Tears of the Valar.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the Original Characters and their adventures. Everything else belongs to JRR Tolkien, the Tolkien Estate, New Line Cinema/Peter Jackson, et. al. This was done purely for entertainment and as an exercise in creativity.
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Once again, a mixed party of eastern and western Elves found themselves riding out to seek the unknown. Since there were no plans to bring back anything, they did not take as much equipment for baggage as they had when they made the trip to Goroth’s keep. Alexandra and Pomea were the sole females in the group and Legolas’ wife was the only mortal, a fact that did not escape her notice, reminding her of when she had accompanied the Elven army to seek Goroth in an attempt to help end the war with the Eastern Alliance.

As they journeyed through the eastern parts of Rhun, Vanurion, Cunion, Pomea and Sarendir called their attention to various points of interest along the way, often with amusing, and sometimes embarrassing, tales to tell of their adventures or misadventures, during their long lives.

The further they traveled from the area in which the Rhunian Elves dwelt, the structures and its inhabitants gradually changed. Instead of the mortals who had lived with and around the Elves for millennia, these people had likely never seen an Elf and had only heard of them in legends, most of the stories probably unpleasant.

The Elves did not seem to notice some of the looks of open fear and even some vague hostility cast their way as they passed by the groups of mortals. Alexandra knew how to mask her feelings efficiently, but wished to tell these people that they had nothing to fear from Elves. Still, she held her tongue, knowing they had been told for generations how Elves would come and steal them away, rape and torture them, enslave them, even kill them. Thanks to Goroth’s debauchery and megalomania, he had reinforced the image and now it lived on in tales whispered to keep children close to home. She tried to imagine how they must feel, seeing a group of over a dozen armed Elven warriors riding through their land and felt sorrow for both the mortals and the wrongly judged Elves.

They rode for several days with only occasional stops to let the horses rest before finally making camp for a night. Rumil, Elrohir and Sarendir brought back fresh game which the Elves quickly dressed and roasted for dinner. Some of the others found fruit and nuts and they made quite a good meal when combined. Even Alexandra, who still sometimes rebelled against the idea of eating what was once a living animal, had to admit the culinary talents of her husband’s kin were excellent. She had been amused to learn that Elven males usually did most of the cooking, though only the females made the Elvish waybread lembas. She, of course, could do neither.

“Are all the people here always so hostile toward Elves?” Saelbeth asked after they had finished their meal and sat resting around the fire. As usual, all of the Elves kept their weapons nearby and were alert for any danger. Even at rest, the Elves were always on guard.

Vanurion sighed. “I am afraid we have done nothing to disabuse them of the notion that Elves are evil and seek to harm and enslave mortals. Goroth enjoyed the reputation he developed and it spread over the millennia.”

“Likely, none of these people have ever seen an Elf before we came through,” Cunion added. “All they have are stories passed down through their generations.”

“What about Khand and the area where Cuivienen is located?” Elladan asked. “Do those people fear Elves as well?”

Sarendir gave a slight shrug. “To my knowledge, the people of Khand have never seen an Elf, especially if what Lastharos told Legolas is true. If there are stories about us in those lands, I do not know them.” He glanced at Naveradir and raised a quizzical brow.

The older Elf slowly shook his head. “I do not think there have been Elves in Khand. And the Great Journey moved all of us away from Cuivienen. Goroth kept us in Rhun, the furthest east of any Elves. And what Elves did not remain with him and did not go further into the west, became Orcs, if I am not mistaken. One could say, then, that the fears of these people are well-founded. Goroth or Orcs; in either case, they would have dealt with monstrous Elves.”

“It is strange to think on mortals fearing us,” Elrohir mused. “I remember having this discussion in the south when we were pondering how the mortals of Gondor were suspicious of us.” He glanced at Alexandra, the only mortal among them. “We thought Men were foolish to fear us; but it seems that here, they have good reason.”

Alex said nothing, sitting next to Legolas, her head resting on his shoulder as she listened to them talk. She did not like to think of Elves doing evil, though she had experienced it at the hands of Goroth and his nuruil. Still, she had seen that Goroth was the exception, not the rule among Elves. Even the stories of the relatively blood-thirsty First Age Elves, of which Glorfindel and Erestor were among the few remaining, showed no reason for mortals to fear them. Goroth should burn in hell for what he had wrought: the fear he caused in mortals and the pain he caused the Elves of Rhun.

“We will be leaving Rhun soon,” Vanurion told them. “I must admit, I know nothing about the land beyond ours. We have dealt with Khand on occasion, but even they are relatively unknown to us. All of our dealings with them have been through mortal intermediaries so that the Khandun did not know with whom they did business.”

“It seems Goroth took one piece of my advice,” Naveradir commented with a wry smile. “I told him Lastharos was dangerous to Elves and we would be wise not to let him know of our existence.”

Sarendir nodded. “To my knowledge no Elf has ever been to Khand.”

“What will you do once you find the waters you seek?” Alexandra asked Helcarin. She found the entire exercise merely a sight-seeing expedition and could find no practical purpose for making the journey. The others, however, seemed to think it important, though she did not understand what was driving Helcarin on this quest.

The golden-haired ellon looked at her with surprise. “I …” he trailed off as he considered his answer. “I do not know,” he finally replied. “It is simply a burning need I have. Something inside of me drives me to find them; to make this trek. I feel as though it is vital that I do this.” He looked at the other Elves as if seeking an answer from one of his older, wiser kin.

“Perhaps the reason for this urge will be made clear once you arrive at Cuivienen,” Erestor suggested. He did not understand his son’s drive to journey east either, but he would support him. If Helcarin’s mother, Siensia, had sent him on this quest, then it was no simple whim. Erestor was convinced she had been more than she appeared and felt the hand of the Valar was at work in both Helcarin’s conception and his current venture.

Glorfindel and Naveradir both nodded agreement.

“Not lightly do the Valar inspire such actions,” Glorfindel said. He was certain Helcarin’s quest was merely the beginning of something both wonderful and perhaps even dangerous, but that would ultimately do their will.

“Whatever comes of this adventure, it is the will of the Valar and of Eru,” Naveradir told them. He knew there was something important happening and believed Helcarin held the key to the future of the Rhunian Elves. He hoped that by helping the young Elf on his quest he might earn some redemption for some of his past sins.

Rumil said nothing, though both Haldir and Orophin knew his thoughts. He did not truly care what drove Helcarin on this journey. He only wished to find some means of taking his revenge on Lastharos. Haldir hoped his youngest brother’s desire for vengeance would not lead to more danger or heartache; but he could not deny that he, too, would like to see Lastharos brought to justice.

Orophin found Helcarin’s drive interesting and admitted curiosity about the place of the Elves’ beginning. He too, however, would not wish to pass up an opportunity to stain his sword with Lastharos’ blood. Glancing at where Legolas and Alexandra sat he knew the Prince was of the same mind and his mortal wife made no secret about her desire to bring the Khandun leader to a slow, painful, torturous end.

Elrohir gazed into the fire for a moment.

“Ada would have enjoyed making this trek,” he commented. His brother chuckled as he nodded agreement.

“Aye. Ada loved to explore, though I suppose he is now quite happy in Valinor with our mother.”

Glorfindel and Erestor exchanged amused smiles. They knew Elrond would have likely put off sailing had he known this quest was in the future, but also knew he would turn away without a second glance in order to be by his beloved Celebrian’s side.

The next morning, they all once more set out, well-rested and looking forward to their latest adventure. Some of them were well-aware they would not likely see these things again as they would eventually be sailing to the Undying Lands. It was a new concept for Elves: to know that their time was limited. Those who did not feel the call of the sea wondered if they would even leave Middle-Earth though they knew it was expected of the Elves. Still, those whose people had never seen the Blessed Realm, the Silvan and Sindarin Elves, did not feel that call; only Legolas, a Sindarin prince from a Silvan kingdom had heard the call of the gulls and now yearned to sail to the west.

Legolas glanced at Alexandra and was once again struck with sorrow as he realized his time with his beloved was growing shorter with every moment that passed. Each beat of her heart carried her closer to death, to the fate of Men which Elves could not share. He would do anything to keep her with him always though he had turned down Morgoth’s offers in the past. Perhaps he had known, even then, that the fallen Vala did not have the power to grant his beloved wife immortality. Nothing could prevent her from succumbing to the ravages of time.

As if feeling his eyes upon her, Alexandra looked over at him and smiled. He reached out and took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers as they rode side by side with the rest of his kin.

“I love you, my precious wife,” he whispered softly.

“I love you more, my beautiful husband,” she replied with a smile.


Several days passed with the terrain becoming increasingly unfamiliar to the party. They encountered a few small caravans of people with wavy black hair and dark honey-colored skin, just a bit darker than Charika’s. The mortals looked upon them with suspicion and fear when they realized these were Elves in their midst, and their language was completely unfamiliar to the Elves of the west. The Rhunian Elves could understand them, however, and translated for their western kin.

“They call us demons,” Vanurion told them after they had left a group of the mortals behind, the women having covered their children with their bodies and hidden their faces, the men watching them with narrowed, fearful eyes, leading their horses and wagons to the furthest side of the road to avoid contact with the Elves.

Elladan’s grey eyes flashed angrily.

“Coming from people who are ruled by a creature such as Lastharos, they seem to have a problem seeing their own faults.”

“They have heard nothing but bad things about us,” Saelbeth counseled reasonably. “One cannot blame ignorance unless it is willful.”

The dark-haired son of Elrond nodded, but his disgust was not assuaged. His brother shared his feelings.

They continued to ride and early one evening a few days later, Glorfindel stopped, holding up his hand as a signal to the others. All of them halted and listened. A sound came to them on the wind, a soft keening and Helcarin nodded toward their left.

“From that direction.”

“It sounds like a woman or a child,” Rumil commented as the Elves turned in the direction of the wailing noise.

They came upon a sudden clearing in the forest and found a woman and three small children kneeling on the ground, looking at something the Elves could not see. At the sound of their horses’ arrival, the four mortals turned to look and upon seeing Elves, the woman shrieked, grabbing her children and holding them to her.

Pomea dismounted and walked slowly to the woman, speaking in the strange tongue none of the western Elves understood fluently yet, though they and Alexandra were learning from their eastern kin. At first the woman simply screamed and cried, but slowly appeared to lose some of her abject terror and began to respond to Pomea’s words.

Cunion translated for the benefit of their visiting kin.

“They were traveling with another caravan, probably one we have recently passed, and became separated from the rest. They were attacked by fell creatures and her husband fell down this crevice. They do not know if he still lives and are unable to get down to him.”

Haldir dismounted, taking a length of Elven rope. The others also retrieved the rope from their own mounts and he, Legolas and Orophin joined the lengths together. They stayed far back from where the woman and her children huddled, not wishing to disturb the delicate trust she seemed to have formed with Pomea. Finally, the elleth motioned to Alexandra, and Legolas’ wife dismounted and walked slowly to where Pomea and the distraught mother waited.

The dark woman looked at Alexandra curiously and said something that brought a slight smile to Pomea’s lips. When Alex looked at her in askance, her friend translated.

“She asked if you were our slave.”

Alex smiled and shook her head as Pomea told the woman Alexandra was the wife of one of the Elves. The female looked doubtful and studied Alexandra as though she was a completely unknown species.

“I told her we would try to find her husband,” Pomea told Alexandra softly. “She is terrified that the males will kill him and then take her and her children as slaves … or worse.” She shook her head. “It is sad to encounter such fear. She is more afraid of our help than the creatures who attacked them.”

“What kind of creatures were they?” Alexandra asked.

Pomea asked the woman to describe them and after a lengthy speech by the near-hysterical female, the elleth once again turned to Alex.

“Some flew with great wings and had claws on their hands and feet. They killed their horse and ate it and were coming after the family. Her husband pushed her and the children under the overturned wagon so that the beasts could not get to them, and then he tried to find shelter. They drove him over the side of this fissure. After a while, they vanished, flying away.”

“Are they injured?” Cunion called from where he remained by the mounts.

Pomea asked the woman who nodded. Cunion took down his bag and came toward them. The woman clutched the children tighter and began to speak rapidly and fearfully. Pomea spoke calmly to her and eventually motioned Cunion over. He smiled and knelt next to them asking Alexandra to take one of the children and examine him.

She looked at him sharply.

“I am no healer.”

“But you are less threatening than I am to her,” he reasoned and she nodded, gently pulling one of the small children of indeterminate age and sex around and into her arms. This child did not have any visible injury and upon his or her mother’s questioning did not indicate any pain or other injury. The second child also appeared uninjured, but the third, the youngest, had some bruising along its chest and several small cuts and scrapes on the arms and legs.

Cunion cleaned the child’s wounds gently and applied healing oils to the lacerations, bandaging the deeper ones. Then he turned his attention to the woman.

Pomea asked her about injury and she shook her head, but was pale beneath her usual dark skin. Alexandra could smell blood and reached out to the woman who cringed. Glancing at Pomea, Alex once more reached out as the elleth told the woman to let herself be examined. The woman reluctantly allowed Alexandra to touch her, but said something, looking at Cunion fearfully. He smiled and turned away.

“She is afraid to let a male Elf see her,” Pomea told Alexandra who thought the whole thing silly, but reminded herself these people were terrified of Elves.

Blood soaked the woman’s threadbare dress underneath the shawl she wore and Alexandra pulled the garment down, blocking the view of any of the other Elves. A large wound gaped across her right breast, beneath her left breast to the left side just below her ribs. It did not look as though it was deep enough to have cut through to her abdominal or thoracic cavities, but it was a nasty gash nonetheless.

“Tell her Cunion is going to have to touch her to sew this wound,” Alex told Pomea. The elleth translated and the woman shook her head, speaking rapidly, her tone becoming increasingly agitated. Alex listened until she had enough.

“Stop it!” She grasped the woman’s shoulders and shook her slightly, forcing the woman to look at her. “Tell her I will be right here with her and I will help him, but I do not have the skill to tend this wound and unless she wants her children to be left without a mother, she will let him see to her injury so she can remain strong to take care of them.”

Pomea repeated Alexandra’s words to the woman who stared at the human fearfully, then finally nodded. Cunion gave Alex the items needed to clean the wound and when it came time to stitch it, she held it while Cunion performed the procedure. He had used an ointment to deaden the wound so the stitches would not be so painful and once it was finished, Alexandra and Pomea wrapped clean bandages around it.

In the meantime, the other Elves had joined the ropes together and lit a torch. Helcarin was lowered down into the crevice to search for the man. The others made certain the ropes were secure and lowered him slowly. Finally, he called up that he had found the man.

“Does he still live?” Sarendir called.

“Aye. But he is gravely wounded. I do not know how much longer he will live.”

Another length of rope was lowered and Helcarin secured it around the man, then held him as both were raised out of the deep pit. By the time they arrived on the surface, Cunion had completed tending to the woman’s wounds and immediately went to the man.

The woman cried out when she saw her husband and tried to run to him, but was restrained by Pomea and Alexandra until her bandage was secure and they had covered her with her shawl. She scrambled over to where he lay and looked down at him, then threw herself across his body, once more wailing as she had when the Elves had first heard her.

Pomea pulled her back gently, telling her to let Cunion examine him and Alexandra found herself holding on to the hysterical female, Pomea on the other side. Legolas, Erestor and Saelbeth were holding the children who did not seem so frightened of the Elves as their mother, and were, in fact, playing with the Elves’ braids and seemed to find the points on their ears fascinating.

Cunion, Elladan, Elrohir and Glorfindel all began to examine the man and worked quickly to try to secure his wounds. He obviously had a broken arm and one of his legs was twisted at an unnatural angle. Cuts across his back looked to be from claws scraping along his flesh and a knot had formed on one side of his head. His breathing was shallow and he had lost a great deal of blood from the look of him and all four of the Elves feared they were fighting a losing battle.

The woman put her head against Alexandra’s shoulder, murmuring words that the prince’s wife could not understand, but did not doubt were prayers. She would certainly be praying if it was Legolas in such shape, and, in fact, recalled doing so when he had been so badly injured battling Goroth.

The Elves worked silently and quickly on the man as the rest kept torches lit around them so they could see clearly in the waning light. The three children seemed oblivious to the drama around them and fell asleep in the arms of the Elves who held them.

Finally, Elladan stood.

“We have done all we can. His fate is in the hands of the Valar now.”

Elrohir nodded. “We should find a place for him to recover.” Looking to Pomea, he added, “Ask the woman if there are any homes near here where she and the man may remain while he heals.”

Pomea asked the woman who said something in a broken voice.

“There is a city not far from here, she says. They had left it a day ago. There will be healers there and possibly a place to stay.”

Orophin, Sarendir, Rumil and Vanurion had righted the family’s wagon and repaired it as best they could. It was in poor shape, but it would support the family. Two of the horses were hitched to it and the unconscious man put into the bed of it with his weeping wife and the three sleeping children. What supplies had not been destroyed were also placed in the wagon and the Elves and Alexandra then mounted their horses and followed the woman’s directions to the nearby city.