Though I was an outcast, and no longer Shieldmaiden, there were too few captains of Rohan standing for Éomer not to point me towards my own Éored and bid them take my heed. Many recognized me, and a few were kind enough to hail me. Most spat and cursed, but they did so half-heartedly – they were exhausted, and not unwise enough to careen into war without a leader.

The truth was that I was as unsteady on my horse as they. Unlike them, however, I no longer felt fear, and neither was I resigned to death. There was something else teeming within me, and though it was not hope, it felt vaguely prophetic. Aragorn sat high in his saddle, and Gandalf still held his staff aloft. Even the two little hobbits, though quiet, still passed jokes between themselves. 'Too much abides to be tamped out,'

It only took a couple of hours to march to The Morannon. When the men beheld the monstrous steel behemoth that guarded Cirith Gongor beyond, a few whimpered, and I could not blame them. This place was not like Moria or Mirkwood or any of the kingdoms of Arnor, which had once been vibrant works of men and elves and dwarves until they fell victim to wickedness. Mordor had been a dark and evil place since its conception, and it oozed foulness.

The men silently made ranks, however, and Aragorn bid his captains forward. Legolas rode to him, and my heart beat wildly against my mail and leather armor. 'Of course he would join his friend in the sortie, of course,' I was bewildered by all of it, though. How had it come to this?

My father had told me once, after I had killed the demon wolf upon Amon Anwar, that I had best mind myself, because wickedness would find me and reap its revenge one day. 'That it is how it has come to this,'

The treating party rode forward, and Ellerocco stamped nervously. I was jealous that he could air his contempt – if I had done so in that moment, I would have screamed.

For a moment, however, the Black Gate remained utterly still, and I thought that my fear for Legolas' life – as well as Éomer's, Aragorn's, and that of all my friends now standing idle and so utterly unprotected on the plain - might have been unwarranted. But, with a change in the wind, the behemoth gate crept open with a deafening creak.

As the gate slowly lunged forward, a single rider slid out. For a moment, I sensed a crack in Mordor's typically impenetrable enchantments, and I pressed my consciousness as far beyond as I could to sense what evil host might lie behind. I had nearly made it past the dark rider when a stinging barb seemed to land in my mind's eye, and I backed away with a gasp.

"My lady?" the bannerman at my left asked, but I ignored him.

I had not confronted them before, but I could sense them – the last of the Witch King's Nazgul lay just beyond, and now they knew of my presence as well. My hand tightened on Mearling, the blade that had brought their captain's demise.

I turned my attention to Sauron's emissary, who was clearly taunting Aragorn. The men around me were straining for a better look, but his face was just beyond their gaze. My eyes could see him, however – sharp teeth and dismal manner. The hobbits were weeping, and this – beast – was somehow egging them on. I saw Legolas' shoulders tensing – in rage, I sensed. Aragorn bid Brego forward, and with a single swipe of his kingly blade, a steel corona and the head within went flying.

My men could certainly see this – they were suddenly hissing amongst themselves, agitated and nearly unnerved. Éomer's sudden command as King had been hard enough for them to stomach, and for this new Gondorian king to so hastily quash any chance at peace, well…

"Hush!" I chided, and rounded Ellerocco on them. "Whatever the news, the riders of the Mark stand ready,"

My hoarse, wheezing voice could hardly have reassured them, but they did quiet. And in the meantime, the Black Gate croaked steadily. Aragorn galloped forward, the remainder of the party behind him, and I felt a piece of my heart return with them. I could scarcely see the great host behind them, or the Eye of my nightmares backlighting it all.

Legolas pulled Arod up short behind me, and I saw murder in his eyes. Gimli, in his accustomed spot behind Legolas' saddle, was murmuring steadily "can't be dead, can't be dead,"

I looked to Legolas, my own eyes gone wide, but he shook his blonde hair once. He couldn't keep himself, however, from glancing to Gandalf, who was winding his hands in a brilliant white piece of mail. 'Mithril,'

"A taunt. A cruel trick to goad Aragorn. But he will not be waylaid," Legolas was saying to me, and I gulped viciously.

"I pray it is so,"

And Legolas did begin to pray – for himself as much as for me. Aragorn was speaking loudly now, giving the human men their own benediction. I tried to follow both, but in my mind all I could manage was "Valar, please. Let Frodo not be dead. Let this not all be for naught,"

And then the swords were drawn, and I thoughtlessly lifted my own bow from over my shoulder. The war cry echoed out, and the charge was sounded. For better or for worse – and perhaps all for naught.

Perhaps I deserved this. Perhaps this was the price I would pay for my sins.

And yet this fate seemed so cruel. Such a stark contrast to what I had been expecting -death, like that of all the other soldiers now being mercilessly butchered before the Morannon.

And now I had been gagged. Silenced. Beaten. Tossed over the shoulders of a putrid Uruk-hai. And from the corner of my left eye, I watched as the black steel of the Great Gate passed by.

I had become a spoil of war.

It had all happened so quickly; though the great eagles had come, the Nazgul had single-mindedly sought me out. From the moment the beasts had appeared overhead, I could hear the cruel voices of the wraiths ringing between my ears and pounding at Lenwe's wards. Sauron knew I had evaded him – he'd known it the moment I had tried to probe past his emissary. And now his remaining puppets would find me, and drag me to him, and at last throw me upon his feet.

Ellerocco remembered these terrors from his last battle on the Pelennor, and had nearly tossed me in terror, but I clung to him bodily. I'd made a few good shots while the eagles engaged – surely Gimli owed me several more lives, and both of the new Kings, as well. But one eagle fell violently nearby, and as a great plume of amber feathers went up around his corpse, I knew – this was how Theoden had felt before the Witch King overtook him. It was the feeling of a hare still caught in a snare watching the hunter's approach.

Giant razors pierced through the mail across my back and lifted me from my saddle. I had lost feeling in my lame ankle many hours prior and could not manage to point my toes as I was jerked from the stirrup. The foot snapped up with a sickening crunch and I howled.

The fighting men around me turned at the sound and screamed back at me. "Grab her! Grab her!"

But I was already too high above them, and they'd drawn swords, not bows.

There was one bow still left, though. One of the hobbits – I could not make out which one from my vantage above and my streaming eyes – called out Legolas' name, and I watched the golden head turn. There was a flash of shock in his emerald eyes before he let loose one good arrow, and a breath later the winged serpent overhead let out a terrible roar. To my surprise, it dropped me utterly, before plummeting down to the earth alongside me.

Perhaps it was good fortune, though later I might have thought it a dark twist of fate – I landed in the spongey netting that held the beast's wing to its side, and this cushioned my fall enough that I was not paralyzed or worse. My ankle was maimed enough – I could see jagged white bone peeking through a puncture in my leather boots just above the top of my foot. The sight of it had me screeching again, and that was my undoing.

I could not hear the battle, but I could hear my scream. I heard the words of astonishment from the orcs nearby as the saw me. The dying groans of the serpent, and the ringwraith pinned beneath it. My mental curse as I came to loathe myself for ever expecting any other outcome.

And then the gruff laughs of the Uruk-hai about me as I slumped forward and my rent armor sloughed off me, followed by their frenzied reaction to the realization of who I was when my bare breasts were left half-exposed.

They spoke in their guttural barks to one another as I screamed my protest, but my noises were lost amongst the din of war. I lost all hope when their fists and weapons fell upon me, bringing me within moments of death.

Regrettably, they did not kill me, but rather had me hoisted over one Uruk's shoulder after a moment of disagreement. Now I was being carried into the wastes of Mordor, to be raped and tortured and enslaved until I managed to fade away.

Could I fade, like a true elf? Was that possible what with my 'quartered blood'- as Sauron had so elegantly put it? It had not happened after Huor's crimes, and I couldn't say that that was exactly what had happened to me when I had fled Dunharrow.

I knew now that any prophetic wisdom I had felt previously had been a sham, for there was no chance of victory or escape or rescue - the battle had turned ill in the same second that it began. We were wholly outnumbered and exhausted from our travels. And as the filth of Mordor spilled out to claim us, it became clear that only a miracle might have saved us. Worse, I was realizing, the chance of anyone being left to merely note my absence amongst the corpses was nonexistent.

So perhaps I should fade. Did I dare try it? I did not know that I had the will now.

Having been carried deep into enemy territory, I was thrown to the ground. I moaned as healing ribs gave way beneath the stony, parched earth. There was an eerie orange glow all around me – Sauron's eye, of course, to watch all his servants and now the making of his slave queen.

I expected to be turned around, so that I might look into the fearsome eyes of my captors as they set to breaking me. But they did no such thing. My hodgepodge of clothes was torn away and my hands were bound, but I laid face down still.

I felt a body hover above me and slowly lower itself down over my bleeding back. Hot breath burned in my left ear. A terrible slur of growls sounded out, and though I could not understand any of it, realization dawned on me.

'They mean to take me as if I was male... to demean me further,'

This managed to elicit some amount of anger within me, for I refused to be tamed like some beast. But as I arched my back, ready to fight hand-to-hand even if it meant death, my principle assailant's jagged teeth bared down upon the tender folds of my ear.

I cried out as I felt flesh tear away, and the throb beneath my skull told me that I was losing a great deal of blood.

Several hands pinned me down as I writhed, and I felt the excitement of my captors raise tenfold as they beheld me in this state of unbridled pain and resentment. Some of them clawed into my tendons and muscles with their nails, as if drawing blood was appealing to them. Another began to carve long, curling tears in the skin across my ribs with his blade.

I knew that my time was short; before long, their interest in such bestial foreplay would end.

I felt nearly drunk, and I reached within myself with little thought, prepared fully to launch my rage upon them. I had killed creatures with my mind before... why should I not be able to do it again? I had forgotten my exhaustion, and Estë's boon.

I could not find the power within. I had not even a modicum of strength left with which to protect myself. I was naked in every sense.

I groveled upon the slab of lifeless earth, burning beneath the gazes of the menacing Uruk-hai, and my will failed. Gathering myself into a tight ball, I grew silent and motionless. As I suspected, the Uruk-hai grew restless as their entertainment ceased.

One flung himself towards me and grabbed what was left of my knotted hair into his fist. He pulled me this way and that until I was beneath him, crushed under his weight.

And as the foolish creature upon me set to breaking into me, a spark of courage lept up within my throat that could not possibly have belonged to me. I looked up through blood and filth on my brow, and above me I could have sworn I saw violet stars painted in the lifeless sky. The voice that came from my voice was not my own, but I welcomed it

"A Elbereth Gilthoniel, o menel palan-diriel, le nallon si di'-ngruthos! A tiro nin, Fanuilos! Im a vinuial ruin. Anno nin no vilui,"

And a curious thing happened. At first, the Uruk-hai were stunned, perhaps by the power of my words and their natural aversion to any mention of the Valar. And then the world began to quake and roar, and all about us came destruction.

The Uruk-hai were set in a panic as they gazed towards some far up object. The creature upon my back leaped away, tearing a handful of my hair along with him. And then they all began to run.

And I was left on the ground, completely bewildered and quite near to death. Noise fell to a discomforting quiet and my sight fell to black.

For a moment, a picture of Legolas was implanted in my mind. He was smiling beside me, his eyes so vibrant and piercing. It was a memory... the memory of the morning after we first made love in the warm rock spring. The birds were just beginning to sing, and when he made love to me again, it was as if that had enticed them to sing louder.

Was he yet alive? If he was, did he have any notion that I had survived the fall from the Nazgul? Was there any chance at all of him finding me here? Where was I?

Curiosity fueled my actions, and I lifted myself with a fierce scream. Kneeling, I looked about. My eyes burned with the smoke and noxious fumes now drifting across the desert land. But I could see the outline of the Black Gate nearly a quarter mile away, as well as the flow of lava now spewing from deep crevices in the ground.

"Save me,"

But there was little hope of that. The world was burning. And I would burn with it.

Yet something within me was burning with a different sort of flame. If Mordor was as it was now because the hobbits, Frodo and Sam, had indeed destroyed the Ring, then the War was won. The world was safe from evil now, and all that was green and good could grow again.

I longed so deeply to live in that world. I wanted to bind myself up in the healing land, and to heal with it. 'That will certainly be the work of all the rest of my days,' And more, I wanted to live all my life by Legolas' side.

I stood, biting back the agony with a choked cry, and forced myself away from the miserable hellscape behind me. With every step, I convinced myself that I was growing closer to green, and gold, and Legolas. Yet, with every step, I felt a little more of me fade away. I was candle smoke wafting towards a cracked door, and my wick was nearly gone.

Somehow, whether it was by the will of Estë, or by my raging determination to live, I found myself in a ray of light, standing no longer on the crags of the Black Land. When the sun blinded my eyes entirely, I felt as a set of arms fell around me.

And at last I found peace in sleep and a far less malicious dark.

But such peace did not last for long. Before me, Estë stood in a shroud of sunlight. I could almost make out the shape of the Halls of Mandos beyond her, but the rays shown too bright. And I stood in shock before her, blind and overwhelmed.

"The time has come, Calahdra. War has passed and the future calls. What is your decision? Shall you sail into the West? Or shall you die in the realm of men, to which you are sworn?"

No words would come, for I had no answer to her inquiry.

It didn't seem fair that I was so suddenly being forced to declare my own fate. Had I not just nearly died again? But I knew she spoke true – the time had come.

Three quarters of me was sired by horse lords and ladies that had been buried beneath the soil of Rohan. Like the Shieldmaidens of old, was it not expected of me to be buried upon the banks of Snowbourne? Yet my mother was going to sail – surely, she had made it to the Grey Havens by now. And if Legolas had lived – Valar please have let him live – he would sail too.

The conflict raged within me without stop, and Estë grew visibly ornery.

"I do not have the time to wait for your decision, Calahdra. It must be made now,"

But I could not bring myself to decide. And Estë faded away, leaving me in a haze of doubt and disappointment.

"Remember this," came her voice, "You remain my vessel to the end of your days,"

She left with me one gift; my dreams were no longer haunted by Sauron's shadow. Instead, I slept in a world of gray, free of sorrow or fear.

A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, le nallon

- O Elbereth Starkindler from firmanent gazing afar, to thee I cry

sí di-nguruthos! A tiro nin, Fanuilos!

- here beneath death-horror! O look towards me, Everwhite!