Disclaimer: If I were J.R.R. Tolkien I would hate computers, plus I'd be dead. I don't own the most of the characters, Númenor, or even the gist of the plot. What I do have is a copy of The Silmarillion, from which most of this is derived; Thoroniel and Taurnil are of my own invention, because certain necessary characters went unmentioned (expletive'd patriarchal society).
Many thanks to ElectraFairford for her beta reading – she even read ten pages of The Silmarillion so she could understand what I was muttering about.
If you are familiar with this story, don't bother with the asterisks. I'm trying to make this thing comprehensible to the movie-only crowd. If I'm missing anything, please let me know. For that matter, I've only gotten as far as The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, so there may be accuracy issues. I don't speak Sindarin and I don't want to. Apparently Tolkien thought the Quenya terms atarinya and senya were clear enough from context; I translated the other one out for you.
All other flames will be delivered to the local dragon and tested for flavor.
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The Elendili
1. Rómenna
In the year that Amandil lord of Andúnië left the King's court in disgrace, the people who shared his beliefs still lived mostly in the haven of Rómenna on the eastern coast of Númenor. They called themselves either the Faithful or the Elendili – the Elf-friends – and seventy-eight years under a king of their own party had not erased the marks of the ugly forced relocation preceding him. Rómenna had been a famous seaport once, and still deserved the title; but the town was crowded and a little dirty now, and its reputation had weakened.
The other, larger party called itself the King's Men, and called the Faithful rebels – although both claimed loyalty to the scepter. Indeed Tar-Palantir had belonged to the Faithful himself. He had stopped the more official forms of persecution, obviously, but he was years dead now and his heir had found herself forcibly married and usurped before she ever came to power. Ar-Pharazôn was her first cousin, an arrangement considered incestuous even for royalty.
Hardly anyone mentioned that anymore. The King had done well during the war. That was the problem, in a way.
Pharazôn and Amandil had been friends more than a century before, and the simple fact of his coup d'état had not dismissed Andúnië from its usual place in the King's council. The real trouble had started when Sauron came to Númenor as a prisoner of war. That devious villain had taken less than three years to work himself into inner political circles. He and Amandil had not gotten along. Maybe it was the way the Elf-friend had of breaking in unannounced when the Maia was trying to corrupt people, always with a look of false innocence followed by distrust that was all too real. Maybe it was that look of amusement on the increasingly rare occasions that Sauron's status as prisoner came up in conversation. More likely, though, it was his undiplomatic refusal to be bullied. Sauron had seen to Amandil's demotion as the elimination of a threat.
The presence of his grandson Isildur could not have helped matters, although the young man spent most of his time two hundred miles away in Andúnië. A chilly huddle of white buildings on the northwestern cliffs, that haven had produced most of the Elendili who had later been forced eastward; a previous lord had escaped that fate by concealing his affiliation. Apparently Isildur's pride had not come to him from the male line. Andúnië had little to do with politics anymore; in fact, it comes into this story not at all. Had Isildur known that he would have to spend the next few decades in Rómenna instead, he might have objected far more strongly. His father had stayed so quiet about their purpose there, though, that at first the prospect actually seemed exciting.
"Atarinya, what is Grandfather trying to do?" he asked for the third time in as many weeks. This time they had topped the last rise in the highway, and the eastern haven lay spread before them. Though the road bore ruts from cart traffic, the little party consisted of five riding horses and a sixth loaded with belongings. Wains were uncommon in Númenor; the road that connected Andúnië to Ondosto in the north, to Armenelos the capital, and finally to Rómenna was the only one made to accommodate them. Consequently it was more than wide enough for two to ride abreast, and Isildur had caught up with his father at the front. His brother Anárion, their mother Thoroniel, and a servant named Taurnil trailed behind them with the packhorse.
Elendil didn't answer at first. "Gather us together, I think," he said finally. "You know Sauron has too much influence now for our people to trust the King's law."
"Did he summon everyone, then? The Faithful?"
"It means nothing yet, senya."
"I suspect more than nothing," Thoroniel contradicted him, frowning. "Why not say it here, where we are not watched? The King has abandoned the old alliances beyond any hope of repentance*, and we may have to leave Númenor before we fall prey to it."
"Leave Númenor!" Anárion cried, his horse snorting nervously at the horrified outburst.
"There is Pelargir in Middle-Earth, and there is Gil-galad of the Elves. Neither supports the King's Men," Elendil considered, as if to himself.
"No one is allowed to return, lady," Taurnil said in very nearly the same tone as Anárion.
If her responding shrug had something to do with foresight, she said nothing about it. "Aurë enteluva," she murmured grimly. Isildur blinked and glanced back worriedly. The last person to have used those words, day shall come again, had spent the next twenty-eight years under torture**. Númenóreans spoke too little Quenya to make it coincidence.
"Surely those hard times are over," he said. The sky darkened unremarkably over the ocean, and lights appeared in the windows of the town; the sunset lay behind them, and so did Armenelos.
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*Alliances, say, to the Valar. His current object of worship was actually Melkor (Morgoth to the elves), the Dark Lord to whom Sauron was a servant during the First Age. This is Sauron's idea, of course, and mostly has to do with the Númenórean quest for immortality. It gets worse later on.
**A long, sad story told in The Silmarillion and again, at length, in Unfinished Tales; the person is Húrin Thalion, who made fun of the same Morgoth to his face. His nephew was Elrond's paternal grandfather, for those who were wondering.
Note also that this story takes place in the late thirty-third century Second Age, more than three thousand years before LOTR. Númenor is an island nation out to sea westward, inhabited by humans whose ancestors (such as Húrin's friends) helped the Elves and associated Powers during the wars of the First Age.
Please review – upcoming, that thing about the White Tree. Assuming I get around to it, but let's be optimistic and click the button.