Consumed

Chapter One: Demise

A/N: Most of this was in the summary... slight AU, NO 10th walker, no pairing [yet], OCs (one major, a bunch of minor), covers nations during WotR that the Fellowship aren't in or didn't go to [Mirkwood, Lorien, Lindon, others] This first chapter is split: the italics are all in 236 TA.

Disclaimer: I only own the bunnies and OCs. I am making no profit from this. All credit goes to Tolkien.

Warnings: really angsty later, violence, and you will be very confused in later chapters if you did not read the Silmarillion.

*italics* = thought
italics = dream or flashback

more at the bottom. Enjoy the story, mellyn!

~Herald of Woe~

Deafening screams of sheer terror jolted a restless elleth from her nightmare. She sprung up wailing for her mother and father and pulled her blankets tightly around her as if they somehow protected her from the darkness. No one came.

The girl didn't dare sleep again. Eventually, a pale dawn rose from the waves caressing the coast of Harlindon as the child's tears finally ran dry, her screaming and sobbing reduced to whimpering and sniffling. She lay back against her downy pillows and stared at the ocean.

Strangely, her father had not burst into her bedchamber like he had done countless times before when his toddler awoke shrieking.

She waited until the room filled with light to investigate the lack of attention. She knew well that the darkness of the vast windowless hall would rekindle her morbid fears. The hall had lofty ceilings and countless doors. The rest of the estate was open and airy, with winding antique ornamentation –things that could easily look menacing in the night.

Clutching a wooly blanket, she peeked out the door and upon seeing nothing frightful, tiptoed out. The soft padding noise echoed from the cold stone floor to the vaulted ceiling, and the girl jumped in fright many times upon seeing a statue or reflection on the smooth tiles. At last she turned a corner and came to a big door that was slightly ajar.

Pushing it fully open with her little hand, she saw a man standing on the balcony across from the hall door. But he was not her father. The elf had hair of white-gold. He was dressed neatly, as if he had been ready for hours and did not rush out.

Her father had black hair -black as crow feathers. He also stood differently as if some unseen burden was pushing him down and he was resisting it. The elf at the balcony hung his head, but stood fully upright. His fists were clenched so that it appeared his knuckles would burst from his skin. It was her father's best friend, Celevon. Something was horribly wrong.

.ox0X0xo.

Celevon gazed unseeingly at the rising sun. Joyous birdsong filled the cool morning air as a perfect autumn day began. He clutched the white railing of the balcony and willed himself to forget the events from mere hours ago. How ironic, a perfect day to celebrate the darkest evil. A small tug came at a corner of his cloak and he wrenched his eyes away from the sunrise and looked at his friend's only daughter. Celevon flinched -the sight of the girl plunged a blade into his heart. Did she have to look like him? She had the same midnight hair, the same huge sea-blue eyes - she was his exact appearance, but in the form of a tiny elleth.

"Where is my daddy?" she whimpered. [1]

Celevon opened his mouth to answer but his voice disobeyed and stayed silent. How could he tell her? She was so young and innocent, free of the weight of reality.

But he found he had no need to tell her. She read the look in his dark eyes and face. Her own youthful face paled as her infantile mind registered that some tragedy has occurred. She turned to look at the bed and saw a figure completely covered by the sheet. And then the toddler – who seemed distraught enough before -- was at Celevon's feet on her knees, gasping and shaking.

It was strange how quickly she had absorbed the hideous truth. Celevon was still in shock, and did not believe it, even though he was the one who had come -sensing danger- and had seen the corpse hours ago.

He patted the girl's head awkwardly.

What was her name, again? he thought. Faerithil, I believe. Faerithil the orphan, now. She was probably the only elf without parents, and Celevon wondered when she would realize that. Her mother has been dead since the moment she was born. When would she ask how her father mysteriously died?

0X

It was her nightmare come true. Faerithil felt the feeble shield that took two decades of life to build shatter around her and she was falling, again. Like her dreams: running desperately, finding safety -a door perhaps- and bolting through with relief only to find that it deceived her. There was only utter darkness.

She was aware that Celevon patted her and she gazed up to him. His eyes held no comfort but were hard as stone, with the smallest flicker of accusation and resentment. She ducked away from his outstretched hand and dashed outof the room. The slamming of her door resonated in the lonely hallway and she sank to the floor, weeping freely.

.ox0X0xo.

Celevon sighed -half in exasperation, half in pity- as the hysterical child bolted out the door. He desperately wished to do the same, to dash back home and hide in his own imaginary refuge like an elfling. He was far from being an elfling, but it was not his dignity that rooted him to the spot.

The promise Faerithil's parents had painstakingly extracted from him to "watch her and inform her when she came of age" kept him from fleeing. They had been desperate when drawing that promise from Celevon for he was not very fond of children, to say the least, nor very fond of the responsibility of having someone depend on him.

He eventually agreed, thinking to himself that he would be able to shirk his responsibility by only visiting once a week.

Now he realized that that would not be possible for a time. He could not leave the girl in the house when death still darkened its corridors, and he could not leave her to fend for herself so young, and in such a state. As much as he detested the emotional child, pity triumphed.

She would live a life no child deserved- forlorn and wrought with agony. He thought the Valar should have mercy on her. She surely did not deserve such a harsh fate, no matter what her ancestors had done!

But if what her father said was true, the Valar had no kindness for the family in the past, and were not changing their views for a time.

Celevon's heart told him that this day marked the beginning of Faerithil's demise.


Faerithil gritted her teeth and hauled her aching body from the mud, spitting out a surprising amount in disgust. Thoroughly soaked and irritated, she forcefully blew the hair that was plastered to her face back into place. The disgruntled elleth climbed back up to her perch in the great oak from which she had fallen. Another fruitless hunt took her deep in the woods –almost to the end of the tree line in the mountains— and left her exhausted. She had hunted through the night and fatigue and lack of nourishment had claimed her where she took shelter from the sudden downpour in her tree. And now she remembered how she had fallen- a dream.

It was a recurring dream that often plagued her mind for that day was the point her life started spiraling down, never to be forgotten. She started violently and fell from the tree and into mucky dirt with a squelch. Nightmares always delved deep into dark memories for fuel, to mock her fear of her past and future. After all she had done to bury her life; it had been stolen from the remote corners of her mind. Her past, her task, everything loomed in shadow and she felt a deep sorrow rise in her heart at the hopelessness of it all.

But that should not matter. She did not dwell in the mountains far from civilization just to wallow in her misery. She stayed to forget it.

Not that she had come by choice, though…

Then thought consumed her and she remembered the things that led to her millennia-long "stay" in the Blue Mountains. They were the same things she had kept locked up in her heart like bloodthirsty animals, before they were set loose by dreams. A particularly despicable beast was, the day from her dream, which was also the first cause of her isolation. *How long has it been?* she wondered. That day was in autumn of 236, in the Third Age. Faerithil knew not the year, but it was certainly more than one-and-a-half millennia prior to the present day.

The Accident had been just months after her two hundredth birthday. That was "the falling of small rocks to start an avalanche," as Gandalf would put it.

Her childhood had ended early, when she was 70 or so, but it had not been as unbearable as Celevon believed. Better than her adolescence and adulthood by a far cry.

She had been lonely but there were good memories, signs that said that the world was not entirely bad…

[1] all the dialogue is in Sindarin, and I think it's silly to mix Sindarin and English on and off and put the translations at the bottom. You won't be finding any stray "Ada"s or "Mellon-nin"s. No Elvish until much later.

Thanks for reading!! Updates will arrive within a week or so. I will not force you to review (how would I manage that?) or tempt you with virtual/cyber cookies, but any comments, criticism, etc. are welcome. Hey, I'll even take flaming- as long as I get feedback.

The chapters WILL get better. Starting is the hardest part, and unfortunately, when the first impression is made...