3

While Orcish women were not exactly of the comely type, the maid standing before Alethorn Garadvas was downright ugly. As if all of those Orcish ladies had been smashed together in one gigantic lump and then pulverized into shape by a meat tenderizer with an anger management disorder. But to Alex, she was more than just the servant who swept the portico; she was the mother he'd never had.

"Alethorn!" the maid exclaimed, rushing down the manor's front staircase with wide-open arms, the gates of the fortified house flung wide to receive the son returned.

Alex grinned despite himself. The son returned. Gods, I really have been exposed to too much of Master Orlotan's lectures.

"I'm home," He said, receiving her welcoming hug with a homesickness borne of a too-long journey through the midsummer dust.

"Great Theodred but you look starved! Just look at you, you're practically dying of the heat! Come in, come in, we can't keep you waiting out here!"

"Matilda, please, I'm fine," Alex said, going through the carefully prepared unconscious ritual of denying a mother's hospitality.

"Oh come now," Matilda frowned, the wrinkled creases of her face melding into longer lines of twinkling laughter, "there's no such thing as a homecoming without one of my pies to cheer you up!"

Alex rolled his eyes affectionately as she bustled up the newly-expanded front entryway into the marble-clad foyer, designed to "reflect wealth but not obscenity" as his father, Andrei Garadvas, had put it.

The house, in itself, was a spacious country manor, overseeing a good-sized nobleman's plot of 4,000 acres and three-dozen peasant families. Alex's father was not the owner, of course, as he was originally a Yeoman out of Morgoth, but rather a privileged tenant. Lord Harlaus was permanently away, living the good life in Minas Tirith, too busy to worry about his rain-starved Mordorian lands, and preferring the steady income of renting to an ambitious freeman who could set things straight. The manor had thus been transformed from a ransacked ruin in a war-torn country, to a mildly prosperous estate when Andrei Garadvas, the boldest of the bold, had diverted water from the nearby Serengard River to irrigate the farms, only at the expense of not having enough pressure to power the now-useless saw-mill. In these dry and desolate days, there were no trees worth cutting anyway.

Despite the anti-bandit fortifications and the lazy patrolling of his father's five bodyguards, Alex couldn't help but feel a certain sense of unease upon entering what should've been the safest place on Middle-Earth for him. The last time father and son had met; they had parted in anger, who knew how the ferociously-tempered Andrei of Sarabad would react?

"You're fathers in the dining hall, dear, he's eager to see you," Matilda said, her speech full of blissful enthusiasm but her eyes telling a different tale of cautious hope. He's cooled off since before, Alex read; maybe it'll be better this time.

I better hope so, he though, steeling himself for an encounter with all that pent-up unease. Couldn't he at least take his boots off first; maybe have a piece of that pie he was smelling?

No, better to get it over with. So he took a deep breath as Matilda led him down the long entrance hallway to the gaping-wide doors of the Great Hall. A Dragon's maw ready to swallow him up.

At the end of the empty dining table, his elongated fingers tapping casually on the gold-tipped boss of his walking stick, stood Andrei Garadvas, his perpetual investigative frown plastered irrevocably to his face. He was a stark man, with greying hair and a protruding jaw that radiated authority. At his waist hung a stubborn paunch that despite his active lifestyle refused to be removed. In fact, he'd been grooming it to "portray prosperity but not laziness" and as always, "wealth without obscenity." Bloody poker face, Alex thought, I'm you're son for Theored's sake, can't you let out at least a little emotion?

Suddenly, as if a Wizard had snapped his commanding fingers, that stony face broke into a broad smile, "Alex," Andrei's deep, throaty voice called, "It's good to see you."

"Good to see you to, father," Alex replied, shifting uncomfortably around the edge of the table, his gaze resting anywhere but his father's eyes. He stared up around the room, taking in the scenery of a moderately-sized Lord's hall, constructed of solidly-placed stone bricks with a timber-framed ceiling, two great trestle dining tables stretching across its length to the Lord's table, which was raised on a dais, at the base of which Andrei stood, his back to that big old wall-to-wall tapestry depicting the battle of Pellenor fields.

"Please, my boy, please. No need for this insufferable formality. I get enough of that at the League meetings." The incessant tapping on the cane stopped, leaving the room sweating profusely under the heavy hand of an oppressive silence.

"I was a fool," Alex admitted. Though admitted could hardly be the word for it. Nor could lied, spat, or any other emotion known to man. He was, actually, quite unsure what emotion to label this particular problem with, only that whatever one he chose would be false. Alicia was out of his life now. They had fought enough in the end for him to forget the good days…ish

"Agreed, but smart lads like you do not remain fools for long," To Alex's relief, his father smiled broadly this time, the expression finally touching his normally cold eyes, "Come here, my boy," the old man said.

Alex now smiled too; rushing towards his father's outstretched arms. I was a fool, he thought, falling for a peasant girl who'd hate me in the end. But even the most infamous tempers cool after a while.

So it was with long-awaited peace that Alethorn Garadvas slept that night.

"Does he know?" the voice rasped, its incongruous sound rolling across the shadowed figure's hearing.

"Not yet, but it's obvious enough."

"Hopefully you're better at hiding things than I think you are."

The shadow grinned, of all people, the elf had possibly the strangest sense of humor he'd ever come across. Or was that really a joke? He could never be sure. It sounded kind of like a veiled threat. Then again, it could easily be both.

"I am an artist," the shadow replied, the grin still flickering across the dark palette of blackness under his enshrouding hood.

"You'd better be more than the idiot I think you are, because if you fail…"

"Doomsday, I know. How touching. The Lad's been waiting for this since he was born. He just doesn't know it yet."

"Good. I'd rather be saluting a King than mourning a farm boy."

Author's Note:

Dear Readers,

First off, I'd like to thank you for reading the first four chapters of Ringbearer (etc.). More chapters are on their way! But enough of that. I still need to get to the REAL point of writing this note.

This story is a fun side project while I'm writing an Epic Fantasy Novel that I hope will one day project me into the prestigious ranks of Those Who've Published. I mainly write for fun, but I'm still desperate for feedback, so whether you love this story or hate it, WRITE A REVIEW FOR THEODRED'S SAKE!

Thanks' for listening to my rant. Even a tip of "you know, this was good when…" or "have you ever heard of a Thesaurus!?" can help improve my writing (and thus the future chapters that I hope you're interested enough to be reading).

Happy Reading!

-Neohtan the Wise (professional slayer of demons, dragons, and overly aggressive trolls- if anybody asks).

P.S: I'm a little shaky on my Middle Earth Mythology. Does anybody know what religion Tolkien originally wrote in? I've obviously kicked-off a great deal of Polytheism, but if you've got any authentic details, I'd be happy to add them in.