Bound by Shadows | Adar x OFC | Rings of Power

Captured

Eleneth looked up into the heavy grey where the sky had once been. She shielded her eyes from the ever-falling haze of ash. Straining her eyes, she thought she could just make out a deep orange hue beyond the darkness. 

The sun sets. 

It was time to return to the cave before nightfall. Her heart felt heavy in her chest. It had felt heavier each day she'd been here. She could feel a weakness taking hold of her that she'd never experienced before. 

One day middle earth may see its last light. I

It was becoming harder to push away dark thoughts. Kneeling, she scooped the tiny, black-leaved seedling she had been examining moments before, and a little of the charcoal earth, into a glass vial, securing a lid on top. 

Peering closely at its jagged leaves she whispered, "What part will you play?" 

There is life here yet, for good or ill. 

Eleneth scanned the horizon on all sides, before turning to head back towards the cave. 

I nearly have enough. Then I will return. Once they understand, they will find the courage to act. No more waiting for the darkness to reach them like an incoming tide.    

Eleneth had been in the Southlands for a whole spring and summer collecting vials of earth, the remains of blackened tree roots, shoots of new, twisted plants that were coming into being. Things that grew in the dark. The woods of Lothlórien grew harder to remember each day. The names of plants swirled through her mind under a thick mist. Eleneth was afraid, but her resolve was unyielding. She could not abandon the land to destruction and death. She could not sit and wait with a dread of what was to come. Her father was not at peace with his inaction, though he would not admit it. She sensed there were new powers, born of darkness, in this land, that would help her people in the coming war, medicines that could be harnessed. She'd had a vision of the future where the war could be tipped in their favour by repairing the poisoning of the Southlands and pushing back against the unfurling darkness with a great frontier of trees. She had to find out what these poisons were. The mornings and evenings breathed a chill across her pale skin now. A whisper of Autumn was approaching though it could not be seen in the Southlands. 

It must have been later than she had thought. She was still more than a mile from the cave and the light, what little there was left, was almost extinguished. Even her elven eyes could not penetrate through the dead of night here. The cry of an orc sounded far away in the distance, shrill and strange. Eleneth didn't flinch at the sound any more, having grown used to their constant patrolling of this vast land. She had moved location many times to avoid detection and the fabric of her cloak allowed her to move almost unseen, even in open ground. Orcs were loud and they travelled in packs, tracing the same routes for days at a time. Eleneth was not afraid, but she gripped the handle of her long dagger in its sheath. 

The last of the light was just slipping away as she came to the cave. The entrance was mostly covered by fallen rock, leaving a narrow gap to squeeze through along one edge of the opening. She paused for a moment to look around, but the light was gone. She had heard no more orc cries, no tramping feet or breaking twigs. The vast blackness around her was silent. Putting away her dagger and feeling a need for rest, she clambered up a small pile of rocks to reach the gap and slipped through, lightly, into the pitch black of the cave. She knew the dimensions of the space without sight and took a few paces inside, in the direction of where she normally lay. 

Her boot rang off something hard and metallic. She froze, holding her breath. A leaden feeling of dread washing through her body. Her mind raced but no thoughts formed.