A/N: Welcome to Part V of this fic, and the last chapter. Thank you for joining me on the journey!


The horses are jittery as Eldarion, Legolas and a few march-wardens make their way up the slopes in eastern Ithilien. Eldarion places a soothing hand on the neck of his horse, a black mare with a white star on her forehead, as she tosses her head yet again in discomfort.

"Îdh, meldis-nîn," he mutters, recalling the way his father used to calm his own stallion. He feels it too, however - a strange ripple in the fabric of the forest, something disjointed and out of place.

It is late morning now, and the sun is almost directly overhead, but here, the trees feel so close, every minute shadow pressing just a little closer than it should. There is stillness; the sound of birds comes only from behind them.

"This feels wrong," Legolas whispers, coming up beside him, giving an unneeded voice to what all can feel.

As they come upon a rise in the ground, one of the wardens calls quietly to the group, "It is just head."

Eldarion sees a wide clearing, with light filtering down golden into it from the trees above. On the far end, the rock rises up out of the foothills of the mountain range, displaying a yawning cleft in the rock.

"He had been hiding the body inside there," Legolas mutters, nodding towards it, and Eldarion suppresses a shudder.

The group pause at the edge of the clearing, looking in. Not a sound; not a single sensation - and that in itself suggests a doom within the hearts of each and every one of them.

Eldarion swallows heavily, and then dismounts his horse with a thump onto the hard earth.

"Would it not be wiser to stay on your horse, your highness?" Legolas asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Not to worry, my lord," he says, with a small smile, acutely aware of the tension among the other riders and keen to diffuse to. "The horses of our noble house always avail us. If trouble should arise, she'll run in and kick in the head of the assailant without my asking."

As though she understands, his mare neighs and shakes her ears, and amongst the group, shoulders relax and mouths allow themselves to not be so stern. Legolas still turns his head skeptically, but then seems to give up. He walks forward to meet Eldarion where he stands close to the centre of the clearing, instructing his wardens to keep close.

"Your horses may avail you," he sniffs. "But I shall stay on mine all the same."

Eldarion rolls his eyes, and then paces slowly to scan around the clearing for the offending shadow creature. The ground beneath his Eldarion boots is still soft from last night's rain. The leaves squish, mushy and dark with their death, beneath his fine boots. Not a sound - not a whisper - but just that slow, soft, silent press of shadow, waiting for the King to cave so they may come out and play.

He breathes deeply, quenching the unnerved roiling in his stomach.

"Show yourself," he calls out to nothing, "you who have been terrorising travellers on this route."

There is a low, slow gust of wind in the trees, and for a second the light dims, as though something had passed overhead. He turns round, a feeling of dread certainty in his gut - it is here. He looks over to a group of almost-bare lebethron.

Then he sees it - a shadow, small and hunched, clinging to the branches of one of the trees. Its shape is slender and small, like some fae creature, but it is weak and bent and mangled. It clutches the top branches with nine long thin shadows that could be fingers. As it slips down to lurk in the cleft of a tree, sniffling and shuffling, it leaves faint, dark marks on the bark. It emanates anger, despair, defeat. Eldarion feels no fear when he looks upon the tiny, crippled creature - only pity tinged with disgust.

"Look upon me, then," it hisses. He tries not to register surprise at it's strange, horrible voice.

"I am Eldarion," he announces, loud and firm. "son of Aragorn of the House of Telcontar, High King of the -"

"I know who you are," it growls. "You reek of his blood." It makes a sound as though spitting.

Eldarion tries to ignore the annoyance prickling his skin. "Do you have a name?"

"I have had many."

"What do you carry now?"

"Nothing."

"And before?"

It hums quietly - the sound is like wind whistling through bare branches. "I was about to suggest you ask your father," it says, "but I suppose you cannot do that, can you?"

The gleeful malice in its voice cuts Eldarion like a knife.

"What are you, creature?" he hisses.

"What are you?" it says, its tone mocking. "A would be king with a crown that doesn't fit, bearer of a foul sword that isn't his."

"What happened to your body, beast?"

"What happened to yours?" it rebuts, childlike and violent. "Shadows under your eyes, sallow face…have you been crying, little boy? You have my most sincere condolences."

"Enough!" He erupts. The creature's words are like violent blows against his resolve; it's snide cruelty hurts him almost physically. Its ceaseless questions turned back upon him are beginning to drive him beyond frustration. He breathes deeply - remembers what his father told him, about quelling anger among those who speak to him without sense or fairness or cooperation.

"Whatever enmity you have for my father," he says coolly, "part with it now. He is dead, and you have no object for it."

"The strength of the forsaken, is that we are most adept at finding such an object. It is imperative."

"It is pitiful." The creature is alarmingly self-aware of its sorry state - and yet so deluded in its awareness, of what it means to be as obviously downtrodden as it is.

"Why did you kill the march-warden?" demands Legolas, abruptly. His eyes are strained and his voice is touched with poorly hidden contempt.

The shadow lets out a wheezing, huffing noise, that might be a laugh. "Gi suilon, elfling. It has been too long."

"We have never met."

"Haven't we? Did you not break upon my Black Gate with your dead King, all those years and years ago? Did your Halfling friends not triumph over my mountain? Don't tell me you've forgotten me already. I remember all of you."

Eldarion watches as Legolas' eyes fill with bewilderment, and then understanding, and then horror. As if sensing it, his horse whinnies and stamps, and the shadow exudes a sense of terrible, chilling satisfaction, one that raises the hairs on Eldarion's neck.

"This cannot be," the elf prince whispers, staring at the shadow, his hand drifting to the knife on his belt. "It's not possible."

"A mistake of belief that so many make," the creature laments.

"You lie. The Ring…" Legolas trails off, and the understanding dawns swiftly upon Eldarion then. A fragment of darkness, weak and bitter, dwelling in the shadow of the former Ephel Dúaph, harassing the young and the weak, clutching the tree with nine fingers, a shadow with a Black Gate and a mountain, with a disdain for his father and his father's sword, a shadow that instills fear by its very presence -

"No…" he breathes, clutching the scabbard of his sword.

"Why do you despair?" it spits bitterly. "You should be happy to see me in such a state. Congratulate yourself."

Eldarion opens his mouth to speak, and cannot for a few moments - but he remembers his diplomatic training, the grounding his father taught him, and responds, "There is nothing to congratulate for doing what is right."

"So noble," it scoffs.

"Don't patronise me, Sauron, and I won't patronise you." The name tastes foul on his tongue, but he relishes the way the figure seems to hunch and shrink.

"Do not call me that," he mutters.

"Would you prefer The Abhorred?" he prods, emboldened. "The Deceiver?"

"Eldarion," Legolas cautions.

But Eldarion needs the final word. "A broken shadow of a spirit with nothing to his name - that is what you are called now. Nameless and faceless."

And for the first time, the voice - the shadow that is Sauron - does not reply.

Eldarion's heart hurts with a terrible sensation, like betrayal, like denial, a sensation too similar to grief. This, his father's greatest work, the saving and salvaging and rebuilding of the kingdoms of the west, the triumph of light and freedom over darkness and tyranny - now his father was dead and this monstrosity remained. These old ghosts remained to haunt another day in another age. The work was not finished.

"You understand legacy, do you not, little boy?" Sauron whispers suddenly, drawing Eldarion's attention back from its identity to its words. "You are a king, with a kingdom and a name. Your father and your elf-friend, the people sing songs about them and their heroic violence from another age. What memory is left for me to hold to?"

"If memory is your only anchor, then you are lost. You've lost your ring and now you lose yourself."

"It is a fate worse than death, to not be remembered," he mumbles, with a tone that begs pity. Eldarion will not deign to tolerate it.

"We did not defeat you to be remembered," he says, feeling his mother's love swell inside him and her blood rush through his veins. "And that has been a good thing for our souls, never mind our name. Truly - what have you done to your soul?"

There is a moment's pause, before Sauron replies.

"There is no more I am capable of, than to create and do and create and do until there is nothing left." With surprise Eldarion, perceives the acute anger and despair and bitterness the former Dark Lord is trying to mask.

"I am one with this fate now," he goes on. "I will dwell here, always, here where the shadows lie through their teeth and remain, nameless and wordless, in the forgotten places of the world."

"Do so, then," Eldarion says, quiet but firm. "I'll make sure my house remains, too, standing tall somewhere the light can glow upon its towers, and illuminate marble streets and mithril gates. Perhaps then, you shall cease your intrusion into peace, once and for all."

A low growl emanates from the shadow of Sauron. Suddenly it lurches out of the tree, barreling uncontrolled and towards Eldarion. He draws Andúril swiftly from its scabbard, and Sauron careens into the flat of the blade. He shrieks, a horrible sound that pierces Eldarion's eardrums and has the elves pressing their hands over their ears.

The small, shadowy spirit falls to the forest floor, whimpering and sniffling and shuffling around, letting off strings of curses in tongues older than the world itself. Stumbling, it flees the clearing, hitting trees and branches as it moves, trying to remain upright.

"Daro!" Legolas commands one of his soldiers, who had been making to pursue him. "Not yet."

Eldarion watches, heart pumping hard and fast in his chest, as the shadow fades from view and the light slowly returns to the clearing - light that in its absence was not known, but with the darkness fled, now shines out bright and clear, memorable and precious.


"Why does he strike now?" Eldarion asks, as they trot steadily back to the central Elven settlement in Ithilien, where Legolas resides.

"Perhaps because he has gathered enough strength," the elf says absently, "though he remains incredibly weak."

He is silent thereafter, and Eldarion is lost in his bewildered thought. They arrive at their destination with very good time, and dismount, stable hands coming over to take their horses.

As they walk swiftly towards Legolas' flet, the elf prince stops abruptly, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side. "I cannot sail," he blurts out.

Eldarion stares at him. "Legolas -"

"The Fellowship was made to destroy the threat of Mordor," he says, shaking his head vehemently. "Here Sauron is still - alive and capable of action. No, as long as even one of us is still here, the Fellowship is not ended. I do not care how small he is now. He killed one of our people and threatened another."

Eldarion does not know what to say - only knowing that his friend must be feeling more devastated than even he is, at this horrible truth of what should have just been the nightmare visions of a young, lost boy.

"Then what will you do?" he asks.

"I do not know. You are the High King - this is your realm. It is your will to do anything that matters. But I…"

"We need to speak to someone," Eldarion interjects, sensing the helplessness in lieu of despair. "Someone who knows the ways of creatures such as he, who knows the history and the lore."

"They have long since sailed." He shakes his head. "I need to go speak to my father. And Celeborn remains in Rivendell, yes?"

"He does - as do my uncles. I will take myself and my mother there."

"No, let me go. You have had the crown for five days," Legolas says gently, speaking again before Eldarion can express the protest forming in his mouth. "You need to stay here and consolidate the kingdom. Join us in Rivendell later. I'll convince my father to assemble a council."

"Of who?"

"Whoever's left."


That evening, the elves hold a feast for the king. It is a good distraction for all who had heard of or witnessed the incident at the border. He and Legolas had been sure to instruct the wardens to quell any and all suspicions - for panic is a most potent fuel for chaos.

They dine in a great clearing, under the bright stars passing overhead. The lamps are warm and the food is good, and the wine that the elves have brought from their homeland is sweet and heady. As the night wears on and the music begins, the dancers move from their seats to stamp and clap and spin over the grass. Eldarion wanders among those that remain, exchanging small words of kindness and good humour. His father had taught him the wisdom of such a practice - speak to all whom you can, for it is their lives you bear upon your shoulders, and our burdens only cease to be burdens when we truly understand them.

It is in doing this that he reencounters Hallas, sitting among a group of curious elflings.

"Your majesty!" he says, rising and bowing. The elflings too, stand, but Eldarion laughs and holds out a gentle hand.

"Please, my good children," he says kindly. "We will have ample time for such pleasantries when you are older. Return to your play!"

With wide smiles, the gleefully acquiesce. Hallas smiles at them, but steps quietly away from the group. He bows again before his king, before speaking the question Eldarion had been waiting for him to ask.

"Did you go to the border, your majesty?"

Eldarion nods. "I did."

"And…" Hallas bites his lip. "My lord, what was the shadow creature?"

"A being older than this world," he says, slow and careful, locking his eyes to be sure the gravitas is not lost on the boy. "The same being whose armies destroyed Osgiliath and laid siege to Minas Tirith, during the war your grandfathers fought in. It was King Elessar who helped destroy this creature."

"I never knew, my lord," Hallas whispers, looking to his feet. "I never knew."

And with those words, it finally clicks in place for Eldarion. Looking at the baffled, frightened boy in front of him, the boy he presides over, and the boys parents, and their friends, and their lords - he understands. Shadow persists greater than light. It floods the dark corners of ignorance and the blind spots of comfort. Light must live silently in times like these - but it must live, and it must live through him.

Now, the work must continue.


A/N: So, I hope you enjoyed the fic! I liked writing Eldarion, and it was incredibly fun to explore a post-LotR Sauron (minus the existential questions about where/what he is now, which hurt both my head and my heart).

Part of the reason Sauron's spirit-shadow appears so small and inconsequential to Eldarion is the strength - I feel - that was imbued with him by both his blood and his upbringing; and Sauron terrified Hallas so much, because as a person, he is much weaker. I think the encounter was a wake-up call and affirmation for both characters. But that's just me!

And yes, Legolas had a Captain Obvious moment. Couldn't resist.

I know that I introduced lots of interesting things that could possibly be catalysts for a great deal more story, but in my heart of hearts, don't think I shall ever explore this premise further. However, anything can happen!

Once again, I hope you enjoyed the fic. Thank you so much for reading!

Much love,

Fernstrike