Many ages before the history that we know, our tale had its strange beginning…

Long in years but brief in memory was the Noon of Valinor, and it has been recorded that the blessed period came to a close when Melkor was unchained. However, here an amendment must be made to the Annals of Arda, for it was the doom of Aman to receive the taint of darkness long before that time.

It was the time when the captivity of Melkor was drawing to its close. Though he was indeed held fast by Angainor, the chain that had been wrought by Aulë, his restless mind was enough at liberty to roam at will and keep him from complete ignorance of the changes that were taking place in the world. Thus he was able to perceive the arrival of the Firstborn Children into Aman and their subsequent growth in power and knowledge under the tutelage of his brethren. Melkor bristled at the thought of the Quendi, whom he considered a blight upon the darkness he had sought to create, increasing in number and thriving in the protection of the Valar. However, curiosity and thirst for knowledge always got the better of his disgust, and he never ceased to search and ponder the continuing evolution of Arda Marred.

When the period of his banishment drew near to its close, the emergence of a strange presence, a tiny locus about which energy seemed to pulse and twist itself in unnatural forms, tickled and perplexed his mind's ever watchful eye. The new life had begun as a weak presence amid the powers of Arda, flickering at the remotest edges of his consciousness, but quickly it began to grow and take shape. He did not perceive that it was by its own nature powerful, being probably nothing more than an Elven fëa.

An Elven fëa, nurtured within the unsullied womb of Aman…

Thoughts of the most malignant kind arose from the many dark possibilities offered by this seemingly insignificant turn of fate, and they unfolded themselves before the mind's eye of Melkor in a delicious web. After an age of imprisonment, the condemned Vala had accomplished little more than to fester in desperate wrath and become as ravenous for vengeance as the werewolves of Angband for the flesh of Eru's children. For this reason alone did the dark lord choose not to dismiss the presence of this strange Elven fëa.

And why not begin now to offer proper recompense to the powers that be? pondered Melkor, his longing for action nurtured by confinement. A small gesture this would be, perhaps, but this exertion of my will while I am yet piously enduring punishment may prove to be the bitterest blow of all!

With a practiced precision, he cautiously stretched the dark recesses of his mind and reached outward from his prison in Mandos, north and east across the frozen, broken seas to Middle Earth where his servant dwelt, awaiting the return of his master.

When at last the golden light of Laurelin receded leaving the world to Telperion's care, the Elf, if Elf he was, left his post and hastened stealthily to a small alleyway that ran along one side of the great house. There he found a side door through which the servants of the family might come and go at will. He paused outside the door for a moment and leaned against it as if listening. For some time the stranger stood there unmoving until the mockery of a smile crept upon his face. He then pushed the door open and went inside to a cooking area of sorts.

A young Elf maid bearing a large bundle of blankets burst into the room at that time. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes alight with urgency. She gasped in surprise at the sight of the cloaked stranger, and her burden tumbled from her arms into a heap on the floor.

"You are welcome here," the maid said uncertainly, "but my lord will certainly not be able to see anyone today."

The stranger gave no answer but cast back his hood revealing a fair face framed with a mane of shining gold, and he turned his fiery gaze upon her and held her eyes in a grip of steel. The maid stared unblinkingly back into the blue eyes of the stranger for a moment before her face was changed to a smiling expression.

"My lady has been expecting you," she said dully. "Please follow me."

The stranger nodded slightly in assent and followed the maid through the house to the upstairs rooms. He barely glanced at his surroundings until they passed a room where many Elves were gathered. The stranger stopped to observe them, an expression of curiosity alighting upon his usually impassive features. His mouth twisted into a sardonic smile when he realized he was watching the family of the house and that, judging from the nervous anticipation that permeated the air, they had yet to receive the news.

Perfect, he thought to himself. My arrival could not have been at a better time.

"My lord?"

The stranger turned at the sound of the maid's voice to see her holding a door open for him, her face still frozen into a look of serene contentment. He now returned her smile and brushed past her into the room.

"Your son at long last, my lady!" a feminine voice cooed softly over the hearty wails of an infant.

The lady of the house rested there on a bed as a maid attended her, and another maid hovered about a cradle nearby. Even as she received her newborn son into her arms for the first time, the noblewoman turned when she heard a movement at the door and rested fatigued but questioning eyes upon the stranger. The silvery light of Telperion that filtered through the nearby window played upon her reddish brown tresses. She opened her mouth to speak, but when she met the stranger's gaze, her eyes clouded, and she remained silent. Her maids shared in her dumbness. Naught was heard but the cries of the little Elf.

The stranger strode to the cradle and looked inside to see another squirming infant. It required little effort for him to sense that this was child he had come for, so he proceeded to lift the baby girl from her cradle and stow her in his arms. Remarkably, she did not stir.

Having obtained his master's prize, he turned toward the door, but just before reaching the threshold, he looked upon the resting Elf woman staring mutely after him and said in a voice that was at once hard and silken, "I congratulate you on the birth of your son, my lady."

As the stranger left the house with his small burden, he chuckled almost gleefully to himself. So easy, he thought. The Firstborn Children will fall readily into my master's hands.

The mother watched with fond pride as her infant son was greeted by his father for the first time.

"Little Father he is indeed," the father said, alluding to the name, Atarinkë, that his wife had chosen. What he did not know was that his wife had decided in her heart upon this name long before her son was born. The mother name was chosen through foresight of the child's nature or fate, usually after the child's birth. A strange thing it was that such foresight should come upon her before their son was born. "I shall give him my own name, for his resemblance of me will exceed that of all our sons."

"Curufinwë Atarinkë he shall be then," the mother accorded with a soft smile, but then her brow furrowed and her smile disappeared.

Noticing the apparent change in her mood, her husband asked, "What is it? Are you not pleased with our little son?"

She frowned and said, "Of course, but…I had been so certain I was to have…" Her voice trailed off as a haze fell like a veil over her eyes, and she sighed in frustration because she had forgotten what she would have said. Her husband failed to notice though, so intent was he on their newborn son.

No one marked the flight of the gray-clad stranger as he hastened north, drawing ever closer to the wastes of Araman. Having no desire to return to his abode in the form of one of the Firstborn, his shape shifted to that of a spirit of fire - which he was. Sauron, the greatest of Melkor's servants. As his fiery form sped from the lands of Valinor, he pondered the bundle he carried, unable to fathom its importance to his master.

Find it, his master had commanded from afar. Find it, and keep it hidden for me.

Whether Melkor was aware that it was actually an Elven child Sauron did not know, but he was more than a little intrigued by the idea of the great Vala so eager to have his servant go to such great lengths to abduct a weak, helpless infant when he might just as easily have obtained one from the Elven tribes that remained in Middle Earth. Surely this infant could be of no great worth to them now other than as a means to strike a cruel, albeit paltry, blow against Manwë

As if to confirm to himself the truth of this, he brushed aside the outer blanket so that he might peer into the tiny face of the Elf child, and he found…nothing. He exerted what mental power he was endowed with and searched around him for the child's bright presence, but it was as if she never was.

Moments later, the blankets were thrown to the ground as heaps of ashes.