The past is already written.
The ink is dry.
But the future remains unset and the Valar have begun to sing a song anew.
Gondor is a kingless state falling into ruin against the Shadow of Mordor. Doomed to fail and forsaken by Men and...
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LOSSARNACH and its northern villages were scattered across the green plain. The land was renowned for its fertility and the succulent fruits the soils produced yearly —not to mention the fields of wildflowers in bloom during the spring and summer. It was possible to see for miles on a clear day, over fields of wheat to orchards. Sometimes even the highest point of Minas Tirith could be seen rising up from the horizon. Though on this day, the sky was shrouded in a blanket of thick grey clouds.
The cavalcade passed through the largest of the villages where the road cut through an orchard of trees with budding flowers, however, some had already produced fruit as well. Belegorn reached up in the saddle of his horse and pulled down one of the red fruits. Its skin was tough, yet his dagger cut through it with ease to reveal an interior with hundreds of deep red arils. Aeardis had never tasted something so sweet and tart in her life. She had taken a keen liking to Belegorn and the way he spoke about both the land and people that bore him in the highest praise. If the people of Minas Tirith were all like him she supposed she'd never wish to leave.
A sentry-guard rode forth to meet the procession bearing the sigil of the land —three red roses on a white field. The girl had missed his name but he knew Belegorn well and her father too. He offered his lord's home as a place to rest and feast, but Ohtar insisted the traveling party push onward to Minas Tirith. None challenged his authority and they rode to the eastern edges of the province.
It seemed that nothing could dull the beauty and goodness of Lossarnach but looming in the east was a range of dark mountains where the sky shifted from grey to a shade of red unlike any that could be found in a sunset or rise. Unnatural was the only word that Aeardis could think to describe the place. Ohtar already sensed the question forming on the tip of his daughter's tongue when her gaze was drawn to the Land of Shadow and back to him. "That is Mordor, Aeardis," he told her. "A great evil dwells there."
Her father had spoken of the evil before on stormy nights when she was younger and wished to hear stories of brave heroes, fair maidens and faraway places. "Sauron," she whispered the Dark Lord's name as if it were a forbidden curse. Ohtar nodded with a solemn expression, saying no more and Aeardis was left to wonder what other evils dwelled in the Black Land. Her mind ran away with her as if often did when she tried to imagine something new and unknown.
While traversing the Great Sea she had tried to imagine the great island of Númenor as more than just a barren mountain and pictured what the White City could possibly look like. For her young years and large imagination she could have never imagined a city like Minas Tirith.
They passed through the Rammas Echor and she looked upon the White City for the first time. Minas Tirith shone like a fleeting star in the shadow of Mordor. The city had been hewn from the mountain and stood tall and shining with high white walls and a foreboding Great Gate made of iron and steel. Aeardis doubted that any army could ever breach those walls or tear down such strongly crafted ramparts like these. Hinges and chains creaked and groaned as the gate was opened.
