Dark in the Moonlight
Disclaimer: Don't own, just playing.
Summary: BerĂșthiel's white cat tells its story.

Some of the things said about my Queen are true. But it is a lie to say that she was cruel to us. She was not. She loves us, and we her.

She tells me that I came to her as a gift. "From him," she says with a quiet, spiteful laugh. "A peace-offering." I barely remember it. My eyes had only just opened, and they opened on her face. She smiled at me, and tucked me into her arms. She was young then.

She never told me what happened later. She, like my kind, keeps her secrets, and I was too small to make sense of it, the way her eyes flashed as she happened to see him, as if she had discerned something hateful. I do remember, though, two months later, how she told me to go to her gardens and bring her certain herbs. I carried them in my mouth when I crept back to her. She brewed them and burned them and drank them down, and then the blood came gushing, soaking her fine bed-linens. She sobbed softly into her pillow as it drained from her, and I nuzzled against her hair, her thick black hair that even now smells of bitter herbs and blood and ashes. It was the only time she wept, and after it her face wore a look of cold indifference.

He left soon after for his house by the sea, and never again visited her chambers. Over time I found the others for her, my fellows, cats of midnight black who could speak to her, and she to them. She would sit enthroned on her chair, and she would feed us tidbits from her hand, and whisper to us that we were her children. She would stare out the window at the city and the river, and I would entwine about her legs, and she would devise her schemes.

She played with the people like I do with mice. Her reason for it I do not know. Perhaps it had to do with what she saw in the King's eyes. It may have been a sort of vengeance. Or perhaps she simply enjoyed it. Either way, she was good at it. She would send the black cats out all over Gondor to find secrets for her, and I made certain that they told her all they knew. What she would do with those secrets I will not tell, except to say that there were still some who served her loyally, or were perhaps too frightened of her to refuse.

The people feared her, feared us. They whispered hideous rumors of her to one another while my fellows lay hidden and listening, then stiffened and fell silent when they saw gleaming yellow eyes peering from the shadows. She laughed when we told her their words.

When at last they came for her, we knew of their plan, and we were ready. The black cats sat in a line before her, staring at the men as they entered her chambers, and I sat beside her. Her long fingers scratched behind my ears, and her other hand clutched a dagger. Her herbs burned on plates all about the room, filling the air with smoke that stung their eyes and caught in their throats. My fellows narrowed their eyes and hissed their warning. Their fur stood on end, and their sharp claws gleamed in the candlelight. But the men were too many. She stabbed two of them before she was dragged away, and my teeth found their bare skin in many places, but in the end I found myself stuffed into a thick sack. Trapped, I screamed piteously for her. I thought they would kill us all.

And now I sit beside her, and the deep black waves around our little boat glint under the sickle moon. But her eyes are dark in the moonlight, and she sheds no tears. I do not know where the waters will take us.

"Away," she tells me silently. "Away, and that is enough."