By: Lady of the Rings

Rating: PG-13 for some tense moments and poisons.

Disclaimer:

 The lyrics in this chapter, namely those from China Roses in the CD The Memory of Trees, are not mine and I do not claim them so do not sue me. They belong to their respective copyright. The only characters in this story that are mine are Celebmîr, Nionë, and Annos. All else belongs to Tolkien and I in no way claim his creation as my own, I am not making money off this, and this story was written for pure enjoyment only. Also, the quotes from the book Morgoth's Ring were taken without permission, and as I am making no money off of this and again it was strictly for enjoyment only, please do not sue me. Thanks. :D

Spoilers: None

Feedback: LadyoftheRings35@hotmail.com

Summary:

This is placed in a tiny pocket of time when Gil-galad and Elrond brought their army to Rivendell in the Second Age to meet with Elendil. Elendil's niece, Nionë is being poisoned—but why, and by whom? And when the attacker goes after Elrond, things take a deadly turn…

Series:

None yet!

Additional disclaimers:

Within this text there are likely to be quite a few errors, and while I have gone over it numerous times with a fine-toothed comb, there are likely to still be errors. Please forgive any that you find. I am not a Tolkien expert and do not claim to be. I will to my best to keep everything looking spick-and-span, but even writers make mistakes on their manuscripts. I know that things would have been really grim in the time that I am writing about, but such stories depress me. Just think of this as a little alternate reality story with Tolkien characters in a Tolkien world, and that it actually might have happened. Thank you for being so understanding. I also know that Elrond would not be spending his time teaching a too-perfect girl how to speak elvish, but that's the way the story came out. Also, a '*' means there is a translation or a note at the end of the story. I put this next to all of the elvish. 

Author's note: Because of some reviewers comments about this story, namely AfterEver, I seriously considered not posting the rest of this story, even though it was already finished. I wasn't sure if I could handle someone ripping apart a story that I so dearly loved to write more than twice. I like constructive criticism, but you have to realize, I know its not perfect, and that doesn't matter to me. What matters is that it's a silly little story that I loved to write, in fact, it was possibly my favorite to write out of all, though it's not the best, and that's all I care about. And since some people did enjoy it, I am posting the rest for them. It's not fair to keep the ending from everyone just because of two or three discouraging reviews. Besides, I never said Nione wasn't a mary-sue character; and I don't care if she is. If I were to write each and every story to my uttermost ability, I'd wear myself out before I got half way through my life. That's what fanfiction is fun—fun little stuff that is usually junk so you don't have to write brilliant, completely perfect stories every single time. I know that this story isn't all that great. But I love it anyway. Because I know I could, if I wanted to, fix it and make it better. But because I have other manuscripts that I value more, I do not. So as much as I appreciate knowing what you did and did not like about my stories, I am human, and I did truly love this story—so go easy on me. Thanks.

-LadyoftheRings

Chapter Three

Who can tell me if we have heaven?

Who can say the way it should be

Moonlight holly, the Sappho Comet

Angel's tears below a tree

You talk of the break of morning

As you view the new aurora

Cloud in crimson, the key of heaven

One love carved in acajou.

-China Roses, sung by Enya

            Warmth, freedom from pain, and a pleasant tickling sensation in her nose. A light touch. A soft kiss on her brow; a voice murmuring in her ear. A door opening—someone cried out. She opened her eyes.

*     *     *     *

            Elrond opened the door to find a shadowy figure bending over Nionë. He let out a yell and charged. The thing looked up, turned, and sprang out of her open window. Nionë opened her eyes and sat up.

            "What's going on?" she asked, confused. Her head felt funny and nothing seemed to focus. Elrond came back to her bed.

            "Someone was trying to poison you again, I would guess," he said grimly. "How to you feel?"

            "All right, I suppose."

            "I'll go alert the guards—"

            "No!"

            He looked at her in surprise. There was a strange menace to her voice. "What?"

            "Don't tell anyone. Please."

            "Someone just tried to kill you, Nionë. And here he or she tried again."

            "And you saved me—and for that I owe you more than I can ever repay. But I ask you to go in debt with me one more time—don't tell."

            "Why? I charge you, Lady of Númenor to tell me what you doth hide." He had changed into the formal way of speaking, his eyes boring into her, suspicion deep in his handsome face.

            "It's not what you think, Elrond," she said softly. "There are two factors in this problem. Two chessmen. One is white and one is black. Black only moves after white."

            Elrond frowned but had no more time to press her for at that moment the door opened and Isa entered along with Elendil.

            "How do you feel, m'dear?" he asked, placing an affectionate hand on her head. She smiled up at him.

            "Better, Uncle. A bit sore, perhaps, but all right."

            Elendil turned to Elrond. "I have never seen—or heard—of anyone healing such wounds with a touch, my lord Elrond. You saved my darling niece. If there is anything in my power I can give you in return, please tell me."

            Elrond smiled. "That your niece lives is all that is important to me, Lord Elendil."

            "Please consider my offer."

            "I will; but I tell you that truly I can wish for no thing that you can give me."

            Elendil gave him a strange look at his choice of words, but bowed his head anyway. "If you change your mind, my offer still stands."

            Elrond shook his head. "I thank you, Lord Elendil."

            Elendil nodded and left the room. Elrond followed him.

            "Elrond?"

            Elrond hesitated at the door and looked back. Elendil paused, waiting for him just out of earshot. "Yes, Nionë?"

            "What did you sacrifice to heal me?" Her gray eyes were dark with sadness.

            "What did I sacrifice?"

            "Come, Elrond, I am young but not stupid. Tell me true, what did you give to save me?"           

            Elrond faltered. "Nothing, child. It was nothing."

            Nionë's eyes were accusing, and her lips were pressed. Then she sighed and looked away. "All right. I understand you don't want me to feel responsible."

            "Who was that man standing over you, Nionë?" Elrond asked seriously. "While we are on the subject of secrets..."           

            She shook her head. "It was nothing, Elrond. A figment of your imagination."

            "You're hiding something, Nionë."

            "Aren't we all?"

            Elrond left without another word.

*     *     *     *

            A caress on her skin. A kiss upon the lips. A murmured word in her ear. A brush of fingertips against her cheek. A soft chuckle. She opened her eyes and smiled.

*     *     *     *

            Nionë blinked her eyes sleepily, a gentle smile curving her lips. She always enjoyed that particular dream. Stretching she glanced at the sundial on her balcony. It was about three in the morning, and late as it was she was not tired. Stretching happily in her bed she stood and threw her thick cloak, emblazoned with the emblems of her house across her shoulders and moved barefoot into the night.

            Her door was one of the few that opened into the beautiful gardens aside Rivendell. Flowers touched the gray-stoned path, brushing against her ankles. She laughed suddenly and broke into a run. Her short-cropped hair was pinned back, and was already beginning to grow back. Her eyes shone in delight, breathless with excitement. The stars gave just enough light to see the path before her.

            Laughing and staggering she rounded a corner and stopped dead. Gil-galad, who had heard her coming from some ways off, was watching her with a smile on his face. She blushed suddenly and made to leave.

            "No, please stay." His voice was soft, almost inaudible, but his smile was kind as he stood and offered her his hand. "Sit by me a while, Lady."

            Her eyes searched his as she took his hand. "What comfort could a mortal child offer a lord of the Eldar?"

            His smile grew. "You have no burden of age upon you, young one. That in itself is refreshing, and soothing."      

            She relaxed and sat beside him, crossing her ankles and absently watching the stars through half-lidded eyes. Gil-galad looked off into the distance. He had abandoned his heavy, formal robes for a simple tunic and breeches in his house's colors.

            "My lord?"

            "Hmm?"

            "Did you really think Elrond was having an affair with me?"

            Gil-galad looked at her in surprise. "No, my dear, I knew him better than that. Why?"

            She sighed. "One at least believes me."

            "Are the rumors that vicious?"

            "You wouldn't believe it." She smiled ruefully. "You were right, you know."

            "Oh?"

            "All of you. Humans and elves were never meant to live side by side. We screw each others lives up too much." Her voice was sad.

            "I don't know about that," he answered quietly. "Elrond has done a world of good for you."

            "Yes, and I am grateful—you all have. But we—humans—have given you nothing but grief in return."

            "There you are wrong, my dear. I have never seen Elrond so light-hearted and joyful. He is young still, in the ways of the world. Only a few thousand years old. He will live to be far older, and will live to see both things great and terrible, so I predict. My littling, you have done much for him, for me, and for us all. One of our greatest joys is teaching. The Eldar knew almost from the instant we met your kind, or at least some of us did, that your species would eventually dominate Middle-Earth. It is something many have feared and rued bitterly, but we knew it all the same. But we still loved to teach you—first speech and then other things. We still do. You remind us that life is fleeting and must be treasured, and that good people can become corrupted and bad people can be undefiled. You live so short and burn so bright, a light in the dark." He put a hand on her shoulder. "No, littling, you have given us much. And now I give something to you—a piece of your history I believe you should know. I will tell you a story, if you will listen."

            "Of course." Her eyes were wide, like a young elfling begging to hear a story.

            "*Now, many years past, the Eldar learned that according to the lore of your folk, the Edain, the short-lived nature of your bodies was not so by right, but had become so by the malice of Morgoth. Now, it was not clear if your people meant it had become so by the general marring of Arda*—which we ourselves have attested to the waning of the strength in our own bodies—or by some malice in particular against men by Morgoth, or by both. But if your mortality was indeed because of some special spite against man, then the Eldar were frightened to be sure, for it meant that Morgoth's power, at least in the beginning, was greater even than we understood. And the original nature of humans was far different from any other creature abiding in Middle-Earth.

            "It chanced that during a time of spring, Finrod Felagund was for a while a guest in the house of Belemir, and he fell into talking with a Wise-woman, Andreth. And here I will abbreviate their words, for it is too long a tale to tell tonight. For Finrod listened in wonder and horror as Andreth told him she did not believe that humans had come to own so short a span of life by mere chance, or the will of Eru, but by some malice of Morgoth directed at them. Morgoth perceived them as a great threat, perhaps, and wished to lessen that threat. Finrod warned her, nonetheless, that bitterness towards the Quendi would bode no good for either people, for out of the lies of the Enemy bred envy, which fuels hate. And he reminded her that death and the shadow of Morgoth are not the same; for death is a word we give to something tainted by him, and therefore evil; but without the taint it would not be evil.

" 'What do ye know of death?'" Andreth answered. "Ye do not fear it, because ye do not know it."

" 'We have seen it, and we fear it,' answered Finrod. 'We too may die, Andreth; and we have died. My father's father was cruelly slain, and many have followed him, exiles in the night, in the cruel ice, the insatiable sea. And in Middle-earth we have died, by fire and by smoke, by venom and the cruel blades of battle. Fëanor is dead and Fingolfin was trodden under the feet of the Morgoth.'

"And she spoke that still it was different; for in the Eldar, she said, death was a wound, avoidable and not inescapable. Whereas with Men it was unstoppable—any man or woman, be they evil or good, strong or weak, will come to die. And unlike the Eldar kin, they are not reborn, but leave the confines of this world.

"Here Finrod spoke of something little known outside of ourselves, for we are not one to speak much of it. If she thought that for elves death was escapable, she was wrong. Our spirits and our life is bound to the life of Arda; but though we do not know how long it will last, the life of Arda is not forever, and when it is gone we too will perish, and where will we go then? We have no more idea than do your people. Our hunter, the hunter of death, is slow but never looses the trail. And death delayed is no less a grievance, or a fear. And beyond death we know of no hope.

" 'I did not know this,' said Andreth. 'And yet…'"

" 'And yet at least ours is slow-footed, you would say?' said Finrod. 'True. But it is not clear that a foreseen doom long delayed is in all ways a lighter burden than one that comes soon. But if I have understood your words thus far, you do not believe that this difference was designed so in the beginning. You were not at first doomed swift death.'"

And Andreth spoke in bitterness, saying that all is folly, both Eru who made us and the valor of the elves and humans. And Finrod warned her not to confuse Eru with Morgoth, for Eru had created all, including Morgoth. And he said that while Morgoth could corrupt someone there, cozen another here, he did not have the power to doom the deathless to death from father unto son, and take the memory of such a loss away. No. Only one has that power—the One, Eru, Father of all. And so he asked her, Andreth, what have your people done before in years uncounted to invoke such the wrath of Eru that he revoked the immortality granted to humans?

And she would not answer him, for it was not spoken to folk of other races what the lore-masters she knew spoke of in uncertain murmurs. For mortal man has fled from the memories of what happened to them so long ago, and can no longer remember exactly what happened. And Finrod asked her if her people would be the only to know—for would the Valar not know? And she answered, 'The Valar? How should I know, or any Man? You Valar do not trouble us either with care or with instruction. They sent no summons to us.'"

" 'What do you know of them?' said Finrod. 'I have seen them and dwelt among them, and in the presence of Manwë and Varda I have stood in the Light. Speak not of them so, nor of anything that is high above you. Such words came first out of the Lying Mouth. Has it never entered into your though, Andreth, that out there in ages long past ye may have put yourselves out of their care, and beyond the reach of their help? Or even that ye, the Children of Men, were not a matter that they could govern? For ye were too great. Yea, I mean this, and do not only flatter your pride: too great. Sole masters of yourselves within Arda, under the hand of the One. Beware then how you speak! If ye will not speak to others of your wound or how ye came by it, take heed lest (as unskilled leeches) ye misjudge the hurt, or in pride misplace the blame.'"

"Then in the beginning we were not doomed to die?" Nionë whispered, afraid to break the silence left by the ending of the elf-lord's words.

"By the words of Andreth, men were never to taste death, born to life everlasting without end. This in itself is confusing, for she says two things; one, that while your bodies are made of the stuff of Arda and are sustained by it, you would not perish with Arda. The second is that if such was true, of unending life, your spirit and body would be out of line—and a body and mind out of harmony is a body and mind tainted. She said there was an answer for the first, but would not give it; for the second, she thought it no large matter."

"Did she ever say why we were changed?"

"There was a story spoken of, that long ago Eru spoke to your people, aiding them and teaching them, but that soon they harkened to the temptation of Morgoth, and so Eru revoked his blessing."

Nionë's head had come to rest against Gil-galad's shoulder, and he had moved so his cloak covered her shoulder, keeping her warm in the chill night. It was a touch like that from child to father, and Gil-galad felt no discomfort at the closeness. "Then it was our fault we came to be what we are?"

"I suppose that could be said, yes. It was the choice of your people long ago that decided your fate today."

She pulled back and looked at him. "Then I ask you again, Lord of the Eldar, what happiness could we, your weakened and bedamned kin ever offer you?" Her voice was soft but full of sadness and bitterness.

He tilted her face so her eyes met his. "You offer us hope, little one," he said gently and kissed her brow. "Now to bed. I have perhaps depressed you beyond what is healthy, and Elrond will have my hide if you sicken again."

"Thank you for telling me. I would have liked to know."

"I know that, little one. That's why I told you."

She smiled sadly and skipped off into the distance, leaving Gil-galad in the darkness under the trees, deep in thought.