Title: Gil-galad's Progeny
Author name: Cloudy Day
Author email:
Category: Romance/Action/Adventure/Drama
Rating: PG-13 (rating may go up)
Chapter 00: Prologue - Run
Spoilers: Just about everything in LOTRs and then some!
Disclaimer: See Preface
Author's Note: Here it is people, the first exciting installment of Gil-galad's Progeny. Though it's not a chapter, it took me forever just to get the intro perfect. (Yes, when it comes to art, music, and writing, I am a perfectionist...just don't talk to me about cleaning) Anyways, the story starts off in 'New-Earth'. About 5020 years after the war of the Ring. This is an intro on the main character, and a peek into her world before we get to our favorite place: Middle-Earth. After this prologue, the story will pick up speed, don't worry.
Oh, and PS... This prologue is long, but it has a lot of information, so please, once again, don't skip!
NOTE: Story Revised as of 12/3/06
Symbols:
'blah' - Thoughts
Gil-galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
the last whose realm was fair and free
between the Mountains and the Sea.
His sword was long, his lance was keen,
his shining helm afar was seen;
the countless stars of heaven's field
were mirrored in his silver shield.
But long ago he rode away,
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Mordor where the shadows are.
as translated by Bilbo Baggins
in The Fellowship of the Ring/ I chapter 11/ A Knife in the Dark
"...and latest of all the Keepers of the Three Rings rode to the Sea, and Master Elrond took there the ship that Cirdan had made ready. In the twilight of autumn it sailed out of Mithlond, until the seas of the Bent World fell away beneath it, and the winds of the round sky troubled it no more, and borne upon the high airs about the mists of the worlds it past into the ancient West, and an end was come for the Eldar of story and of song."
As the girl finished reading, she closed the book The Silmarillion with a sigh. She couldn't help but feel a tug at her heart at the loss of the Elves in the world.
Though of course, such beings were but myths and legends, but the book she held in her hands was so... real.
Middle-Earth.
What the world once was, for the girl reading The Silmarillion lived now in New-Earth.
It had been called that for the last 3000 years, and no man held any written proof of the truth in the years before it.
In The High Tower of The Kings (A historical museum in the middle of the city in which she lived) there were artifacts of course, but the history in words was lost. The languages evolved, and the want for scriptures and folklore had been forgotten.
The man whom had written The Silmarillion claimed to have translated one of the old lore books into English, but nobody believed that it was possible. "Who could translate a language that diminished over the last 5000 years?" They scoffed. (For the people of New-Earth were very sensitive about their history and heritage, considering no one truly knew how the world began.) The man that wrote the book was severely discouraged by the blatent disbelief and doubt in the readers of his book, so he never bothered to translate again.
Of course in the heart of one girl, it was believed to be real. One girl who grasped her copy of The Silmarillion firmly in her hands.
Her name was Elizabeth Johnson, but she preferred to be called Beth. Beth just turned 18 a little over a month previous, and was very adamant about getting out of school. One school in particular: Grove High.
"Elizabeth? Did you hear me?!"
Beth's head snapped up from her gaze (which had been fixed upon her book) up to see her History teacher glaring at her fiercely.
"Um...what?" Beth asked apprehensively as she slowly began to slide her book off her desk. Of course the teacher noticed.
"What is it you have here?" The teacher (who's name was Mr.Satore) asked... or rather, demanded, as he snatched the book out of Beth's hands. Beth made a move to grab it back, but the he held it out of reach. Mr.Satore glanced at the cover of the book.
"The Silmarillon? Are you truly reading this disgrace of literature? This false history?" The teacher said, laughing as if it were some sort of joke. Beth felt her classmates eyes on her.
The teacher turned his attention back to Beth, who was getting angry with her teacher's antics, and took offense to what Mr. Satore said about her book.
"What have you got to say for yourself, Elizabeth? Why would you keep such a book?" The teacher said, waving The Silmarillion in front of Beth's face, as if she didn't know what book the teacher was talking about.
"I keep it because I enjoy reading it, and it holds some sentimental value to me. May I please have it back? Then you can continue with your lesson. I am sure you are wasting important classroom time." Beth told the teacher, trying to keep her anger in check. Some students snickered.
Mr.Satore scoffed at this, and dropped the book onto her desk as if it was poison. "Keep it if you must, but never bring that poor excuse of a novel into my classroom again! Honestly, do your parent's know you have that?" He went on, saying remarks that angered Beth more and more by the second. Of course there was no need for him to, but Mr.Satore really had it out for Beth. He never liked her, (he thought she was an odd child, who should have been home-schooled and influence other students with her ways), and he was stubborn and arrogant to boot.
Finally, Beth stood up and slammed her hand on her desk. The people around her, including her teacher, now looked in surprise at Beth.
"I don't need to take any of this from you. 'Disgrace of literature' my ass! Just because you do not find that book pleasing, does not give you to the right to push your opinions on me as if they were law." She said with ice in her voice. "I'm leaving!" Beth said, as she grabbed her book from off her desk, and stormed out of the room. She could faintly hear the sound of her teachers voice saying "D minus student...it's no wonder..." and the class's laughter as she ran down the hall to her locker.
She quickly did her combination, threw open her locker grabbing her backpack, and then slammed the locker. Making her way out of the hall, and down the steps of her school, she began to walk home.
Now, Beth hadn't always had an easy life. In fact, as far back as she could remember, she had NEVER had an easy life.
Her father died in a car accident when she was young. It had been very hard on her. Beth's mother worked from early in the morning to late at night since then, so Beth never really saw her. Her mother never really paid attention to her, replacing her husband with work. Beth felt like she lived alone.
Since she was alone most of the time, her social skills were... less the desireble. She was very shy, but she longed for friends. Sadly, since she had no clue how to really act like a normal teenager, most of her peers found her freakish, and shunned her. Beth gave up on trying to have friends, and decided to devote her time to books.
She looked normal enough. Straw-blonde hair, hazel eyes, pale skin, and was very athletic. She also wore normal clothes... nothing extreme, (mostly t-shirts and jeans), But it wasn't her appearance that weirded people out.
It was just her. Her personality. Her likes and dislikes. In one word she was...peculiar.
Of course peculiar is a suitable word for Elizabeth Johnson.
She enjoyed nature in all aspects, often taking entire afternoons to walk through the park by her home. When anyone tried to make idle talk with her, she would often say things like: "Isn't the the sun brilliant today? It is as if she is smiling upon us..." And that's when people would walk away, and some would even shout "HIPPIE!" back to her, and laugh.
She singed... a lot. Not that she had a bad singing voice, (in fact she had quite a pleasent one), but she made up her own songs, and about the oddest things. Sometimes people would catch her sitting under a large tree, singing about something as simple as the trees around her or the clouds in the sky. Of course when Beth noticed someone was watching her, she blushed a deep red, and ran off.
It was no wonder that people thought her strange.
You know that feeling you get...where you don't feel like you belong? That was Beth's life. She felt like a stranger on New-Earth, and didn't like it. She didn't feel at home at all. Beth felt like she was living a different life... and sometimes she would get dreams...
Beth made it home shortly after her departure from the school. She went around the rear of the house and unlocked the back door and stormed inside, tossing her backpack to the side. She knew her mother was not at home, and ran upstairs to her room, where she flopped on her bed, and closed her eyes.
'Why is my life this way? What have I done wrong?' She thought in despair as she thought about her life. Beth buried her face in her pillow, fighting back tears.
Her father was dead, her mother might as well have been dead, she had no friends, and the only joy in life she found was in books and nature. She felt alone. She felt like a freak.
'Maybe I am a freak.' She thought with a feeling of dread.
She soon fell asleep.
Dream Sequence
Beth was alone. Standing in a thick golden forest. There was a bitter wind blowing through her hair. Tears cascaded down her cheeks. She needed to leave, she needed to go somewhere new. In her heart she knew there was nothing left for her there.
Turning to her right she suddenly found herself in a great hall. It was colder then the forest. Everything was made of stone and black marble. There seemed to be a thin mist blanketing the floor. She started to walk forward. Looking around her she could see spirits of the deceased people.
Then she saw a large man. He seemed to glow with a great grim power as he was looking a woman who was laying on a bed of stone. She was breathtaking.
She had long silvery hair, and the palest skin Beth had ever seen, in a simple white gown. She too glowed, like the man, but she seem to shine with a different light. The man seemed to be saying something, but Beth could not understand. Suddenly the woman opened her eyes, and arose from the bed.
The man led her away from the hall to a giant door made of the finest wood and gold. The woman suddenly grew fearful, and jerked away from the man, and ran to another door as quick a lightning, and ran inside, shutting it behind her. The slam of the door made an ominous echo as the man needlessly ran to the door, for it was too late.
The man had a look of despair and disbelief. The door the woman ran into was a plain door, just a bit smaller to the other that she had been offered. Much of the wood and decorative painting on the door she entered was chipping off, and the hinges look rusty.
Beth blinked and found herself in a beautiful building surrounded by plants and trees. A man with long dark hair stood there staring off into the distance, with a look of grief upon his face. The grief of losing someone he cared for.
Beth moved forward to comfort the man, when suddenly, she awoke.
End Dream Sequence
Beth awoke with a start. Sitting up in bed, she glance outside her window. It was sunset. Hopping off her bed she stretched. 'Another odd dream...' She thought, as she walked over to her closet to get some more comfortable clothes on.
Beth often had odd dreams, and they almost always ended with that dark haired man staring into the distance...
Opening the closet door, she pulled out a light blue silk nightgown. It was her favorite, and one of her rare guilt-gifts from her mother. It had bell sleeves, a swooping V-neck, and it went all the way to the floor. She loved it a lot, but let's just say it wasn't something she would wear to a slumber party. (If she ever got invited to one.)
Quickly changing her clothes, she walked downstairs to find something to eat. Opening her refrigerator she found some an apple, and washed it in the sink. Taking it over to the couch in the other room by the front door, she began munching on it. But that's when she heard a noise.
At first she thought it was just something outside, but then she realized that it was her back door opening. Beth held her breath.
'I didn't lock the back door!' She thought with sudden dread.
She could hear rustling in the backrooms, the sound of glass shattering, and drawers opening and slamming close. The sound came closer...
Slowly she got up, and put down her half-eaten apple. She walked towards the front door, cautious not to make any noise. If she could leave the house completely, she knew she could make a run to one of her neighbor's houses where she could get help.
Her hand reached for the front door's handle... and that's when she saw him. A callous man, dressed in ragged clothes, staggered into the front room, clearly intoxicated, and stopped short, staring at Beth. His eyes were cold and beady, staring at Beth with malice. He held a kitchen knife in his hand.
Beth stood paralyzed in fear.
"Come here girl..." He said, his oily voice making her cringe in disgust. She didn't move.
The man became impatient. "I said come here bitch!" He shouted, gripping the knife tighter. Waking out of her stupor, Beth looked at her options. She could either go to the man wielding the knife, or she could try to make a run for it. She chose the latter.
Swinging the front door open with all her might she dashed outside, in her nightgown, in her bare feet, into the twilight.
Beth ran down the street, behind her the man yelled a string of curses, she then heard him run after her. Her heart jumped.
Her feet ached from running on the asphalt and rocks barefoot, her feet slapping on the ground with every step. The footsteps behind her became louder as she heard something that sounded like "I've got you..."
Forgetting her plan to run to the neighbor's, Beth took a sharp right into the park, and ran deep into the woods, hoping to lose her pursuer. But she would get no such luck.
She suddenly felt something in her back. She didn't register the pain until she was already on her knees, bleeding. The pain washed over her back in waves, as she crumbled to the ground. The last thought that went though her head before she lost consciousness was: 'Is this the end?'
And she knew no more.
Author's Note: Phew! That took a bit. Now I can work on the real fun stuff.
As always people, R&R! (Read and Review!)
I accept constructive criticism, and of course complements! Thanks!