Random Orcs, or We Fell to Middle Earth
Chapter Twenty-Three: Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting: Sauron the Magnificent!
by Galadriel Tolkien
There were more days on the road, but they faded into one another, and I was too weary to recall them later on.
The only real moment I recall is part of the army running in terror from certain death. Perhaps retreating quickly would be a kinder explanation. I couldn't blame them. Neither could Aragorn. He sent them to bolster the forces at Cair Andros, and we continued onwards to our destiny.
Our company came at last to the Black Gate. My dreams had not prepared me for the bulk of it, and I stared at the gates of the Morannon, stunned by the sheer size. The amount of power needed to make them must have been astronomical. Later, I decided, I would ask Gandalf about them.
We had marched all night to come at them from the north and west, rather than the south. Aragorn seemed determined to avoid the eastern foothills and I wondered what experience he'd had there. Hills that appeared to be built out of festering corpses and what could be garbage. Broken crockery mixed with bodily waste and the last mouldy scraps not even the goblins would touch began to arch to either side.
The wind was thankfully not blowing off of them.
And real hills appeared on the edge of the Dagorlad. Ancient burial mounds was my guess. ::Stone. Broken mortar.:: Alayna said absently as the captains met on the apex of one. ::Probably left over from the original building of the Teeth.::
::The huh?::
::It's the battlements. Those towers on either side of the gate. Lower vampiric canines.::
::How poetic. Wil must be rolling in his grave.::
::Ignorant wench.:: She replied cheerfully.
::Wretch.:: I reached out and scratched at the base of her mane. ::How did you know?::
She arched her neck and could have purred. ::Asked Gandalf.::
::...::
A mental snicker echoed through the air.
::The hell? Alayna, darling--::
::No worries. He seems cool with it. Besides, I had to mention the ass-kicking he'd get if he hurt you.::
::Awww.:: I leaned over and hugged her.
::Don't get mushy, you still have to leave him.::
::I know.::
We were both silent, then, watching the army spread itself out in preparation for the battle to come. Phred wandered to our side and watched with us.
"What do you think, Marya?" Phred asked me, his breath streaming out into the air and frosting over.
It was an interesting phenomenon. Perhaps a result of the death and evil that roamed around under the cracks in the ground. Ghosts, possibly.
::Who ya gonna call?::
::That is the operative question at work here, is it not?::
"We might win." I allowed.
"Might?"
"Ok." I half-grinned, "We will win."
"Do you foresee the outcome so easily, milady?" He studied me with wise eyes.
"I foresee you in twenty years dandling a grandchild on one knee while your children range around you," I replied, feeling filled with an odd certainty. "Phred, I think--I think you will survive this. Gondor will survive. Above that, I cannot truly say."
He nodded, "Just so, Milady. Just so."
We fell silent, after that.
Finally, all seemed ready. And Aragorn set trumpeters and heralds. And their voices rang out hollowly through the surrounding area. A sort of sick feeling went through me: dread. Perhaps more than dread. For despite my words to Phred, I could see the death of everything we had strived for coming, and the balance that it hung by was so tiny, so given to shift and change...
"Marya?"
I jerked myself back from that precipice of hopelessness and grinned lopsidedly at Phred. "Yes."
And the silence which had settled after the trumpetings was broken by loud drumming, rolling around us as if driven. And perhaps it was. I closed my eyes for an instant, then opened them to find the middle door of the Black Gate had been thrown open. An embassy emerged.
The head of this assemblage was a rather large man, his body clad in pure-black-tarnished steel. I eyed the beast he rode, and wondered if its lineage included the creatures the Nazgul flew upon.
"Is there anyone in this rout with authority to treat with me?" His voice was mocking and almost lifeless. "Or, indeed, with wit to understand me?" He eyed Aragorn, and his lips curved, the teeth beneath gleaming oddly, "Not thou, at least. It needs more to make a king than a piece of elvish glass, or a rabble such as this."
I nearly broke in at that, considering mocking him back, but I knew that it was not my time. This was Aragorn's moment. And he won it keenly, meeting the eyes of his harasser and giving back nought for scorn.
The mouthpiece of Sauron broke eye contact first, leaning away as if expecting a blow. And he turned craven, as well, crying out, "I am a herald and ambassador, and may not be assailed!"
"Yeah, right." I muttered.
Phred snorted softly.
"He's an idiot," I said, ignoring the continuing dialogue between the messenger and Gandalf and Aragorn. "As if we'd believe anything his lord and master would wish us to hear. Pfaugh, I say."
"M'lady speaks well," Phred replied, his eyes twinkling at me.
"Yeah." I frowned, then, eyeing the bundle of cloth the 'ambassador' was presenting as proof of the capture of a spy. And with horror I recognised the same clasp that Galadriel had gifted Gandalf and I with. Frodo's mithril was also there. "Frodo..." But, no. I could still feel him, that strange twist of a tie between us. And Sam as well. They lived, but for how long? And would knowing they were alive help Sauron's cause?
It would, I realised an instant later. Pippin sprang forward with a cry of grief. There was sadness and despair emenating from Aragorn and Legolas. Gimli was stoic. And Gandalf--there was a terrible sense of something from him. What, I did not wish to know.
"Silence," Gandalf shoved Pippin back.
"So, you have another of these imps with you!" The man laughed, and I sensed his amusement was half-pretense. "And, I say to you. Sauron does not love spies, and what your little Shire-rat's fate may be has yet to be determined."
I closed my eyes, then opened them, angry at the grief and pain this idiot was causing. "My lords," I said lazily, my voice ringing against the walls of the Morannon. "Do you listen to this liar and behemoth of iniquity, and take what he speaks as true?" My scorn dripped from my lips. I didn't have to nudge, Alayna moved forwards, silent even on the stone underfoot.
"Sullen words from a woman who should be better silent," The man returned, angry gaze meeting mine. Then his lips curled cruelly. "Still, I think we shall make you a part of the terms. For the release of our prisoner, I shall tell you what--"
"No, no, no," Shaking my head, I shouldered past the honor-guard about the leaders of the West. "This is very pathetic. Is this all you have to offer?"
He drew himself up, "That may cost you an arm, my *lady*. Now, the--"
I raised my hand. "Talk to the hand, dumbass, 'cause the face ain't listenin'."
::...So, when were you a fly girl?::
Before the mouthpiece could recover from his outrage, I laughed. The sound belled outwards, ringing against the surrounding hills and walls, the mail and armour, and the helms of the company that had approached us. "You are like insignificant worms." I paused. "Y'know, I've always wanted to say that."
Gandalf caught my arm in a vice-like grip, his face pale. "Silence yourself, woman."
"Never." I twisted free, then turned and smacked a kiss across his lips. "For one thing, talk is cheaper than blood."
A sound pierced the sky, a whistling noise that made the hair on the back of my neck stand fast. There was no other warning than that. Magic shrilled along my nerves and a lance of power slammed into the paving in between our two parties. Sauron was impatient. I ignored it as the horses around Alayna and I bucked and danced, shying away from the bits of flaming stone.
"Is that the best you can do?" I asked the mouthpiece conversationally, riding towards him directly over the still-smoking patch of ground. "Because. Really? It's pathetic."
Without waiting for his reply, I drew level and plucked the bundle of clothing from him. "I think this belongs to us. Why don't you go back to your master and tell him that the men of the West wish to speak to him. And him alone."
He reached out for me, and I dodged backwards, giggling. "Not so fast, Romeo. Besides," I wrinkled my nose. "You need a bath."
A twist of power into the air, a soft command, and a shower of soapy water with lemon juice cascaded over the mouthpiece of Sauron. Alayna laughed in my head, the amusement coloured orange with maliciousness.
And something grabbed at me, reaching out frantically as if screaming for help. I reeled, nearly falling from the saddle as the world devolved into the utter chaos of battle. Or perhaps I'd lost time. It made more sense, because Pippin was missing, Aragorn and the leaders were standing on one of the hills watching the commotion. And I must have frozen--this was wrong. It felt wrong.
Why was I sitting still as a statue while people died around me?
Sound smashed into me, then, men and creatures screaming as they died and fought. There was mud under their feet churned with the blood of those already dead or dying. Under Alayna's hooves.
Reality snapped into place, and we moved, smashing into the cave troll advancing towards a grouping of infantry. "Back!" I cried, standing in the saddle and swinging. My sword cleaved through armour into tough hide, the weight of the creature falling forwards. Alayna danced backwards, taking me with her. I sat down abruptly into the saddle again, sword held out and dripping with dark blood.
::Duck.::
The massive fist would have taken my head off, but the creature was down, dying as the infantry surged onto it, burying it beneath them in a frenzy of stabbing.
Clockwork, then, well-oiled machine. Or was it blood that moved the gears around as we fought and killed, until both of us were coated in things not meant to see.
At some point, I dove from the saddle, and stood back to back with Eomer. Then he and Aragorn ranged off and I was alone again, Alayna disported herself amongst the orcs where she didn't have to worry about losing her rider.
I dodged an arrow, its feathers skimming my left ear. A knife took out the bowman and I moved on. From the south I suddenly sensed something--Frodo and Sam and someone else. A battle of good, evil, magic and Destiny. I hate Destiny. And Sauron was noticing it, turning to it like a giant behemoth surprised by a tiny dolphin at its side.
His realising what was going on was not supposed to happen. The battle commencing so far from me needed to finish without the evil man's interference. A distraction was required.
With a devilish grin I gutted the orc in front of me, using its death to fuel the closing of the circuit that hung over Minas Morgul.
For a moment, silence reigned across the magical plain. A single solitary moment of peace and quiet that probably felt wonderful to any tapped into it. And then the other shoe dropped.
The power woven into Minas Morgul blazed out in a flash more brilliant than the sun as it tore through, reweaving the fabric of the citadel as I'd commanded it to do so. And Sauron took the bait. He turned away from the slopes of Mount Doom, and focused his mind further afield, towards the city of his Nazgul.
I smirked as I spun and decapitated the man about to club me. And the ground under my legs rolled, buckling my knees and dropping me unceremoniously onto my face.
A desperate reaching shrieking thing clawed into my mind, crying for release and I recoiled, jerking to my knees under the onslaught. "My brain." I snapped, pulling my shields tightly around my mind. The dirt I knelt in *moved* and I realised what had cried out, what I was touching. What had stolen time from me minutes--hours?-- before.
Mordor itself wanted rid of its despot. The land craved release and cleansing.
And there was no time. It was as if a switch had been thrown. I was seeing through a hundred thousand different eyes, or perhaps only three.
Frodo was inside Mount Doom. The Ring would be destroyed. Gollum would join Destiny.
I was on my feet and running, then, blind to anything but the Black Gate. I had to reach it, before--
The first blast of Wild Magic knocked me off my feet and I skidded into an orc. He died, not even realising my presence. I scrabbled forward again, intent on the centre of the gates.
And then I stood between the sides of the gate before the Morannon. The very air vibrated and I ran my palm along my sword blade, knowing blood must seal what would come. It wasn't a long wait, barely a millisecond. A tiny moment, but it stretched into infinity as my blood started to flow, as Gollum fell into the fires of Mount Doom, the Ring suddenly becoming consumed by its creating fire. Consumed into its own destruction.
Magic rolled outwards, expanding in huge concentric circles, slamming along the magical planes and destroying everything in its path. Evil magic, death and destruction at its core, its beginning.
Sauron was trying to take the world with him as he died.
I swung diagonally, mind and sword cleaving the air in ragged diagonal stripes, delving in-between the spaces of magic. The circle fractured, the magic scattering in a suddenly random pattern. My other hand caught at the pieces, sucking them in and spitting them out again in a woven whole. Fast, so fast, I had to be. Because there was no time in this moment between moments.
Four hands wouldn't have been fast enough, but I held on, pouring the magic back into the land and sky, the trees which suddenly appeared in one wave. The birds, the flowers--I poured and wove, dissolving tens of thousands of centuries in one tiny moment of exploding tapestry.
I fell, magic flowing in and out of me as I shaped the weft and line into what I willed. What the land demanded.
And when there was no more thread and no more time, when all the random bits had found a better place, I thrust my sword into the ground to the hilts and curled around it as the world went black.
My last thought was that, today, Mordor felt like daisies.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting: Sauron the Magnificent!
by Galadriel Tolkien
There were more days on the road, but they faded into one another, and I was too weary to recall them later on.
The only real moment I recall is part of the army running in terror from certain death. Perhaps retreating quickly would be a kinder explanation. I couldn't blame them. Neither could Aragorn. He sent them to bolster the forces at Cair Andros, and we continued onwards to our destiny.
Our company came at last to the Black Gate. My dreams had not prepared me for the bulk of it, and I stared at the gates of the Morannon, stunned by the sheer size. The amount of power needed to make them must have been astronomical. Later, I decided, I would ask Gandalf about them.
We had marched all night to come at them from the north and west, rather than the south. Aragorn seemed determined to avoid the eastern foothills and I wondered what experience he'd had there. Hills that appeared to be built out of festering corpses and what could be garbage. Broken crockery mixed with bodily waste and the last mouldy scraps not even the goblins would touch began to arch to either side.
The wind was thankfully not blowing off of them.
And real hills appeared on the edge of the Dagorlad. Ancient burial mounds was my guess. ::Stone. Broken mortar.:: Alayna said absently as the captains met on the apex of one. ::Probably left over from the original building of the Teeth.::
::The huh?::
::It's the battlements. Those towers on either side of the gate. Lower vampiric canines.::
::How poetic. Wil must be rolling in his grave.::
::Ignorant wench.:: She replied cheerfully.
::Wretch.:: I reached out and scratched at the base of her mane. ::How did you know?::
She arched her neck and could have purred. ::Asked Gandalf.::
::...::
A mental snicker echoed through the air.
::The hell? Alayna, darling--::
::No worries. He seems cool with it. Besides, I had to mention the ass-kicking he'd get if he hurt you.::
::Awww.:: I leaned over and hugged her.
::Don't get mushy, you still have to leave him.::
::I know.::
We were both silent, then, watching the army spread itself out in preparation for the battle to come. Phred wandered to our side and watched with us.
"What do you think, Marya?" Phred asked me, his breath streaming out into the air and frosting over.
It was an interesting phenomenon. Perhaps a result of the death and evil that roamed around under the cracks in the ground. Ghosts, possibly.
::Who ya gonna call?::
::That is the operative question at work here, is it not?::
"We might win." I allowed.
"Might?"
"Ok." I half-grinned, "We will win."
"Do you foresee the outcome so easily, milady?" He studied me with wise eyes.
"I foresee you in twenty years dandling a grandchild on one knee while your children range around you," I replied, feeling filled with an odd certainty. "Phred, I think--I think you will survive this. Gondor will survive. Above that, I cannot truly say."
He nodded, "Just so, Milady. Just so."
We fell silent, after that.
Finally, all seemed ready. And Aragorn set trumpeters and heralds. And their voices rang out hollowly through the surrounding area. A sort of sick feeling went through me: dread. Perhaps more than dread. For despite my words to Phred, I could see the death of everything we had strived for coming, and the balance that it hung by was so tiny, so given to shift and change...
"Marya?"
I jerked myself back from that precipice of hopelessness and grinned lopsidedly at Phred. "Yes."
And the silence which had settled after the trumpetings was broken by loud drumming, rolling around us as if driven. And perhaps it was. I closed my eyes for an instant, then opened them to find the middle door of the Black Gate had been thrown open. An embassy emerged.
The head of this assemblage was a rather large man, his body clad in pure-black-tarnished steel. I eyed the beast he rode, and wondered if its lineage included the creatures the Nazgul flew upon.
"Is there anyone in this rout with authority to treat with me?" His voice was mocking and almost lifeless. "Or, indeed, with wit to understand me?" He eyed Aragorn, and his lips curved, the teeth beneath gleaming oddly, "Not thou, at least. It needs more to make a king than a piece of elvish glass, or a rabble such as this."
I nearly broke in at that, considering mocking him back, but I knew that it was not my time. This was Aragorn's moment. And he won it keenly, meeting the eyes of his harasser and giving back nought for scorn.
The mouthpiece of Sauron broke eye contact first, leaning away as if expecting a blow. And he turned craven, as well, crying out, "I am a herald and ambassador, and may not be assailed!"
"Yeah, right." I muttered.
Phred snorted softly.
"He's an idiot," I said, ignoring the continuing dialogue between the messenger and Gandalf and Aragorn. "As if we'd believe anything his lord and master would wish us to hear. Pfaugh, I say."
"M'lady speaks well," Phred replied, his eyes twinkling at me.
"Yeah." I frowned, then, eyeing the bundle of cloth the 'ambassador' was presenting as proof of the capture of a spy. And with horror I recognised the same clasp that Galadriel had gifted Gandalf and I with. Frodo's mithril was also there. "Frodo..." But, no. I could still feel him, that strange twist of a tie between us. And Sam as well. They lived, but for how long? And would knowing they were alive help Sauron's cause?
It would, I realised an instant later. Pippin sprang forward with a cry of grief. There was sadness and despair emenating from Aragorn and Legolas. Gimli was stoic. And Gandalf--there was a terrible sense of something from him. What, I did not wish to know.
"Silence," Gandalf shoved Pippin back.
"So, you have another of these imps with you!" The man laughed, and I sensed his amusement was half-pretense. "And, I say to you. Sauron does not love spies, and what your little Shire-rat's fate may be has yet to be determined."
I closed my eyes, then opened them, angry at the grief and pain this idiot was causing. "My lords," I said lazily, my voice ringing against the walls of the Morannon. "Do you listen to this liar and behemoth of iniquity, and take what he speaks as true?" My scorn dripped from my lips. I didn't have to nudge, Alayna moved forwards, silent even on the stone underfoot.
"Sullen words from a woman who should be better silent," The man returned, angry gaze meeting mine. Then his lips curled cruelly. "Still, I think we shall make you a part of the terms. For the release of our prisoner, I shall tell you what--"
"No, no, no," Shaking my head, I shouldered past the honor-guard about the leaders of the West. "This is very pathetic. Is this all you have to offer?"
He drew himself up, "That may cost you an arm, my *lady*. Now, the--"
I raised my hand. "Talk to the hand, dumbass, 'cause the face ain't listenin'."
::...So, when were you a fly girl?::
Before the mouthpiece could recover from his outrage, I laughed. The sound belled outwards, ringing against the surrounding hills and walls, the mail and armour, and the helms of the company that had approached us. "You are like insignificant worms." I paused. "Y'know, I've always wanted to say that."
Gandalf caught my arm in a vice-like grip, his face pale. "Silence yourself, woman."
"Never." I twisted free, then turned and smacked a kiss across his lips. "For one thing, talk is cheaper than blood."
A sound pierced the sky, a whistling noise that made the hair on the back of my neck stand fast. There was no other warning than that. Magic shrilled along my nerves and a lance of power slammed into the paving in between our two parties. Sauron was impatient. I ignored it as the horses around Alayna and I bucked and danced, shying away from the bits of flaming stone.
"Is that the best you can do?" I asked the mouthpiece conversationally, riding towards him directly over the still-smoking patch of ground. "Because. Really? It's pathetic."
Without waiting for his reply, I drew level and plucked the bundle of clothing from him. "I think this belongs to us. Why don't you go back to your master and tell him that the men of the West wish to speak to him. And him alone."
He reached out for me, and I dodged backwards, giggling. "Not so fast, Romeo. Besides," I wrinkled my nose. "You need a bath."
A twist of power into the air, a soft command, and a shower of soapy water with lemon juice cascaded over the mouthpiece of Sauron. Alayna laughed in my head, the amusement coloured orange with maliciousness.
And something grabbed at me, reaching out frantically as if screaming for help. I reeled, nearly falling from the saddle as the world devolved into the utter chaos of battle. Or perhaps I'd lost time. It made more sense, because Pippin was missing, Aragorn and the leaders were standing on one of the hills watching the commotion. And I must have frozen--this was wrong. It felt wrong.
Why was I sitting still as a statue while people died around me?
Sound smashed into me, then, men and creatures screaming as they died and fought. There was mud under their feet churned with the blood of those already dead or dying. Under Alayna's hooves.
Reality snapped into place, and we moved, smashing into the cave troll advancing towards a grouping of infantry. "Back!" I cried, standing in the saddle and swinging. My sword cleaved through armour into tough hide, the weight of the creature falling forwards. Alayna danced backwards, taking me with her. I sat down abruptly into the saddle again, sword held out and dripping with dark blood.
::Duck.::
The massive fist would have taken my head off, but the creature was down, dying as the infantry surged onto it, burying it beneath them in a frenzy of stabbing.
Clockwork, then, well-oiled machine. Or was it blood that moved the gears around as we fought and killed, until both of us were coated in things not meant to see.
At some point, I dove from the saddle, and stood back to back with Eomer. Then he and Aragorn ranged off and I was alone again, Alayna disported herself amongst the orcs where she didn't have to worry about losing her rider.
I dodged an arrow, its feathers skimming my left ear. A knife took out the bowman and I moved on. From the south I suddenly sensed something--Frodo and Sam and someone else. A battle of good, evil, magic and Destiny. I hate Destiny. And Sauron was noticing it, turning to it like a giant behemoth surprised by a tiny dolphin at its side.
His realising what was going on was not supposed to happen. The battle commencing so far from me needed to finish without the evil man's interference. A distraction was required.
With a devilish grin I gutted the orc in front of me, using its death to fuel the closing of the circuit that hung over Minas Morgul.
For a moment, silence reigned across the magical plain. A single solitary moment of peace and quiet that probably felt wonderful to any tapped into it. And then the other shoe dropped.
The power woven into Minas Morgul blazed out in a flash more brilliant than the sun as it tore through, reweaving the fabric of the citadel as I'd commanded it to do so. And Sauron took the bait. He turned away from the slopes of Mount Doom, and focused his mind further afield, towards the city of his Nazgul.
I smirked as I spun and decapitated the man about to club me. And the ground under my legs rolled, buckling my knees and dropping me unceremoniously onto my face.
A desperate reaching shrieking thing clawed into my mind, crying for release and I recoiled, jerking to my knees under the onslaught. "My brain." I snapped, pulling my shields tightly around my mind. The dirt I knelt in *moved* and I realised what had cried out, what I was touching. What had stolen time from me minutes--hours?-- before.
Mordor itself wanted rid of its despot. The land craved release and cleansing.
And there was no time. It was as if a switch had been thrown. I was seeing through a hundred thousand different eyes, or perhaps only three.
Frodo was inside Mount Doom. The Ring would be destroyed. Gollum would join Destiny.
I was on my feet and running, then, blind to anything but the Black Gate. I had to reach it, before--
The first blast of Wild Magic knocked me off my feet and I skidded into an orc. He died, not even realising my presence. I scrabbled forward again, intent on the centre of the gates.
And then I stood between the sides of the gate before the Morannon. The very air vibrated and I ran my palm along my sword blade, knowing blood must seal what would come. It wasn't a long wait, barely a millisecond. A tiny moment, but it stretched into infinity as my blood started to flow, as Gollum fell into the fires of Mount Doom, the Ring suddenly becoming consumed by its creating fire. Consumed into its own destruction.
Magic rolled outwards, expanding in huge concentric circles, slamming along the magical planes and destroying everything in its path. Evil magic, death and destruction at its core, its beginning.
Sauron was trying to take the world with him as he died.
I swung diagonally, mind and sword cleaving the air in ragged diagonal stripes, delving in-between the spaces of magic. The circle fractured, the magic scattering in a suddenly random pattern. My other hand caught at the pieces, sucking them in and spitting them out again in a woven whole. Fast, so fast, I had to be. Because there was no time in this moment between moments.
Four hands wouldn't have been fast enough, but I held on, pouring the magic back into the land and sky, the trees which suddenly appeared in one wave. The birds, the flowers--I poured and wove, dissolving tens of thousands of centuries in one tiny moment of exploding tapestry.
I fell, magic flowing in and out of me as I shaped the weft and line into what I willed. What the land demanded.
And when there was no more thread and no more time, when all the random bits had found a better place, I thrust my sword into the ground to the hilts and curled around it as the world went black.
My last thought was that, today, Mordor felt like daisies.