful as she did.
That was when her vision came.
A girl. Brown hair. Brown eyes. A princess. A seer. Happy. Motherless. Hers.
“Kendra,” said Bard, kneeling down next to her on the chair. “Kendra how are you? How’s the baby? I’ll get you a glass of water, do you need--”
She felt tears well up in her eyes. Of course it couldn't have been that simple. You didn’t get moments of pure bliss without a downfall at the end.
“Kendra, talk to me, the baby, are they going to be fine? Do I need to fetch a healer?”
“No. No my darling we’re both fine. There’s no need to worry.”
“Then why are you crying?” There was a hurt look on his face and Kendra didn’t know what to do. She would not lie to him, but she could not tell him the whole truth for fear that it would break him.
“I’m crying because I’ve seen the future our daughter has. She’s going to do so many amazing things, Bard. She’s going to be incredible. We’re so lucky.”
“A girl,” said Bard, grinning up at her. “You’re all going to be ganging up on me! Three against two, that’s not fair now is it?” He chuckled, stroking the curve of her belly.
“Oh no, two against two. I’ll always be the neutral.” She smiled sadly as she cupped her husband's cheek and brought him up for a kiss. “I do love you, my Ranger of the North.”
“And I love you, my Wild Shieldmaiden.”
Their baby was due in four months, and she planned on spending as much of that time with her family as possible. Letting them all know how much they all meant to her, and how much she’d miss them when she was gone. After all, visions were meant to prepare you for what was to come. She needed them all to be ready.