Cast Out
madrone- I try to be as straight to the point as possible, I hope that it isn't to horrible. I am going to have conversation time between Thalyin and Boromir soon, so that should be interesting. Thalyin won't be returning to Gondor until later, but she will meet Lord Denethor, so it going to be a little bit...explosive, it should be good.
A big thanks to all of my reviewers, but a special thanks to ZELINIA, Leaf of Lorien, and LOTR Lover 24 and 7, whom I neglected to mention in my last installment.
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Disclaimer- I do not own any of the "Lord of the Rings" characters from the book trilogy or the movie trilogy directed by Peter Jackson. I do, however, own Thalyin and Lady Jenece and others you don't recognize. Based on both the books and the movies, so you'll see things from both.
Summary- Thalyin is the daughter Lord Denethor never knew he had. When she is pulled into the destruction of the One Ring, she meets interesting people who can answer the questions to her past... and her future. LegolasOC, EomerOC, OCOC
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The Fellowship was walking up the steep mountains that blocked their path. Thalyin noticed that the tiny hobbits looked very cold, colder then anyone else. She figured that they must not be used to this amount snow, if they were use to any; she wasn't sure.
She was walking at the very back of the group, directly behind Aragorn. She looked over his shoulder and saw Frodo lose his footing, and tumble down the slippery slope. Aragorn caught Frodo as he rolled past.
"Frodo." He exclaimed, helping Frodo up. Frodo brushed snow off of his clothes as Aragorn put his hands on the hobbit's shoulders, silently asking if he was all right.
Suddenly, Frodo looked frantic. He searched around him, and Thalyin noticed that Frodo had lost the Ring. Thalyin saw movement higher on the mountain; Boromir found the ring and had picked it up by the chain. Aragorn casually removed his hands from Frodo's shoulders, and rested them on the hilt of his sword. "Boromir?" He questioned.
Boromir gazed, transfixed, at the small golden ring, "It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over such a small thing. Such a little thing." He was holding the ring in his right hand, and was moving his left to touch the ring itself.
"Boromir!" Aragorn and Thalyin called out in unison.
"Give the ring to Frodo!" Thalyin demanded, her eyes flicking from Boromir's face, to Aragorn's sword. She felt her hand unconsciously release the pack on her back, and reach toward her own sword.
The glaze that seemed to cover Boromir's eyes vanished; it was as if he was coming back to his senses. He walked towards them, "As you wish." He stated, holding out the Ring. Frodo grabbed Ring and Boromir laughed, "I care not." He walked off after playfully ruffling Frodo's hair. Thalyin and Aragorn slowly took their hands of the hilt of their swords.
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After a long while, the fellowship had made it high up the mountain. They were caught in a snowstorm, and Thalyin noticed that Gandalf looked extremely worried; it didn't ease the nerves that she was battling. Legolas was walking ahead of the others with the elven ease that Thalyin envied. Aragorn and Boromir were each holding onto two of the hobbits, and Thalyin was standing between Gimli and Gandalf.
"There is a fell voice in the air." Legolas called through all of the wind and snow. He was looking out over the mountain and squinting his eyes, trying to see more.
"It's Saruman!" Gandalf exclaimed as boulders fell from over head, and broke with a thunderous crash.
"He's trying to bring down the mountain!" Aragorn called ahead. "Gandalf, we must turn back!"
He spit snow out of his mouth and looked at Gandalf, who stubbornly replied, "No! Losto Caradhras, sedho, hodo, nuitho i 'ruith!" (Sleep Caradhras, be still, lie still, hold your wrath.)
Thalyin heard a disembodied voice reply, "Cuiva nwalca Carnirassë! Nai yarvaxëa rasselya taltuva ñotto-carinnar!" (Wake up cruel Redhorn! May your bloodstained horn shall fall upon the enemy-heads!). A bolt of lighting hit the mountain, bringing down snow and rocks, and burying the fellowship.
With some difficulty, the fellowship managed to unbury themselves. They reemerged spitting snow out of their mouths and gasping for breath. Boromir was the first to speak, "We must get off the mountain!" He yelled. Thalyin couldn't help but think 'No really? Tell us something we don't know!' "We must make for the Gap of Rohan! Or take the road west, to my city!"
"I'm open to any suggestions but THAT!" Thalyin yelled back, angrily, before anyone else had a chance to answer. Boromir furrowed his brow when she answered, and she raised her eyebrows as to ask 'you didn't honestly think that I was going to go to Minas Tirith, did you?'
"The Gap of Rohan takes us too close to Isengard!' Aragorn yelled.
The Gimli added his two cents; "We cannot pass over the mountain. Let us go under it! Let us go into the Mines of Moria!"
Gandalf looked even more worried. Thalyin closed her eyes and tried to connect with him, a skill that Leyorlilan had taught her. Thalyin could have sworn she heard a voice say, "Moria. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarfs delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm. Shadow and Flame."
"Saruman." Thalyin whispered to herself. The feeling that Thalyin had gotten from Saruman at the very moment was a brief feeling of fear, which quickly became a feeling of being impressed.
"What power." Saruman mumbled to himself, but Gandalf had heard, and he looked around the group, "What does it take to make you give in? Hmmm, I wonder." Saruman delved deep inside himself, to the deepest depths of his power, and began his test.
Gandalf knew right away what was happening, and he hastily crossed over to Thalyin as she fell backwards. Her chest started to tighten, and she had to begin gasping for breath. She grabbed a hold of her head, feeling that is might explode; her eyes were burning, Gandalf gasped at the brilliant red that they were turning. The Fellowship watched helplessly as her skin began split at random, and blood dripped out of the cuts and her nose. She felt a distinct break in one of her ribs.
"What would a man do to save one from pain? Would he kill his own sister, to save her from the inevitable agony that comes from a life of mere nothingness?" Saruman asked, so that all of the Fellowship heard his question in the wind. Everyone except Boromir, who looked straight to Thalyin, looked around the group, considerably confused and then looked back at Thalyin. She was looking into Boromir's eyes, and they all quickly understood.
The hobbit's gasped, and Thalyin stood up. She looked out over the mountain, towards Isengard. "You want power?" She asked, gasping and breathing raggedly, "I'll show you power!" As Thalyin held onto the side of the mountain, she thought of all of the things that had made her happy over the years: Seeing Anwanir, meeting Aragorn and the hobbits, meeting her dwarf friends, singing songs with her mother, and much more. Thalyin placed all of those thoughts into her heart, and drove them into the bottomless black pit that use to be Saruman's heart, and the pain went away, as he was thrown backwards. "The opposite of pain and darkness is love." She told Saruman as she collapsed on the mountainside, "Even you can't change that! Or stop it."
She looked to Fellowship, who looked at her in shock. She still had cuts and red eyes, but it didn't mean anything at the moment; Thalyin knew that Saruman would pay, but now was not the time, "The Ring-bearer should decide where we are to go." She said, looking over to Frodo and pointing her hand in his direction, "Frodo?" She questioned.
The shocked and horrified hobbit managed to say, "We will go through the mines."
"So be it." Gandalf replied, as he led the way to the entrance of Moria. Thalyin noticed that he didn't look happy about going into Moria, but that seemed to be overshadowed by what he had just witnessed, and what he saw Thalyin survive.
Thalyin stood up, and Legolas immediately asked her about her well being. She assured him that she was fine, and he followed Gandalf and a haughty looking Gimli, who was singing the praises of Moria, and saying the no one would regret going.
Aragorn followed with Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry. Thalyin made to follow, but Boromir stopped her with a painful tap on her shoulder. She seethed in pain and grabbed her shoulder as she turned. Boromir looked worried as Thalyin pulled down the neck of her shirt to reveal a deep gash in her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know." He quickly apologized, lowering his head so that he wasn't looking at her.
"It's alright." She assured him. "Is there anything you want?" She asked, hunching over so that she could see his eyes.
"You know that I wouldn't… What I mean to say is… well, umm." He was at a loss for words, but Thalyin completely understood him.
"I know that you would do what you think is right, even if it meant sacrificing something important." She said somberly, as Boromir lowered his head again, "And that is something I can respect." She said in a much cheerier voice. "But now is not the time to talk about such things," She said, putting a hand under Boromir's chin and raising his head, "if we don't go, then we will be left on this dreadful mountain."
"Of course." He replied and followed her to reach up with the others.
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The entrance to Moria took longer to get to then Gandalf had originally expected. The part of mountain that took one to Moria was covered with a thick layer of ice that was coated with a thin layer snow; everyone slipped at one point.
After many hours of sliding down the mountain the sun was setting. Gandalf found a cave and looked inside for a moment, "We shall stay here tonight. We reach the Mines tomorrow." He walked into the cave and made himself comfortable.
"Gandalf," Gimli exclaimed, "why stop?" He walked up to Gandalf with an undignified look on his face, "If we continue, we can make our way into Moria before the sun rises."
Gandalf started smoking a pipe and Boromir answered instead, "We stop, Master Dwarf, because unlike yourself, some of us need to regain our strength." By 'us' he meant Thalyin, and everyone knew it. The hobbits had joined them, along with Aragorn and Legolas.
"She has a strength I have not ever seen before." Legolas said, sitting down next to Gandalf.
"I know of no one who has survived that particular curse." Gandalf said thoughtfully, taking another puff from his pipe.
"What curse is that?" Merry asked, sitting down beside Gandalf, and pulling out one of the strips of dried meat he had managed fit in his pack before leaving. He broke it into four pieces and passed three of them to Pippin, Sam, and Frodo.
"Hey! Yours is bigger!" Pippin said, irritably.
"No it isn't." Merry argued back. "They are all the same size. I made sure of it!"
"It doesn't matter!" Frodo intervened, "At least we have food, and that is all that matters at the moment." He looked back to Gandalf, "What curse?"
"Morte in Mortem." Gandalf said, disconsolately. "Death in Death." He translated. He cast a look over to the back of the cave, where Thalyin was sitting with her legs curled up to her chest, her arms around them. "She is much stronger then I anticipated, Saruman must have been relatively surprised. He could sense something I could not."
"She is like her mother." Boromir declared. He was looking at her with a brotherly concern in his eye. He wasn't sure why he cared for her so much. She was his sister, but they had only known each other for a very brief amount of time.
Over in the corner of the cave Thalyin was contemplating the day. "Maybe Anwanir was right." She told herself, "Maybe I am not strong enough to finish this."
"THAL! Don't even think that. You are much stronger then you give yourself credit for."
"Nana?" She questioned in a whisper, "Mother?" That had been her mother's voice, but it was impossible.
"Nothing is impossible, my dear Thalyin." Thalyin shot her head upwards. Her mother was dead, she must be going crazy, or she was stressed. She knew that she must look crazy to the rest of the fellowship; they were staring at her.
"Thalyin?" Legolas asked, walking up to her. "Are you alright?" He dropped down to her level and looked into her eyes.
"I'm fine." She lied, "Just a little tired. A little stressed." She told him.
"Then you should get some rest." He said, "We all should, we have a long day ahead of us." She nodded as the rest of the Fellowship walked up to her.
"Are you okay?" Pippin asked in his sweet, caring voice that Thalyin found very adorable. She laughed and nodded, with a smile on her face.
"That's good." Merry added.
"Can we stay back here?" Sam asked unexpectedly. He was shrinking his neck into his shoulders, so that it looked as if he had no neck at all.
"Of course." She said, pointing to the empty space around her, "There is plenty of room."
"Thanks Thalyin." Frodo said as he settled around her. The other hobbits followed suit.
"That's another thing." She said before Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Boromir, and Gimli went back to the mouth of the cave, "From now on, call me Thal." Pippin looked up at her, "It's what all my friends called me." She told him. She smiled and looked up, "Friends and brothers." Boromir looked confused, "Or close enough." He smiled and walked away.
