The Last Othellan

The Past

Legolas worried far too much about Aúthiel, or so Aragon told him. She was after all, the man had reasoned, a hardened and ruthless warrior. Yet, Legolas never worried about that side to Aúthiel – he knew she was as fearless and skilled as he was. No, he worried far more about her outside of battle than in it.

Legolas watched her black curly hair blowing slightly in the breeze as she walked away, her filled leather notebook in his hand. He always thought that Aúthiel never fully realised how irresistible she was. How intelligent, funny, kind hearted. How beautiful. Everyone else could see it, including the many men who glanced up as she walked by, but she couldn't see her true nature. The reason for this was contained, Legolas realised, in the small leather book he clutched to his side.

Liking not the longing stares Aúthiel attracted from the men around her, though she seemed not to notice, Legolas glared down at them, walking into the great hall to sit at a bench, and opened the book.

Her writing was neat and loopy, and he smiled in spite of himself, assuming that the importance of good handwriting had been drilled into her as much as it had into him. It was written in the common tongue, but it was second nature to Legolas to read the words as easily as elvish as he slowly sunk into her story.

***

I suppose I should start right from the beginning.

I grew up in Othella. It was created in the first age of this earth by Maedhros and Maglor, the sons of Feanor. Well, two of the sons of Feanor. He had seven in total. They created the kingdom out of elves who had survived the lair of the first Dark Lord Morgoth. These were elves who had escaped Morgoth's capture, just like Maedhros had previously.

But these elves were different to Maedhros. They were as grim natured as he, but they had exceptional fighting skills. The sons of Feanor assumed that these skills were a result of surviving so long under the control of the most dangerous dark lord ever to walk the Earth.

They were wrong.

These elves had been corrupted by Morgoth. He intended to use them to bring down the elves from the inside. They were deadly and darker than other elves who have lived in these times or any other. But they hid their evil well.

At the beginning, when the kingdom was established, two families vied for power. One was headed by my father, and the other by Saerwen's father. There was a huge battle, in which the warring factions from both sides took pleasure in the kinslaying. In the end, Saerwen's family were all dead. My father won the battle, and the position of king.

Saerwen was grief stricken and bitter. However, she pretended to congratulate the king on his victory. He was enamoured by her. He knew he could never marry her, because she was effectively powerless without a noble family behind her and he needed an alliance to make peace in the unstable kingdom of Othella. So, he abandoned Saerwen, and arranged a marriage to the daughter of one of her father's most powerful and important supporters – my mother.

Saerwen had also known that she could never marry him. She was bitter and hating in the early years at the court of the king. However, she was beautiful, and the king was not a difficult man to seduce. For many years he resisted her desires, however, and it seemed that her plans might come to nothing.

In these intervening years, in the second age, the first stirrings of evil were felt in middle earth. Few knew it yet, but this was Sauron massing forces in the east, building armies and destroying what he could of hope. It was at this time that the evil and corruption in the Othellans planted there by Morgoth awoke.

The Othellans went to Sauron and aided him in his wars. They killed many good folk, including some of their own race, the elves, and did much evil for him. When good triumphed, however, in the final battles of this war, many of the Othellans fled to their home and were never seen again. The king survived the wars, along with Saerwen and the future queen of Othella.