AN: Hello, everyone!

This is the first fic I publish here, so I would be more than happy to receive your reviews. (Especially on grammar and spelling, because I'm not a native speaker, and even though I sort of did my best, I'm sure it's not perfect at all. Well, trying is the only way you can improve, right?)

As for the story, I don't own anything it's all J.R.R. Tolkien's.

It would be so great if you told me your thoughts on the story and the upcoming characters, because each and every character I'll be presenting was inspired by a very special friend or acquaintance or family member of mine, or a fictional character who also has a special place in my heart. And here I have to mention that whatever tiny fracture that is not Tolkien's in this story is definitely George R.R. Martin's (usually words or objects, it's not a crossover story), because I love ASOIAF and it was a wonderful inspiration.

Thank you so much for reading in advance, I hope you will like it!

Before you feel misled, this is not the end of the story. 'The End' is merely a chapter title.

THE END

Gilraen watched the smile freeze onto her mother's face. They were alone in a parlor room, Gilraen thought it'd be best to tell her parents of her intention to marry Torundir separately. Her mother seemed to take the news badly enough anyways.

"I beg your pardon?" the queen raised an eyebrow. "Gilraen… you must be jesting with me. And I warn you, this is one very bad joke."

"It's not a joke, I mean it" she replied gathering all her strength.

"No."

"Sorry?"

"My answer is no. You will not marry that man." Her mother's words were final and hard.

"But…" Gilraen tried to think of an argument to soften the queen. "I love him."

"No, darling, you don't" she shook her head with an apologetic smile. Gilraen stared at her mother. What was she playing at? "You just think you do… Oh, Gilraen can't you see it?" the queen gave a distasteful smile. "He only tricked you into thinking you love him."

Gilraen blinked. She was so tired. "How on earth would he do that?"

"You can't be so blind" her mother smiled. What the bloody hell she found funny, Gilraen had no clue. "It's not you he wants. All he wants is power and land and gold. All the things he could get through marrying a princess."

"He has land and money and power. He is a first son, he'll inherit everything from his father, he doesn't need your money and power. He doesn't want your money and power." she replied.

"How would you know that?" her mother put the question to her.

"I know him" said Gilraen.

"Oh please, don't make me laugh. How would you know him? All you talked with him was about hunting and horse riding and that sort of things."

Gilraen managed not to ask how she would know what they did or did not talk of. "We talked about other things too. Many things. About him, about me, about—"

"Darling, I couldn't care less what he talked to you about. Clearly he infected your mind with this ridiculous idea of loving him, and worse, willing to marry him." Gilraen couldn't believe her ears. She never expected her mother to grant her consent, but she thought her main objection would be the same as Sybille's. Why not someone young and charming? Instead her mother was attacking Torundir every way she could and trying to prove it to Gilraen that the only things she could still rely on, this man, his love, his words were nothing but illusions implemented by him in order to take advantage of her. The hurt ran so deep and so hard in her heart Gilraen couldn't find words as she listened to the queen listing how the man was interested in nothing but the gains their marriage would provide. She had to stop her mother somehow, she had to make her stop talking and listen.

"What if I don't care?" she interrupted. "What if I don't care he wants to take advantage of me? Even if what you say was true, and I tell it is not, I still love him!"

"I care!" her mother exclaimed wide eyed. "Your father cares! Everybody cares! We allowed you to choose your consort in order to have a happy marriage! Not to give ill reputed dishonorable lesser noblemen a chance to get to power through you!"

"He is not dishonorable. Half of what people gossip about him is untrue!"

"Because he told you it was untrue?" the queen raised a mocking eyebrow. "Open your eyes, Gilraen. He would only use you to gain. You should be grateful to me that I stop you from going into this mad marriage with a cruel, immoral bad egg, who spends his time drinking in taverns and whoring in brothels!"

Gilraen was filling with rage and hurt.

"He. Doesn't. Spend. His time. Drinking. And whoring" she articulated shaking with anger. "He loves me. He understands me. He cares for me. What else would you want from him?"

"Cares for you? Loves you? If he is interested in anything about you, that is your body."

Gilraen gasped. Her mother was degrading her to the level of a horse.

"What do you actually expect Gilraen? Do you have any idea what will happen after you marry him?" the queen went on with ever growing irritation and anger. "He will treat you like scum. All men like him treat women like scum. He's a lackwit brute who'll rape you on your wedding night, bed you for a fortnight, then, in better case, lock you into a room and forget about you, in worse, beat you bloody every time he gets drunk!"

"He would never hurt me! You don't have the slightest idea of what he is like! How dare you accuse him of all that?" Gilraen spluttered shaking, almost yelling by the time she finished.

"How dare you raise your voice at me?" the queen rounded on her. "All I want is to protect you from him because you are too blind and naïve to see all he wants is your body, once he got that he'll have no more interest in you, I promise!"

"He doesn't want me only for my body"

"What else do you think he wants from you? A silly seventeen year old who is as easy to manipulate into anything as a child into taking medicine! Is it your wisdom he's so interested in? Is it your charms? Is it your manners? Are you your sister all of a sudden?"

Fury and hurt flooded her mind like dark thunder-clouds.

"Because I haven't lived hell knows how many centuries to become a dull book myself? Because I'm not a smiley pretty bird to dress up and show around on celebrations?" Gilraen yelled at her fighting her tears.

"He poisoned you against me" the queen said in disgust. "Open your eyes! All he wants is your body and once he got what he wanted, his great love and care for you will shatter and you'll be coming back to us with your tail between your legs. All I want is to spare you that shame."

"Spare me that shame?" Gilraen screamed losing all her self control. "What do you know about what he wants? All he wants is your body!" she mocked. "Well he already got that and he still cares for me ten times more than all of you combined!"

She fell silent when she realized what she actually said. It took her mother aback. The queen's eyes widened in shock.

"What have you done, Gilraen?" she whispered in a deadly voice.

Gilraen felt tears blurring her vision. She just stabbed all hope in the back.

For the next fifteen minutes she was everything from slutbag whore to shameless fornication. She listened and pleaded. She couldn't do anything else. Her mother raged and cursed her with words Gilraen never imagined her to know. She couldn't have made a bigger mistake. Out of marriage love life was an unforgivable sin in elven culture. Not that it was not condemned in mortal culture, but mortal people were far more tolerable understanding all the human frailty and instincts Elves were unable to comprehend.

The queen decided it was time to inform the king. All Gilraen could do was run after her and plead to let her speak with her father first. Nothing worked. They burst into the dining hall shouting, arguing, crying, pleading; scaring every member of the family to death. Except for Sybille who just sat sullenly staring at the table in front of her. Gilraen couldn't tell how but her mother finally got to ask the dreadful question of how long she's been with Torundir.

The next moment Gilraen was stumbling back against a pillar dots flying across her vision with the burning mark of her mother's hand on her cheek. That was when her father had enough. The queen gathered her dignity and turned to the table.

"Brianneth, take Aryana and go away. Stay in your rooms until I go and fetch you." She ordered in a voice colder than death.

Her two sisters practically fled the room. Eldarion stood bewildered and petrified, Sybille sat with an expressionless face, the king utterly confused.

"Now" the queen turned back to Gilraen with a chilly smile. "Tell your father and siblings how you whored yourself."

Gilraen's jaw dropped in terror. She never expected her mother to help, but this mercilessness was still new, even after a whole hour of felon humiliation. Everybody was looking at her half stunned half confused. No sound came out of her throat.

"Well?" the queen's voice rang emptily. "Have you lost your tongue? Tell them what you told me. Tell them of your intention to wed." Gilraen never heard such graceful and yet such thick sarcasm. "But, you know, don't forget the part where you opened your legs to the potential consort." Gilraen stared at her mother in utter horror. She turned to look at her father and siblings shaking.

Eldarion's face was darkening as he processed the words, the king's look was already as dark as onyx, Sybille was surprised and dumbstruck.

"You never told me that! You didn't, really, did you?!" her sister gasped looking up at her for reassurance. Gilraen was still unable to speak.

"Gilraen?" her father's voice rang low and dangerous as he posed Sybille's question, simply by saying her name.

There was no way denying it. Gilraen felt her insides shake uncontrollably.

"I did" she managed to falter out.

Sybille looked as though she's just been told Gilraen massacred a hundred infants. The king sat back down. Eldarion was measuring her like she was a piece of bloody cloth.

"I'm sorr—"

"Who said you could speak?" the queen asked her silently, gracefully.

"I say" her father said. "I'm listening." He turned to Gilraen.

Gilraen trembled. Listening? To what? What was she supposed to say? What was there for her to say after all this?

"To… to wh—?"

"To what on Arda could make my daughter forget everything she was ever taught and act like a back alley slut going to bed with a man she is not married to at sixteen?!" he thundered the last few word standing up again.

Gilraen fought to hold back her tears as she trembled. He was right, he was so right, but she loved Torundir. She loved him, and that was enough to take her wits. Maybe her mother was right too, saying she was a stupid naïve child. But she loved him nonetheless and nothing could make her rue loving him. They were so right, but… Torundir was her everything.

"She loves him" the queen said stiffly. "Surely you understand loving someone too, meleth nin?"

"Who?" Eldarion put it. Everybody looked at him. "Who does she love? I still don't have a name and I'll need it when I go to find and geld the man." He spat with passion.

Her mother answered that too. Surely her charms and manners were beyond comparison.

"Her Hunting tutor he was? Am I correct?"

That was all for her father. The king's face could be a statue of coal, so hard and dark that moment as he searched for the name in his memory once long ago reported to him, by a groom perhaps, to be training her daughter in the arts of hunting.

"Torundir?!" he finally raised his glance at Gilraen in outrage.

Gilraen stood there immobile. Unable to make a sound, unable to move while all she wanted was run away sobbing. She nodded tears running down her face.

Sybille stared at her with the thought You deserve this written over her face. The king looked as though he was going to slap Gilraen across the face too. Eldarion pushed back his chair so hard it fell back against the ground as he stood and gave Gilraen a glare of disgust.

Gilraen had no idea what happened for the good part of the next hour. She stood there by the pillar where she stumbled back as her mother had hit her and listened. Listened how she shamed herself, her family, everything in the world. How she was worth no more than the thousand whores down the first level. How she dishonored her parents. How every rat in the city was better than her. She stopped trying to make them see. She kept to one reply. 'Please, I'm sorry.'

"This is past beyond being sorry, Gilraen. You'll not make amends by being sorry. How do we get a husband for you after this?"

Gilraen thought she was going to scream. Her whole point was to get a husband.

"He would marry me."

"He dishonors you and you want me to reward him for that?" her father glared at her. "You are the princess of Gondor and he will not marry you, I promise that."

"I hate being the princess of Gondor" Gilraen said emptily. Nothing mattered anymore.

Her father's face darkened. "Then I should send you to a maidens' order to free you of your terrible fate, shouldn't I? But only after I had you watch Torundir gelded and beheaded for treason."

"NO!" Gilraen cried. "No. Father, please, please, I'm begging you, don't. Please, don't hurt him. It was my fault, it was all my fault! Please—"

"Silence! You know that I love you and for the love I bear you, I would not hurt him. He'll live. Somewhere far away, in exile for the rest of his life. And you, you will marry the first lord willing to take you with all your shame and I'll hear no more of you."

"I'd rather kill myself than to marry anybody else" Gilraen said dropping her gaze.

"You will not marry Torundir while I am your father. This is not a win or win situation, Gilraen. You did what you did and now you will face the consequences. You'll lose one thing or the other, don't even think you won't." her father warned.

"Are you making me choose between you and him?" Gilraen asked with trembling lips, not believing her ears. All this after their great sacrifice love-story with her mother?

"There's no way being a princess of Gondor at the same time as being a soiled nobleman's whore."

"Then it's him" Gilraen looked up, lost.

"What?" the king raised an eyebrow, grey eyes piercing her like a dagger.

"I choose him."

"Then get out of my sight" the king stood up after a moment of sullen silence, his hands shaking with anger. "Gather yourself and get out of here… And do it very quickly."

Gilraen had no idea how she found her room. Even less idea how she found ink and paper.

I botched it. They won't even here of it. It was terrible. They said terrible things. About you. About me too. My father said I can't be the princess of Gondor and your whore too. My mother said you were a treacherous bad egg. My sister didn't help. My brother said he wants to kill you. They practically threw me out. My father told me to get out of here. They say I'm a whore, they can't even abide looking at me. Please… what should I do?

"Your Highness?" her handmaid knocked uncertainly. "Is everything all right?"

Gilraen tore open the door. "Mira. I know I can't ask this of you. I can't even ask anything of you anymore. But please, there's nobody else I could ask."

"What, Your Highness? I'll do anything you tell me, my lady."

"Go and find Lord Torundir. Give this to him. Tell him to send word back with you at once. Please." Gilraen gave her the scrolled note. The handmaid blinked at her bewildered, but took the letter and turned to leave anyways.

Gilraen went back to her bedchamber and broke into a sob.

The next thing she knew was someone standing in the doorway.

"You don't have to do this, Gilraen" Sybille said in stress. "You can just forget about him and marry somebody nice" she added with an encouraging smile.

Gilraen could have torn out her sister's blond locks root by root. How she dared?

"Leave me alone Sybille."

"I was trying to help" her sister said offended. "Well. If this is what you want, don't forget to say goodbye to Bria and Aryana." She turned and left.

Mirawell returned in half an hour empty handed, confused and worried.

"Your Highness… I found the Lord Torundir. He read your letter…He says… he says you should pack your things... He says… he'll send men to fetch them. Your Highness… what is going on? You are not leaving here, are you?"

"Thank you Mira" Gilraen hugged the girl leaving her without answer and rushed back into her room throwing anything she could get her hands on into the large wooden travelling chest in the corner. She wanted to be out of here. As soon as possible.

When her travelling chest stood in the middle of the room packed and closed, Gilraen went off to heed Sybille one last time and seek out Brianneth and Aryana. Brianneth was confused and distant. Aryana sobbed on her shoulders. She on Aryana's. When she was finally back in her chambers two men were waiting with Mirawell, just as puzzled and shocked as the handmaid. Gilraen didn't say a single word to them. She couldn't think of anything. She thanked Mira again, for everything, said goodbye and gestured the men to set off. They went through the back entrance. The one servants used. Outside, Gilraen turned back to look upon the Citadel that was her home for seventeen years. Miserable, aching void filled her soul as she walked down to Torundir's house in tears.

That was ugly. So now everybody who disliked Gilraen can rejoice and everybody who liked her should say a teary goodbye to her (haha, just kidding), because it's really high time she retired and gave some stage to the rest of the characters too.

Please let me know what you think in a review or a PM. :) I know, I demonize Arwen. Apologies to all Arwen fans out there.