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aearwen2I was re-reading last week's drabble offering, "Screams", when this itty-bitty plot bunny with four inch fangs walked up to me and sank its teeth into my ankle.
He stirred, surprised to awaken again. All too vividly he remembered falling from the sky as Orodruin exploded, screaming his joy at finally being free from the Dark Lord's control, at remembering who he really was.
He looked about him at grey, unsettling nothingness. What was going to happen now?
The sound of a door being unbarred shattered the unnerving silence. Resigned, exhausted by the weight of his unnatural life, he rose to his feet to face what was ahead. He surely now would pay the price for listening to Annatar - for his complicity in the fall of Númenor, for his hounding of that little hobbit - and he was glad. He had done unspeakable things, unable to refuse the Dark Lord's bidding. He deserved whatever was to come.
He wasn't ready to see a door open in the featureless grey, and he blinked at the glory of the sunrise that bathed a green hillside beyond the threshold. He'd ignored such beauty before, and forgotten it during centuries of endless, groveling servitude. What was this?
But it was the welcoming smile of his long-dead wife, waiting for him with their drowned sons, that finally drove him to his knees.
He stirred, surprised to awaken again. All too vividly he remembered falling from the sky as Orodruin exploded, screaming his joy at finally being free from the Dark Lord's control, at remembering who he really was.
He looked about him at grey, unsettling nothingness. What was going to happen now?
The sound of a door being unbarred shattered the unnerving silence. Resigned, exhausted by the weight of his unnatural life, he rose to his feet to face what was ahead. He surely now would pay the price for listening to Annatar - for his complicity in the fall of Númenor, for his hounding of that little hobbit - and he was glad. He had done unspeakable things, unable to refuse the Dark Lord's bidding. He deserved whatever was to come.
He wasn't ready to see a door open in the featureless grey, and he blinked at the glory of the sunrise that bathed a green hillside beyond the threshold. He'd ignored such beauty before, and forgotten it during centuries of endless, groveling servitude. What was this?
But it was the welcoming smile of his long-dead wife, waiting for him with their drowned sons, that finally drove him to his knees.
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Judgment
Date: 2009-10-11 02:35 pm (UTC)I got the chills when you said that it was the vision of his long dead wife and their children that brought him to his knees.
Hugs,
Vanime
no subject
Date: 2009-10-11 07:03 pm (UTC)Tolkien reiterated time and again, either directly or through his characters, that none were evil in their beginnings. I think that concept is sometimes lost in the ficcish fray so "Screams" and "Judgment" provides welcome perspective.