Edit: I uploaded this in the middle of the night without checking it or fixing the spelling before going to sleep again, and lo! Everything was all garbled and atrocious. So I fixed it.
It must have been eons. Eons of waiting. Rotting away in a cave with no one but the earthworms and bats for company.
The bats made good conversation, the worms less so.
Not that it was overly important for her. Moy was just pile of bones after all, sagging against the wall, humming to herself and chatting with generation after generation of bug, bat, and mouse.
Once, she'd spent decades watching a slow drip of water from the ceiling carefully erode away until there grew a noticeable divot in the stone to collect those drippings. It was all for her own amusement, if one could even call it as such.
At first a curse would seem a terrible thing, until she realized the true curse was her own boredom. In life, she was never one for patience. She'd longed for action, excitement, passions. Now all she wanted was a distraction.
Then there was a sound out of place. The sound of something slick against the stones. And she knew it was no mere rat.
Her nonexistent ears were quite skilled at recognizing these subtle differences.
"Why would patrols have not discovered this before?"
A voice?
A voice!
Human? No, these voices spoke in the lilting tongue of elvenkind. Sindarin, perhaps? Completely nonsensical and foreign, no matter how sugar sweet they sounded. She resisted the urge to move, the rattling would give her away and that would not go over well.
"It stinks of rot and vermin. Why would anyone bother?" A second voice, a little harsher than the first but no less melodic.
"It appears to be some sort of abandoned shrine. A temple perhaps?"
They drew closer to where Moy lay, descending the steep and slippery stone steps, and she could not stop her fingers from twitching, clicking together, creating the loudest sound in all of Arda.
"And it sounds like there could be spiders scurrying about. Do you hear it?"
In an instant, she was struck with the strength of a light. Two lights in fact. First was the low flame of a torch, which was blinding enough to one so long held in the dark, second was the unmistakable shining of a soul. The soul's light throbbed and pulsated with more life than anything ever before known in this foul tomb. It radiated and the force of it was stunning to say the least. It had been so long since she'd felt this warmth and power.
The light of it faded to glint, and two elves entered her viewpoint around the corner, examining the walls of the cave as it transitioned from marble to the rough natural walls. They glowed with the light that all elves share, that ethereal glow of immortality and youth. Even to look at an elf was enough to make one feel young and healthy again, in a way.
The first elf was in his prime even by immortal standards. Blue eyes pierced the shadows, and he seemed more fascinated that perturbed to be standing in this ancient place. The second was an inch shorter and his face more sharply angled, his eyes suspicious and uncertain.
The moment Moy was waiting for came when the young one tripped over her outstretched legs. He seemed momentarily alarmed, but to his credit, the flame stoked in his eyes quickly died.
"A skeleton... of an ellon?" He squinted down at Moy, appraising her. She could hardly keep herself from shaking with anticipation. He could see the curse that shrouded her, could he not?
The second elf came up behind him. "It is hard to say, Prince. Ellon, elleth, human, or something even we have no knowledge of. But the bones of the long dead concern me not. If I may be so bold, I say we leave and dare not return."
"Why not?" The prince was indiginant in tone, that much she could tell.
"Evil lurks here. Can you not sense it in the very air? And I find myself not overly fond of dark places underground."
"Very well, Thamil. But first I will speak the rites."
He crouched on his knees, and placed a pale hand on the dusty forehead of her skull, chanting something under his breath in that beautiful language. He produced a key next, the key that had been long out of reach thrown across the floor, and Moy's long since gone heart leapt for joy.
"Perhaps spirits linger for a reason." He took hold of her wrist, unlocking the single chain that bound her to the wall, jumping back when her arm slumped and her wrist detached, clattering across the floor.
They left quickly after that. Elves didn't do well underground.
Once under the cover of darkness again, and certain that they weren't returning, Moy was able to stand again, leaning against the cave wall for support. Her bones were weak and dusty, pulling up clouds of dirt when she moved.
But she could move! Walk, run, dance, jump. All that and more. The feelings of humanity returned with a vengeance, and she wanted nothing more than to run as far away from this hole as possible.
First, she stooped to pick up her stray hand and reattach it, then she followed the walls from the natural to the carvings and cold smoothness of the shrine, following them to the entrance.
The door had been an ornate piece of work in it's day, iron enchanted with mysterious spells. Now it was rusting and hung crookedly on the frame, surrounded by fallen rubble. And beyond that rubble and rock, a narrow hole through which pure sunlight streamed in. The sight of it would have brought tears to her eyes, if she still had eyes.
Laying a hand on the old door, she sighed and pressed her forehead against it in an almost loving gesture. She loved and hated this cave, but would never return.
The sunlight held warmth beyond anything she remembered, and the grass was painfully soft. She paced quietly through the wood beneath ancient trees. In places mud squished beautifully between her toe bones. It was bliss.
She didn't see any trails or discernible markings. She did see what she thought might have been a deer in the far brush, and the air was alive with birdsong. Moy could almost pretend she was a child running through tall heather with no cares and a lot more flesh.
It grew dark quickly and the birdsong changed. The occasional bat flew by and once did she spot a pair of shining yellow eyes watching her from the bushes.
Soon a trail began to make itself known. A thin dirt track, and hardly more. Still, it was a start. Not that she even knew where she was going or what she could be looking for. Freedom was all that mattered in those first few moments, but now the questionings set in. Where would she find herself? Who would approach her like this? How would this precious, precious freedom be spent?
There was a light up ahead, and the growing sounds of voices, not dissimilar from those who'd journeyed into her cave.
With a barely audible squeak, Moy dived into a nearby thornbush, hoping she did not rattle and give herself away to these voice holders.
"Yes, a cave he spoke of. While on a small patrol no less. Some sort of abandoned temple from a past age."
"Relics of the past. Pah, they are of no use to Mirkwood."
Booted feet moved swiftly, and passed right by Moy's eye socket. All she caught of the conversation was what mattered. Mirkwood. Now she at least had an idea of where in Middle Earth she was.
Once the patrol passed, she stood again, brushing away the thorns that clung to her joints. One had even gotten stuck in her eye, and she tilted her head, struggling to shake it out.
That was how the lollygagging elf of the patrol found her, bent over with fingers digging through her skull, moonlight reflecting off her bones like a beacon.
Damn.
She bolted into the trees, thorns forgotten as cries rose up behind her like raging waves to the shoreline.
She scrambled up a tree, hands slipping until she was clinging to a branch with all her might, wathcing below fearfully for a mob of confused and angered guards to swarm upon her.
The branch began to bend and groan under her weight, and she tried to grappled for the trunk, succeeding... sort of. With a loud crack, the branch fell, and her arm followed, still hooked onto it's grooves.
She shuddered, and sure enough, the sound was enough to bring them running. One of them took hold of the skeletal arm with eyes of disgust, then fear as he tossed it far away from himself and slowly looked up. Yet again, Moy was in an awkward position.
She didn't blame the guard (not entirely) for his look of horror and fascination. There she was, a one armed skeleton hugging the trunk of a tree, branches poking through her ribcage, holding her suspended in place.
She didn't think elves could climb so well. In mere moments, the patrol was surrounding her, wrenching her from the protective tree branches, throwing her to the ground.
It didn't hurt to land, much. And she was subject to a ring of arrows pointed at her.
"What manner of monster is this?"
"A spy of men?"
"No human could master magic of this creed."
Moy didn't appreciate being regarded as an object to be discussed while lying defenseless in the dirt, and her jaw flexed anxiously, producing sharp clicking noises.
"Do any of you speak the common tongue?" She mumbled, her voice coming out as a wavering, high pitched whisper.
The expressions shifted, but none seemed to understand. Her voice was disarming. It sounded so very... human.
In the next instant, she was being secured with elvish ropes, and to her humiliation, she was quickly slung over the back of a particularly tall elf like she was no more than a piece of luggage. She made a noise, a note of disgust. She could see, even at this upside down angle, that one of the elves carried her arm, holding it at a distance like it might bite him.
Every step jolted, and it was pretty clear that she could still feel pain like a mortal, though if someone was to thrust a sword through her chest, they would find it a tad difficult to actually make an impact.
Moy understood their fears, but this was ridiculous and simply degrading. She could hardly attack them and they didn't even attempt to communicate!
After a fashion, they reached a wider path, probably the main road. Even though she saw everything upside down, she could see the elves that lived there congregating, and the beauty of the woods, no matter how ancient, gnarled, and shadowy they may be.
Mirkwood.
And that was how Moy found herself tossed unceremoniously into a cell much like her last prison, still hogtied with magic rope.
