A/N: Dont mind the OCs, they're randoms from an unfinished story of mine. As for owning LOTR ... my friend once named her tadpole Leg-o-less (I know, I cried too) – does that count? Because I've a feeling it's the closest I'm ever going to get.
"Yrch," one of the elves whispered. The girl glanced at him through the trees, fingers creeping towards her daggers.
Soon the humans heard it too.
A thunder of booted feet mixed with grunts of pain, headed their way through the trees.
The Orcs were wary, but the elves were silent and moved with old ease. Their quivers were soon empty.
They moved over the clearing, checking the dead, retrieving spent arrows and knives. One Orc was still alive. It raised itself defiantly to its knees, though it was weak, far too weak, to do anything more. Belle grabbed its chin and forced it to look at her. It snarled, the deep-set eyes glinting with a madness centuries old.
Something in it struck her. There was more than insanity there.
"Oh my god," she said softly. She heard the others behind her halt their movements, straighten, look her way.
"What?" Andrew asked. She turned, still grasping the Orc's chin. Some of the elves, too, had stopped and stood gazing at her with unreadable expressions in their eyes. She looked at them for a long moment, then glanced back at the Orc.
"I can see it," she said. "What was. I can see the resemblance." One of the Mirkwood elves scowled deeply, the expression marring his fine features. None of them spoke, except the children.
"What do you mean?" It was Henry, this time, stepping over a hulking body with his knife still in his hand. She glanced at him.
"What we underwent in the Red Halls..." involuntarily, every one of the children closed their eyes in pain. Even the memory burned. "It was nothing beside their agony. And pain... pain can twist anything." She tilted her head again, to look deep into the Orc's eyes. Its hatred, she fancied, was almost enough to scar her.
"But there are some things," she murmured, "that nothing can take away. No matter what is done. No matter what the pain."
"You are wrong," One of the elves said wretchedly, his fair voice torn as he forced the words out.
Why did she have to speak of this?
"I may be only a Stranger but I know the myths," Belle shot back. "And even when your whole world is pain, there are things no-one can take from you."
Deep in the hate-filled eyes of the Orc, something flickered. An elven soul, strong as it ever was. It scorched her, consumed as it was with passion. Once that passion had been a burning desire for beauty, and life, and its kindred's laughter. But now its fuel was pain, the deep flames fed on old betrayal. Some fires cannot be put out. Changed, yes. But not extinguished.
"We know what it is to long for death." Andrew's voice, quiet but compelling. The words fell in the silence like drops of blood, the only sound besides the harsh gasping breath of the Orc kneeling before his friend.
"And we know what it is to realise that it will never come." Henry, the words spoken heavily from behind her. The Orc's soul flashed, its hatred spurred by the empathy, and it strained against the girl's grip with a half-roar that ended in a gargled choking of its own blood.
"I am told humans can die from pain." Belle drew her knife, the steel glimmering darkly. "But we cannot all have what we wish for."
She cut deep, the blade almost catching on the welted swollen skin. It hated her even as it finally faded, the flames in its heart burning till the last. She hadn't been speaking only for the Orc's benefit.
She dropped the corpse abruptly.
"What happens to them?" She glanced back, wiping her knife on her tunic, but the elves looked away. Her gaze fell heavily on their faces. "Answer me." They would not deny her. Now or later, she would be told. One of them took a reluctant breath.
"They do not return from the Halls of Mandos," he choked out. "The Valar do not let them. They are - unworthy." His voice hitched on the last word, a gateway as it was to centuries of hidden anguish.
"So. Even the fairest soul can be turned to evil." She sheathed her knife again and turned, her face expressionless. "It would appear no-one is quite untouchable." She walked away then, back resolutely turned to the body behind her, to the greatest shame of the Elves.
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Cyber-slices of chocolate cake if you review! Go on, be nice, it's my first story.