Chapter 1: Middle-Earth
By: Hope
There have been a many tales told of Middle-Earth yet some of the greatest, perhaps most interesting in turn, have remained hidden. It is not because these particular tales are so shameful to the people of Middle-Earth that they wish no one should hear of them, or that the adventurers that had taken part in them had keepen them so secret that only they even knew of them. No, it is just the ill-timing of the stories, which seem to be in the shadow of some of the greatest ones told.
So I am taking this time to show you all, to tell you of the story of the humans that were not of Middle-Earth. Of the humans who appeared in my very forest without any memory of how they had gotten there or why...
The wind slammed down against the trees, the force was strong enough to knock down and blow away a good portion of the trees that populated Middle-Earth, but not these. No, the wind here simply knocked the rustic colored leaves off of the trees, causing them to tumble and fall down the large trunk. They continued their way down until they reached the bottom of the tree, to which they were sent down the center of the trail, in the center of the forest, only being guided by the pushes of the unseen foe.
The leaves were being blown directly down the trail (as the leaves had always done, due to the eastern wind that settled over the area every Automne.) when the wind stopped and silence ensued the forest of Lothlorien.
The squirrels stopped chewing on the chestnuts that they had so carefully retrieved, the birds stopped singing, the trees stopped their talking, and even the elves (whom most were still asleep) paused their business, for something within the forest had change.
Galadriel awakened in her chambers, finding herself clutching onto the ring that had been entrusted to her ages ago. Although she was surely one of the wisest and most powerful of the Elves in Middle-Earth, (she had received a reputation of being a powerful yet wicked Elf-witch among the dwarves.) she found herself taken aback, as though something had happened that she was not expecting, that she wasn't ready for. (She had spent hundreds of years preparing for anything that could happen, training her fellow Elves and much more._
And within a split second, the feeling of change and new
things was gone. The wind began to pick up, continuing to roll the leaves down
the trail. It was as though nothing had happened, but Galadriel knew better. She
knew better so she quickly got up out of bed and looked out of her window from
the uppermost room of the city of the elves.
The sun began to peak over the tips of the tallest trees, it's bright rays of joy bringing light to take place of the eery darknes which covered the lonely forest at night. It slowly uncovered the secrets that the darkness had kept hidden from the rest of the world and soon, the sun's rays of light lit up the whole forest once more.
What had happened next was something that no one had expected at all, even the elf queen Galadriel, whom had been making her way quickly down the curving stairs and out into the open forest, something that she had not done in quite a long while for it was far too dangerous. Shadow had once again fallen upon Mirkwood and where it would go next, even the elves did not know. Dark times once again began to fall upon middle-earth.
'M'lady.' Celeborn spoke softly, instantly stopping Galadriel in her footsteps. She turned to face him and stood tall and powerful as she always had. 'I, too feel it. But do not worry.' He said as he slowly walked up closer to her, taking her hand. 'It shall come to us.'
Galadriel looked at Celeborn and realized that he was right. She would have normally caught this but something inside of her was changing. Everyday she felt herself becoming weaker, as though she was fading...
'What is it?' An elf said, speaking in the common tongue. Elves had recently begun to speak in the common tongue more often than their own. No one knew why, it was perhaps just easier for them to deal with foriegnors that might make their way into their forests.
'I'm not sure...Tis a human, I shall give you that but the clothing is from some tribe that I do not know of.' The clothes of this human in particular were strange.
It wore a pink shirt that glittered in the sun and instead of a skirt, which the women would normally wear, it had tight, blue pants on and the strangest shoes ever seen. 'Should we bring it back?'
'I'm not sure...but if we do we must do it fast. Before it comes to.' So the two elves picked up the strange looking human and took it back to the city of Lothlorien. They had no idea why it was there or how it could have found its way through the intricate maze that the first elves that had settled there had put up to avoid outsiders.
All that could be seen was the fire that surrounded the tall mountain. Its smoke rose up to the heavens, clouding the skies. You could not tell if it were night or day due to the vast amount of smoke. Orcs were surrounding the area, thousands of them swarming to it as though they were mindless drones who were answering their master's call. Although no one knew of it, not even the most loyal of servants of the dark lord, Sauron's spirit had made its way back into that mountain. Back into the very mountain where he had first forged the rings of power, and where he had lost them.
The shadow that had fallen over the forest of Lothlorien, along with all the rest of middle-earth was Sauron's call to all of the violent, greedy, and trecherous creatures of middle-earth to come to his aid to regain the ring of power. Almost as soon as he had re-appeared within Mt. Doom had the Ringwraiths once again awakened, along with their thirst or hunger for the ring of power. For when Sauron had first bestowed upon them the gifts of the nine rings, he twisted them, he stripped them of whatever pride and power they had once had and turned them into his slaves.
Sauron had once thought of the race of men as the race that he might have to fear or be careful around most, until he found out of their weakness. The human race was extremely greedy, whether this greed was for wealth or power didn't matter, all that mattered was that Sauron the deceiver was able to exploit this weakness to his benifet, turning the men that were once the greatest leaders in the human race to his willing slaves.
So surrounded by his minions and hidden deep within his firey dungeon, Sauron waited for his servants to bring him the ring. His eye was over all of middle-earth, all except for Lothlorien, where the elves had somehow figured a way to block his sight, for now. And because they had been able to do that had worried him. Along with that, he now sensed something taking place within Lothlorien. For it wasn't just Galadriel that had woken up that morning clutching onto or reaching out to their ring. Sauron now felt an even stronger pining to have his ring within his grasps once again.
The creature known as Gollum also felt this new prescense and sensing it caused him to keep his ring closer to him once again. When he had first gotten posession of the ring of power, he had worn it constantly, almost all of the time. But as the years had slowly passed, wearing the ring would put such a weight upon Gollum's slimey fingers and body that he felt it nessecary to only keep it close, and not to wear it. Then even just its presense began to affect him, leading him to keep it hidden while he would search for food within his dark cave. But now he felt a dire need to keep it closer to him, as said earlier. For he too, sensed that everything would soon change, although no one knew how....