Into The Shadow
By The Last Evenstar
A/N: Yes, I'm horrible; I can't believe I took so long to update.
Also, if you got an Author Alert yesterday or the day before, it was all a mistake. The Converted and ME132 dared me to post a fake chapter where everyone died and the world imploded. I, having consumed unhealthy amounts of Reese's Pieces, sadly agreed. When I realized what I'd done, I took it down immediately. So, apologies to everyone. BIG apologies.
Also, this chapter has some major Silmarillion references. But as long as you know the basic story of Lúthien and Beren, you should be all right.
Also, this chapter introduces a tiny twist of AU – in that Sauron finds out Aragorn's true heritage. Don't worry, it doesn't change the story, and the palantír incident in RotK should be able to proceed normally.
Finally, this chapter is dedicated to Kayleigh (ME132), who I had the pleasure of meeting in person this weekend. I'm happy to confirm that she is not a 65-year-old pervert with a sharpened child-killing stick. And she didn't even care that I was.
Just kidding. Maybe.
Chapter Fifteen: Leithian [Meaning 'release from bondage', a reference to the Lay of Leithian, the story of Lúthien and Beren in poetic form (from The Lays of Beleriand in the Histories of Middle-earth series)]
"Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape,
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps."
-The Lay of Leithian
She took his hand, and he led her away, away to a grove of trees long since forsaken. "Dance with me."
"There's no music," she protested, a laughing lilt to her voice.
His tone was more commanding this time. "Dance with me."
There was no laughter in her eyes as she slowly took his hand. In a moment, sky and trees had become a blur, and there was only him, twirling her about to a soundless melody.
He spun her away once, and for a moment she was cold and alone. But seconds later she was back in his arms, in a warm, firm grasp that gave no intention of letting go.
Their feet moved in perfect rhythm, and their eyes were locked in a heated gaze from which Arwen could not turn away. As they whirled round and round, she understood, finally, why Tinúviel needed no music for her dance.
It was all contained in her lover's eyes.
How long they danced there, holding each other tighter than tight, she never knew. But when dawn rose over Lothlórien, she was there in his arms, and thought to herself for the first time, He is my love.
And she would dance again, the dance of the same Tinúviel, and the dance for the same man. But this time she had no more than memory to sing to her.
She would plan her escape by night, but all hours were night in this vile land. She had only her Elven intuition to guide her as she donned the cloak.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for its making. The hours were long and treacherous, and oftentimes the extent of her efforts would leave her weak and immobile on the cold dungeon floor. She knew then, writhing in anguish, that her deeds would surpass those of Tinúviel, knew that in her cloak of hair was being spun a thread of Arda's destiny that would enmesh itself in the lives of everyone she knew and loved.
There was no loom, and there was no magic wine or honeyed water, only enchantment centuries old, and a will greater than that of Sauron himself.
And so it was that in the hour night met dawn, Arwen Undómiel made her escape.
Elrohir stopped him at the border. "Why do you go, if there is no hope?"
The Ranger's eyes were downcast as he swung a quiver of arrows onto his shoulders. "There is no hope in anything now. In days filled with darkness, you cannot rely on hope."
"Estel." Elrohir's pain was evident. "You are our hope."
Aragorn looked up suddenly, and Elrohir was met with intense gray eyes that for all their beauty were blank with despair. "What is it that you would hope for, brother?"
The Elf fought to meet his gaze. "I hope for those who live long after your death to lead a life free of the strife that surrounds us. My hope is not for me, but for the future of all Arda." He was pleading, desperate for the Man to understand. "There are greater things being decided than you can comprehend. Have you nothing, no one, to live and fight for?"
His eyes gleamed brighter for an instant as he breathed a single word. "Her."
"She is gone." Elrohir's voice was sharper than he intended, trying to mask his own hurt. "She is gone, Estel. The Mirror does not lie."
Aragorn's head snapped around, and his eyes were wide and frantic. "Neither does my heart."
"You're throwing your life away," Elrohir called after the retreating figure. "Is it not enough that we have lost her? Nay, we must loose you, too?"
The man who replied was haunted in every sense of the word. "I am already lost."
She stole across the plains of Gorgoth like a shadow in the night. Feather-light toe tips echoed soundlessly through the rough, rocky terrain. She fled with the wind, dancing and weaving in the direction that she felt a glimpse of warmth; of hope.
The darkness which had encaged her all these months was suddenly her ally. Hidden by her hair-wrought cloak, she glided through the shadows to the barren edges of Mordor.
This is it, she told herself. Just a stretch of plain to freedom.
All of a sudden, a great light burst upon her. As her mind frantically pleaded with Elbereth to make it untrue, she knew in her heart that she would have to face him. She had known all along, somehow, but in her denial she had found bravery, and for that she could only thank the Valar.
It is not over, she told herself.
The voice echoed not in her ears, but in her mind. It was cold as steel and grating, too, like a rock on metal. "You believe that one, cursed by his own ambition to have naught but sight, would fail to see you?"
She stood ramrod straight on the threshold of Mordor, trying desperately to cling to the tangible world.
"You did not guess," the voice continued, filled with mockery, "that after tens of thousands of years, I might finally be wise to the tricks of Elf-maidens?"
She steeled herself, and looked right at it: the Great Eye. Wrought with fear, she cried out, "I do not fear you!"
The fiery chasms of Orodruin paled next to the Sauron's rage. "This shows, then, that you have not wisdom, for the wise do well to fear me."
"Then I have not wisdom," she retorted numbly, knowing that death was more comfort than the cold terror she faced now.
"Indeed," the eye responded with a slow, menacing delicacy. "A wise maiden would have surrendered by now to the demands of the one who is going to kill her."
She felt her hand go involuntarily to the pendant around her neck. It was over. He was going to take it. He was going to take everything. As she closed her eyes in preparation for the horror to come, one word escaped her lips. "Why?"
Sauron paused. For a moment, she sensed something that felt like uncertainty. "Why?"
The cold mockery in his tone sent her back into spasms of fear. "Why? Why this? Why did you go through Arda and Aman to capture an elleth?" She regained some of her former poise as she spoke. "Why me?"
The Eye hissed with wrath. "Ages ago, your foremother achieved the impossible by escaping me. And my vengeance will not be sated until I see you, her very living image, reduced to nothing in the dark confines of Mordor."
Arwen recoiled. Lúthien? He wants me for what Lúthien did to him? The thought was impossible to process. That revenge, a concept so petty and human, might extend its reach to the Dark Lord of Mordor was laughable, even.
He snarled. "Great Eldar than Tinúviel have fallen at my hand. Did my power not smite Felagund? Was Gil-galad not desecrated by my might?"
Arwen's blood boiled as he named her ancestors and King. No one had the right to speak so of those so valiantly dead. If not for Finrod Felagund, Arwen herself may not have been alive. If not for Gil-galad, this evil presence might rule Middle-earth.
She found her fear slowly subsiding to anger. Such arrogance was bold for one who had been defeated time and again, banished into the darkest realm in Arda. He could not take Lúthien; he would not take her.
She felt her hand tighten around the pendant. In one swift, enraged motion, she tore it from her neck and flung it into the dirt.
"In your searing jealousy you may claim a token, a prize," she screamed at him, the last shards of fear slipping cleanly away, "but never shall you look upon the daughters of Lúthien without their dignity! You cannot break my sprit as you so imagined, not while the blood of Arda's heroes runs strong in my veins!" She paused, gasping for air. "To think – to THINK! – that this whole affair was wrought for petty revenge! To think that you frightened me into sacrifice and restored to Hope of the Dúnedain for the sake of vengeance!" She felt like laughing, like breaking into the hysterical tears that had built up inside her since the name of Felagund was spoken. That she would die, that she would suffer greatly for this, seemed a far and distant thought as she finally broke down.
Sauron, however, seemed amused by her mirth. The Eye into which she had laughed seconds ago suddenly gleamed in a manner that could only be described as evil. Arwen caught her breath.
He spoke. "The Hope of the Dúnedain, say you?"
Arwen gasped. Her heart gave a last pounding thud and seemed to cease beating. I've ruined it, she gasped. Gondor will fall because of me.
Sauron, sensing her sudden fear, laughed mercilessly. "So in the keeping of great tradition, the Lady of Imladris loves none other than Isildur's heir." She could feel his pleasure at this turn of events. "But you would not be so foolish as to think there was hope, my little elleth? With you dead -" He laughed again. "With you dead, this Númenorean chieftain will be a broken man. A man dead in all but reality. His grief will destroy him, as grief destroys all Men, for they are weak, are they not?" His tone was nothing if not certain. "And there will be no son, no heir, to come forth and defy me."
As his voice echoed in her head, dark shapes surrounded her. Orcs, advancing by the dozen, and all armed with sharp, jagged blades.
Arwen's mind raced. Somehow, in this new, certain death, it landed on one night in Lothlórien.
She took his hand, and he led her away, away to a grove of trees long since forsaken. "Dance with me."
"There's no music," she protested, a laughing lilt to her voice.
His tone was more commanding this time. "Dance with me."
She knew, then, that escape was not easy, but nor was it impossible.
And she carefully lifted one foot.
10 reviews has the next chapter up before I leave for the beach on Thursday.