Hello people around the world!
I want to thank Celridel for being a so great beta, also I want to thank d'elfe and DuckingCute for their reviews.
In this chapter we'll be the witnesses of the disaster that happened in Doriath and how was that Laura started her life as Mortissë.
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Chapter 72: The Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Doriath, Menegroth, FA. 505
Fire smoked and crackled, filling Menegroth with shifting orange light, and smoke rose with the screams to greet the pale winter moon. Elves were turned to black shapes under the harsh glare, and they fought and died on the marble floors, slumped against graceful buttresses and fluted columns.
Dior Eluchîl knelt before his children as the sounds of slaughter came closer and kissed them each. Frightened, they stared up at him, great grey eyes in bone-pale faces.
"Go," he whispered to them, pushing his sobbing wife away. "Go now! We will see each other soon."
The swirling smoke and shadows hid them away. He stood alone in the throne room and thought that he should pray.
He recognized the Elf who strode into the room, clad in black-scale armor that shimmered and twisted with glyphs and runes. His hair fell like molten silver halfway down his back. His face was imperiously beautiful, but his aquiline mouth was thin and cruel.
Dior stood still, Aranrúth point down, as he watched the Fëanorian advance. "What are you doing in my halls, Kinslayer?" he asked.
Celegorm paused in his stride as if just noticing Dior. A smile drew itself onto his face. "Ah, son of the Dog-Mistress. So, you haven't fled squeaking down your tunnels. Well, where is it?"
Dior smiled back, desperate to buy precious minutes for his family. "It is gone, Celegorm. Gone to a place where your bloody hands cannot sully it."
"Dior," Celegorm purred. "You do not have enough of your mother's looks to be such a fool. It is still here in Menegroth. Tell me, and no more have to die."
"No more?" Dior spat. "This place is already a charnel-house. Besides, who would trust the word of a Kinslayer?"
Celegorm's eyes hardened. "Then you have chosen your fate." He feinted to one side with his blade, pulled it back, and lunged at Dior from the other side. The son of Lúthien staggered, but he turned the misstep into a dive, slashing at Celegorm's face. Celegorm spun to the side and stabbed out. Dior parried the cut, danced away from next, slid under the third, and drove upward at Celegorm's throat. Celegorm turned away at the last second, but a faint red line streaked down his cheek and neck. He stabbed at Dior's unprotected armpit. The other groaned in pain as the blade sank home but lashed out with his foot, driving it hard into Celegorm's shin. Celegorm stumbled but as he fell, he twisted and lunged, sending the point of his blade towards Dior's chest. Dior swiped it away and kicked out again, slamming his heel into Celegorm's chest. Celegorm caught Dior around the leg, wrenching it upward, and the two fell backward onto the marble floor.
They flew to their feet, coming back with swords in their hands, hacking, slashing, stepping, sliding, swinging so hard sparks flew. Faster and faster, moving like dervishes or juggernauts made of lightning.
Then it came, the moment, and Aranrúth punched through a gap in Celegorm's armor. The silver-haired Elf staggered, blood bubbling from his mouth, his eyes frozen in shock and disbelief. He fell into Dior's arms, letting the Elf-King embrace a corpse.
Dior stumbled backward, pulling the sword free. The wound in his arm was bleeding freely. Time, time, give them time. The litany circled through his head even as two more Elves burst into the room, dashing through the many tree-like pillars that stood sentinel in the Hall of the King. One was dark, with narrow features sharp and cold as pointed steel. He fell to his knees in front of his brother's corpse, his face contorted in with anguish. The other was taller and there was a sense of complete power around him, and a face that could inspire loyalty to death, but now it was twisted with rage and pain. His armor was a work of art, a splendor of enameled gold and crimson. His sword was sharp enough to sing as he swung at Dior.
Dior blocked Curufin's blade, but before long he found himself retreating, trying to get away from Curufin's crashing blows. His own strokes became slower, his slashes wild. Aranrúth hammered uselessly on Curufin's armor. Dior felt impotent rage boil through his veins. He screamed, a wordless, ragged scream as he heard Caranthir rise from his dead brother's side. He bulled into Curufin, slamming the Fëanorian bodily into a pillar. There was a sickening crack and Curufin fell to one side as his leg suddenly gave out. He pushed Dior as he fell, and the Elf-King went sprawling to the ground.
Caranthir's blade whistled a song as it came down. It filled Dior's field of vision like a falling star. It came down...and down...and down...and down...and Dior fell through blackness.
The passageway had become steadily narrower until they were forced to go in single file, and the tunnel forked and twisted, burrowing towards many places. Their breath was cold mist in the light of guttering torches.
Footsteps were coming, echoes traveling down the rock towards Nimloth. She knew it was not her husband.
"Elwing," she whispered. Her daughter was not crying. There was a far-away look in her eyes as she turned to look at her mother, something aloof and totally removed. "Take this, darling." She put a bundle wrapped in dark cloth in Elwing's tiny hands. "Take it and take care of it with your life, Elwing. Do you promise me, daughter?"
The girl nodded, her pale eyes far-away, and the Queen turned to Elwing's nurse. "Take her to the Havens. There she will be safe."
She stood in the narrow corridor alone then, stooping to pick up a fallen rock and wrap it in a torn strip of her skirt.
She listened to the footsteps that grew nearer and nearer, and it was not very long until she saw them, Elves clad in the silver and crimson livery of Celegorm and she began to run, although she felt achingly tired. I will see you soon, Dior.
But it was only a few minutes before cold steel was at her throat and rough hands spun her around. "Give us the Jewel."
"It is not yours," she said haughtily.
"The fight is over, Queen. Do not spill unnecessary blood."
She laughed incredulously. "You dare talk to me of spilling blood?"
The face of Celegorm's servant was calm and impassive. "The Jewel, Queen. Or your death will be your own doing."
"No," she said, and his blade shore through her, cleaving her clean to the breastbone. The bundle fell from her hands, the rock bouncing off the uneven floor and coming to a stop in a pool of Nimloth's blood.
FA 510, The Outskirts of Nan-Tathren
Water trickled around her nose and mouth. She rolled over, disoriented, trying to find a comfortable position for her aching limbs and muscles. Her skin-tight suit stuck to her, making it even harder to move. Laura blinked, trying to displace the cobwebs and thoughts came trickling back. Gondolin, her recruits, Glorfindel...She slumped back into the marshy grass. Water gurgled into her ears, cold around her cheeks. Thick mist floated around her, eddying around the trunks of trees, a sea of fog.
Then the voice came. It vibrated in her teeth and bones like the roll of ancient thunder. She curled up tightly, her fighting instincts suddenly erased from her mind. To that voice, she was nothing but a child, so a child she became. Lightning stabbed down from the sky, and for a half a heartbeat the world was noon-day bright. All around her, smaller forks of white-blue fire flickered. The thunder boomed and rolled and with it came a voice that seemed made from the very foundations of creation. In it was the wheeling cry of the gulls, the crash of surf on cliffs, the foaming rage of a stormy ocean, the deep, deep secrets the sea will never reveal.
"Arise, Laura Kinney," the voice said. "Fear not my wrath. But stand up, for time is not given for you to tarry nor to seek out death."
She struggled to her knees, her black hair falling around like molten onyx, dripping into her eyes. "That's my choice," she whispered defiantly. "You don't have authority over me."
The mist vanished but the storm thundered and rolled around her, and Laura saw that she was in front of a rushing river. It seemed to her a mounting wave was rolling down the river and as it drew near, it broke and rushed forth in long arms of foam. Between the foam stood a figure like that of a mighty king, tall and terrible and majestic against the rushing clouds, his hair like foam glimmering in the dusk. His dark helm was foam crested and his mail shimmered from silver to green, flickering with sea fire. He stood knee-deep in the shadow sea, and Laura was forced to look away from the blinding white blue eyes, the color of forked lightning. She felt nearly sick with fear. Terror seized her, sudden as the storm.
Again, his voice came, engulfing her, rolling over her like a tsunami overtakes a conch shell. "Death is a gift not given to all and the Guardian will not accept you in his Halls. Take heed of what I say."
"I'm not from Ennor," she said softly. "I don't belong here so why bother doing all this?"
"I sent Tuor, son of Huor, to Gondolin. Not for the sake of his one sword, but because from him came a hope beyond his sight or yours, a light that shall pierce the darkness. That is the task I give you, Laura Kinney. To watch over the son of Tuor and all his descendants. To guard that Hope when you can."
Laura felt helpless rage mixed fear choke her, and she struggled to spit it out. "I'm not a hero! This isn't my job!"
The King of Waters seemed to grow, lit with a divine glory that made Laura bow her head. Tears stung her eyes, burning like vinegar at the thought that Glorfindel had been taken from her forever.
"You are no hero, Laura Kinney, nor will you ever be. You will watch from the shadows, be the grain of sand that tip the scales. That is your purpose. Neither must I give you anything in return, but I, I will be good to you. The Servants of the Doom of Mandos will not seek you out for aiding the Noldor, and if you fulfill your purpose, you will find the peace you long for."
Laura felt tears run down her cheeks, but those tears were wiped away by an invisible hand.
"Take a different name, live in the shadows and out of sight. Harm cannot befall Eärendil and his House."
And then the storm fell away, and Laura found herself alone next to the rushing river in the middle of the forest. She leaned over and looked at her reflection. Her Kevlar suit was filthy with clotted Orc gore, but on her belt and still untarnished, was the golden medallion engraved with the celandine flower. Laura closed her eyes and unbuckled the belt. It was time to change completely, to hide who she loved and who she was. That would be only in her heart.
FA 538: Twenty-Eight Years Later
Laura rested her head against the foot of a sprawling oak tree, trying to see the stars through its wealth of leaves. She remembered the nights she and Glorfindel had spent looking at them with aching, eidetic clarity, and when they, as Alassë had promised, had found the magic in them. At the time, Laura had not understood the magic then, only vaguely sensed it. Now, the first inklings of realization tugged at her mind when she saw them. They were like windows, those bright spear-points of light, holding glimpses of a time that was far away.
"My shadow's the only one that walks beside me," she whispered. But unlike the singer, she couldn't stop walking. She traveled her own boulevard of broken dreams, and they bit at her feet like shattered glass, but she had to keep going. She was Mortissë now, Warrior of the Shadows. She was Laura Kinney was only in sleep, when all dreams are unbroken.
Mortissë was going towards the Havens of Sirion after she heard rumors that Sons of Fëanor were preparing for a third war. But Laura Kinney closed her eyes and willed herself to rest…and maybe even to dream.
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