The tower upon the hill of Amon Lanc was no more, a far cry from the dark splendor it had born but a few short years before. There had been a time when the very sight of the fortress caused the hearts of even the fiercest Silvan to quail. Nature crept up the sides of the Bald Hill now, rekindled by the touch of the fell ring Nenya, which had been wielded against Dol Guldur by the elf witch of old.

The reclamation of such a darkness by the hand of good caused his blackened heart to roil with hatred for all things pure and light. His eyes alighted upon a cluster of flowers as they dug delicate roots deep into the new soil, opening their golden petals to the sky, drinking in the kiss of sunlight that had only recently been permitted entry.

He wanted to lay waste to it all. He wanted to burn it to the rock leagues below the earth, as the land of the wretched Halflings had burned at his command. The memory he had liberated from its host of the Shire's destruction soothed his rising fury, lending him the patience he needed to wait.

He folded his arms across his chest and grimaced as a sweet breeze toyed with the ends of his hair. His glare darkened at nature's audacity. How dare this good touch him? He had spent eons lost to the darkness of time and space. He had commanded the foulest of beings and the blackest of magics. He could bring this world to its knees, and not even the wind appeared to recognize it.

~Why not take action! Now!~

The voice rose in the back of his mind, causing the fraying threads of his temper to unravel even further. That he had been reduced to this made him want to howl at the moon, gnash his teeth at the stars and tear the sky asunder with a single, deplorable word.

~My plans are not your concern,~ he responded within the confines of his thoughts. ~You do as I say, when I say it and how I say it. You do not get to question me, leech.~

He felt the fury of the entity that shared his fea now, but he brushed it off as carelessly as one would bat a fly. Circumstance had forced his hand, but he did not have to like it. He did not even have to want it. He needed it, and admitting that even to himself filled his mind with fire. He had one chance only, and he knew it. If he wished to bring this world to its belly before him, he could not kill the warriors, no matter how insignificant, he was forced to scrounge in order to do it.

~You need me.~

The one negative side-effect, he decided, of having a conversation with oneself in one's shared mind was that the conversations rarely remained private.

~I need no one.~

It was a lie. He knew it. The entity knew it. But in this instance, the leech at least had enough self preservation to remain silent.

~We need the girl.~

The second worst thing about sharing his mind, he decided, was that the entity never did keep silent for long.

~She is in no position to be used at this time,~ he hissed. He could almost feel the venom dripping from each silent word. ~We will bide our time. We will merge, and merge soon if the abyss is merciful, and then we will begin. We will do nothing now. We are still too weak.~

~I am not-~

~You are but a wraith.~ He sliced the entity off with blistering finality. ~You are the weakest of us all.~

To his immense relief, the entity did not speak again.

OOOOOOOOOO.

Curieyle was not surprised to find Amrothos seated at her bedside when she opened her eyes later that evening. She was not pleased, but not surprised. He reclined in a chair at the head of the bed, his long legs stretched out before him, one ankle crossed casually over the other. His sable hair was loose and shining, freshly washed, she thought absently. At the sight of him, she opened her mouth to lay into him for no other reason than that he was there.

"Be silent," he ordered when her lips parted. "Let me speak."

Huffing her annoyance at being commanded by the arrogant lord, Curieyle shoved herself into a sitting position, folding her arms across her chest and refusing to look at the man.

"I apologize for frightening you."

Curieyle blinked, and, against her will, her head turned, her eyes surveying the Prince of Dol Amroth, brows arching in clear surprise.

"I beg your pardon?"

Amrothos's expression twitched with annoyance. "Do not make me repeat myself," he said curtly. "I do not make a habit of apologizing for standing up for myself."

"Standing up for your-!" Curieyle could not have contained her outburst had she tried. "-You had the nerve to put your hands on me!"

"Only after you provoked me with your unfounded accusations!" Amrothos shot back.

"Well, if you had not been so affronted that I had sought your name elsewhere, then perhaps I would not have provoked you!"

"If you had worked up the courage to ask me directly rather than seeking information about me elsewhere, then perhaps I would not have been affronted!"

"Well!" Curieyle sputtered as her entire head began to burn with indignation. "If you were not such an overbearing, demanding, insufferable, arrogant, self-entitled peacock, then perhaps I would not have-"

"Pea-cock?" Amrothos sounded thoroughly bewildered. "Are you insulting my physical masculinity?"

"If the boot fits, wear it!" Curieyle shot back, feeling a fiery blush rising into her cheeks.

"I beg your pardon?" Amrothos's voice dropped to a low warning as he leant toward her.

Swallowing her rising fear at his approaching closeness, Curieyle met his blazing eyes with a stare she hoped was equally irate. Parting her lips, she spoke slowly, punctuating every word with finality.

"If. The. Boot. Fits."

When his hand came up, it was instinct that caused her to do what she did next. Curieyle could never explain later how it had happened. All she knew was that the moment his muscular shoulder rolled, the instant his powerful forearm began to ascend, time stopped. Everything froze around her, light, air, sound, breath. All she could see was his hand, and all she knew was that a blow from him would hurt terribly. She had suffered enough hurt that day. She could not let him strike her, whether she deserved it or not.

"...important things...remember... Destination, Determination, Deliberation!"

The voice sounded as though it were coming from far, far away, each word distorted as if the speaker stood at one end of an inconceivably long tunnel and she at the other.

"Destination...ation...ation... Determination...ation...ation... Deliberation...ation...ation..."

Something small gave way in the vicinity of her mental wall then, and without consciously choosing to, Curieyle knew exactly what to do, knew it as though she had never not known it.

~Step one: Fix your mind firmly upon the desired destination.~

Places flashed through her mind, so fast it reminded her of flicking through a book of drawings, impressions gleaned without much in the way of detail. Most artists were not skilled enough to force detail onto the viewer with such a cursory glance. And yet, one locale leapt out at her every time.

~Step two: focus your determination to occupy the visualized space! Let your yearning to enter it flood from your mind to every particle of your body!~

It wasn't difficult. Curieyle yearned to escape the Houses of Healing. She yearned to flee from Amrothos. She yearned to get away from what was certain to be even more pain.

~Step three: Turn on the spot, feeling your way into nothingness, moving with deliberation!~

Letting go was what frightened Curieyle the most. But sometimes, it was easier than remaining. she'd realized that as she'd taken her final breath in Malfoy Manor, though only now, in the moment before Amrothos's lifted hand crested its rise and his fingers delved into his own hair in frustration, could she think on those two words without fear. She'd let go, because fighting wasn't worth the cost anymore. She'd let go, because who would care? She let go because she was so tired of hurting.

Curieyle let go now for some of the same reasons. Weakness. Fear. A need to deprive her tormentor of her suffering. She flung her mind into the energy rising inside her, let her body be engulfed by it, let herself fall into the constricting, crushing embrace of nowhere.

The instant she had all three D's firmly fixed in her mind, the moment she let go, was the exact second when everything went wrong.

Her bedchamber in the guest house had been Curieyle's destination. Her determination to reach a place of safety was all-consuming, and that was her safest. Not everyone knew which house and which room she occupied. It was her sanctuary, the only one she had left to her.

Even as she flung herself toward it, the memory of Aragorn's mind surrounding hers charged in to obliterate her concentration. She recalled how he had shielded her from the lashing waves of the Cruciatus, even though he, too, must have been suffering beneath its phantom agonies by being in her mind with her. She recalled the way he had wiped away her tear, with such a gentle touch she thought her heart would break with the desperate need to be worthy of such tenderness.

As Curieyle's destination slipped away, another took its place. She could not stop the energy now. It had her in its grasp, inescapable and unforgiving. Tongues of fire lashed out to strike her face, her torso, her hands. Burning, tearing, wrenching her in too many directions. She wanted to scream, had no mouth to scream with, couldn't find a voice even had she been able. There was no room for screams, no room for breath, no room for thought in the crushing darkness of her desperate flight. All she could do was endure the agony and cling to the thought of the one person who could ease it.

CRACK!

It was over before it had truly begun.

It was over after centuries of smothering blackness.

It had taken little more than three seconds.

It had taken a lifetime.

Curieyle did not know if she sensed a kindred spirit of a kind in Aragorn as her surroundings reformed into the King's study. She could not say how she knew she would have to show weakness to survive. All she was aware of was materializing a foot above the floor and falling forward, reaching for her king, only mildly aware of the blood on her hands. She saw the blade at his hip, the flash of fire in his eyes as the sharp crack of her arrival ricocheted throughout the room, the muscles of his sword arm tensing before she collided with him, poured into his lap by the frenzied force of the power that had sought him out.

"Please don't hurt me."

The words slipped from her, a thin, desperate plea. Even in the midst of disorientation and pain, she had felt her King snap taught as a bowstring the moment her hands had found purchase on his torso. She ignored it, grabbed his shoulders, felt his arms flex, was certain he would shove her away.

"Please don't push me away."

There were tears in her tone. Tears in her eyes. Something warm dripping down her face.

Lifting her head, she looked into Aragorn's eyes, so wide, so startled, and rapidly filling with horrified concern as they alighted on hers.

"Curieyle."

She could have cried at the sound of his voice. Low. Familiar. Soothing.

And also filled with horror.

"Curieyle." Aragorn repeated her name even as his arms rose to clasp her gently.

She screamed at his touch. She could not help it. Could not stop the shrieks from ripping at a throat too used to the raw, ragged vibrations of agony screaming caused. She twisted, pushed at him, tried desperately to call up the power again, to escape what she had been trying to escape even as her mind screamed through disjointed reasons as to why her King was hurting her. What had she done wrong!

"Strider!" The shocked voice was one she didn't recognize. "It's all down her back, too!"

"It's a lot, Strider." The second voice was shaking. Familiar, if only just.

She ignored them all. Her hands clawed at her King's arms. Her body bucked and twisted in a desperate writhe. Her feet drummed at the hardness they had found purchase against. Chair legs, King legs, she could not say. She was all instinct now. Fire inside her, fire outside her, fear reducing her to a caged beast, clawing, hissing, screaming, spitting to regain her freedom, no matter the cost to herself.

One of Aragorn's hands retreated.

"Curieyle! Look at me!"

The whipcrack of his voice sliced through some of her panic.

She looked up to him, seeking comfort.

His hand drove forward, palm flat, colliding with her jaw in a calculated blow that sent her head rocking back on her neck. The last thing she saw before blackness overtook her vision were his eyes.

For the rest of her life, she knew she would never espy so much regret, so much guilt, so much self-loathing in a single glance.