Deep Water Rising

Long ago a shadow fell across the fairest faces and bled the grace from the wisest hearts.

A/N: This is a fanfiction that separates itself very much from the works of Tolkien, who seemed to have a very definite image in his mind of what things become when destroyed by evil. No doubt, for the most part, he knew what he was talking about. But strange little me just can't drop the what-ifs that I dig up when I search through the delicate fibers that give life to a story. And there's just this one little thought that keeps resurfacing in the back of my mind - elves heal. It isn't just regular healing, renewing a few blood cells or growing new skin over a scratch. As long as their body lives, as long as their spirit remains, as long as they want to be mended, they won't even be impaired by their injuries for long. The orcs came from the elves, tortured and twisted beyond any resemblance, but not killed - in fact, they thrived. And there are several crucial things which must exist within a race for it to survive in the least, things that are never mentioned by Tolkien, yes, but things that are implied if you know anything about the way society is maintained. Things that refocus the primeval ideas interlaced within the threads of our most beloved tale, and things that just might fill in some of the virtually non-existent other side of this all so black-and-white legend. This is my portrayal of what might have been, the unseen, the unknown. And all I can say is, what if?

((a.k.a. - I basically made the orcs into severely humanized elves, which is, in part, what they are. If you don't like it, please go away! Flames give me too much immoral inspiration...))

Disclaimer: What Tolkien owns, he owns. What he doesn't own, I own. Remember that I fabricated a lot for this story, including many orcish and elvish customs, and you've got yourself a disclaimer. Simple as that.

Chapter 1

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Five children sat on the ancient stones at the water's edge, making pictures of the broken, weathered boulders in their minds, imagining a fish there, or a face there, as they paused in their endless roaming of the great deep. The dark walls of hard earth reached out toward them all about the pool, the silent guardians of Moria's children. There had been seven of us, all together. My two eldest brothers no longer took to gallivanting about the mines as we did. They were already young men near their prime, with many more duties to look to now. But we had come to accept it, as one by one our brothers left our feral tribe to join the harsh world of the grown.

Seven children, seven fledgling orcs. I was the youngest, no more than a handful of years to my name at the time, though we could hardly have known for certain. It's hard to count the risings of sun and moon within the eternal dark of Moria. They stopped trying long ago. And so I have no idea how old I might be.

But in those days of my childhood, I was also the only daughter of the house. My youngest brother was not but half a day older than me, though those who were present at our birth say that this moment seemed like to an eternity, thinking both I and my mother might be lost. No one had thought that Tagar would birth another child. Five is quite a good number of fine young sons indeed. But the birth of twins, such a rare, powerful portent, was not to be expected at all. And at last, a girl-child. The seventh child. The cursed child. My mother named me Erashnak.

My twin's name was Erudak. It is said that twins of two genders will look no more alike than any brother or sister. But this was not so, not for Erudak and I. We shared nothing. He had our mother's strong features, but his was not the graceful strength of a lady, but the pending prowess of a warrior. His skin, unlike mine, was a fine, marbled black. When grown, I would be near a head taller than him. And yet, he would double me in stature. His was an unwithstandable smile, and the most charming golden eyes. Yellow like the sun as it blazes its last fire before the fall of night. His hair was a wild, untamable mass of brilliant black, a silver streak flowing down behind his left ear. It was not the silver of an old man, but the silver of our noble line, a rare gift indeed. The one thing, beyond our hearts, beyond our blood, that we shared. It had been long since one had been born with this strange feature - one every generation, until now. Our uncle, the lord of our house, had been the last. Much could be expected of Erudak.

No, if I were to choose one among my brothers whom I was most like, it would be Kirag. And yet we were nearly as different in appearance as I to my twin. As I was to every other orc. But he, my dear heart, and I, the cursed seventh child, were so alike, that even the very stones of our deep and lightless world seemed to whisper of how these two creatures must have been fashioned from one same soul, the same fragment of the vast thought that was the beginning of all things. We were the same being, dwelling in two bodies, in two forms so different, they could be of two races.

His hair was darker than mine of course, though not quite full black, with none of my hair's lighter tones and gleams. But in height we could almost be expected to be the same, for he as well was too tall for our kind (as was my mother and uncle, and all of my brothers, a quite common distinction of our line, save in him it was the easiest to see). But his skin was not the same pale shade as mine, both lighter and darker than life should rightly be, but just as fine a black as any good orcish man. I watched him, that long ago day, as he sat on a stone a bit higher than all the rest of us, silent and still as the hard earth beneath us, with his eyes trained to the water's dark, untouched surface.

It was this, our eyes, our silences, our observing natures, our deep dreams, that made us more like twins than Erudak and I would ever be. They were the exact same, our eyes, a strange and vivid hue. One could not tell where white ended and color began. It just flowered in from the black that centers every eye, a blue like deep water. Like looking down into the depths of a limestone spring, as our mother might put it. They were the kind of eyes that bore so much more than the tiny surface window could show. Deep, endless wells. Not the eyes of an orc. Any yet, we were.

The three of us were seldom far apart. As the youngest of the family, we had learned to rely upon each other very early in our short lives. We talked together, though any other might hear only silence. Distance was no matter. Our hearts could hear each other's words, though they seemed deeper than words, as if we were always together, as we were at that moment. Kirag sitting above us, silent, Erudak and I at his side, watching the flicker of the pale, blind fish below the surface of the lake just as he. If Erudak was not as close as Kirag and I, he did not complain. We had only each other. He had everyone. This we had long ago come to understand.

Ashraz and Lugdûl didn't mind our silence. Indeed, they had become quite interested in the turning of stones, searching for the small crawling things that dwelled in the dark, making quite enough noise to scare away any that might have resided there. Erudak's quick, neat fingers, longer than what was normal, were weaving a crown from strands of dark-and-damp-loving lichen, paying no heed to the antics of our older brothers, who had ceased their now futile search only to tumble into a patch of loose rubble as they wrestled over nothing at all. It was clear that our break had lasted too long - they were restless to explore.

"Let's go," said Ashraz, the eldest, as he finally managed to push off his younger brother. He was a warrior to be true, cast from the same mold as our father. Impatient, full of energy always, unable to sit and be still as his three youngest siblings. Now that Caragburz no longer came with us, Ashraz, with his unruly head of loose black waves, was even more impatient. Being the eldest of our little wandering band could not have been easy for him. Having the soft-voiced Caragburz with us had always meant that there was something to see, some reason to keep walking, to travel soft and quiet. Now that Ashraz had taken charge, with no one to check his endless enthusiasm, our ventures were most often erratic - long sprints in the misty flats, short swims in chill waters, endeavors scaling rock and stone as if we were not children, but a herd of wild things indeed. But still, no one complained. Often enough, once even Ashraz had tired out with a day of running free, we would come and rest by the lake shores again and watch the pale fish glide about for a time before we must return to the inner chambers, where we lived.

"Go where?" panted Lugdûl, a long-boned boy whose lanky appearance promised a tall stature as well - he would not be as strong as his older brothers. His was an innocent mind. His was the wish of nothing more than to find the answer to the question, what if? He and the brother before him were too different for them to not be so close.

Erudak finished his wreath and set it gently on my head.

"A right little wood-witch, you," he said, tugging at one of my dark, ratty, not-quite-straight locks, his face all alight with a smile. It was his way to ignore the world around him for these brief lapses, as if we were the only ones there.

"Ssh."

We all glanced at Kirag, wondering why we had been silenced. He nodded toward the pool, and we looked in just enough time to see a silvery shimmer disappear beneath the surface, ripples flowing out from where the creature had gently touched the air.

"A sea-elf?" I breathed, and Erudak chuckled.

"Perhaps it was a great water worm," said Ashraz. "We should go before it decides to come back and eat us. Era would make a tasty little snack. Let's go up to the old spring, the one where they say the fairies used to dance at the full moon."

I saw a smile lighten the depths of Kirag's haunting eyes. He seemed so old to be so young. I never doubted that he had always been wise, though I see how odd it must have been for those who had not been there with us, wandering the depths of Moria.

"Perhaps," he said, though we all knew that it had been no more than a rather beautiful fish. He'd been watching it swim about for quite some time, telling my twin and I how its fine coat of fish-mail would gleam, if only it would come up to the surface. The others had heard nothing of this conversation, of course, and if I wished to call it a mermaid, no one much cared. We alone could speak of elves - fairies - without spite. For we were children, and to us it was no different than talk of dragons - none of us had ever seen one. To us, they were a story. As unreal as the sun, or the stars. And did not one of us share their fairytale skin? We let each other have our dreams. One needed dreams, in the dark embrace of the mines.

But this dream was not mine. It was my curse. And I had such precious little time before my innocence was purged, and I saw things for what they really were. When I came to see the hateful, fearful glances, to hear the whispered curses, and to understand why my own kind shunned me. When all the tales would become as real as they had been unreal to our ignorant minds. But that was not today.

So it was that the five of us went off in search of the ancient fountain we alone knew of, a single clear upwelling in the sward of natural standing stones, making adventure of it even when each knew well where it was. It was wrong of us, uncouth, of course, to go talking about dancing elves as if we were no more learned than a commoner's brood, and no better than the very subject of which we joked. There were a number of elves living not so far away, and those who didn't know better might think them to be fairies, or spirits, or what have you. They most certainly didn't dance about our spring in the moonlight, if they danced at all. None of us had ever even seen one, anyway. They were of a different kind - immortal, first-born, and evil with it. They didn't come here, of course not. Not if they valued their lives. Not the elves. Such murders hated us, and we hated them in return.

And I looked like them. Almost - not quite. But close enough.

Once there was one race, and then there was two. Like the branches of the great holly trees that guard the gates of our home, separating only to spread further and further apart, even as each strives on toward the light. Everyone knew the story. And what parts we didn't know, and parts that had nothing at all to do with the subject, we made up ourselves, for love of words. For love of things that we dare not name, not even in the darkest corners of our hearts. Things that only ones such as I and my brother Kirag might tell one another.

With their quick eyes my brothers would point out stone and plant to me as we scrambled up the rising slopes before us. Soon we found the place we were looking for, the only safe path that threaded up the cliff faces not so far from our sheltered lake, the place of our hearts. Even then it was still a bit of a climb, and one never grew bored of it, though we had become quite good at scampering about the rocks in our many visits.

To this day I do not know what happened. One moment, I was walking on hand and bear foot behind Lugdûl as we scaled the steepest part of the trail, for here it went upwards when all the rest went across. Then all of a sudden, the solid rocks beneath me shifted with my weight, much less than that of the boys who had stepped on it before me, and I sat down in a very unceremonious manner. But the path was too steep for sitting down thus, and I toppled over as if I myself were no more than a stone rolling down the slope.

Erudak grabbed for me, being close behind, but his hand had hardly brushed against my arm before I had slid out of his reach. It was as if the earth had turned against me, the stones turning to a river of sand as I rolled and slid down the steep path. But soon the path was not there anymore, and I clutched at an out-thrust rock as I passed and felt it slice into my skin, unable to hold on. And then, I was flying.

The ground rose up to meet me with a loud thud. I curled up as dust and pebbles showered down on me, barely daring to open my eyes as silence came back once more. My body ached all over. It was with brimming eyes that I surveyed my new surroundings, pulling myself up to a sitting position with quavering arms, trying to find air that wasn't so choked with dust.

I was in the flat under the cliff, far away from where I had been. But this place I had never seen before. There was a cave, not far above me. Surly we would have known of it before. But I was quite certain that I had never seen anything of the sort. There was a lip of rock not far away. No doubt it had concealed the little box canyon that I was in. It must be well hidden indeed, if my brothers and I had not found it already.

I glanced down at my hands. The left one was a bit scraped, as were my arms, but on the right there was a nasty gash where the stone I'd grabbed had broken the skin. Warm blood was running all over my hand, between my fingers, dripping onto my ruined tunic. I hadn't many good clothes for scrambling about the mines. Now I had one less.

Hot tears were beginning to run down my face. We'd never come to this place before. What if my brothers couldn't find me? My legs felt all limp with tire and shock, and the momentum of my fall had finally hit me, making me feel so wretched that I could have sat there and cried until my nose ran and my head ached even more. I rose unsteadily to my feet, weaving about on fluid knees as my face screwed up, now truly crying. Orcs feared few things in life, but all bore some deep phobia of falling. And for this, at least, I was not exempt.

It was then that a shadow of movement caught my sight, blurred with blind emotion and tears. I felt someone scoop me up into their arms, whispering in a strong, soothing voice. It's alright, little bird. I'm here. Breathe deep, in slow, out slow. Calm down, little bird.

I threw my pale, thin arms around Kirag's neck, still crying into his shoulder, but trying to breathe as he said, and to concentrate of the little image that he sent me, of tiny birds pecking at seeds strewn on the stones. He had seen things like birds and stars, but I had not, and he knew well how to distract me.

That's it, little bird. Now what of this hand? We'd best be off home, and have Mother and Caragburz take a look at you. And then perhaps they will have a story for us to hear. What say you to that?

No one had expected the birth of a sixth and seventh child. It had been quite a few years after Kirag's birth that we were born. It was hard to remember, at times, that we were not three of the same birth. But no, he was quite older, and quite capable of picking me up and carrying me as if I were no more than the little bird that he called me. I think I never truly knew and cherished just how much my brothers loved me, how fiercely they protected their little, elf-like sister, how they said not a thing about how my blood was red, or how water would rush out of my eyes when my pain overflowed. But they felt it, all of them, and they would surround me with their words, their smiles, their warmth, their tales and songs. And how much I loved them, and how much I wished that I had told them just once more when I could.

I heard my brothers' voices calling out our names, trying to find us, and realized that the only reason Kirag had reached me so quickly was that he had followed me down the cliff, leaping down after me on his long legs with hardly a sound.

"We're down here," he called up at them, "back at the bend in the path. There's a wall blocking the view."

Before long the three of them had scrambled down to us, Kirag meeting them at the bend with me in his arms, curled up like a roly-poly under threat. Erudak, last up the slope, was first to reach us. "Silly wood-witch," he said in a kind voice, ruffling my hair, and I realized that I had lost my crown in the fall.

"Is she alright?" Ashraz asked at once, taking charge in his superior age. Lugdûl simply gave me a look and smiled.

"We need to take her home," said Kirag, his voice soft and expressionless as always. "She's cut her hand well enough." My sobs had faded to hiccups, and I didn't say anything, embarrassed that I had cut our escapade so short.

So it was that we headed off in the general direction of our uncle's house, many hours before we would normally consider going home. But none of my brothers complained, careful of me as if I might break in half at the slightest touch, though I knew from Ashraz and Lugdûl's faces alone that they were disappointed. Nothing phased Erudak; he was content with all things, regardless. But with Kirag - you simply couldn't tell what he truly thought of his strange little sister, though he held me close and whispered soft words to my mind.

I made a pretense of appearing asleep as my brothers entered the swath of the house, watching them disband around me in some semblance of normalcy under my lashes, though we were all going the same way, and all ended up at the same place in the end. Kirag carried me to our mother's room, a small quarter that she had kept all her life, even after she was granted a larger room with her wedding. Now it was used for many things - a retreat, a place of calm and quiet. It was a bit of a stillroom in itself, and still furnished with a bed and bench. It was the only room in the house that had no decided purpose. Our uncle liked things to have their purposes. What time we did spend in the keep, we spent here.

Kirag deposited me on the bed, sitting cross-legged beside me to hold my uninjured hand. Erudak and Lugdûl quickly stirred the dormant fireplace to life. Ashraz had disappeared to find Caragburz, and soon the two returned, Ghazkûr, the eldest of us all, surprisingly in their wake. He leaned against the wall, watching us with his solemn eyes as Caragburz brushed my hair out of the way and pulled up my chin to look at my face, giving me a knowing smile that told me to stop being ashamed, they had all fallen off something or other at one time, and some had not taken it as well as I. He, like Lugdûl, had a lighter frame than his brothers, tall and lean as a young birch. He had a handsome, angular face with an array of emotional possibilities that were enough to sooth, convince, encourage or frighten young and old alike. Wise men took his advise without question. The worst patient would calm under his far-seeing gaze. He had learned our mother's craft and more with an insatiable hunger for knowledge, a healer of great worth, and for one so young, hardly a man yet, for all that his eyes seemed so wise.

"It's alright, Era," he said in his kind, steady voice as he leaned down and took my injured hand in his own, examining the ragged edges of the torn skin. "Just a little cut. Nothing to worry about." He stood up again and walked to the other side of the room, taking down a bottle from the shelf and looking at it for a moment before setting it down and turning to throw a pinch of something on the fire. A sweet, healing smell quickly filled the room, and I felt myself calming at last, surrounded by my brothers.

Ghazkûr uncrossed his arms and walked to the other side of the bed, kneeling down to my eyelevel in one fluid motion, the hard muscles that crossed his frame just visible under his dark tunic as he reached up to tug on one of my unruly locks. "What happened?" He asked with a faint smile that told me that he knew very well what had happened. His eyes were darker than those of his younger brothers, and his features grim set, his smiles often small. He was a warrior, strong as the very foundations below us, and heir to our uncle's vast house. The first of seven, already burdened with all the responsibilities of a man. Before too long, he would be pressured to marry. And I felt as if I would loose him, when that day came. I was glad he had not been too busy to come.

"I f-fell," I chocked out, feeling new tears prick behind my eyes. His smile became broader for but a second and he shook his head, gently squeezing my arm in reassurance.

The door opened again and our mother appeared, shutting it again with her foot before setting the basin she was carrying on the table beside Caragburz. "What's wrong, Era?" she asked softly when she had turned around, gazing into my eyes for a moment before settling behind me and gathering me into her arms. This question was not meant to be answered, and she rested her chin on my head as I leaned into her warmth.

Tagar was the strength of her brother, the center of the lives of her husband and her seven beloved children. Her eyes, like the winter sun, held the world beneath the mountain in place under a mantle of strength. Her lovely face could buy the allegiance of the foulest tempered warrior or unbearably prideful lord. Her dark braids were a river of gleaming ebony, her skin the color of precious marbled stone. Her voice was enough to sooth the deepest hurt. With all our hearts, we loved her. And she loved nothing more than her family, its vast array assembled around her like a cloak. Tagar was the heart of Moria. Without her, we would have been lost. I, certainly, would have perished long ago.

Caragburz wrung out the cloth from the basin and kneeled beside me in his quiet manner, reaching out his hand so I could offer my own of free will. I flinched back and buried my face into Mother's shoulder, knowing full well that this would hurt even more than the fall. Neither Caragburz nor Tagar would lie to me in this respect. I felt Kirag's hand slide across mine as his grip changed, threading his fingers through mine. Hold on to me, he seemed to say, and the pain will be less. My left hand securely in Kirag's grasp, I held the right out toward Caragburz, and was rewarded with his smile.

Warm water flowed across the injured flesh, picking up a the taint of dreary pink as it washed the dirt away. Gently my brother scrubbed at the dry, brown blood, flaking it off to reveal the angry red of my torn skin beneath. Touch was agony, and my body stiffened in my mother's grasp as my fingernails dug into Kirag's hand. In a careful moment Caragburz was done, and I hazarded a look at what I was certain must be a profound vision of gore. A short, ragged tear had been driven into my flesh. Even as I watched, a new, slow upwelling of blood began, a very good sign.

"No stitches," said Mother.

"Not as if they would have stayed in, with Era being such a wild little thing," said Caragburz as he nodded in agreement, turning away to find a soft bandage that he wound about my hand, tying it of in a bow. "You'll have to be careful with this," he intoned, knowing full well that I would not.

"Stay inside with us the rest of the day," Mother said in her soft voice as I examined the lines of her elegant hands, my mind void of emotion now that everything was done. I nodded, for I had not planned to leave anyway, not in my currently embarrassed state.

Dismissed, my brothers disbanded save for Kirag, who still held my hand in his grasp. Erudak gave me a brilliant smile, knowing well that his constantly moving mind was better off away from this still and silent place. We let him go, knowing he was right. The stillroom often bored him. Caragburz and Mother had already turned away, working at one infusion or another, saying or asking something of us every now-and-then, and soon I had forgotten my hurt, laughing or sitting in our perfect silence in turns until the world seemed right again, and I was happy as ever I was, in the dark beneath the earth, in the mines of Moria.

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A/N: Well, there you have it. And I do plan to write a good deal more about Moria, but it should only take three or four chapters at most. My goal is to make people see things a bit differently than they normally would. Perhaps you'll notice a few strange things... I'm not going to point them out for you. What do you say? Like it? Hate it? Send me a review! Or don't, and feed my social ostracism complex. It's up to you. Only you can prevent writer's block. (I know. Sorry. I'm leaving now.)