Author's Note:

Warning: Rating for disturbing theme of war and child-terror.

Dedicated: To the children of war, who witnessed things they never should have seen...

The drums rolled louder. Fires leaped up. Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, ad its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old. Great beasts drew it, Orcs surrounded it, and behind it walked mountain-trolls to wield it. (Siege of Gondor, Return of The King.)

Minas Tirith,

Gondor,

Third Age.

He skidded over the corner, and ducked under an overturned wicker basket that was once used to store large number of fruits. He was small and thin, and he fitted inside it well. It was safe here, he thought.

But the noise could not be blocked.

He heard the ground shake and the rumbling and groaning of stone as buildings crumpled under the heavy firing of the catapults. He was dirty, covered in white dust that had come from such rubble. His black hair was grey as an old man's from it, his fingers dirty as he stuck it into his mouth to wipe clean the open gashes he got from sharp edges of the fallen stones he scrambled over. Then another chant rose up, higher than the sound of the catapults, causing him to cry in fear.

"GROND! GROND! GROND! GROND!"

It was a voice made of many voices, all of which were sickeningly excited and eager for the coming violence.

He cupped his ears, trying to block out the sound. The ground below him shook and he gave a small whimper. His toes curled inside his shoes, twisting closer to his body. He was quaking in fear, as the ground shook underneath him and sent waves of shock through him.

"GROND! GROND! GROND!"

His heart was hammering wildly in his chest, his breath coming in short quick gasps and he shook his head, whimpering loudly, trying to push this nightmare away, trying to make sense of what was happening around him.

The ground shook violently, his place of refuge shaking nearly off him and exposing him to the world to be slaughtered, as somewhere far away where the Grond was, the gates of Minas Tirith crashed down to the ground, the cave trolls unleashed to strike horror and fear into the hearts of Men.

The little boy only whimpered and wondered where his playmates were. He wondered what was happening. What had he done to deserve this? What had this got to do with him?

He heard men's voices screaming and he was more afraid than ever. He had seen the soldiers of Gondor, arrayed in armor and stamping up and down the courtyard. They looked so brave! But these voices did not belong to brave men.

Then he heard guttural laughter and noises of triumph. He peeked through the cracks in the basket, and his eyes widened as he saw black creatures with arms and legs of men raise their swords and cut down soldiers that were begging for mercy. It never occurred to him, in his fear, to look away or to worry that he too might be found out.

Then he heard a shrill shriek, the one he knew the wraith's beast gave and this time he stuck his fingers deep into his ears and screamed loudly, rocking to and fro like a madman cornered in an alley. So lost he was in his world that he was still silently rocking to and fro for hours and hours on end, hidden in his basket. He did not see the breaking of the dawn, or the dead army taking the field, or the shout of the new Rohirric King as he beckoned his men to fight once more at his side. He did not hear the cries of triumph, and did not witness the return of the men, victorious… and wounded.

Suddenly his reverie was broken as the basket on top of him was pulled away. He closed his eyes against the sudden glare of the sunlight that had not shone upon them for days. Then fear gripped his heart when a hand went for his collar from behind, picking him up and his feet dangled in the air.

"LET GO OF ME!" He shrieked, lashing out blindly at his attacker who was undoubtedly stronger and taller than him. he remembered seeing scullery maids twisting the necks of chickens, making them go limp in their arms in a mid-cluck, then taking up a large knife and hacking its head away.

oOo

Orphanage,

Gondor,

Fourth Age.

The peace and quiet of night in the Orphanage was interrupted by high-pitched shrieks of fear. Children rubbed their eyes and sat up in the dark, confused.

"Get them away from me!"

"Thalion-" One of the children mumbled sleepily. "Wake up, you are dreaming."

But Thalion thrashed around in his bed, screaming at the top of his voice at the horrors of his dream. His feet kicked his blanket away and his pillow was wet from crying. The children heard a door upstairs throw open, and bare feet thudded against the wooden stairs.

"What happened?" Their kind, young caretaker asked, black hair pulled in a lazy braid. She pulled her dressing robe tight around herself. Thalion let loose another scream and she ran to him.

"DON'T KILL ME!"

"Oh, little duck, hush." She crooned, pulling the boy of ten summers into her arms. "Wake up, little one."

"Constance-" the boy sobbed into her neck.

"Hush."

"They were killing them-"

"It's not real."

"There were guts everywhere-"

"Hush, it's not real."

"I saw- but I saw!"

"None of it was real."

She rocked to and fro, the boy's arms around her neck in a stranglehold. He wept heavily into her neck, sodding her robe and the dress underneath it.

"The bodies smelled-"

"I am here." Constance said. Her own heart was hammering wildly in her chest. When she heard the screaming down below, she left the bed so fast that she woke her husband who was well known to sleep through anything. Thalion's screams in his nightmares were enough to make anyone's hair stand on an end. "They will not hurt you." Even in her heart, she knew it was a lie. The orcs felt no love for children, and they felt no love for even their own kind. Had they seen him- her fingers tightened on the child's damp nightdress.

"But Constance," the child said, pulling away and raising his grey eyes to meet hers. His fingers shifted and now, his hands were fists in her hair in an instinct of a young infant caught in a fright. "I saw it." He whispered. "They wanted me dead."

The caretaker's heart wanted to break at the softly spoken words. Thalion was found in Minas Tirth. He had not left the city with the others, and his family was cruel enough to leave him behind, so eager they were to save their own skins. The boy was found, trembling in a wicker basket by one of the Swan Knights who hauled him up to one of the elderly women in the Healing Houses where he was forced to work with the healers in wiping blood and vomit from the floors and when the war ended, he came here to the orphanage. He had grown quiet and withdrawn since, his voice only heard when he dreamt. He was disturbing when he was awake, even. She remembered one day coming upon him while he held a piece of charcoal in his hand, drawing away on a piece of parchment. Joyful that he was doing something other than simply staring ahead and rocking to and fro, she asked what he was doing.

He told her he was drawing blood- black blood that had been on the Swan Knight who brought him to the women of Healing Houses.

Constance gathered the child in her arms and carried him out of the room, ordering absent-mindedly for the rest to go back to sleep. Thalion may be ten summers but he was unhealthily thin, resulting from constant refusal to eat. She carried him to an open window. Thalion kept his face hidden in her shoulder.

"Look," she gently commanded him.

"What will I see?"

"Beauty unlike any other," she promised. Constance he trusted. Constance never meant any harm. Thalion raised his head and looked.

The town was silent in its sleep, the full moon bathing it in silver light. The stars were lit like lanterns in the black sky, shining brightly.

"It is said that the Elves woke up in the sight of the stars." She said softly in his ear. "They were so taken with its beauty that they had admired and wondered on it, and they named the stars and long after the sun and the moon were made, they still preferred walking in starlight."

She pulled back his sweat-drenched hair.

"The Men opened their eyes to the beauty of the Sun rising from the horizon, and they fell in love with it. For to them, it showed a new beginning, a new hope, a new start, a revival of all things."

"Each of them chose their own beauty." Constance ended; taking Thalion's chin and making the boy face her. "Each of them loved it dearly, but you have witnessed both the dark and the light." Constance sighed, her face growing tight at the thought. "Both the Elves and the Men faced horrors that can never be described in words, but they learned, over time, to find beauty in the things that they loved."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Constance rested her hip against the lower edge of the window, the child shifting to her other hip.

"So that when the darkness fails you, you remember the beauty of dawn, and when the light fails you, you remember the path of the stars." She answered.

"And when I am stuck underground," Thalion said (or under basket, he added to himself silently), "then what should I do? There is neither light nor dark."

"Ah, but that is where the most precious of gems are."

Author's Note:

Child trauma and shock is observed particularly in the children of war-struck areas, such as the Gaza strip, Iraq and others. The drawing was partially inspired by the drawings of children of Gaza, who made bloody hospital hallways and dead family members in destroyed houses.

Wicker basket theme is to show that usually children in shock retreat into themselves, causing them to behave younger than they are. They look for a safe haven from their nightmares and memories and that's usually into themselves, whether it is a good memory or just an emptiness.

Constance is an OC and she appears in my story 'A Duck', which shows an Elven Festival through the eyes of a child (and with a happier ending).

Kindly do not express your views on the mentioned conflicts. This is not for a political or social or religious awareness. This one-shot simply expresses the horrors children face in war-struck lands.

Next up, Galadriel. :)

Also I am going to do other characters as well. Like the ol' Gaffer, Ioreth (yep the healing woman in the book), Glorfindel, Lindir, Erestor and so on. All genres and hopefully less than a T rating. This one is as serious as it gets.

Smiley- Thank you so much. :D I love Samwise too!

Guest- Thank you. :)