Author's Note:

Come now, people! I may be an inexperienced LotR author but that doesn't mean you can't have an eyeful of my story. Don't go away just yet, stop and have a read. Aren't you the slightest bit interested in the story of me destroying half of Middle-Earth and killing all you insignificant Men?!?!?!

…Just kidding. Read already!!

Fëaruin Urulókë

The Tale of Fëagurth

Part 4: Away to Mirkwood!

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"Good luck, my son," Ellasil squeezed Ninrusco's shoulder, before embracing him. "You have my blessing. For I know well your desire of freedom of choice, and I can only hope each day that the meeting with Avardelothien goes well."

Ninrusco smiled at his mother, who moved next in line and crouched down to suit her Hobbit height. "Menellómë, Dusk of the Heavens. Five years have you brought joy to our family, although sadly at the cost of losing your memory. Let me say that we may never see each other again, and yet we may, if ever you choose to return. But if you do not, let me say how much your presence has been welcomed here, and hope that Eärnur and I have been to you the father and mother you do not remember."

Menellómë wept, and embraced Ellasil, who truly had been a mother to her. "I desire to express my love for Gondor, and for you Ellasil and Eärnur, my mother and father. I hope that I do not fall so deeply in love with Mirkwood that I desire not to return."

"Me, neither," Ninrusco uttered sorrowfully, turning away from the gazes of his mother and stepfather. "For I will always love you even if I decide not to return home, although I wish it not so at all."

"Do not say such a thing," Eärnur smiled, his eyes shining with love. "You truly need to develop faith, my son. For happily married or piteously lonesome, you may return, Ninrusco. And Menellómë, you may too… we do not know what will come to pass, although if things turn to the more grievous wing, let us spend the time we have left with wisdom."

Eärnur and Ellasil came at last to their blood daughter, who in her excitement also held a shred of sadness. A gush of love came over them both as they perceived how hard she was trying to hide her tears. But even past her elegantly embroidered, crushed velvet top garment they saw her masculine leggings, partially covered by her cloak, and laughed- they knew for sure that she was going to be just fine. Of course, the bow and quiver on her back emphasized this clearly, along with the sword in its scabbard at her side, and the fiddle she strapped to the back of Ninrusco's horse.

"What is so funny?" Fëaruin demanded, covering her leggings more as she swished her maroon cloak across her front.

"Nothing," Ellasil's laughter merely faded into a smile, as she embraced her blood daughter. "Now, Fëaruin, I say what I say to Ninrusco and Menellómë. We…"

"Silence, Mother," Fëaruin tenderly held a finger to her lips. "For my heart was blessed with flame at my birth and that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I have faith, and I am sure that the greatness of Mirkwood will not tame the fiery heart enough to prevent me from returning at least once. If I forget to tell you I love you and I pass away without returning, let my soul weep forevermore that I failed to return alive, rather than because I forgot to embrace you."

Ellasil smiled a smile that made her cheeks blush a bright pink, squeezing her daughter who was still in her arms and saying 'I love you' to each, before stepping aside to let Eärnur do the same.

And with that they left, not turning back, except for Fëaruin who had to consistently pass glares at her parents whose chortles regarding her leggings were still audible. Leaving Minas Tirith with a large crowd of servants, friends and citizens behind them they went with only one horse, Ninrusco's stallion, that carried all their supplies, and walked down the road alone. It was Fëaruin's stone-hard nature that insisted that none of her father's men accompany them, for great faith did she have in her skilled brother whilst she herself was anxious to test the skills he'd taught her for five years. Sadly unknown to them, the fears of Ellasil were partly true, though there was no way of knowing the fates of the future bound to their fears- that for Menellómë and Ninrusco, it was verily the second last time they will ever see Ellasil and Eärnur whilst they were alive.

None would ever consider it possible, nor morally proper to leave behind a mother and father who was too busy governing the lands and could not visit, for another place that may feel like home, but will never be home. For though they may miss the home in which they were born, it comes from a whole new place in which they live. Forever shall sadness envelop those who settle in a new land, but never to the place of their birth and once again see those that knew them on that first day in the true place called home.

* * * * *

After walking many hours, they chose to camp, having walked a fair amount of leagues north. The Hobbit and two Dúnedain set the fire and feasted on bread and fruit, sitting on flattened stumps and against tree trunks, in full view of Ninrusco's hardworking- and now quietly grazing- weary stallion. Afterwards Fëaruin's music was the only sound besides the crackling fire that was audible, as the pleasant voice of her fiddle rang through the night sky.

"I wonder what she's like…" Fëaruin muttered, breaking the melody as she lowered the instrument. Menellómë reacted first, being snapped out of a daydream.

"Eh…?"

"Avardelothien," Fëaruin replied. "The Exalted Flower, the Flower of the Heavens."

"An Elven Princess…" Ninrusco whispered, his gaze still. "I wonder if I'll ever get to like her. Maybe she's a better warrior than I. What if her skills surpass mine? I know not how to live with such shame if so. Oh Eru, what shall I be if her horse is swifter, her blades sharper, her arrows fly faster should her bow sing sweeter…"

"I thought you did not even consider marrying her," Menellómë teased. "Why would you be so unsure how to 'live with the shame' if this is true?"

"Mirkwood is a beautiful place," Ninrusco mused. "Whether or not I will learn to respect Avardelothien, most likely I will learn to love her land, if all the rumors are true. If I decide to stay rather than return home to Mother and Father…"

"Be happy, dear brother," Fëaruin smirked, resting the fiddle down on the grass beside her. "You have been honored to be matched up with such a noble Lady. Altogether, I still do not believe she, an Elven Princess of Mirkwood, has asked my company…"

"Oh no," Ninrusco groaned. "Here she goes again."

"Find you something wrong with that?" Fëaruin sneered.

Ninrusco smirked. "Yes. I find it really lame."

"Let us NOT fight over such insignificant matters, shall we?" Menellómë sighed, holding out both hands in a commanding 'stop' gesture. Fëaruin and Ninrusco glanced at each other, grinned, and dove to either side of Menellómë, using her raised arms as an advantage to tickle her sides.

The journey continued long and hard every single day, walking and hauling, limping and falling, sleep the last resort to ending each day. It was on the beginning of the eleventh week of the journey when their hearts and bodies were weary that they arrived at last in Rhovanion, and entered the borders of the vast forestry of Mirkwood.

* * * * *

Five years had passed since a mysterious Lady, unknown yet of her state, name and origin, was brought to Mordor and tortured beneath the cruel hands of the Ringwraiths. It was her painful screams and grievous cries that made Legolas' sobs sound alike silence when he had killed a werewolf that turned out to be his lover.

Yet risen now in shadow and malice was she, in turn rising higher than the Nazgûl themselves as their ruler. Morauko Umrien they named her, Dark Demon and Evil Queen, and she was terrible as the angry sea and yet beautiful, although coldly like the snow. In black like they was the Nazgûl Queen cloaked, and she was quick to anger, terrible in her wrath. Five years on, in this present day, she unmercifully sat on her throne in Minas Morgul, her voice a hissing whisper among the dead.

"Too long has it been," she spoke, her voice full of wrath. "For years have we been feared by forces of light, and even forces of darkness cower pitifully into the shadows at our presence. But I think it is time that we take another into our rule, for my heart is beginning to desire a second to my throne. I desire one who will be my second in command to me in ordering the wretched forces that we possess and yet will bow down before me loyal and faithful, like Sauron once had Morgoth. Whose heart would be so earnest, so passionately loving and sweet, that corrupting it into the most cruel and malicious in all Middle-Earth would be born the most indefinable satisfaction for me?"

The other Ringwraiths in the power of her rule began to stir as she ceased her words, standing low beneath her high-lifted throne.

"We know not," one hissed, its voice hardly audible. "But we shall find your second in command to you, when we find the one that shall suit. She shall be converted into the most vengeful of hearts. She will rule us as you do, and serve you as we do, and we shall choose one whose heart already excites in uproar and is a suitor to blood on her dagger. She will be a Princess to us all… and she shall be yours."

To be continued…