Disclaimer:Characters, cultures, names and etc belong to J.R.R. Tolkien Estate Limited, also New Line Cinema and lots of others. But certainly not me. Characters, cultures, places and concepts you do not recognize are mine or based on other stories. No profit being made.
A.N.: I wish to leave here my deep gratitude for Farah, Jennn and Irith, who have helped me immensely making this particular troublesome piece a little more palatable.
It is August of 2004, two years after my first publishing of this series. Several helpful critics and (hopefully) some writing maturing passed by in between, and in a burst of honesty I admitted the story had a few corners to be trimmed before I was happy with it. I am flattered with the warm reception The Renegades has had from the community, specially considering how neglected the Crossovers Fics tend to be. In respect of that, too, as well as for my own, I have (once again) revised it.
PROLOGUE: SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN.
"You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you. But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew…" Color of the wind, Pocahontas soundtrack.
Northern Wilds, beyond the Ered Mitrhin. March 25, 12 T.A.
Almáriel found herself in a completely unknown field. They had gone much farther to the north than she'd liked – and it made her uneasy, as the group was small and they found the once clear path filled with hateful orcs. She was in a diplomatic mission for the Lady Galadriel, in an attempt to contact the sylvan realm of Arthon , far north from Greenwood the Great. But when they left the forest, instead of finding the joyful woods of Arthon, there was nothing but a huge clearing.
With two armies at war.
Not only were all the beloved trees and animals gone, not only there was no trace of the huge Elfish Kingdom that was supposed to be there, with thousands of light, magical beings, but instead, two human armies fighting. Men whose armies stretched as far as the eyes could see. And an elf can see very, very far.
The twenty elves stood there for a couple of minutes, mesmerised by the knights before them. They had never seen humans fighting like that. It was far from the middle earth idea of standing in line till the last one had fallen - it was ferocious, but smart. Disciplined groups moved as one, with purpose, strategy, and might.
No wonder Arthon had disappeared. Even the elfish aim with a bow could not pluck off the fiery waves of soldiers now claiming the blood soaked ground. Almáriel cried for her brothers and sisters, certain that they had vanished from whatever they called this place now. However, she would not loose her wits. She was not just any elf, she was Almáriel, the elven ambassador, distinguished for her spirit and wisdom.
They had to get out of there before the humans saw the oldest of races.
A small wave of gold and green, they urged their horses to run to the forest. They were almost there, when her sixth sense, her own kind of elfish magic, told her she had been noticed. A couple of seconds after she could feel the arrows falling everywhere around her, and heard the desperate cries of her bodyguards. She hoped their wounds would be light and they could make it till the forest. One by one her comrades fell, swept dead by the ocean of arrows. (Why do they even bother attacking something as small as us? They must be positively evil!) The well-trained horses tried to escape, but the arrows were everywhere, and, much to her horror, she saw a medium group detach from the main army and chase them. They all wore iron armour.
She heard the sorrow-filled cry of the very last bodyguard, and turned to see her comrades as she reached the borders of the dark forest. Her kind had such a power over the natural things that the trees offered her shelter, hiding her from the soldiers all over. She could see her partners, her fellows, her friends, lying on the floor, clearly dead, their lovely bodies emptied of life and their merry voices silent forever. But there was hope that they might come back. Maybe the Valar would allow them to return from The Halls of Mandos.
Almáriel was then seething, and determined to let her lieges know of this mortals' threat. They would learn not to provoke the wrath of the elves.
Almáriel urged her horse deep in the forest, aware that these humans, no matter what, would never get through the dangers of this particular environment. Problem was, neither would she.
So she waited. Almáriel was certain that the men would leave sooner or later, that a chance of escape would present itself.
She watched as the victorious army built a citadel in no time. Most of the soldiers left, but still some remained to take care of the newly won territory. And soon some people, civil people, came in large caravans to inhabit the place. It was official. They would not leave.
She had to. She may be an elf, but sooner or later, she'd suffer from starvation. Her horse was getting thinner, but he, at least, had the grass. So she left her arboreal shelter and started to walk away from them, through the borders of the forest.
She was tired, starving and sad. And sadness, for elves, could become fatal.
After travelling for weeks, she was caught by a patrol. She wanted to run, but her hungry horse would not obey her. And she was not in conditions to rage against the well-fed horses of the soldiers before her. So she was taken to the military leader of the citadel, head high on the air, every ounce of her kind and family's pride burning in her soul. She was dirty and hungry, her royal robes ripped and her black hair loose on her back.
The man looked straight into her eyes and spoke something she didn't quite understand at first. She made an effort to clear her mind and concentrate on reading his mind- mortals hardly could sense it, save perhaps some of the numenoreans of purer blood, it would be an effort not wasted.
He didn't.
'Who are you?' was what he was saying. She read the memories of his homeland, an icy desert country where caravans were always coming and going. Bears. Mountains. Marshes and grassy plains. A rocky precipice, an island lost in the cold and stormy ocean. Huge stone cities, not like what she heard of the dwarves, but out in the open. Huge castles, aqueducts, theatres. People. All kind of people, different skin colours, wrapped in weird robes, artificial, articulated hairdressing, and war. Lots of it. His people obviously lived for it, to conquest lands and make slaves. The very idea of slaves made her ill.
The military leader of the citadel was a young man. Auburn, full, short hair, the deepest blue eyes and the body of one that has been fighting since an early age. Some scars were visible – quite typical for a soldier. Unlike elves, whose scars heal and soon fade. He was tall too, for a man, much like the numenoreans.
"My name is Almáriel." She answered in his tongue. She was answering straight to his mental waves, so she didn't have to think about speaking the language. There was no way she would tell who she was or where she came from. Her brothers had to be protected.
"My name is Glauco Antonius," he answered, his full lips opening in a big, playful, yet tired, smile. "Where are you from?"
'As if I would tell you, stranger' "I lived with my brothers in the forest. But you killed them. You killed them all." She said, only knowing the words after they were out.
"I am sorry. We were in the middle of battle and we thought you would be enforcements for our opponents." He told her, sincerely. She fought back the anger for losing her friends out of a stupid suspicion: it was war. People kill before they could ask anything. Mortals.
"Is there anyone you'd like to stay with? Any place you might want to go?" he asked quietly.
Almáriel was not fooled. Living four thousand years teaches people a thing or two. If she went anywhere, she would betray her kind's location. Greenwood would be engulfed as Arthon had been. And then, nothing to keep her kind's heritage alive but the powers of her lady, Laurelindórinan. [1] As if they did not have enough trouble to deal with.
"They are all dead. We were going to stay with our family here, but when we got here, they were nowhere to be seen. What happened to the city that was here?" she said carefully. It was not a proper lie. It was plausible. And it would lead him to think all her relatives were dead. No big army attacking Greenwood or Laurelindórinan.
"Oh, my," he stared at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Then he took a resolution, "You'll stay at my place. It's not safe a young girl like you alone in the world, and most certainly not safe here among so many soldiers. Later you can stay or leave, as you wish."
She was surprised.
He was being honest. How odd.
Catalos, Dorian. 52 T.A.
Fifty years had come and gone. Almáriel tried to resist as hard as she could, gathering all her kind's pride but it was hopeless- she had fallen in love with the kind general. And it was a new feeling- she had never experienced anything this fierce before.
They got married, of course, and had kids. Two of them, actually (quite odd for an elf to have so many kids in such a short time… but her husband was a man, and that was something), Andrea and Arien. It had been very hard to explain to Glauco the ceremonies of Essecarmë, the name-giving. Of course it had to be done in secrecy. But Almáriel would not forgo that tradition.
The citadel evolved into a big city, people coming and going all the time. Almáriel was glad they didn't want to go inside the forest, otherwise it would have been the end of the woodland realm. The dorianin were too busy with the war at the northern border. The elves of Arthon, it seemed, had not been annihilated. They had simply moved up to a fortified position where they could combat the men with more protection. In all fairness it ought to have been a quick confrontation, yet the iron armours and the defensive lines of the dorianin were giving the elves more trouble than the Firstborn had liked.
Almáriel, however, knew it was only a matter of time. She also knew she would never be accepted back. It had been the ultimate betrayal; no one would ever accept her back. Ever. They might as well think she was dead.
Andrea was a six feet tall, dark, a stunning and mysterious young man. Girls sighed whenever he passed by, dark-grey eyes in his flawless pale skin. Arien was a bit smaller, five feet height, but she was only twenty years old. Her blood-red hair distinguished her from any other girl around. Big narrowed childish blue-jewel eyes, always playing some sort of mischief around the farm.
Glauco taught them swordsmanship, whenever he was on leave from the fighting. He spoke much about the codes of his people, and the human philosophy. Almáriel taught them how to use a bow, how to speak in elvish, how to listen to the trees and animals- even if it was harder for them, she pushed it till they got it right, how to walk leaving no trail, how to track, how to admire all wild things. The history of her people, even the embarrassing parts that elves did not disclose outside some very selected circles, their history and tradition.
And she taught them about their own kind.
The renegades. Something new under the sun.
Not all the elves acquiesced to go in the Great Journey, that is, the journey to Valinor. There was a house called Avari, The Refusers, who did not trust the Valar and decided to stay on that land… they went east, and it is said some of them still dwelt in the east somewhere. When the Elves and the Men first met they did something they regretted afterwards.
They were in wonder at each other, something new and fresh in a world where the Sun and moon were but recently made . From that initial meeting many of the first half-elven were born in the wild, and sundered from the other clans of quendi who were travelling to the West. And for a time, all was at peace. A time - a few lives of men, some centuries… but the People of Starlight and the Children of the Sun were not supposed to be together. Soon the drifts were apparent, as the elves grew wiser and the men continued the same, with their limited life.
Eventually, it became difficult to pinpoint what, exactly, had happened. Everyone who knew about it was either dead or not talking. A few rumours spread timidly, becoming lost and twisted and so different from their original versions that it was nearly impossible to distinguish the truth. It was, of course, not found in any records, since the Avari moved away and no longer socialised with other people. Men's memory was weak, and soon they were but a distant memory, the echo of a dream.
Humans followed their doom of living and dying, and the renegades were forgotten. When the house of Finwë left Valinor after the Silmarilli, there was nothing but those whispers. And aside from a few circles, nobody spoke a word.
The children were grown then, and lived outside the circles of their parents' family. And the renegades wandered around Middle-earth, moving like shadows from one country to the other, living mostly among humans. Mortals were rarely able to distinguish them apart. And the renegades were then legion.
But then something happened. A shadow insinuated itself in the woods. An unidentifiable fear, a dim threat. There were perils in the shade, a nameless hunter that set the hearts of all people of good faith cold. In a very obscure day, they somehow managed to put their kind together and built a city for themselves. Few there were who knew the tale, and fewer that cared much with trying to find them, worried as they were with the fight against Melkor.
Earth had swallowed them. And everybody was happy about it.
"We are going to search for your kind's city someday. That's the one place safe for you."
1- Laurelindórinan - that's the ancient name of Lothlórien. Later it would be called Laurenande. Then Lothlórien.