Disclaimer: This is fan fiction derived from the film The Matrix whose
copyright is held by Warner Bros. Entertainment and Larry and Andy
Wachowski. It is also inspired by characters and situations taken from the
works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, and the Marvel Entertainment Group.
Dedication: This story would never have been possible without my dear cousin Tammy, whose most enduring name on the net is Xangrey Shadowstalker. She is the Magneto to my Xavier, the evil genius who breathed life into both Elrond and Smith and for whom I set down in writing the adventures they had. It was a great pleasure to devise and implement a plotline in our RPG that would allow the two to co-exist in one of the weirdest crossovers that we have ever done. I dedicate this to you, Tam, and hope that the story we made together gave you as much enjoyment to play through as it did me. I sweated blood to make this one work, but loved every minute of it.
Author's Note: This is a crossover that was created for a role-playing game that I was gm'ing for my cousin Tam. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should be shot. Just kidding! Role-playing is a game where you bring a story to life by imagining you are the characters in a movie or book and you control what decisions they make and what they do. You are the star of the show and how the story ends can be very different than it does in the original, or you can go further starting off from where the original story ends. Much depends on how your character interacts with the other players' characters, and having a good gamemaster who sets up and enforces rules for the players to follow. If you want to know more about it, you can go to my webpage or visit us in #the_matrix_rpg on dalnet.irc. No, the storyline we invented with this fanfic is not implemented there, but some of the elements are present.
Chapter One: Elrond Peredhil
The pain of coming awake was dreadful, more wretched than any physical pain he had ever endured. He saw only stars, and for a brief moment was uncertain that he had returned to life at all, that the path Mandos had set him to return upon had proved too difficult for him to travel after all, and that Elbereth had gathered him back to her velvet, star-bedecked bosom rather than see his spirit swallowed by the encroaching blackness that was not night, nor mere absence of light, but the horror of the void and corruption. Then he recognized Carnil, and Menelvagor, and yes, there it was: the horrible red moon, the Hunter's Moon, like a terrible, wounded eye filled with blood.
He had returned to life under the stars of Middle Earth, and reflected with some amusement that although his daughter and the Elves would be happy, many others would not. Morgoth slunk in the shadows beyond vision, nursing his own wounds and snarling at the light, flaying his servants in his rage and probably unsettling even the Dark Lord to the East, who was chief among them in the world.
He thought he saw his father's star looking down on him, and chuckled at the moon.
It came out as the faintest of hisses and a gasp, which shocked him a bit out of his reverie. No, the gasp was not his own, he realized, as a shadow moved nearby. The moon was blocked out by his daughter's enchantingly bewildered face, eclisped by the evening star...
You are suffering from shock, he told himself severely. You're probably lying on the cold ground somewhere, having bled your life away, and only the breath of Varda has kindled its ashes. If you don't do something, you'll lie here making poems about your daughter to the sky until the night wind whisks you back to Mandos again.
"Father?"
He tried to say something then, tried to move, but he didn't think it worked. He was not quite certain except that Arwen continued to look down on him, her expression now hovering between ecstatic hope and black panic. It told him what he needed to know, that his body was a terrible mess, and his open eyes to her trained vision might signify not a return to life, but undeath. He really hoped she would look more deeply at him and that he would not have to contend with his own children hacking apart his tattered flesh and setting it alight. That would hurt even more, although it might be amusing to tell Gandalf later about the expressions on the faces of the Valar at his sudden unexpected return.
Realizing he was slipping away from consciousness, he blinked his eyes once, hoping she would be paying enough attention to recognize the gesture. If she let herself panic and missed the gesture he as their healer had often instructed others to use in similar situations of paralysis, if he failed to communicate with her, Arwen might very well mistake the signs of life she was seeing in him for the deceits of the enemy and do something regrettable.
"Father?" she said again, her voice trembling with near hysteria. "Did you blink? Is it really you, alive?"
There was more movement to his sides, and his sons came suddenly into view, blocking out the stars with their wondering, grief-ravaged faces. He blinked again, and wondered if she would see it with the light blocked by their forms. If only the moon weren't already darkened with blood, and the stars were brighter...
"The stars?" Elladan asked in confusion, and looked off as if expecting some new danger to appear, darkening the horizon. Elrond realized he had somehow spoken aloud. "What about them?"
"Father, its alright, everything's going to be alright!" Arwen cried brokenly, and reached over as training overcame panic and she realized he was alive and very wounded and needed her skills. When she touched him, moving aside clothing for the fastenings on his mail, he wanted to touch her cheek and tell *her* that it was indeed alright and he was going to live, but he did not get that chance to comfort her. Love for her and his sons, his stars, and the whole world flooded his heart at her touch, but it also had a more physical effect of jostling his mangled innards. He fell gratefully into unconsciousness as shocking waves of agony swept through his body, and dreamed of Elros.
The dreams at first were of their childhood together, when the choice that would forever divide the destiny of elf and man had not been made and the very special bond they had as twins was forged even stronger by the tide of adversity that separated them eternally from mother and father. Nightmares of flight through wood and dale with the distorted faces of their captors looming above them were relived, feelings of helplessness, rage, and grief as the sons of Feanor argued over their fate, and even sympathy for their kidnappers at the way their emotions bound them to a fate of what seemed eternal suffering. Momentary kindnesses: Maedhros sacrificing his portion of the day's scavenged provisions for them with a smile and a wink, Maglor huddling close with them at night to keep them from the cold, taking time away from their flight to coax a wild goat to give her milk for them.
Passing cruelties: the shooting of a dove as it flew carelessly by, the detailed inventiveness in which they described what would befall their father and mother if they did not surrender the Silmaril, the beating of Elros for his brother's quiet stubborness in the face of the brothers' rage.
Through it all, the sound of Maglor's playing and the terrible, desperate sadness of the verses of the Noldolante. The Fall of the Noldor became the twins' burden as well, a thing which had an eldritch life of its own and would inherit through blood, tears and fate and all the ages of the world.
The Fall of the Noldor melded into the Fall of Numenor, and he recalled those days through the eyes of his brother. Though he passed into the unknown mystery of death long before Ar-Pharazon's seduction by Sauron, he felt he saw and understood all that had occurred through his brother and not himself, and wondered at it. Watching the descent of the proud lords of westernesse, he felt Elros' despair grow unimaginably until the betrayal of all he had wrought and desired was made nothing in the eyes of Iluvatar...and the sea.
The utter conviction Elros had felt in making his stand with Men and not Elves, as Elrond had done, was betrayed over and over until the faith he had in his own kin had shattered and left nothing but a hole in his spirit for the Void to creep into. Only his indomitable will and stubborness kept his spirit from crumbling entirely where it dwelt, and becoming utterly hateful and vindictive.
The fever visions ceased here for a time, leaving nothing but the emotions they engendered. Elrond drifted in and out of consciousness, allowing himself to be treated and remaining strong in his affirmation that he and his companions should continue and not turn back northwards. The Rohirrim must be warned, he insisted, of their neighbors' treachery, even were it to mean he be left behind so that they continued.
Balking at such a declaration, they continued on southward and although the pain was great and his injuries grievous, his body was healing as the fever in him burned away the sickness. Even his daughter could not quite comprehend how this could be, but Elrond knew the fire in him was the blessing of Varda, and kept his spirit safe from what Morgoth had done to him while his body was weak.
When he slipped into the dreams again, cradled on horseback by his son Elladan, they were of a vastly more confusing and horrible nature. In them his brother lived again, yet it was no true life but the shadow existence of the wraith, a ghost wandering in a dream plane where the minds of men slept and knew it not. Where he passed, they shuddered and fled if they could, and none could match his strength and determination to ensure that someone controlled the consequences of their foolishness when they would or could not. No one could match him...except The One.
Dedication: This story would never have been possible without my dear cousin Tammy, whose most enduring name on the net is Xangrey Shadowstalker. She is the Magneto to my Xavier, the evil genius who breathed life into both Elrond and Smith and for whom I set down in writing the adventures they had. It was a great pleasure to devise and implement a plotline in our RPG that would allow the two to co-exist in one of the weirdest crossovers that we have ever done. I dedicate this to you, Tam, and hope that the story we made together gave you as much enjoyment to play through as it did me. I sweated blood to make this one work, but loved every minute of it.
Author's Note: This is a crossover that was created for a role-playing game that I was gm'ing for my cousin Tam. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you should be shot. Just kidding! Role-playing is a game where you bring a story to life by imagining you are the characters in a movie or book and you control what decisions they make and what they do. You are the star of the show and how the story ends can be very different than it does in the original, or you can go further starting off from where the original story ends. Much depends on how your character interacts with the other players' characters, and having a good gamemaster who sets up and enforces rules for the players to follow. If you want to know more about it, you can go to my webpage or visit us in #the_matrix_rpg on dalnet.irc. No, the storyline we invented with this fanfic is not implemented there, but some of the elements are present.
Chapter One: Elrond Peredhil
The pain of coming awake was dreadful, more wretched than any physical pain he had ever endured. He saw only stars, and for a brief moment was uncertain that he had returned to life at all, that the path Mandos had set him to return upon had proved too difficult for him to travel after all, and that Elbereth had gathered him back to her velvet, star-bedecked bosom rather than see his spirit swallowed by the encroaching blackness that was not night, nor mere absence of light, but the horror of the void and corruption. Then he recognized Carnil, and Menelvagor, and yes, there it was: the horrible red moon, the Hunter's Moon, like a terrible, wounded eye filled with blood.
He had returned to life under the stars of Middle Earth, and reflected with some amusement that although his daughter and the Elves would be happy, many others would not. Morgoth slunk in the shadows beyond vision, nursing his own wounds and snarling at the light, flaying his servants in his rage and probably unsettling even the Dark Lord to the East, who was chief among them in the world.
He thought he saw his father's star looking down on him, and chuckled at the moon.
It came out as the faintest of hisses and a gasp, which shocked him a bit out of his reverie. No, the gasp was not his own, he realized, as a shadow moved nearby. The moon was blocked out by his daughter's enchantingly bewildered face, eclisped by the evening star...
You are suffering from shock, he told himself severely. You're probably lying on the cold ground somewhere, having bled your life away, and only the breath of Varda has kindled its ashes. If you don't do something, you'll lie here making poems about your daughter to the sky until the night wind whisks you back to Mandos again.
"Father?"
He tried to say something then, tried to move, but he didn't think it worked. He was not quite certain except that Arwen continued to look down on him, her expression now hovering between ecstatic hope and black panic. It told him what he needed to know, that his body was a terrible mess, and his open eyes to her trained vision might signify not a return to life, but undeath. He really hoped she would look more deeply at him and that he would not have to contend with his own children hacking apart his tattered flesh and setting it alight. That would hurt even more, although it might be amusing to tell Gandalf later about the expressions on the faces of the Valar at his sudden unexpected return.
Realizing he was slipping away from consciousness, he blinked his eyes once, hoping she would be paying enough attention to recognize the gesture. If she let herself panic and missed the gesture he as their healer had often instructed others to use in similar situations of paralysis, if he failed to communicate with her, Arwen might very well mistake the signs of life she was seeing in him for the deceits of the enemy and do something regrettable.
"Father?" she said again, her voice trembling with near hysteria. "Did you blink? Is it really you, alive?"
There was more movement to his sides, and his sons came suddenly into view, blocking out the stars with their wondering, grief-ravaged faces. He blinked again, and wondered if she would see it with the light blocked by their forms. If only the moon weren't already darkened with blood, and the stars were brighter...
"The stars?" Elladan asked in confusion, and looked off as if expecting some new danger to appear, darkening the horizon. Elrond realized he had somehow spoken aloud. "What about them?"
"Father, its alright, everything's going to be alright!" Arwen cried brokenly, and reached over as training overcame panic and she realized he was alive and very wounded and needed her skills. When she touched him, moving aside clothing for the fastenings on his mail, he wanted to touch her cheek and tell *her* that it was indeed alright and he was going to live, but he did not get that chance to comfort her. Love for her and his sons, his stars, and the whole world flooded his heart at her touch, but it also had a more physical effect of jostling his mangled innards. He fell gratefully into unconsciousness as shocking waves of agony swept through his body, and dreamed of Elros.
The dreams at first were of their childhood together, when the choice that would forever divide the destiny of elf and man had not been made and the very special bond they had as twins was forged even stronger by the tide of adversity that separated them eternally from mother and father. Nightmares of flight through wood and dale with the distorted faces of their captors looming above them were relived, feelings of helplessness, rage, and grief as the sons of Feanor argued over their fate, and even sympathy for their kidnappers at the way their emotions bound them to a fate of what seemed eternal suffering. Momentary kindnesses: Maedhros sacrificing his portion of the day's scavenged provisions for them with a smile and a wink, Maglor huddling close with them at night to keep them from the cold, taking time away from their flight to coax a wild goat to give her milk for them.
Passing cruelties: the shooting of a dove as it flew carelessly by, the detailed inventiveness in which they described what would befall their father and mother if they did not surrender the Silmaril, the beating of Elros for his brother's quiet stubborness in the face of the brothers' rage.
Through it all, the sound of Maglor's playing and the terrible, desperate sadness of the verses of the Noldolante. The Fall of the Noldor became the twins' burden as well, a thing which had an eldritch life of its own and would inherit through blood, tears and fate and all the ages of the world.
The Fall of the Noldor melded into the Fall of Numenor, and he recalled those days through the eyes of his brother. Though he passed into the unknown mystery of death long before Ar-Pharazon's seduction by Sauron, he felt he saw and understood all that had occurred through his brother and not himself, and wondered at it. Watching the descent of the proud lords of westernesse, he felt Elros' despair grow unimaginably until the betrayal of all he had wrought and desired was made nothing in the eyes of Iluvatar...and the sea.
The utter conviction Elros had felt in making his stand with Men and not Elves, as Elrond had done, was betrayed over and over until the faith he had in his own kin had shattered and left nothing but a hole in his spirit for the Void to creep into. Only his indomitable will and stubborness kept his spirit from crumbling entirely where it dwelt, and becoming utterly hateful and vindictive.
The fever visions ceased here for a time, leaving nothing but the emotions they engendered. Elrond drifted in and out of consciousness, allowing himself to be treated and remaining strong in his affirmation that he and his companions should continue and not turn back northwards. The Rohirrim must be warned, he insisted, of their neighbors' treachery, even were it to mean he be left behind so that they continued.
Balking at such a declaration, they continued on southward and although the pain was great and his injuries grievous, his body was healing as the fever in him burned away the sickness. Even his daughter could not quite comprehend how this could be, but Elrond knew the fire in him was the blessing of Varda, and kept his spirit safe from what Morgoth had done to him while his body was weak.
When he slipped into the dreams again, cradled on horseback by his son Elladan, they were of a vastly more confusing and horrible nature. In them his brother lived again, yet it was no true life but the shadow existence of the wraith, a ghost wandering in a dream plane where the minds of men slept and knew it not. Where he passed, they shuddered and fled if they could, and none could match his strength and determination to ensure that someone controlled the consequences of their foolishness when they would or could not. No one could match him...except The One.