Author's Note: Sorry about the long wait, I could try and tell you that the next chapter will come out sooner, but I've been on this roundabout before, and I don't think I can ethically promise that.
Dunland, in the smoking ruins of Dunlich castle: T.A. 3019
Fëanor had never been entirely sane, not by his own people's standards at least – but he'd always managed to cope, to function somehow in the society of his childhood. But since then that thin veneer of sanity had gradually been eroded, until all that was left was that startling madness. Perhaps it had started when his father remarried. Or perhaps it was later than that, perhaps he placed the last of his sanity, of his mind and soul into the glowing, terrible orbs of the Silmarils. And yet maybe that was just an excuse. Maybe he simply enjoyed being this way.
After all, what was left for him but the madness anymore?
His wife was lost to him as she had been lost to him for centuries, his children were either dead or vanished into the tellings of myth. He would never find them, so he put no thought into even trying. In fact, Fëanor put very little thought into anything now save the Silmarils. Everything he had done to find them had been play acting at a person, at a leader, at a magnetic individual he no longer was – it was exhausting most days, as exhausting as blocking out the whining of the wizard in his head.
But, he had comforted himself, after another idiot or false seer led him down another false lead – at least it would all be worth it once he had his Silmarils. He didn't have any further plan then that, to gather them, to fall to the ground, clutching them to his breast – that was the extent of Fëanor's mighty plans with the Silmarils. In the whispering in his head, he heard things, ideas for things he should do with the Silmarils. With the power they held he could wipe out entire kingdoms, entire people – but what was the need? His servants' swords did that so well by themselves. The East and much of the south was Fëanor's by the end of his first decade of…well you couldn't exactly call it freedom, but something approximating that at least. Yet Fëanor had been a king before, and to his own people at that – what need did he have for the lands of men and mortal beast? Without the Silmarils it was all…it was all worthless.
As worthless as the castle wreck he sat in now.
A dead thing for a dead people – there were no more of Mab's people left in this caged little land of hers – just the ghosts of his. Well, some of them were Noldor elves, the rest who knew and really who cared. The notion of kin and family were as dead as the race of man, the race of Mab.
He supposed he must get up at some point, but after the witch and her followers had vanished, taking his precious Silmaril so far away he may never be able to see it again; he had destroyed their home. He would have liked to destroy every single man, woman and child that had inhabited that old and rusty building, had in fact completely intended to – but they, much like their queen were gone. Off to hide away to a place where Fëanor could never touch them. So instead, he had destroyed their castle – if you could really call such a pathetic pile of stones a castle. He had torn it apart stone by stone with the strength of his own hands, sometimes having the power of an Maiar- even as diminished one as this – was kind of fun.
His army, his army of the dead that had battled their way out of Mandos to find some kind of half-life back here on Middle Earth – they had run away. Fled from the sight of Fëanor's wrath, of the power of his fiery spirit. It was always that way, it didn't matter who they were, when they got a look at the truth of him, the strength of his spirit they were always afraid. It didn't matter if they were an army of the dead, or his own kinsmen, in the end everybody always left him.
Even his own mother had left him, choosing to remain in the halls of …of Mandos. Mandos, she was in the halls of Mandos when the great tunnel had been finished. She…she had to be here. He could, he could find her…and his father…and his sons. He could find them all, his family, his Silmarils, he could find them all – and, and then there would be no more running away. No more hiding or distrustful looks, no more stepmothers and their leech like offspring – he would gather them all, gather every last one of them and keep them in a box far away from the eyes and grasping, greedy hands of the world.
This was his mission; this was his purpose and more than anything this was the way in which he would show them his love. He would make a world free of the race of the witch, a world in which he and his Silmarils, his family, all his treasure would be with him for as long as he dwelt upon this Middle Earth.
The only thing that stood between himself and that dream, was time and since he was already dead, that was hardly something to particularly bother him anymore.
This is how it begins, Fëanor's grand plan; he searches the faces of the dead, there are so many of them here that it isn't hard for him to find them again. Even if they fear him now, even if they hide from him. Unlike the Silmarils the dead will not burn at his touch, they will not slip from his fingers into the ocean's depths. They will not leave him, not if he doesn't let them. And he is Fëanor, and their king is gone, the dead cannot hide from his grasp in here.
All he has to do is look through them, through their heads – ripping off their necks if he has to – he'll find her. He'll find her because she has to be here, she would not leave him now. Not again, not ever again.
Eventually he does indeed find her, she's hiding inside the body of an old, decrepit crone. But there is no mistake, it is her. He's grown so frustrated in his search that he almost tears her in half before he recognizes her voice, the memory of her scream still imprinted into his deepest memory. It is the sound of his very first memory of life and he is Fëanor, spirit of fire, he will not forget. Certainly, not her.
He says her name, he says it over and over again, because he cannot bear to call her any word for mother. It is a broken thing in his mouth, too full of rage for a wife that abandoned him and their sons to fend for themselves in the wilds of Middle-Earth. He will not sully her with that word, for she is better than that. Yes, she may have fled from him at first but not now, never now.
She trembles in his arms, because at first, he is certain that she does not know him – the process of coming back must have been so traumatic for her, so terrifying to be under the hand of Námo – that she has forgotten the sound of her own son's voice. Well, he can understand – he has been through the terror himself and he will guide her through this terrible place. And as mother and son they will search this land, they will search the dead, they will search them all for Finwë.
She's not his mother.
She knows this.
But he never must.
In fact, she's not even really a she, not in her spirit anyway.
He had once been Milui, just a cook – just a simple elvish cook. And then he had died and nothing was ever simple again. He couldn't tell Fëanor of course, he had heard the rumours, the whispers, of what that elf did to you if you weren't his mother, or father, or one of his many, many children. And Milui had no intention of being ripped apart, and left lying on the ground – no thank you, he had worked hard to find this body and keep it upright. Sure, it looked like an old woman and sounded like one too – which was probably what had confused Fëanor quite so thoroughly – but no one paid attention to you if you looked and or sounded like a harmless old woman. And honestly at this point in his existence being ignored is the best kind of outcome for poor sweet Milui.
Poor sweet Milui, stuck in the middle of other people's breakdowns again. At least with lord Mandos he had never had to pretend to be anything he wasn't…oh crap, Fëanor had been monologuing to him again. And now he was expecting some kind of acknowledgement from his 'loving mother'. Okay now what would a mother who'd been separated from her son since the moment he was born have said. Unless, had they reconnected in Mandos? Was that it? No, no, surely then Fëanor would not have been so easily fooled by a dotty old lady act. You know what, everything Milui had said before had worked, why worry now?
'That's nice dear.' Said the fake mother.
'It is, isn't it.' Said Fëanor, too lost in his own madness that he didn't even notice that his "mother" had not even answered his original question. 'Soon, the three of us together as we always should have been, and then, well then mother nothing will stand in our way anymore. Not this cage, not the sky beyond it, not even the stars themselves will stand before our greatness.'
There was no telling what that gibberish was about, but Milui would be lying if he said it didn't sound a tad ominous for everybody involved. And perhaps everybody beyond that too.
Just outside the walls of the Dunland Cage, technically in the kingdom of Rohan; F.O.05
It would be a lie to say that the people of the borders of Rohan had not grown used to the great, curved trees that surrounded the place that had once been called Dunland. In all honesty, a small religious cult had grown round it, if you could call tying ribbons round the lowest branches of the trees and leaving sweet cakes out for the fairies who very clearly were responsible for them, a cult.
But then again even if they had paid no attention at all to the strangely shaped things, they would have noticed when they came down. For they did not do so quietly, shooting back down into the ground as quickly as they had curved out of it.
No, when these trees, all these hundreds of trees, came down they fell down. A great shattering boom that did not just break the earth on the borders of Rohan. That did not just send a shock wave through its smallest of villages, falling many of the houses and killing, too many to count here. No, it sent similar waves, large cracking waves all throughout the earth of Rohan; felling houses, uprooting hills and keeps alike.
The waves shook the earth all the way to the top of helms deep, and we cannot even talk of what happened down below it.
Rohan, Under Helms Deep, The Glittering Caves: F.O .05
It wasn't that Legolas was uncomfortable living underground, no, he was an Elf of Mirkwood for Manwe's sake. Caverns and deep holes beneath the earth were what he was raised on. Granted those had been broken up with long stretches of wandering and patrolling through trees, but even then, they were spider infested trees. So, the fact that his husband's new domain was for the most part deep underground was not Legolas' issue, despite what some people may try to claim later.
No, his actual issue – if you can belive it was that everything was so bright in the Glittering caves. The crystals that lined the walls of the caves that got their name from their glittering light, were so bright that sometimes they felt like they were burning the elf's eyes. Bright lights at night, neon lights in the day, and then there were the times when for no reason at all the crystals would form a rainbow colour and beam it directly into Gimli and Legolas' bed chamber. Of course, none of the dwarves, including Legolas' own ruby cheeked husband noticed this at all.
It was strange, Legolas had always been told there were differences between how Dwarves and Elves saw things, but Legolas had always assumed that was metaphorical. Elves saw the wonder of the world, while Dwarves lusted only after the riches of it. He had learned quickly – though not as quickly as he would have liked – that such ideas were ridiculous. And yet Dwarf eyes were different from his own, if in nothing but a physical sense. They saw things in the dark of the caves that Legolas never could, and yet somehow still escaped the torture of the glistening crystals. It was a revelation, almost as if, elves knew in fact nothing about the people they had hated for centuries. In fact, as he had lived with the kin of his husband, even Legolas had to admit that so deep was his ignorance that he wasn't even sure if his own assumptions were even remotely correct. Perhaps they couldn't see the blinding, head-splitting light coming off their crystals; or perhaps they were simply so used to that same light that they no longer paid attention to it, let alone let it bother them.
Whatever the case the whole situation gave Legolas a terrible headache.
Which was probably why when the whole world began to shake and crash down around them, he didn't really notice at first. Maybe when your head feels like it's being hammered by a particular large fall of rocks the entire time anyway, when the actual things start falling it's rather harder to take them seriously.
So, it's not until he starts hearing the screaming that Legolas moves from his bed at all.
Rohan, 12 miles from the borders of Dunland, The Village of Éothéod: F.O 05
There is a terrible bang outside, as if something big and heavy has hit the ground. It makes the stone oil lamps over Gro's head swing, and then the rope that holds them snaps and falls. The girl screams as she rolls away, terrified that it'll fall on her and burn until there's nothing but bones left. But she's too quick for that, and it doesn't hit her at all.
No instead the thing lands on the family bed, and the fresh heather, the heather that only last month her brother had brought home from the field up close to the fairy trees, well, that was enough to catch it alight. The small house fills with smoke and flames and it makes Gro feel all woozy like she might pass out. She'd been asleep when that great bang had woken her, so she's still in her night shift, even though it's morning and by rights she should be up and about with everybody else on the farm. But it's her birthday, and maybe they thought it a treat for her to get an extra half hour of sleep
She should run, she should leave this hole of flames and flee out into the fresh air. Where she could already hear her brothers screaming, screaming for something she could no longer understand.
She should get up and run, but her head aches something awful – she'd hit it hard against the cooking cauldron, still left on the cooling hearth in the middle of the room. And everything is growing dark even though she knows the fire, the fire from the bed and lamps was only getting brighter. Funny that, and then the world gets too full of smoke and she can't breathe anymore, let alone see.
There's something wet on the girl's head when she wakes up, she's still too woozy to guess whether it is a cloth, possibly from her mother's basket or just the blood that welled up over her thatch of hair when she whacked her head on the cooking pot. It didn't really matter, either way she was awake enough now to see…to see everything.
She's out of the hut, that old wood and stone structure that times past her grandfather had started building in the hopes of winning the hand of a woman that, if memory served was probably not her grandmother. She's lying on the grass outside, her brother sitting beside her and together they watch. They watch it all – the hut is burning; in fact, all the huts are burning. Men and women run frantically back and forth from the village well, desperately trying to put out the flames. And indeed, the fire is starting to give way to smoke, but the huts were lost and probably everything, and everyone else who had been inside them too.
It is a terrible thing to watch, but at least they were safe. Sitting up here away from the danger.
And then the crack in the earth appears between them.
Rohan, Under Helms Deep, The Glittering Caves: F.O .05
The roof has come down, it's the simplest way for Legolas to describe the kind of destruction he sees. The roof has come down, leaving a giant, jagged hole where once there had been a ceiling. And below that nothing but crumbled rocks and broken crystals; it is a terrible sight to behold, and yet it's the screams, those terrifying echoes of his husband's people that truly bring the terror of it into reality for Legolas. Because that's the moment when he realises what's under those crumpled rocks and broken crystals: a hand, a foot, the stray wisp of a beard or a helmet.
The roof has come down, and it has come down on top of Gimli's people…on top of…no…no that's, that's a lie. Just one of the hundreds of little lying thoughts that pops into Legolas' head every day. It wasn't…Gimli wasn't…no…no…no. And for one terrifying moment Legolas stands there in shock, barely able to breath let alone think, or move or do anything besides stand on the balcony outside the bedroom in which he and his husband shared and stare in horror at the scene.
There's the sound of children crying, and Dwarrow dams wailing and…and the sharp noise of someone trying to move the rocks. The elf lets his eyes, still moving too slowly, too sluggishly follow that sound. A Dwarrow dam, in a miner's leathers stands on a make shift platform and screams orders to the other dwarves below. Some of the dwarves had spades and shovels, and were digging through the rubble with careful precise strokes; and others had abandoned any form of tool whatsoever, scrabbling round the debris and moving large stones with little regard to their own safety. Legolas should…should join them and yet his terror, his overwhelming revulsion at moving, at taking any step into a world were Gimli, where Gimli no longer…no longer…
'Legolas, don't stand up there gawping, like some kind of elongated toad. We need you!'
It's Gimli, Gimli standing up from where he's been kneeling with his people. Gimli his face blackened with soot. Gimli his hands stained red with the blood of his people, his people that were still trapped under the rocks. The screaming, the screaming isn't coming from the Dwarrow Dam on the stage anymore, no it's coming from somewhere else. Somewhere farther off than that.
And then he sees him, a young dwarf, his sandy coloured beard barely grown in, screaming in a voice more terror than reason.
'My Lord Gimli, you must come! They sent me to tell you that you must come at once.'
'Why, what else could have happened?' Barked the love of Legolas life as he bent once again to try and lift a particularly large rock just to his left.
'It's the mines sir, the mines have collapsed!'
Rohan, the River of Mary's Sword, At the borders of the hobbit village of Bucky Hood; F.O 05
Simbelmynë submerged her small feet in the cold depths of the river outside of Bucky Hood. The bucket her mother had sent her out here with sat, uncared for and forgotten on the river bank behind her. Really, she should have been filling it with water and bringing it back home for the cows, or the chickens, or whoever needed it that day. And yet the river, barely more than a stream now that the dry season was in full swing, looked so warm and inviting.
Truly Mary's Sword glistened in the light of the midday sun. Who wouldn't want to go splash in that that, plus the day had been swelteringly hot, a better time for sleeping under the shade of a great yew than any kind of work. Or at least that was what Severus Muck always said, or did say before he got too busy with his Ganyman training to bother with the likes of her. Of course, there were no yew trees in the village of Bucky Hood, there were no trees around for miles, unless you counted the trees at the edge of the Rohan territories but then nobody really did, even the people that worshiped them.
Really, she knew she should get out of the river and wander back to the village, but she just couldn't help herself. She was transfixed by the look of her feet under the water; she loved the way they seemed to shift and twist even though she knew they hadn't changed at all. She wanted to see more of her feet in the water not just the toes and the heels, so she hitched up her skirt and she waded in. Well, as much as anyone could wade into the Mary's Sword anymore. It made her want to laugh and splash and fall down into the water until all her clothes were soaked through. Then she'd have to go home of course, and the fun would be over. But still it was a nice thought, if thoughts were ever to be nice at all.
And then out of the corner of her eye Simbelmynë Butcher saw him; a thin, dark haired figure standing just inside the boundaries of Bucky Hood itself. It was Severus Muck, my Blarney what was Severus Muck doing there flapping his arms at her like he was about to take off from the ground.
What was he…and then she heard it. A white-hot cascade of noise hit her like her brother's club on un unsuspecting steer. It was like all other noise in the world had been banished, until all that remained was this veiled, thundering sound. In fact, so shocking was the sound that for a second all Simbelmynë could do was stand there watching Severus Muck jump up and down like one of the fleas on the pony's ears, letting the sound consume her. But then, like a slow sheep caught in the path of a wolf Simbelmynë turned and beheld…the rising avalanche of water. A wave which should never have appeared in such a small stream as the Mary Sword had become. The river had once been so deep that the young hobbit girl had been forbidden to go by it by herself, lest she drown. Now it barely came up to a child's shins. It was almost like something had been sucking the water away, and now maybe this was them bringing it back.
Severus wanted her to run, to find somewhere to hide she saw that now but there was something that she understood, that he in all his months of Gany training couldn't grasp, there was no running anymore, there was no hiding. Because there was nothing anymore, the wave was too high. It would go over the entire village, crushing them all. This was not a wave she beheld before her; this was death.
West Rohan, Edoras, The Golden Hall; F.O 05
The king sat in his throne room and thought of the silent room before him, empty perhaps forever of the chattering of courtiers. They had fled, whether from the fire, or the flooding, or the destruction that the cracks in their land brought; either way the nobles of his court were gone. Off to check on homes, or keeps, or livestock that might have been caught in the destruction that plagued the kingdom of Rohan. The kingdom that the death of King Théoden had saddled him with, a fate that the death of prince Théodred had ensnared him with once he stepped into the prince's empty body.
He should never have done it to begin with, never have accepted the Valar's offer, it was a lie, a simple veil to hide the true facts of the matter He and his brothers were dead, and such was the extent of their crimes while they yet had drawn breath that to live again was a fate far beyond them. Then again perhaps that had been the Valar's plan all along, to trap them like this, in a cage of flesh. Oh, they could eat, and drink, and make merry with all that one might call the pleasures of life but they could not enjoy them, not really. The food had no taste, and this body was so infused by a feeling of numbness, that no other force of nature could produce so much as a puddle of pain or pleasure. He felt nothing sitting on this throne of his, he was nothing.
Nothing that is, but mildly annoyed; though even that had more to do with the fool clicking the backs of his heels against the stone steps that led up to Maedhros' throne.
Click.
Click.
Click.
It would have driven the son of Fëanor quite mad, if madness was something that he hadn't already achieved two ages past. Instead, it was often listening to the fool mutter and snark to himself. Or engage in heated debates with people that had seemingly yet to even be born. Now though with nothing but the sound the twittering buffoon for company it was beginning to make the king's teeth grind.
'Detective Boyle, I do not know who you think I am; but this store is mine and you are trespassing." The fool whined from down below where the backs of his heels still went:
Click.
Click.
Click.
What was a detective? That was the question, perhaps it was not the question the king should have been focusing on, but then all other inquiries would lead him up from upon this throne and outside to survey the kingdom whose people were…dying, that seemed a good enough word. They were very much dying. Though whether from his own neglect, or the will of some force greater than him, he didn't really know, and he supposed to the people that were dying, it didn't really matter – they would end up in the same grave either way.
'When Captain America throws his mighty shield.' Said the Fool, in a sing song voice. The same kind of tone he used when he mocked the king, or either of his fathers. It made something in him snap then, something deep and primal. He shouldn't have cared, he should have let the fool's words wash over him as they had done so many times before and yet, that song, he would not allow such drivel, such pointless nonsense continue while his city, his people, his land burned and drown and fell into the cracks.
'All your kind are dead, Caveman, gone the way of the mammoth, they are.' Said the fool, as if he somehow possessed the power to see into the son of Fëanor's mind. Even if his words were strange and without a meaning on their own – he was no man after all and he had long suspected his fool knew it too – but there was something in them. His people, no, the Rohan people were dying. His own people were already dead, and he could no more help them as he could save these poor mortals from their fate. Perhaps it would be better to do nothing after all, they were mortals they would die anyway given enough years and better they die now, in this world of fresh air and sunshine then live long enough to see another. As he had.
Or perhaps that was his father in him, or the creature his father had forged when he'd made them all swear that vow of his. Even now it itched under his skin, and part of him, some small part longed to leap upon a horse's back and ride out in search of that most wonderous of prizes. But it was not to be, for to do so would only lead to his final madness and he was already too close to that for comfort. Perhaps it would be better, perhaps the itching would stop, if he were to focus more on his mortal subjects. He could ride out and bring them all back here, house them under his roof (those that had escaped the fires and floods and the destruction). Keep them safe, keep them all safe from the forces that would see them harmed, as he couldn't do to the people of his first kingdom, as he couldn't even do for his own brothers.
'Trap me here will you, young Peeves? Nay, for it is you who will make this castle your grave.'
The Fool scolded though whether it was Maedhros or someone in some other castle far away from here was anyone's guess. The Fool had gone mad, of that there was little doubt, and yet a mad fool was not necessarily a wrong one. He could strike now and hit the hobbit, send him careening down the steps and possibly smashing his skull at the bottom and it was a tempting thought. But it wouldn't make what he had just said any less true. This was in no way a large enough keep to house them all, even if three thirds of the Rohan people were already dead, how would he be helping them bringing them to this cold, damp, mustering hovel of a keep. It should have been a great house of lords and kings as it had been in Théoden's time, but such was not the case.
He was alone now, he had driven them all away – all his courtiers, all his men, even his own 'heir' and 'cousin' Eomer, along with his 'Riders of Rohan' had left him. In theory to take action and save as many of their people as they could, although what a man on a horse could do against a wild fire or a drowned village, Maedhros had no idea. Although he knew the true reason Eomer had fled, and it could only be the king himself. Perhaps the horse-riding idiot would make a wise king after all. Naming him his heir and deciding not to take a wife and father the next king of the Rohan, had been the only good choice the current king of Rohan had ever made.
'If a child you want not, son of Odin, then why make merry with my mortals at all?' Said the Fool, and Maedhros couldn't even think to argue. Why was he wasting his time with these mortals?
'If love the boy you do, then I see not the problem, Lady Sybil. Run to him tonight and avoid the fate of your father. This house, these people, this life will only be your death if you do not.'
He didn't know who this Lady Sybil was or could be in time, but he did know one thing – she would be a fool to not head such wise words.
As would he.
Rohan, Outside Helms Deep; F.O 05
Gimli was not often one for just standing and surveying all that he did rule; it was a waste of time really. Back in the caves there was always so much to do. So much to build, or set up, or manage – why would he waste what very little free time he had standing around, basically doing nothing. He barely saw his beloved as it was. But now, now there was nothing left to do but stand aside and watch as others, with far more strength than he, pulled what little survivors were left.
Many had survived, he admonished himself. Two thirds of his people were fine; and half of that final third were only terribly injured. Really, they had lost so few people in the long run and yet, those thoughts felt small and hollow. Any life lost was too much; the Glittering caves were gone, there was no salvaging them. And the work that his people had dedicated to it, all that was gone. What a waste, what a tremendous waste.
But then again there were worse things to lose. He raised his eyes to the crumbled, mass of rocks that had once been the fortress of Helms Deep. How many had survived there? There hadn't been many there anyway, only a few permanent residents, servants to stoke the fire and keep the place from falling apart while it lay in wait for the next time the people of Rohan had need of it.
It had been a great fortress, an island of safety if not exactly warmth in a sea of danger and terror all around it. Or at least so it had been when he and Legolas had fought there, now so long ago it felt like another world, let alone another age. Now though it was a shadow, stretching from where it sat carved into the side of those strangely coloured mountains, then down and across the dry as hay grass. Until finally it reached Gimli's own people, and although the sun was at its highest in the sky, it sent a visible shiver through all of them.
'Lord Gimli,' Dam, one of the young miners who had been pulling the young and injured up from the desolate remains of their own kingdom, tapped the elder dwarf on the shoulder. 'That's everyone sir, what should we do now?'
And for more than a moment Gimli son of Gloin, Lord of the Glittering Caves gave no answer at all – all he did was stand and stare at the terrifying sight of the rubble that had once been so strong a fortress. To the great lord himself it felt like a thousand years, but to the dwarf lad that stood beside him it was only a second, before Lord Gimli turned and said in his most clear and commanding voice.
'Gather our two fastest runners, send one to the king of Rohan at Edoras, the rest of you will follow at a steadier pace. Those who can must help the injured to walk or carry them, for you cannot stay here, lad, you cannot stay here. As for the other runner, send him to Gondor and King Aragorn's doorstep. For I don't belive we're alone in our suffering, and we will need more allies than just the one kingdom can hold, I fear.'
'And what of you, my lord? Will you not be coming with us?'
And Gimli shook his head at that, his eyes still trained on the smouldering wreck of Helms Deep. In the strange whistle of the wind, the lord of the Glittering Caves was certain he could hear the sound of voices coming from that desolate place.
'No lad, I have business elsewhere.'