Author's Note: The girl is named Linaer.

Disclaimer: Nothing is being claimed.


Drabble: Everyone But Eönwë Dies (Last Days Verse)

The blanketed thing in the Dark Lord's arms squealed and squirmed, even as Eönwë watched him pull the swaddled bundle to his chest. But by size alone, he knew not only was it one of the children brought before them in some ghastly misshape, that Sauron had done well to hide, but that it was indeed an actual child.

It shifted in Sauron's arms, quietly protesting the arms that held it, before falling still. Wrapped up as it was, he'd seen little, but something told him he truly did not wish to see more, that whatever was now residing under the bedclothes, was fundamentally wrong and terrible. And he got a foreboding sense, Sauron's wish to conceal it was not solely for his benefit.

"She needs healing."

"She does not belong in Valinor. If your aim is save her, this land will kill her faster."

Sauron hardly seemed to notice him. "Indeed, it may, but even still…." He trailed off. "I did not bring her here. And as a Dark Lord, I'm reasonably certain preserving a child in Aman, is the least of my crimes."

The blanket shifted, and Sauron's eyes dropped to the bundled mass in his arms, and it seemed he was weighing the odds of a decision yet to be made, or reflecting on the consequences of a decision he had made. His voice lowered, and Eönwë knew he would have sweetened it if he could have done, as he spoke softly to the child in his arms, as he began to walk away.

"Sauron," he called both nervous about letting Morgoth's Lieutenant wander, and curious with a sudden spark of epiphany. "You know this child."

The other Maia stopped, and after a moment, turned. For a moment, he was utterly silent, warily sizing up the sky-Maia, and Eönwë knew he'd guessed rightly.

"Morgoth was not always the kindest of masters… and she pitted herself between us. He punished her for that foolish insurrection."

With that, the Dark Lord turned on his heel, and left Eönwë, staring after him. Watching to see where he did go, he chose to let them have some distance.

He didn't know what had been done to the child in Sauron's arms, but maybe it took a dark lord's knowledge to fix? He wasn't sure. But Sauron's words had lad left him with a cold pit in stomach, as he mulled them over, seeing what he had not said.

Sauron didn't know precisely where he was going, but knew the small copse of trees was just what he needed, and under their deadened bows, he sat feeling the child shift against him as he settled.

He didn't coax her conversation. Nor did he offer her an assurances false or genuine. Abhorrent and menacing, it was beyond him to be comforting, but he hoped somewhere between the blanket, the warmth, and arms that both embraced and encaged her, that she recognized what he was attempting to offer her.

He knew who he was holding-what he was holding was aberration, abhorrent, and terrible. The one eye that had peeped at him from behind trembling fingers, had been sight enough to prove, Morgoth in this last act of spite, had wrought something profound in its horror.

Almost, he hugged it tighter, as if that act alone might undo it, but he did not act, on the notion, knowing, she wasn't pleased to be in his arms, and that her compliance to remain so, hung by a thread. Instead, he just sat, letting his mind wander. There was much to think about, much to reflect on, and nothing immediate could be done for the problem at hand.

"You are a nuisance," he told her. His personal nuisance to annoy him to death. "But I suppose that's not your fault…." He blamed her entirely for being irritating. "Trouble has a habit of finding you." That at least, was true. He'd found her. Morgoth had found her. And her own story she had revealed, to him, or that he had guessed the details of, had been rife with trouble. For her own sake Valinor might have been the best place for her. It was the one place where nothing was liable to happen, but he knew such a thing would never be sanctioned. Oh they might keep her for a time, to help her, if only to placate him in the hopes he'd play nice with their precious elves, and refrain from any further tyranny, but beyond that he had no idea what they might do.

It was equally possible, they'd throw her in the Void, right along with him.

There was rasp of breath, and he felt a hand on his breast bone, but she did not speak, or make another sound. She only remained, curled where she was, leaching heat from him, as the world grew colder.

The cold alone, descending ever thicker, would prove a killer. Sooner or later it would render him houseless, and she wouldn't last beyond that point, but time for Arda, was running out. Maybe she felt that, the heavy silence that filled the air, or maybe even bundled under her blanket she could feel that terrible cold creeping in.

Perhaps that was true source of her willingness to remain in his lap, the instinctive knowledge that he might be the last warm place on earth. The idea struck him as ironic, for he had been of first to descend, and most likely would have been quite warm then too.

For the first time in a long time, he felt careless. He was not unafraid. Indeed he was terrified of what might soon befall him, but for some reason he felt his need for secrecy dissipate, eager for once to tell her a story. A part of his story, he had not yet shared, with any living being for longer than he cared to remember. Maybe it was just her. Maybe it was because he knew, he was going wind up in the Void, and wanted in those last moments, something of himself, of his memory, to remain in the world in some form or fashion-something of him that hadn't been tainted. A story in which for a while he might have been near to heroic.

But gazing, into the dark, seeing broken mountains, the smouldering ruins of shoreline being, the desolate ruin of starved, broken, forests, frozen, starved, and dying cities, he knew there was no time for such a story.

There was no time left for much more of anything. His world. His beautiful world…

He couldn't put into words…his world. What he'd fought so hard, and died so many times, so many ways for… he clung to child in his arms, cleaving to Arda's marred token remains.

She was rigid, and her breath was stifled, her heart an erratic fluttering thing, pounding toward oblivion, and he pressed his cheek against her blanketed head.

"I am sorry." Never had he been more so, for everything and anything. He received no response, had known he wouldn't, but the silence still stung like rejection, not that he deserved anything less. But she had for better or for worse become a strange comforting presence, and cruelly Morgoth had stolen that away.

He shifted, brazenly reaching under the blanket. He didn't seek to unveil her, but even as he reached to wrap his arm around her, he felt the prickle of claws or sharpened teeth grazing his skin in silent warning.

It was a breech he knew. It was pushing a boundary he probably should not have been, but his one arm at least was considerably warmer, and under the blankets, the child felt more solid, more tangible.

But she'd turned, trying to pull away when she had nowhere to go. Claws, or perhaps sharp teeth, grazed his arm, threatening harm, and for several tense moments they both sat thusly, his arm hidden from his view, in the clutches a monster.

He could feel her trembling, as he held onto him, and for his part, he remained stone still, waiting, and watching the blanketed child in his lap, not at all surprised by this turn, but mildly disappointed.

He had hoped exposure to his presence would have granted her recollection of their time travelling together, but it appeared they were truly back to square one. At least there weren't any frying pans about, and in his mind's eye he remembered the cast iron cookware that left a formidable dent in the wall, as it swung harmlessly through his fëa. A similar frying pan had been turned against Morgoth, in his defence a short time later….

"Do you not know me?" He asked. "Do you not remember our journey across Arda? The burning forest? The cave? The flash of brilliant light that turned the darkness to day for a fleeting moment?"

Under the blanket she did not move or speak.

"Your sister? The sister you were brazen enough to swing a frying pan at to protect?"

The blankets flinched, and she cowered there, shaking, no words nor noise issuing from the swaddled child. The sharp things that had prickled his arm, were no longer in vacancy, and he continued on as he'd planned, before finally settling.

At length she returned to her previous position with her head against his sternum, and there she trembled. Hand on her ribs, and determined to see what the blankets hid, he very gently probed her flesh with his Fëa. Closing his eyes against the world, he turned to this one task, as the coldness of the dying world, tired him.

And he was, utterly exhausted. He hadn't really thought about how much blood and grime covered him. His own. Morgoth's. Others'. Nor did he care to dwell on it. There was so little time left, and in the end, he had so little native power left to him.

"Surely, you remember something," he murmured. "If nothing else, perhaps our conversations in the dark?" It was futile and he knew it. She either could not or would not answer, and as he probed the damages done to her, he soon knew it was the former.

"I remember our conversations. You found words agreeable enough, and it became not a matter of coaxing them from you, but a constant battle to keep you from uttering them at all hours of the day." He almost smiled. "Then you started asking questions, and there was scarcely an end to it. But mutism made you a good listener: observant and perceptive, and too late a realized you knew more of me than I wished… and yet… I wish-"

He caught himself, not at all afraid of her, but of any listening ears lurking about. He did not believe Eönwë was not skulking about, nor did he believe the Valar's eyes were not upon him. Yet he wished all the same, they might have had one last conversation. It might have been nice, he thought, had it ended like that, in the midst of open earnest conversation he had not been participant in ages, secure in the knowledge that all his secrets were safe.

It was cold, and the world was unbearably still. And he was no longer warm enough, to stave it off, without burning her to death in his arms.

First to enter Eä, it seemed he would be the first to leave.

It was conceivable most were already gone, and he was one of the last. Truly they could have been the only two left in the crumbling ruins of the world around them.

Far off, rocks slid, and the earth groaned, as they crashed into the sea. One by one swallowed by black waters. And in his arms, he felt the child falling asleep. Still probing various injuries and surveying ruined flesh, and warped bones, strained by distressed tendons, and twisted muscles.

He had knowledge enough to perhaps, undo some of it, but his knowledge of flesh-craft alone would not be enough to truly bring her back, if she could be brought back. Long years of torment lay ahead of her, if an eternity in the Void did not. Recovery, even with his aid would be a slow tedious thing, and she'd hate him for it in the end.

At least, he was not left wondering her fate, on the ravaged shores of Middle-earth.

He stopped his exploration, too tired to continue, too tired to do more than sit right where he was, watching the world, fall into ruin. The cold was creeping in. Into the blanket he held, into his flesh. Into the very bones of his new body, stealing away vitality and strength.

Once more he felt compelled to hug her close, and this time he didn't bother to resist. It felt good, to have been needed, to perhaps still be needed. If nothing else it had felt good to have what he might come close to calling a friend, if only for a time. It felt good, to know he was not alone at the end of things. Maybe, just maybe whatever was left, of the girl he held felt that too.

Exhausted, and delirious he closed his eyes, and in the back of this throat, he hummed. It was deep and quietly, utter devoid of power, or reason. It simply was, and for a moment the girl stirred, at the sound, shifting, in what he imagined to be an effort to hear it better.

It would be the last time she moved, as she fell asleep. The last sound she'd hear as the hypothermia crept in, and the chilling darkness at last dug in its claws and dragged her away.

He felt her fëa leave. Felt the bonds keeping her snap and watched her flee-tattered ruined fëa disappearing in darkness, panicked and out of sorts. Had he been of sound mind he might have grabbed her, or at the very least might have called her back.

But there was no back to call her too. There was nothing for her, where he sat dying, and soon enough some Maia or perhaps a Vala, would bear away somewhere safe, far away. He didn't let go of the body in his arms, even if he knew it was empty and devoid of life. It was an effort too great to even move. His limps felt torpid, and his mind was addled by his dying body. His final body-the last he'd ever have.

It hadn't been made by him, as he hadn't had the power to shape one, and the power it had taken to maintain it, had likely killed him, more assuredly than if he'd been houseless for entirety of Morgoth's return.

That had been his plan originally, until….

Something rustled, and he imagined the child had returned sweet to see him off. But deep down he was sure he was alone.

'I'm dying,' he whispered in direction of the noise, where his thought she was. 'My final death. You were afraid to be alone, but if you stay here, you will be… I won't be following after. I am going the way of my former Master. And as much as it pains you, it's time to look toward the light, and depart. I don't know what awaits you there, but you won't be alone, and the pain will likely stop.'

Sleep was stealing over him. Worn out, and worn down from freezing temperatures, exhausted from shivering, he felt himself falling asleep, and even his will was not so great to stave off the inevitable. He was growing torpid. The only solid tangible thing a cold stiff body in his arms.

He hadn't utterly forsake the children, nor had they utterly forsaken him. He never could have, or would have done so. Even when he hated them, and sought to lay their kingdoms low, he had never turned his back on Arda. He hadn't forsaken them in the end, nor they him. Die he would, here, in this bleak desolate place, but he was dying with them and among them. And maybe that meant something. Maybe… that meant everything.

His extremities were heavy, the fire in his eyes, dim, and his body cooling, as at last exhaustion over ruled him. Amid the darkened remains of Arda, clinging to a child of men, Sauron's mind fell still, and his thoughts silent.

All about the fallen Maia, and across Arda, nothing stirred.


Author's Note: So I pretty much gave up on the Last Days, because I had no clue where to go with it. Can't say that anymore. Whoops. ^u^; I don't think he's dead. I mean he could be, but I'm pretty sure he survives, but is in absolutely abysmal shape when he finally does extricate himself from that body. Yeah, I know it's not the frying pan scene against Morgoth, but that's because that scene absolutely kills my heart thinking about it.