Disclaimer 2 : the character of the puss in boots is the property of the guys who made Shrek 1,2 and 3

Skessa, thank you for encouraging me

2

"So what are your first impressions?" Anarima asked when they were out of the building.

"He's hot" Daewen replied with a dreamy voice.

She laughed. Her friend was so funny. But yes, she agreed, Sauron was hot.

"You should try to hit on him."

"What the hell?" she asked, staring at her. "Give me a break, he's a god, I'm human."

"If I wasn't married, I would do it" she whispered.

Daewen lifted her eyes to the sky. Her friend could have such stupid ideas sometimes…

"Well, how I feel about him now is that he may be less evil than what he was. I didn't have bad impressions, what he taught us is pure knowledge about applied physics and cannot be dangerous for us."

She came back home. Anarion and Isildur were arguing with their father.

"You let my sister going to Sauron's lessons! What the hell? Are you mad, Father?" Isildur was shouting.

"Sauron is dangerous" Anarion added.

"She knows it" Elendil sighed just when his daughter came into the room.

Her two brothers gave her a worried look.

"How was it?"

"Nothing as what I expected. He doesn't seem to be evil, he taught us about optics, that can't be a threat for us."

She summed up what she had learnt this day and showed them her notes.

"Tomorrow he's going to continue, talking about optics, that's very interesting" she said.

"You won't go" Elendil decided.

"Why?"

"Because he's dangerous, even if he teaches you how to calculate where the image of an object is when its light goes through a lens."

*****

But Daewen went the next day. She asked Anarima to give her an alibi. This time, the lesson was at the beginning of the night. He divided the audience into small groups of ten people to show what they would study.

When it was her turn to see, he was standing besides her and her heart was beating fast. Sauron put a prism on the table and made a ray of white light going through it. Bewildered Daewen saw this ray being parted into different coloured rays.

"Whao. Is this magic?" she asked in a low voice, hoping nobody would hear it.

"No, it's science" Sauron whispered at her ear. "I'm going to explain it in few minutes."

She felt chills going through her spine. She came to sit down, and her heartbeat became normal again. Then she understood why the light was broken that way. White light was composed by different coloured lights. These had different wavelengths, which modified their ways of entering the prism, and then, modified their ways of getting out of it.

She was impressed.

She was sad when the lecture was ended, and waited with impatience for the next one.

She continued to come at his lectures. The more she saw him, the less doubts she had on him. He was so smart. He really had a lot of knowledge he was offering freely to share. She became less suspicious about his good intentions. If he wasn't nice, he wouldn't loose his time this way. What interest could he have in teaching weak mortals? They would die in few centuries anyways, with knowledge or not. Unless he taught them how to become immortal. But Daewen knew this was impossible. They were human, they were the Second Born and Iluvatar had decided they would be mortal. Nobody, even Sauron would be able to change their fate.

*****

Then she had a test. She was writing on her sheet and she felt him behind her. He bent down to look what she was writing. She lost control of herself, knowing him so close. She knew she wanted him. No man had ever made her feel like that. But he wasn't a man, he was a Maia, a god. Her reason told her to forget, and she struggled to remain immoveable. Nothing would ever happen between them, because he should never know how he was making her feel.

He continued walking and she could concentrate again on her work.

At the end, she gave him her paper, without a look and she quickly left the room. She came back home, and without a word, she locked herself in her bedroom. She took her head in her hands.

He was beautiful. He was smart, he was nice, and he was hot. He didn't seem evil at all, she couldn't believe he had been a Dark Lord. He was perfect. Her dad had told her about the "charming prince". She hadn't believed in it until now. Sauron was her charming prince. And at that moment, she knew she no longer merely wanted him. She loved him, with all her heart. She could do anything for him, she could die for him.

She hated being in love. She had been once, and the guy wasn't interested in her. He had rejected her and she had cried for months because of him. She had stopped eating until her dad had understood the reason. He had been kind to her, he had told her that that guy was an asshole and it was his loss, not hers. Eventually, Isildur had killed the said guy, because he didn't want him to stay alive after what he had done to his little sister. Isildur was very protective towards his sister. He couldn't stand anybody hurting her, physically or mentally. He had always protected her. She had wished to find a man like him. All this had happened two years before.

But this time, her family wouldn't know anything. She hadn't the right to love Sauron, especially because her father and her brothers hated him. The fair appearance that had seduced her was only a mask. He was a demon with an angel's body. At least, it was what her family had always thought. But now… if he was really evil, he wouldn't have stayed so long, and he wouldn't have accepted to teach her people. He was free, no longer watched. He could have come back to Middle Earth.

She didn't know what to think and she wept silently. Nobody ever knew it.

She continued nonetheless to come at his lectures, rocking herself in her sweet dream, loving him silently.

And he gave her back her test. She had been right about everything. He had written on her sheet : "your paper is like you : perfect". She felt very uncomfortable, she feared he had understood everything. She looked at her neighbour's paper. Anarima had nothing special written on it. Only a mark. A bad mark, by the way.

They corrected the test this day. Anarima was pissed. She took Daewen's paper and opened it. Then she gasped.

"Sauron is asking you out" she whispered.

"What? You're kidding?"

"See yourself."

Daewen took the paper. It was written on it : "come back here tonight, before sunset".

"I won't go" she said at the end of the lecture.

"Are you kidding me? You have a crush on him, I know it, I've seen it."

"Do you think he had noticed it too?"

"Maybe. Go, you'll know. And don't be a chicken!"

Daewen took her friend under four eyes.

"It's not only a crush. I'm madly in love with him" she confessed. "I can't talk to him, unless he'll understand everything. And I don't want him to know."

"Why?"

"Because it's hopeless. He's a Maia, I'm a weak human mortal! Give me a break. I won't go, that's all."

"You're stupid and stubborn. You'll go even if I have to force you!"

She didn't let her coming back home. She took her in the city, watching her all the time. She didn't have a second of freedom.

Several minutes before sunset, she brought her back to the big hall and waited with her until Sauron came. Then she left.

"Why did you ask me to come?" she asked, wanting to be anywhere else but there.

"I wanted to show you something."

He took gently her arm and they walked fast in the city, they climbed a big hill, Oromet. At this point, people used to see ships coming from the Undying Lands, but at that time, no ship ever came, the Valar were angry.

At that moment, the view was wonderful. They saw the sun setting on the sea.

"I like coming here every night. That reminds me where I come from" he said.

"You're an Ainu. Can you see Valinor from here?"

"Sometimes I can. I'm never fed up with watching this wonderful land."

Daewen watched until the night had completely come. Then she turned to Sauron, who was even more beautiful, with the pale moonlight on his face.

"Thank you for showing this to me."

He smiled and sank his gaze into hers. She looked away, unable to stand his gaze anymore.

"I have to go now. My family will be worried if I don't come back."

"As you wish. Come here tomorrow at sunset. Please."

"I will."

She came back home. She would come back to see the sunset. But she wouldn't talk with Sauron. She didn't want to see him. Well, actually, she didn't want him to see her.