The Unexpected | LotR Fanfiction

Chapter 66

Sauron wasn't joking when he said the pit would be where I would be staying. I wasn't allowed a cell, nor a room, and every time I tried sleeping on the ashy ground outside the pit, I'd be thrown back in. It was as if some cruel joke, them forcing me to live under the level surface of the ground, yet still be able to see the gloomy sky. That wooden hanging ladder, still hung precariously. No orcs removed it, letting it taunt me so.

A straw-stuffed mattress, brown with dirt and tattered in many places had been thrown down—surprising some of the uur rauko and in result, almost having it be burned. I sat on that mattress' edge, tense to the point of pain. Living with deadly monsters who could devour a troll in a moment's notice did not calm my nerves, believe it or not.

The orcs—being cleverly mean—had forced me to carry down a mirror, all so I could see my ever-changing appearance. Of course, the orcs wouldn't bring it down themselves, for fear shinned in their eyes every time they came close to the pit and when they saw and heard the uur rauko. They did give me a nail, however, to pound into the hard wall with a rock so the mirror could hang. But scaling down that rope ladder with a mirror had caused me to teeter, almost falling to my death a few times, all while the orcs laughed.

White hair no longer resembled winter, it instead hung in unwashed grey tangles—becoming clumps in areas. Skin? Dirt and grime made my skin darker. New scars would soon mar over the old, but now they hurt every time I moved. Each movement would stretch the edges of the healing wounds, stinging and screaming. I used the water I had been given to drink to clean the wounds—but I was afraid my attempt to ward off infection would only cause infection. The water had been murky, possibly drinkable, but not without shuddering after swallowing. And my eyes... I knew they had become dull, returning to the level of solemnity they had had in Isengard. My mouth never turned upwards anymore.

Except when that dark snake rose towards the surface, when it wavered between me in control and it.

But now, when I looked in the mirror—

It wasn't me.

I saw the darkness, as it would look like if it had fully overtaken me in the womb. Black, colorless hair fell in waves around my shoulders, soulless eyes that held iridescent red. It reminded me so much of that figure I saw in my vision of war, I had at first yelped, going into a panic attack before I realized—after a closer look—I knew that it wasn't that figure of death. It was me, as Sauron had hoped.

Gritting my teeth, not knowing if I was holding in tears or a scream and gripped the rim of the mirror. Searching the plains of the soulless, pale, face for any bit of me. I knew that if I were to look down at my own hair, I'd see white—not black, but...

A high keening sound escaped me, as did tears as they made clean streaks down my face. I was losing myself, bit by bit. With every passing day, I could feel myself sinking and the darkness floating towards the surface buoyantly. And as I gripped the mirror, I was trying to grip back myself, holding tightly to anything that could be me.

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"Aye, girl!" An orc taunted from the ledge above, calling my attention away from the uur rauko who were currently 'marching' together. "Up you go!"

I stopped, set my hands down to my sides in fists, and breathed deeply. Sauron's soul rioted in me, bucking and screaming to get to the top, where it had been just moments ago.

Not now, not now.

Slowly, the rioting became muffled. It was still there but tucked away deep enough that I—Lumornel—was in control. For a while, at least. Every time I called upon the darkness, it got harder and harder to keep it at bay.