DISCLAIMER:  Lord of the Rings, complete with Orodruin, Nazgûl, and Rings belongs to Tolkien, I am a mere admirer playing with them.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

1.  This fic was written for Jen Littlebottom's "Character's POV at the time the Ring was destroyed" challenge.  Sorry, couldn't fit it into 200 words, it is 319 :)

2.  The tale is from the point of view of a generic Nazgûl, let's say Nazgûl #6.  For the purposes of this fic I defined that he was the first to get to Orodruin (let's say he was the closest to it, and that he was one of the corrupted Black Númenóreans.

3.  Familiarity with Silmarillion and Tale of Adanel (Morgoth's Ring, HoME-X) is recommended for the best understanding of this fic.

THE FACE OF ETERNITY

Sky in the southeast, ever dark and threatening, erupts in blindingly, excruciatingly bright flames.  The ring on my index finger glows red in that light, as if all the blood that has left my body millennia ago has flowed into it.  I know I am too late to do my master's bidding.  The tension of the last few days is gone.  The Ring is gone.  He is gone.  Mordor's power is gone.  I am hurrying to Amon Amarth to finally meet my doom in the storm more heart-wrenching than any since the fall of Akallabêth, my motherland, fallen, like I am. 

"We failed, I failed, failed, failed, failed!" many voices ring in my mind, voices rising to the black sky and falling into fire below.  Hopelessness fills my heart, and my final moment lasts the eternity I was promised.

Yes, it was the eternity that He promised when He brought me here three and a half thousands years ago.  And it seemed like a kingly gift to an aging Adûnâi who feared death above all else.  Yet the eternity was not the eternal life that I craved.  It was eternal dying.  It felt like hanging on a thin thread over an abyss, and knowing it will tear, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting for something that could never happen...  Until today, when the deeds of two little halflings brought me back to Sammath Naur, brought me back to face the same choice.

I don't want power anymore, nor eternity.  All I want is peace, but will Êru of whom Nimruzîrim speak, whom we betrayed twice, have pity on one as corrupt as me?  Will I ever have the will to repent?  Do I even want to?

And so I plunge to my death in the fiery chasm, and amidst the last screams of my brethren one word, soft as the ashes, rises to the sky, "saphdahê."

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Amon Amarth – Sindarin for "Mount Doom"

Akallabêth – Adûnaic for "[She] that is fallen", what a Númenórean would call Númenor

Adûnai – Adûnaic for "a Númenórean"

Sammath Naur – Sindarin for "Chambers of Fire" in which Sauron made the One Ring

Êru – the Creator of Middle Earth, God

Nimruzîrim – Adûnaic for "Elf-friends", those Númenóreans who still liked Elves as of the end of the Second Age

saphdahê – Adûnaic for "Understand me" in imperative