Author's Note: I sincerely apologize for the delay. A few unexpected issues came up, and my exam week has just ended, which caused the wait.
To be honest, I'm a bit nervous about posting this chapter because I know there are some dedicated Tolkien fans among you. As I've mentioned before, I never write without consulting Tolkien Gateway for lore, but I did take a few creative liberties with the character featured here. I interpreted them in my own way, doing my best to stay true to their core personality, though I am not entirely sure if I completely nailed the characterization.
I hope you will still be satisfied with it, as I know some readers might be tempted to drop the story over things like this. Happy reading!
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To reach the bed comfortably, Estel calmly pulled a wooden stool next to Elrohir's bed, climbed onto it, and sat down. Then, picking up a fork from the table, he skewered a carefully prepared piece of carrot and brought it toward Elrohir's lips with utmost caution.
"Mr. Elrohir, please open your mouth."
At a loss for words for a moment, Elrohir simply froze, a deeply dark and miserable expression washing over his face. For a two-thousand-eight-hundred-year-old, fully grown elf who had fought in countless battles to suddenly find himself being spoon-fed like an infant by a ten-year-old Dúnedain boy was a severe blow to his pride. In that fleeting second, he hurled such creative curses and vile insults in his mind at the Dark Elves who had reduced him to this state that, had his mother heard them, she would have undoubtedly dragged the grown prince by his ear and given him a thorough beating. Despite the overwhelming humiliation, he was forced to helplessly open his mouth, and his potential future pupil gently slipped the food inside. The Prince of Rivendell began chewing with extreme reluctance and misery, but as the unexpected burst of flavor spread across his palate, his eyes widened slightly, and he spoke in sheer astonishment.
"Carrots and honey? Seriously?"
Meanwhile, Igris, who was carefully supporting the paralyzed Elladan by the shoulders to help him sit upright in the adjacent bed, chimed in.
"Yes. How do you find it?"
Elrohir chewed his bite slowly for a moment longer, savoring the taste before replying.
"Not bad. An interesting combination."
As soon as the prince swallowed his mouthful, Estel fed him a piece of potato he had skewered on the fork. As Elrohir chewed the potato, the sullen expression on his face softened a bit more.
"Now look. This is even better!"
Igris rolled his eyes with feigned exasperation at the elf's newly satisfied demeanor. After placing the custom-made table and the steaming dishes right in front of Elladan, he pulled a comfortable chair up to the bedside, sat down, and asked calmly.
"Soooo? How are things?"
Elladan let out a dry chuckle before speaking.
"A slashed chest and a chatty roommate."
Hearing this remark, Elrohir instantly voiced his displeasure.
"Hey! I am still right here!"
However, neither Elladan nor Igris paid any mind to his reproach; they chose to ignore him entirely. Elladan picked up right where he left off.
"And an empty stomach. Other than that, I am fine."
Then, he asked with curiosity.
"What about your situation?"
Igris leaned back in his chair and shrugged with an utterly relaxed demeanor.
"The usual. Drifting from one adventure to the next, cutting out whatever cancer pops up in Middle-earth. Right now, I'm enjoying a free vacation and dealing with Shadowmane's nonsense. Same old, same old."
The moment he finished his sentence, he straightened up as if suddenly remembering something new and rolled the left sleeve of his garment all the way up to his elbow.
"Oh! I also have a new trick."
Igris narrowed his eyes for a brief moment and focused slightly. Immediately afterward, a dense, pulsating layer of purple aura enveloped his left arm. Under Elladan's watchful gaze, the structure of the arm began to transform instantly within seconds. Human skin gave way to a monstrous texture covered in hard, pitch-black scales; his five fingers elongated slightly, sharpening into the shape of lethal claws. Elladan was utterly dumbfounded by this mutation.
"...Alright. That is a good trick."
In the other bed, Elrohir, whose mouth was stuffed full of the food Estel was feeding him, heard his brother's reaction and mumbled curiously with a muffled voice.
"Whash goin' on o'er 'ere?"
Igris slowly rose from his seat, walked over to Elrohir's bed, and extended his pitch-black, scaly arm right into the prince's line of sight. Little Estel had never seen this terrifying, hybrid arm of Igris's either and backed away in shock. After struggling to swallow the mouthful he had been chewing, Elrohir let out an impressed whistle at the sight before him.
"Now that is something new."
Igris chuckled in delight.
"I am not done showing off yet."
Igris moved to the very center of the room, positioning himself where both twins could see him clearly. Then, he drew a sharp steel dagger from his personal inventory and, without a shred of hesitation, swung it with all his might, plunging it directly into his own black-scaled left arm. Seeing this unexpected, suicide-like attempt, the twins involuntarily jolted in their beds, while Estel was gripped by pure terror.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!"
A loud, metallic echo rang out in the room.
Clink!
Yet, despite Estel's scream, there wasn't a single drop of blood expected to splatter around. The moment the steel dagger struck Igris's bizarre scaly arm, it emitted a sharp screech before shattering into pieces, its fragments scattering across the floor. The three people in the room were paralyzed by this unfathomable display of durability. Igris, acting as though nothing had happened, broadened his shoulders with a wide grin on his face and proudly held his arm out toward them.
"How about that? Not even a scratch!"
As the twins stared unblinking at the smooth black scales, Elrohir could no longer suppress his burning curiosity and asked.
"Igris, what exactly are you?"
Igris shrugged dismissively at the question, and as he did, the scales covering his arm slowly faded, reverting back to normal human skin.
"If only I knew. Your grandmother is going to help me figure that out."
Elrohir nodded with a massive sense of relief.
"Then the problem is solved! Estel! Close your mouth and feed me!"
Little Estel, whose jaw had practically dropped to the floor in sheer astonishment at what he had witnessed, jolted suddenly upon hearing his name. Snapping back to his senses, he immediately returned to his task. However, as he dipped the fork back into the plate, a bizarre question that surfaced in his mind simply refused to let him go.
'...Are these two seriously Elves? Why are they acting so frivolously?'
On the other side of the room, Elladan, still waiting hungry despite the hot food sitting right in front of him—his stomach gnawing at him due to the mouth-watering aromas filling his nose—called out impatiently.
"Igris, cut the showboating and feed me! I am starving."
Having concluded his performance, Igris settled back into his chair beside Elladan and spoke with a lazy sigh.
"Alright~ alright~"
Igris reached out slowly, took the fork, skewered a perfectly roasted piece of potato, and brought the food toward Elladan's mouth. Of course, he didn't miss the opportunity to mock the elf's helpless predicament in the process.
"Open wide~ here comes the eagle~"
Elladan shot a dark, glaring look at this man who was treating him like a tiny infant, but he had no choice but to swallow his pride and accept the offered food. As he chewed the potato ferociously, he was swearing vows of vengeance in his mind.
'When I get back on my feet, you are going to pay for this!'
While these peaceful moments unfolded with Igris and Estel feeding the paralyzed twins and exchanging banter, an entirely different chain of events was transpiring in a much darker, colder, and forgotten corner of Middle-earth.
"Haaahh… Haaahhhh…"
Far removed from the bright and tranquil corridors of Rivendell, deep within a damp-smelling, decrepit, and dilapidated stone dungeon, stood a dwarf suspended from the wall by thick chains binding his arms. Every inch of his body bore the brutal marks of heavy torture, dried blood crusting around his open wounds. The dwarf's matted black hair and thick beard were a tangled mess; the faded tattoos on his face seemed to be the last lingering remnants of the nobility he once carried. Dangerously emaciated from starvation and agony, his skin had taken on a sickly pallor, and one of the fingers on his left hand had been severed. This utterly wretched prisoner was none other than Thráin, the biological father of Thorin Oakenshield.
'Exactly 142 years… I never expected to live this long…'
Thráin turned his neck with great difficulty, staring at the walls of the dark and gloomy cell with vacant eyes.
"Haaahhh… Haaahhh…"
'I've tried so hard to escape this place… but I was caught every single time… that @£#$@! He just kept mocking me, even letting me escape on purpose! Just for his own amusement! But he will not break me! I am the grandson of Durin! I am the King of Erebor! Even if I rot here until my dying breath, let alone 200 years, I will resist!'
At that exact moment, a whispered yet profoundly sinister voice began to echo from the deepest recesses of Thráin's mind. The voice was dripping with dark arrogance, intense malice, and a sense of absolute superiority that viewed the entity before it as nothing more than a mere insect. Scratching at his sanity, this presence began to speak in the Black Speech, its tone guttural, deep, and terrifying.
"Ahh~ See, I do enjoy watching you writhe. Just like a pathetic little cave rat. Watching you struggle in vain is quite the fascinating experience."
Thráin grimaced in agony, a violent headache blooming as the vile voice drilled into his brain. The air inside the room instantly turned ice-cold; a dense aura steeped in darkness, rot, pure death, and sheer despair enveloped the surroundings. Deliberately reigning in a massive portion of its crushing power, this dark spiritual entity slowly materialized in the center of the cell. The physical manifestation of the spirit took the shape of an imposing suit of armor—pitch-black, malevolent, and jagged. This entity was none other than Sauron, the greatest shadow and the most catastrophic scourge currently looming over Middle-earth.
Despite the overwhelming pressure suffocating his entire body, Thráin stubbornly raised his head, flashing a harsh grin through cracked lips, and retorted with a mocking tone.
"Ooh~ Our host has finally graced us with his presence! I'd offer you a beer, but my hands are tied."
In response to this brazen insolence, Sauron raised his armored hand slightly and snapped his fingers. In that instant, Thráin felt a sharp, indescribable agony, as if every nerve ending in his body were being ripped out simultaneously.
"UGHHH!"
The Dwarven King clamped his teeth shut, enduring the inhuman torture to the bitter end to stop himself from screaming until his lungs tore. Sauron, meanwhile, made his words echo directly inside Thráin's mind with an authoritative timbre that made the very walls of the room tremble.
"I told you to mind your tone, you vile wretch. Although, it is hardly possible for a flawed, pathetic creature such as yourself to comprehend my might."
When Sauron suddenly severed the crushing spiritual pressure he was exerting, Thráin took a deep, ragged breath as if falling into an abyss, and began to cough violently.
"COUGH! COUGH!"
Utterly pleased by his victim's pathetic thrashing, Sauron clasped his armored hands behind his back and calmly glided through the air toward the cell's dilapidated, iron-barred window. Thráin, struggling as much as the chains would allow, raised his head and glared at him.
"What do you want, Sauron?"
With his back still turned, Sauron spoke, his voice dripping with pure arrogance.
"I am trying to understand the mindset of you lesser beings. What is of value to you? Everything you do is absurd; in your fleeting little lives, you are either warring, chasing after gold, or hosting ridiculous festivities."
Thráin suppressed the burning in his lungs with a drawn breath and laughed sarcastically.
"So the great Sauron is curious about lesser beings? The end of the world must be upon us!"
When the Dark Lord turned his head slightly over his shoulder toward the dwarf, his voice was muffled and laced with disgust.
"I am merely examining what my future servants look like; I am not curious about you in the slightest. But why do the others insistently aid you and this world? That is what I sought to find out, thinking I might sway one to my side."
Swallowing the blood pooling in his throat, Thráin asked with a raspy voice.
"Tell me who you are talking about so we can know too. What could possibly pique the great Sauron's curiosity?"
A mocking, cold chuckle rose from within Sauron's metallic armor.
"Your feeble mind could not begin to comprehend such matters."
Thráin rolled his eyes in sheer exasperation at the Dark Lord's words.
"Considering my ancestors kicked your ass alongside the Elves and Men, that point is highly debatable."
Acting entirely unfazed, Sauron laughed darkly once more.
"They were only able to defeat me because I wanted them to defeat me. Through that, I perfected my plans."
Finding his excuses laughable, Thráin muttered.
"Sure~ Sure~"
But the moment the words left his lips, that terrifying agony that felt as though it was shattering his ribcage assaulted his body once again.
"UUGGGHHHH!"
Sighing helplessly as if he were training a stubborn, thick-headed mutt, Sauron continued to crush Thráin's mind with his unseen power.
"Why is it that you lesser beings cannot learn even the simplest of things?"
In that moment, the same question crossed his own dark mind once more.
'Why do the others bother with these fools?'
When he abruptly severed the invisible pressure, Thráin was left panting heavily and wheezing, his lungs on the verge of total collapse.
"Haaaahh… Haahhh… Just kill me! Why are you still keeping me prisoner!?"
Sauron turned to face the dwarf completely and spoke mercilessly in his muffled voice.
"Did I not tell you that I have been studying you?"
Thráin glared fiercely at Sauron with bloodshot eyes burning with hatred.
"What do you mean?"
Whispering, Sauron slowly drifted toward Thráin, gliding within a dark mist without his feet ever touching the ground.
"I carefully examined your absurd bonds, your love, your sacrificial nature."
He stopped, hovering right at eye level with Thráin. With Sauron's bottomless darkness drawing so near, every pessimistic emotion in the dwarf's heart flared, and a weight as heavy as mountains crushed down upon his soul. Huge beads of cold sweat began to pour from his forehead and temples. Had Sauron not restrained his own overwhelming power to avoid entirely breaking the mind of the entity before him, Thráin would have either collapsed completely, died in agony, or lost his sanity right then and there. With a voice brimming with pure arrogance, Sauron continued stringing together the hideous words of the Black Speech.
"You serve my plans much better alive. Take pride in that. You are living for a supreme purpose."
Thráin furrowed his brows with great difficulty, struggling to make sense of what he had just heard.
"What do you mean, you @@#£@!"
Sauron chuckled quietly, utterly certain of his victory.
"Thanks to you, I will either have your wretched race slaughter the Elves, or I will wipe your kind out completely!"
Thráin's eyes narrowed at these words. He couldn't entirely decipher the enemy's grand-scale, diabolical plans, but there was one absolute truth he was certain of: As long as he continued to live, catastrophic disasters would befall his people. To prevent this, he wished to take his own life, to commit suicide; but due to the invisible bindings forged upon his mind and body, Sauron had long since made that impossible.
Letting out a foul giggle born of having achieved his goal, Sauron drifted backward like a dark mist, melding into the shadows through the floor of the cell and vanishing. Left completely alone in the cell, Thráin bowed his head in a mix of fury and despair, and spat violently onto the floor.
When Sauron materialized once more from amidst black smoke on the open terrace at the highest floor of the dread ruin housing the dungeon, he commanded the servant before him with absolute authority in the Black Speech.
"Speak."
Kneeling right in front of him, quivering uncontrollably with a terror far greater than its own stature, was an Orc.
"My Lord… The ambush has failed."
As these words reached its master's ears, the lethal atmosphere surrounding Sauron instantly and visibly thickened, growing unbearably heavy. While the Orc, driven out of its mind with terror, swallowed loudly, Sauron ordered in a sharp, unforgiving tone.
"Explain."
Without daring to lift its head from the ground, the Orc began delivering its report, choosing its words with extreme caution.
"M-m-my Lord… The ambush was proceeding flawlessly, but the twins proved resistant to the poison. They managed to briefly blind our strike team with a bizarre light spell and got themselves to high ground. They rained arrows down from above and kept everyone at bay, but after a point, they could no longer hold out… however…"
Reaching the most terrifying part of the sentence, the Orc gulped once more.
"The Black Knight reached the ambush point with a detachment of fifty Elves and rescued the twins. While all the Dark Elves perished, the Dread Lord was taken prisoner."
At this catastrophic news, the pitch-black aura radiating from Sauron began to billow outward uncontrollably. Yet, he managed to reign in his power; for he did not wish to fully reveal himself to all of Middle-earth just yet. The chests of every other Orc present on the terrace tightened, their breath catching as the sheer terror they felt magnified exponentially. While they all groveled on the ground, trembling helplessly, freezing drops of sweat poured down the messenger Orc's head. Spitting out a millennium's worth of malice, Sauron hissed in a low voice seething with pure hatred.
"This insect again!"
The moment the word slipped past his lips, the kneeling Orc who had just spoken began to scream in unspeakable agony.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!"
While the surrounding Orcs cowered among the stones like insects, hiding their faces; the screaming Orc's massive, bulging muscles melted away and vanished within seconds. Its skin rotted and sloughed off its bones, and when this horrific process concluded moments later, all that remained was a pristine skeleton swaying in the wind. Following this exemplary execution, Sauron called out to one of his other servants without so much as turning his head.
"Come here."
Showing absolutely no reaction to the sheer brutality he had just witnessed, Azog strode calmly from the darkness and stood before his master. Sauron delivered his absolute command.
"Send word to the Red Scorpions. I want them to deploy their absolute best immediately. Furthermore, relay their failure to those wretched Dark Elves."
Bowing his head silently with profound reverence, Azog swiftly departed to execute the order. Left completely alone on the ruined terrace, Sauron stared out into the darkness on the horizon, left alone with the venomous thoughts in his mind.
'This insect has disrupted several of my plans… Is he doing this intentionally, or is it merely coincidence? But it matters not. He will die in the most agonizing way imaginable!'