The Corruption and Degredation of Mary Sue

Chapter 22: Apocalypse Then
(Author’s Tripe: apologies of Jim Morrison, Francis Ford Coppola and Joseph Conrad. I just can’t help myself.)

“Right. What do you want of me so badly?” demanded Kalina once Celebelen had dragged her to a suitably quiet corner of the hall.

“I need to tell you something about Aragorn!” she said in a quiet voice, looking around concerned.

“Go on. Enlighten me,” replied Kalina sarcastically. “And where the fuck is he anyway?” she added.

“He’s GAY!” hissed Celebelen, looking around nervously.

“You don’t say,” replied Kalina blandly.

“He is!! He and Legolas were… well… doing things!” she said, eyes wide with both confusion and fear, but also with a healthy dollop of glee resulting from gossiping.

“Really? Where?” asked Kalina, perking up.

“In the garden! I went for a walk with Aragorn and we met Legolas and Aragorn told me not to tell anyone but I had to tell you because you had to know and like it’s so icky!!”

“… and breathe,” said Kalina, before the human could add to her brief monologue. “Now where did you say they were? Specifically that is?”

“I… I don’t know! It was dark!” said Celebelen.

“Oh yes. You’re one of those lowly mundane humans who’re crap about seeing in the dark. Never mind. Look, I’ll just go and find him and see if I can’t talk him back to heterosexuality. Bye!” Kalina grabbed a spare bottle of wine and hurried off quickly into the garden.

“Should I come?” asked Celebelen.

“NO!” yelled Kalina without pausing to look back as she addressed the human.

Looking around her and feeling somewhat lost, Celebelen toyed with the idea of treating herself to some more crack. Before she got the opportunity to do so, she noticed Glorfindel approaching and smiling at her.

“You’re an unfamiliar face,” commented the tall elf lord.

“I’m Celebelen,” replied the human, staring admiringly at his dark blonde hair and broad armor-clad shoulders.

“And interesting name for one of your kind,” replied Glorfindel smoothly. “Tell me, would a woman such as yourself find it in herself to accompany an older elf lord for a reasonable fee?” Glorfindel smiled at the human and fingered a heavy coin purse on his belt.

“It will be my pleasure,” said Celebelen, allowing Glorfindel to take her elbow and escort her back into the throng.

“Come, my dear, now tell me about yourself,” said Glorfindel, who usually liked to pretend to pay attention to his
whores. The attentiveness and flattery paid for itself in the bedroom later. Celebelen was soon wittering away about her past as Glorfindel nodded and ‘ah-hahed’ in all the right places, steadily consuming more and more alcohol.

It did not take long before the party started to slide vaguely in the direction of drunken carnage. Glorfindel took this as his cue to lead Celebelen off back to his chamber, away from the noise and revelry.

Celebelen felt slightly uneasy as she entered Glorfindel’s room. It had a strong resemblance to Kalina’s room in that a large array of weapons and smoking related paraphernalia adorned the place.

“Get comfortable,” said Glorfindel absently, leaving Celebelen to stare at his possessions while the elf began to remove his armour and soon stood naked much to the awe of the stoned human. Even though he had not seen proper battle in decades, the veteran’s body was exceptionally well toned, each slender limb belying the strength within that flesh.

Oblivious to the human’s staring eyes, Glorfindel opened a closet and pulled out a light silk dressing gown of deep crimson and slipped it on then glided over towards a shelf upon which was stood a long and elaborate opium pipe.

“You’ve got a lot of big weapons,” said Celebelen, unnerved by the silence and all the steel.

“I have had a long life as a warrior. I have fought in many campaigns, carried out scores of missions, seen victory, defeat, and horrors beyond the darkest dreams of your kind,” replied Glorfindel, retrieving the pipe and a small box containing a substantial amount of opium. “Sit with me,” he said as he climbed onto his bed and began preparing the pipe.

Impressed with his fancy words, Celebelen reclined beside him, gazing up at his impassive features as he lifted the pipe to his lips. He inhaled deeply and shut his eyes, then lay back on his bed, gently exhaling. Moments like this always brought back the past with vivid images streaking across his mind’s eye.

Gondolin.

Maeglin.


That hellish journey up the river and into the jungle where the traitor had gone rogue, taking an army of orcs with him, insisting on winning this war HIS way.

He had been back from the war but couldn’t settle in. Things had changed. When he had received that message, calling him to this unspecified mission, he had been compelled to respond. Waiting in Gondolin, still only in Gondolin… the tension and heat had nearly driven him mad.

Eventually he was called up to the military camp and given the documents. Maeglin. He was alive, in the jungle. What messages of his that had been intercepted proved his descent into insanity.

He could not be permitted to live. And it was up to Glorfindel to go into this dark uncharted land and terminate the traitor.

The journey took many days up the river in a small boat, with horrific casualties both inflicted and received. At the very end of it, Glorfindel had been captured and brought to Maeglin. The harrowing events of the journey had left Glorfindel scarred, some wounds physical but more were searing lesions in his very psyche. The words of the traitor now made more sense. This glimpse into madness made Glorfindel realise the fragility of his own mind and soul, a sickness filling him as he saw himself in the eyes of Maeglin.

He waited till dusk had finally turned into darkness before managing to slip out of his imprisonment and carrying only the hunting knife the guards had overlooked, crept into the ancient ruins Maeglin had claimed as his own. The fight between the two elves was a slow and almost ritualistic dance, ending with Glorfindel rending Maeglin’s flesh, his final choking cry masked by the frenzied chaos of the traitor’s wretched minions in the throes of barbaric revelry.

The elf had slipped out and was able to call in the reinforcements, massive catapults drawn through the jungle to raze Maeglin’s remote stronghold and end this atrocious by-product of dark madness.

As Glorfindel watched fire rain down from the catapults, scarring the jungle for decades to come, the words of that insidious conversation on the edge of madness between him and Maeglin whispered through his tormented mind.

“The horror… the horror…”

“Glorfindel?” asked Celebelen cautiously as the elf began to sweat, possessed by these dark memories.

“Sen no i methed, bain meldir, i methed,”* sang Glorfindel softly, his eyes half opening and staring off into the middle-distance. The human stared at him, entranced by his singing and no longer wishing to disturb him. “Sen no i methed, nín er-meldir, i methed.”*

He continued singing in Sindarin, then began to focus on Celebelen again as the opium fog began to clear slightly. He was suddenly aware of the tension in his muscles and in his loins. These flashbacks always left him burning with lust. Raw carnal sex was usually the only thing that could dispel the creeping primal fear these unpleasant reminiscences summoned within him.

“Try this,” he whispered, pulling Celebelen close to him and passing her the pipe. Propping himself up on an elbow he leisurely saw to it that the pipe was full and lit it for the human. She inhaled deeply, already more used to the burning smoke than she had been a day ago. Slumping against the tall veteran as she exhaled, he caught her in his arms. He left her floating there on an opium dream, smiling and dazed as he helped himself to the remainder of un-scorched drug in the pipe. His head rushing with the dizzying high, he pulled Celebelen onto him as he lay down again, gently slipping his hands across the fine buttons on the back of the human’s dress.

The fabric soon became loose, falling off her skin that was soon caressed by Glorfindel’s fingers, calloused from centuries of wielding a sword but still delicately elven. The narcotic flowing through her system rendered Celebelen exceedingly sensitive, trembling with every movement against her skin. Receiving payment was no longer really an issue for the human as she was overwhelmed with being so close to such a noble creature.

It was just like her daydreams of sex back home, except without smoking naturally… although she found herself scorning her previous opinions of inhaling hot carcinogens on a regular basis.

Celebelen was lost in her own blissful thoughts and did not think anything of the sudden tense twitch that convulsed briefly through Glorfindel. Nor did she see his eyes as they stared off perceiving some unknown situation.


Back in Gondolin, Glorfindel had returned from his harrowing experience and was seeking something to keep the sights he had seen at bay. Drunk, he brought back a human whore to the room in the inn he stayed in. Lying back, sweating from the heat and exertion of sex, he barely noticed the blonde human produce a dagger and lunge for his throat. Moving swiftly and without thought, the elf rolled off the bed and onto the floor as the human struck and missed, landing her dagger in the pillow where scant seconds ago Glorfindel’s head had lain.

Reaching out he grabbed a spear and skewered the whore in the chest just as she turned, having retrieved her dagger. As she became limp, the whore’s hand opened, revealing Glorfindel’s coin purse.

The image of the dead woman on his bed, head lolling and a spear embedded through her whose death had been
brought on by greed and desperation in a time of war and chaos stayed with him. As did those moments when he saw the blonde whore writhing on top of him, intent on slitting his throat.



Glorfindel’s eyes blinked and he turned his head to see a blonde human pulling herself up on top of him.

As Celebelen reached back to pull off her dress, panic struck Glorfindel’s face.

“NO! NOT AGAIN!! IT CANNOT HAPPEN AGAIN!” he screamed, suddenly grabbing Celebelen and throwing her across the room. She shrieked and collided with the wall. “YOU CHEATING WHORE! YOU BROUGHT THAT DEATH UPON YOURSELF! WHY MUST YOU PERSIST IN TORMENTING ME WHEN ALL I WANT IS TO FREE MYSELF OF THE PAIN OF THOSE TIMES?!”

Ranting furiously, Glorfindel picked up a spear. Celebelen, her dress abandoned, screeched and fumbled with the door. Throwing it open and adrenalin banishing the worst of the opium’s effects, she ran down the halls of Rivendell, desperate to get away from the insane elf.

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*Translation: This be the end, beautiful friend, the end
*Translation: This be the end, my only friend, the end