Disclaimer: Tolkien owns it. I'm just borrowing.
Rating (this chapter): PG-13 for violence and references to rape.
Timeline: Still T.A. 265, for the record.

Author's Note: I think I said that we'd never see a Curuan point-of-view. This teaches me to never say never... :)

Shadow Child
Chapter XVI: Possession

When Findur had gone, Curuan returned to his rooms and slept for a long time. It had been impossible to get any substantial rest that past week, what with Sauron's thoughts always sweeping through his mind. With the day of the meeting between master and heir quickly approaching, Sauron's usually silent presence had become a constant, endless stream of prodding and questioning. Only now that the meeting had taken place, and Sauron was satisfied, could Curuan sleep without interruption.

Still, the question came to mind: could the Lord of Gifts not find someone else to gift with his badgering presence? Must he always be looming over Curuan's shoulder?

When Curuan allowed these complaints to surface, Sauron ignored him, or gave him a stern admonition. Without me you would be dead. Even if I had allowed your useless body to survive the terrors of Mordor, your life would be small, meaningless, of little account. Follow my bidding and it will never be so.

"Do not doubt my loyalty, Lord," Curuan would reply, and always he meant it. He had learned what pain was under Sauron's tutelage, and what power was, and that they were inseparable, and he had learned to wear this mask of age without misgivings. Surely Sauron had no more loyal servant than Curuan.

A little before dusk, he awoke. He looked down at his hands, which had seemed beautiful to his eyes that morning, and found them ugly yet with the residual lines of age. He straightened up and saw his face in the mirror across from his bed. Compared to his earlier appearance, it was startlingly smooth, but no rational being would mistake its wrinkled contours for elven-fair features.

He recalled his appearance long ago, when he had been a jewel-smith of high regard and Liniel's betrothed, and felt slightly ill.

So many desires, Curuan, chided Sauron as Curuan stood and dressed. You who have a body, when I am unhoused... should I not be envious rather than pitying?

"You are a Maia," countered Curuan aloud. He paused to wash his face and hands with water from the basin beside his bed. "You do not need a body."

Neither do you. See how it goes for you on that day, whether you be prisoner of Mandos or unhoused spirit in Middle-earth. You see my existence as straightforward, then? It is not easy to communicate thus. Many barriers must be lifted from your mind. Even that was too difficult for me four months ago. As for acting, it is utterly impossible...

Curuan tore a piece of bread from a fresh loaf and began to eat. "Then remove—" he said between bites, "a part—of my curse." He swallowed the last of his meal. "It has taught me obedience. Now it only hinders me, and squanders your powers. Lift it and regain a part of your strength."

Sauron did not reply. Curuan left his rooms, went down to the still-empty streets, and started for Findur's study, where paperwork and aides would sporadically appear, waiting for approval. When he was sure Sauron was gone, too involved in his own schemes to heed Curuan's frame of mind, he allowed his thoughts to wander.

Prisoner of Mandos, he repeated silently, and indulged briefly in the possibility of having died in Barad-dûr and found new life in Valinor, waiting for a ship that would bring two sea-gray eyes back to him. But immediately he chastised himself for harboring such thoughts. How could he begin to doubt now, with all their designs so close to fruition? Sauron had promised him restoration. That time would come, and he imagined himself when it did. His skin would be unblemished, his limbs strong and young, his hair long and dark about his face.

Now, though, he looked down at his hands once more as he ascended a spiral staircase to the study, and he could not believe they had seemed anything but ugly and misshapen. He could never touch her with those hands.

Sometimes he wanted to. Sometimes he longed to to touch her, grasp her in his arms and take from her what she had once promised him before the war and the curse and Findur.

So that is why you wish me to lift the curse, said Sauron, who had apparently been eavesdropping on the strongest of his thoughts.

Curuan entered the study, taking a seat behind the elaborately carved desk that dominated the room.

'I said I would wait," he said matter-of-factly.

Yes. You will wait, until Findur is but a symbol, a shadow of my own power. Though he is strong-willed, even now he resigns to my will, wearying of rebellion against the inevitable. In that time, the people of Eregion will sleep and Angmar will be mighty and the Nazgûl will awaken to claim it and the Dwarves will bow to promises of wealth... All will crouch in waiting, waiting for my return... Then you may do as you like.

There was a pause.

You would risk her death? If she went unwillingly...

"I was only thinking to myself," said Curuan, opening a letter from Angmar and reading of Dolgubêl's allies in Harad and the East, whom he would summon in the case of war. Ships, the old man wrote, can transport men swiftly to the coast of Lindon, where Elves do not heed such mortal matters... defenses are generally useless... Easterlings can keep Gondor at bay if Arnor is in need of their sometime ally's assistance...

He had seen Liniel lean over Findur's shoulder as he read letters behind this desk, and now Curuan imagined what it might be like to have her so close to him, her dark hair falling about his shoulder and neck, her cheek pressing against his...

It cannot be.

"You don't know what it's like..." Curuan set the letter down. "I've waited for so long, and now... now that you are finally strong enough to give her to me..."

You don't need her. You don't even want her. Only the idea of her allures you, because you cannot have her... Will you betray me in order to succumb to such mad impulses?

Curuan closed his eyes, a stern combination of fear and guilt bridling desire. "Of course not." And he meant it, how could he not mean it, how could he even consider casting away that obedience that figured as the only constant in his life?

I do greatly desire the power I can glean from you, Curuan. But you must vow to stay away from her. She must not see you. It is too early for her to begin asking questions.

Curuan felt strange relief at the mundane reasoning behind Sauron's command. "I promise," he said.

Sauron was not satisfied. There is a letter opener on Findur's desk. Take it.

Curuan picked up the small silver instrument. The handle was engraved with a vining pattern and adorned with a garnet.

Run it across the palm of your left hand. See to it that blood flows.

Curuan hesitated only long enough to wonder what this was about. Gripping the handle tightly, he made a long incision across his palm. He had to press with all his strength to cut deeply enough. Soon, blood appeared, trickling across his hand and down his wrist. When he was done, he wiped the blade on the hem of his tunic and replaced it. His hand throbbed with pain.

It hurts, does it not?

Curuan nodded quickly. "Yes."

Some may call it pain, but you shall call it ecstasy. Without it, you are dead, senseless to reality. It is everything, Curuan. It is your redemption. Now will you forget her?

"Yes," breathed Curuan.

Good. And a moment later, he felt a blinding agony sear through his limbs, so that he doubled over in pain, but did not cry out. When the pain ended and he opened his eyes, he saw the change: his hands smooth, flawless, and his limbs straight and muscular. He lifted his hands to his face and ran his fingers over unwrinkled flesh. The hair that fell about his shoulders was still gray, but darker, with a slight brown tint throughout.

He stood experimentally and felt none of the usual pains and stiffnesses that ailed him.

"Thank you," he murmured. "Thank you."

There were no muttered admonitions, no last minute threats. "Continue reading," said Sauron. "What else does Dolgubêl say?"


In all her days, Liniel had never understood what people meant in saying that art was a leisure activity. A "release", they called it, as if art might allow the artist to ascend to some unspoken realm of contentedness.

Didn't they know? Didn't they understand the desperate compulsion that an artist felt? Never a stray mark, an unplanned stroke. Colors just so. Every detail must be perfect, perfect, perfect. A release? Perhaps: in drawing she released an uncontrollable mania for precision in the only way she knew how.

Sometimes she wished she had Findur's natural aptitude for these things. He could get lost in his work for hours, choosing methods and techniques by pure instinct. Not so with Liniel. Everything was conscious, contrived, meticulously orchestrated. Sometimes she found herself trying to regulate her own heartbeat.

She stared down at the sketch she was working on in anticipation of a wall mural she thought she might like to paint in the gathering area off the courtyard, then looked up helplessly, searching for inspiration in the flat surfaces and draped fabrics of her bedroom. Findur had been given allowance to decorate the rest of the house, but the bedroom was all hers now, dominated by her favorite paintings and pieces of furniture. Findur, with his charming clutter, had not even bothered to punctuate the harmony with his own things; he spent most of his time in the front rooms and even occasionally fell asleep on a lounge in the sitting room. Henceforth, Liniel had dragged her writing desk into the bedroom and turned half of it into a studio.

Finding nothing in the decor to spark her imagination, her eyes fell back to the page before her, then shifted to the hand that held her pen, which was shaking. She sighed, dropped the pen noisily, and turned her seat away from the desk, folding her hands in her lap and staring pensively into nothingness.

She thought she might be angry with Findur, but she was not sure why. It wasn't as if he ever meant any harm. Just as his artistry was instinctive, so was his life. He just did things, blindly, with little regard for how it might affect others, or even himself. Oh, he was rarely malicious, and always was he charming, with a sharp wit, but long years had taught her the truth: these qualities only acted as a veil between the appearance and the reality of his reckless, childish behavior.

So when she idly wondered why he had not bid her farewell before departing from Imladris, it was almost impossible to discern a clear explanation. There could be any number of arbitrary, emotion-driven reasons, none of which had any real connection to his feelings for her.

She listed them in her mechanical way: Maybe he was in a bad temper. Maybe he still resents me for loving him and therefore intruding on his perfect tragedy of a life, the history of which will culminate in his return to Imladris. Maybe he feared that I would accuse him once again of being afraid. Or maybe... it simply didn't occur to him... Maybe he didn't think of me at all...

"Now who is being childish?" she said aloud with a laugh. Really. How could she doubt him now? If anything, it was she who was being unfaithful, bolstering his ambition with her own desperate love and yearning, all for her own gratification. He would be a king, and then she would be happy, not because she loved him, but because she loved him.

Findur was just another ambition of hers. She knew the list by heart. Learn all you can of the songs of enchantments. Marry Curuan and stop him from going to war - that one hadn't worked out. And then a period of utter desolation, searching, searching for a reason to her existence... A vehement hatred of Sauron and the Noldor had burned within her, for all they had done to her mother and father and Curuan, but there had been nothing to do, no goal upon which to set her eye. Years passed, and she had grown more ravenous for fulfillment.

Discover the heir of Sauron. When Curuan had approached her, looking for aid, she had managed to push her anger aside and help him, hoping to discover some strong, wise leader who could restore Middle-earth to the Silvan people...

Still, she had been alone.

Then Findur had arrived, and he had been something she had wanted, and she had taken him in the most expedient manner possible. Her husband was just another acquisition designed to appease the burning hunger inside. Surely she could not halt until she had consumed the world. Ungoliath herself was not such a glutton...

But it wasn't true. No matter how ruthless she was, she wanted things for reasons, solid reasons that she could wrap her hands about. When she bent her mind towards Findur's happiness, she did that for a reason. She did it because...

I love him.

With that small truth acknowledged, she snatched up her pen and flew down upon her art again with a fury, because she knew she could draw now, because things made sense and fit together correctly in her mind, and she loved him, and was this what Findur's mad intuition was like? At the same time, a growing fear alighted in her mind. She loved him, but perhaps he did not feel the same anymore, perhaps he had forgotten, by accident, and had let the emotion drift off beneath the burden of weightier matters...

Immediately, she strove for a logical rationale for the continuance of Findur's love for her, and found it quickly in recollections. He had said it himself, one morning, with a bag slung over his shoulder and his cloak wrapped tightly against the winter wind.

Brightened by this unexpected return to logic, Liniel smiled unexpectedly. She centered the parchment upon which she was sketching and started again, working slowly this time, with a calm, determined ease. Occasionally she paused for reflection, but that was all. It did not occur to her that this was the first time in years that she had had such a complex internal argument.

She worked diligently for nearly an hour, at which time she heard the sound of strange footsteps approaching the house.

"Findur?" she called softly, knowing very well it was not him.

A chuckle followed, and the clear strong voice from which it sprang was familiar, though she had not heard its tones for more than two hundred years.


Outside, Curuan waited, but when no further sound was to be heard within, and no face greeted him at the door, Curuan resolved to let himself in. Would he insult her overmuch with his boldness? Perhaps. Nevertheless, beguiling her seemed of less importance now that he stood before this door, the syllables of her husband's name still ringing in his ears. He would have her. It was inevitable.

As he opened the door - not bothering to close it behind him - and walked into the front room of Liniel's house, it occurred to him that he had never before been inside. Little surprise there. He was not socially visible in Ost-in-Edhil. Rumors of the curse that had disfigured him, probably proceeding from Arandule, had spread about, but his political influence was imperceptible, confined to quiet conversations in Findur's study. Even his position as steward left him as little more than a glorified secretary. He did not attend social events. He did not propose complicated agendas of internal improvement. Elves, after all, were adept at governing themselves when it came to most domestic affairs. It was trade and negotiations and expansion that Curuan busied himself with, realms in which the people of Eregion did not interfere.

Still, it was strange, he thought as he examined the decorative carvings and straight-backed chairs of the rather austere sitting room, that he had not been here even once, to speak with Findur, to exchange words with Liniel. Had he unconsciously been distancing himself from them? From her?

Quite likely. She had, after all, forgotten him, down to the sound of his footsteps. She who had once listened for them each evening... "Goodnight!" she would call to her parents as she rushed out to him. They would walk beneath the trees together, beside the mere. Even later, she had known the stiff walk of the man who approached her cottage, had run out to greet him, eyes wide and disbelieving (and not a little indignant) as they fell upon his crippled form.

Fantasy mingled with memory, so that the ever-pulsing backdrop to his thoughts grew more emphatic, less easy to ignore.

Traitor. Weak fool. Do you think you can do this thing, daring to oppose I who gifted you with this new life, without fear of retribution? You are worthless without me. Dust, and you make yourself dust with every step. Guided more by weak bodily impulses than the voice of truth. Vain, and for what? Do you think yourself handsome? Mine is the only beauty, and my pain the only ecstasy. Follow your animal cravings and all we have built will crumble... Follow this path, and you, weak fool, who think you knows suffering... you will know pain truly, pain beyond lucidity, beyond comprehension...

Empty threats, and yet they held a certain dread. He had never dared to defy Sauron like this. Disobedience felt strange, like a stiff new garment. He did not wish to be disloyal. But he could not wait, all would be well, nothing would be destroyed as Sauron feared... and he must have her...

"Curuan?"

A voice soft and terrified. He looked up and saw Liniel standing in the doorway. The expression on her face matched what he had heard. He had seen that look before, on the faces of prisoners of the Dark Tower newly captured, in the eyes of Easterlings newly arrived, waiting for the Dark Lord's commands. It was a look accompanied by silence, this waiting terror, for there was nothing else to say. In the time that passed, Curuan took in the curves and angles of her body and realized that he, too, could not speak.

The silence was punctuated by a single, horrified word. "How?"

He remembered his appearance and felt confidence return. He stepped forward, smiled. "Don't be afraid," he said calmly.

But fury only took the place of terror. "Don't lie to me, Curuan, or evade my questions. I demand to know the truth. Did... did Findur...?"

He laughed. He liked the sound of his own laughter, clear and youthful. "Surely you know that Findur's powers do not extend so far. And even if they did, why this? He's always been jealous of you and I."

Liniel was regaining her composure. Her jaw was tight, her eyes narrowed, watching him defiantly. He liked her this way. In the days before their engagement, he would tease her, asking her to lie with him and forego a ceremony, just to see this expression on her face.

"Tell me who did this to you," she repeated.

He shook his head, moving forward again. Liniel stepped back into the hallway. He could see a bedroom through the far doorway.

"Tell me who—"

Curuan interrupted. "You needn't be so contrary. It's not important how it happened. Isn't it enough to be happy for me?"

Stop now and I may spare you... Fool...

Sauron's accusations, far from swaying him, imbued him with a determination that bordered on recklessness. He strode up to her, reaching out and brushing his hand against his cheek as he had not dared in centuries.

Once again she darted out of reach, glaring at him under heavy lids. A few more steps, and she would be standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

"Why are you here, Curuan?" she demanded.

"to make a request," he answered honestly.

"Then make it."

He hesitated. "Sit down with me and we will talk."

"Tell me now. Tell me the truth. Even then I make no promises."

He laughed again. It was very funny! How ridiculous to be standing here with the thing he wanted and not taking it, to be juggling concessions instead. "Come, Liniel, you know that truth is only relative. Like promises. Hardly important." He took a step forward.

"It is to me." Liniel stepped back.

"Persistent as always! Why are you afraid? Look at me. I am almost healed. Even the man who left you alone in a cottage in Greenwood was not so youthful."

Another step, matched by Liniel's swift retreat. She had backed herself into the doorway, and now reached out and clutched the frame, as if bulwarking herself against a coming storm. "I wasn't alone. I had my mother."

"But then she left you." They seemed to be speaking the same language now, built of memories and unspoken understandings.

"Then..." She looked away searchingly. "Then I had Findur."

The glint in his eye was reply enough.

Liniel turned away almost immediately, releasing the door frame and entering the room. He caught the door handle before she could shut him out.

She glared at him over her shoulder. "Do you need it in words, then? Get out of my house, unless you decide to be upfront with me!"

He couldn't restrain himself any longer. She wanted honesty, then? He stepped forward into the room, slammed the door behind him, and grabbed her by the shoulders, clasping her to him and pressing his lips against hers.

He thought she might respond - she seemed for a moment to soften beneath his his grasp. And it was wonderful, everything he had yearned for; she was his at last.

Too soon, though, she had wormed her way out of his grip. Her jaw was set, but her eyes burned with rage.

"How dare you." She was not yelling now, no, instead her voice was a whisper, deadly cold. "How dare you think that I—"

"What?" cried Curuan. "Is the Lady of Eregion above such base longings? What has changed? Why do you resist me?"

Liniel, not replying, darted towards the door, but Curuan blocked her path.

"Let me go," said Liniel.

"Not until you answer me."

Liniel was shaking her head. The mask of impenetrability had finally shattered, and now she gaped at him, her eyes shining with something like tears.

"I'm married," she said. "Does that mean nothing to you?"

Her blindness was infuriating. "Are we Noldor, you and I? To be restrained by mere laws, to cold-bloodedly deny our own desires? Their ways are not ours, now now, not here."

"You're not listening to me," said Liniel. "I don't want you. How dare you even suggest—"

"I dare! Do you have any notion what I have gone through these years? To watch you with him... when once it was I that you desired..."

"And would yet," said Liniel, "if you had not been so proud..."

"So you admit it. Once it was I that you desired... and now, see, I am restored? There's nothing in our way... Once is all I ask..."

Her eyes were averted now. If there were indeed tears in them, he could not tell. "You disgust me," she murmured.

So unhappy. Why? He couldn't quite bring himself to understand... for once she had loved him... and here they were, with a chance to set things right... How could she refuse him? How dare she ask him to let this desire burn unquenched within him? He needed her. She was his. She had been his from the start.

"Emelien and Amdír," he said, grasping upon the old story for precedent. "Were they wrong to have each other?"

"Get out." His manner frightened her... but she was not afraid of him. Not afraid for herself. Her placid response infuriated him. How dare she underestimate him.

"Answer me!" he cried, slamming his hand down upon the nearest flat surface. It was Liniel's desk, and the reverberations sent sketches flying. Liniel started, her form stiffening.

"Were they wrong?" he asked again.

No answer.

"Were they wrong?"

Liniel looked up at him, briefly, with a scathing look. "Emelien," she said pointedly, "loved Amdír."

"And you loved me."

"No." She was shaking her head again. "You do not know what love is, Curuan. Don't you see? All you understand is desire."

He paused a moment to reflect on her words. He found he liked them. "Desire," he repeated, and smiled. "Yes. That is it. I know desire. And I desire you, and I will have you. Do I not deserve that much?"

Their eyes met, gray colliding with gray, and something of recognition came into Liniel's gaze.

"Get out," she murmured once more. Her eyes shone with unmasked fear.

Strange: it was only later, when he remembered the knife he had girded himself with before coming, that he understood exactly what he meant to do. Though perhaps, beneath the endless chorus of Sauron's threats, he had had known it from the beginning. Traitor, he had been called. Strange... that in emulation, he would betray.

At any rate, it was too late now. He would have her. She had been his, and would be once more. No price was too high. What man would not shatter his best earthenware before allowing it to be taken up by thieves?