Elegy for Númenor - Volume 1: Journey to Umbar by elfscribe

So very excited you have decided to post this story here. As I think I have told you you I am very much enjoying it. It is so lushly descriptive, dark and with it relief of occasional deliviously wicked humor. I very much am looking forward to following it. I will try to leave better comments in the future, but just wanted to pop in now and tell you I saw here and am thrilled. Great addition to this story archive.

I'm very pleased to find this posted here! Between superb characters, chilling plots and a dash of dark humour, this is a story I am thoroughly enjoying :D I give it my highest recommendation!

Oh, I love your Sauron. Not just the fearsone Dark Lord we are used to, commanding armies of Orcs or brooding in his Black Tower, but you have given him a personality as well! And the images he flashes into his victims' brains to incite desire, just brilliant.

I just can't wait to see how he twists Ar-Pharazôn... And how he gets his revenge, including paying him back for the chains.

Please, please continue!

Oh, so great! I have been checking for updates all these months, then I return from holidays and here it is, what a surprise! Well worth the wait.

*** SPOILER *** I loved how cleverly Tar-Mairon recruited his first ally. Now looking forward to the retribution (and jealousy!) from the outraged King when the concocted tale of seduction reaches his ears. Putty in HIS hands!

Please update soon...

Like Russandol, I was delighted to see the latest chapter pop up as a draft, and am delighted again to tear through it again here. You've heard me praise "Elegy for Númenor" before, but it bears repeating:  this is such a fabulous story with memorable characters from the canonical (Sauron, Elendil, Amandil & Pharazôn -- and what wonderful interpretations of them, too) to the incredibly well-drawn original characters.  I'm a big fan of OCs in Tolkienian fan fic and yours are among the best.  The guileful Sûla is such a pleasure to read -- like rolling around the darkest most sinful chocolate in one's mouth.

Just as in your other works, I stand in awe of your word craft.  And best of all, your sense of humor which infuses this and often leaves me hooting with laughter.  I love your interpretation of the Dark Lord (and doff my hat in a big way for giving him such a distinctive personality); I never fail to smile when I think of that towering temper that results in bat wings sprouting. :^D

Oh, joy! Highly anticipated and absolutely great in every possible way. Brilliant characterisations, riveting plot, Melkor is a suitably cruel dark lord and the flashback blends seemlessly to explain why Sauron has become what he is. Either I can rave for ages or I can just say it is fantastic and I am already eagerly waiting for chapter 10.

A big bold over-the-top chapter here, 'Scribe, and I mean over-the-top in a good, no, make that excellent way!  Fantastic writing as always, and with those bits of humor, even in the midst of brutality (well, OK, the latter doesn't really bother me; I'm not squeamish) that make me LOL, e.g., "Don't you knock?" :^D 

Mairon's inner narrative is simply fabulous!  You really pulled it off with aplomb.   I'm entirely empathetic with him in regards to not garnering suitable praise from one's "master" (ummn, it's happened to me when I was an "apprentice").  The descriptions of Melkor's mastery and Mairon's seeming compliance (but hanging on to his inner core even if he doesn't develop thick skin ) are excellent.

 Oh, to be back in the warm confines of Barad-dûr, planning experiments or plotting battles. 

A man, or rather corporeal Ainu, after my own heart.

Very nice! 

Thumbs up again for a great update. I continue to be amazed at the amount of work and attention to plotting in this piece. The military strategizing and geographical details impress me in this chapter. The characteres as always just kill me: Pharazôn thinks he is just so smart; Sûla is such a delicious blend of guilefulness and a basic decency at his core; Annatar may have an edge over the rest of them, but still he is a risk-taker as you paint him without 100% assurance of success (of course, unless one read the books and already knows the outcome!). Beautifully written as always.

This is wonderful Elfscribe. I am fascinated by your Sauron's suave almost charming wickedness, and his interactions with others; and I do love the touches of sorcery: the Ring speaking, the possessing of Fingaer - oh, he's lovely, heartrending :( His imprisonment and his thoughts truly made me flinch at the thought of it. I think the way you explain how it would feel to be Nazgûl is masterly, also.   I am fascinated, and will review again soon.:)

I can't even describe how interesting this is - more: fascinating. My goodness, no wonder Sauron entranced the King, you write him as so dangerously beautiful, so smoothly and dangerously charming, and although some feel the danger, to me at least, it is damned near irresistable.

I love your characterizations; was enthralled by Sauron's image of Thangorodrim.

'Sauron was painfully, exquisitely beautiful.'

Says it all. Love the way you inserted that sentence, it works like the stroke of a gong.

I gather that the true soul of that beautiful Elf is trapped and knows what is happening, from the scene where Sauron went to conceal the Ring. That is too awful to think of :(  

“So, your Majesty, do you wish to know the secret of eternal youth?”

You have such a deft touch with your sentences; absolutely masterful. 

I am completely gripped by this. Brava! 

I love this story; it is so very engrossing; the sorcery, the interactions and I adore Sauron.

 I do love Sûla; he seems to be somewhat naive and not yet tarnished by his life; there is cynicism interspersed with hopefulness which is very appealing; I am also addicted to people with sad or tragic pasts, such as his own, and speaking of which, that glimpse into Sauron's memories of Angband was really intersting. Yet he is such a Grand Master in his game; I have to salute him. 

Your OC's are as fascinating as your canon characters. While OFC's draw more fire, OMC's are rarer and seem to garner complete indifference, as if there are so many canon men to play with, why bother inventing any? However, I very much enjoy reading well developed OC's who have no background but the ones we give them. 

I look forward to more! 

Ah, another chapter. And wonderful again; this really is beautifully done! (And I am still looking forward to more :) )

It is an incredible and vivid image of Annatar in his black armor looking at the beauty of the the formations in the cave - that truly struck me.

Honestly, I love this; how you have mad all these Numenorean characters so interesting and your portrayal of Annatar; he's so wickedly lush d;-) And Sûla and Tigôn are a wonderful pair of OC's; Sûla makes me feel very protective; he's worth so much more than being the king's courtesan, I feel.

Absolutely loving this; thank you for updating, and I eagerly await your next chapter. :)

After this chapter I am torn in two. At first I just wished to see Annatar get the upper hand over the arrogant Pharazôn. Now I feel afraid about what could happen to your promising Sûla and Tigôn. I can't wait for the moment of their reunion... both have now realised their true feelings.

Everything in this chapter shone: the characters, the plot, the background scenes, including the wonderful caves. I also enjoyed Annatar presenting a new facet to his enemies.

Please, please, I hope you resolve the cliffhanger soon... ;o)

Wow, that was a superb and action-packed chapter.

Mairon is so controlled, so cold as he kills Zori; one cannot help admiring him, but oh, so cold.

Tigôn is rescued - good, but poor Sûla. He is getting in rather deep; I do hope it does not bring him to harm.

Excellent!

Elfscribe I am more engrossed by each chapter. Your Annatar is as fascinating and dangerous as a king cobra and dangerously beautiful. If I compare he and Ar-Pharazôn from the *outside* as a reader does, I think 'Yes, the king no chance really.' d;-)

Tigôn and Sûla; I love these two in a very protective way, they are both in different ways still innocent, and in Sûla's case this is despite all he has been through and his station too. He's gorgeous and vulnerable, horribly so, really, as his position depends on the king;s favor, but he is far more worthy than he thinks he is. No wonder Tigôn is confused by what he feels!

I do look forward to the next chapter - and this was incredible. Thank you!

I have said it on LJ and will here - that was a superb chapter. Sûla and  Tigôn just smoked; there was enough UST there to power London for a week. They are so gorgeous; an amazing pair of OC's. The dancing was lusciously written. I could have been there.

I am investing a lot of emotion in these two, and Annatar; I really admire him, which is a strange reaction perhaps, but I have to, oh-so-sharp, blindingly intelligent, beautiful (in this form)

“They did dance and beautifully,” he said. “But not for me.”

Oh, :(

I did say I screaming, 'No, no!' at Sûla being given to Dulginzin, but as you said, the king promised. :(

This story never fails to amaze me. Initially I was drawn to Annatar (I have always been rather partial to the Silmarillion!DarkSide characters), but in Elegy he is just superb in his manipulation and deviousness. However, now I am equally hooked to the fantastic OCs, which have come alive in my imagination. The dancing scene in the last chapter is pure seduction, and the suspense is building up in the parallel tale of Sula and Tigon to the point I will be distraught if/when anything bad happens to either of them!

I can't recommend this story enough. Plot, dialogue, descriptions, characters, sensuality, humour, you name it. I want to see more and more of it. Luckily, it looks as if there is lots to come, hooray!!!

What a chapter! Brilliant to re-read it on here. :D

Where to start.

Pharazôn is obviously the worse for wear, and has other things on his mind, yet his treatment of Sûla shows a huge lack of empathy. However, empathy and power are probably rare bedfellows. The king stood by his words. 

  Annatar, on the other hand. (Your luscious, suave, clever, inscrutable Mairion) does come across as very empathic, even though he has long been purged of the 'weakness' of feeling pity. His losing control over his form was fascinating and very unexpected. O_O.

His intimate talk with the king perfectly illustrates how he becomes such a power in Númenor, his blazing intelligence, the way he can use words to goad, tempt, sow seeds of doubt, and seduce, use his own beauty to entice. I admire him enormously, despite what must come after.

Sûla -- poor beautiful Sûla. No wonder he grasps at whatever power he can by going to Annatar. He has always been powerless, and however much he must be used to being a pleasure toy, Dulginzin is a brute who likes to degrade and cause pain, and believes he has enough power to do as he likes to Sûla, caring nothing for what the king said of not misusing his prize. 

I so want to see Sûla come out of this situation unharmed, and I yelped: 'No !' when he ran into that thoroughly disturbing Mirandor. I am so glad you said you had much of the next chapter written.

I am so enjoying this, you have no idea! Hugs!

You really did end this again on a cliff-hanger. These chapters are just incredibly fascinating and wicked reading. The interactions between the characters, the setting and grittiness of the details of practical things arequite amazing.

You are creating a real tour de force of a fanfic novel--just in case you ever wonder if the obvious research, thought and effort is worth the end result. It certainly is. I know that I will very soon want to go back and read it front to back again. Reading in serial form means it has been a long time since I read those first chapters. (Wondering about the staying power of Sauron borrowed body?) The original characters--Sûla and Tigon--are worth the read in and of themselves. Looking forward to find out how Sûla wriggles out of his current mess.

It is a great treat to watch this story unfold, chapter by chapter. But at the same time it is excruciating to be always fearing to read the next chapter, in case a new clever twist in the plot makes me cry out for some poor character or other - most likely Sula, who seems to be getting more than his share of grief recently.

I so love your perfectly crafted Annatar, sinuous like a snake, and well, all of the supporting cast, even the disgusting villains. I have grown very fond of your OFCs too. They are adding a lot of weight to the story, which I fear is going to be a liability when things truly start to turn dark for Numenor, and for them.

Oh, Sula--talk about between the Devil and the deep blue sea--and he hasn't even figured out yet what he's got himself into with the Zigur. I have an awfully hard time trying to envisage him on one of Elendil's nine ships--and all the while he's still struggling to escape from Dulginzin.

I've been wondering what form exactly the revenge of Celebrimbor's son is going to take. Is he the reason behind Sauron's physical limitations after the drowning of Numenor, in this version of the story? Or is it his regrets that Sauron is inheriting?

It was bad enough for Sûla, (who is not the only one to hope Dulginzin has a raging headache in the morning! Grrr.) but I was fearing it could be a lot worse. As I said on LJ, I am worried that the spell was so strong it made Sûla feel sick. That is not a good sign.Is he getting into something he may not be able to extricate himself from?

I wanted the night to end with Sûla and Tigôn, and I loved the way that it slipped into that intimacy.  Sûla is so alone, truly; with, he thinks, only his body to keep hiim from starvation, and Tigôn has a generous heart; there is a wonderful chemistry between them, and yes, I would love this to go further. Tigôn is a virgin to this, and Sûla is trained to please, but to be with some-one he is attracted to -- pure, sweet lust -- would be beautiful.

Love these two, and this chapter. :)

Wonderful, wonderful chapter, elfscribe! I am so pleased that our dashing zirâmîki finally gets a few moments of happiness, in his otherwise dismal life. Too many moments to cheer about, but the intimate scene between the two boys and the build up to their final kiss was most satisfactory.

I love watching Annatar in action (who doesn't), but now I can't get enough of these two, even though I fear their future may not be a happy one. I can only say I greatly anticipate each and every chapter of this fabulous tale.

And, of course, I am dying to see what happens next... 

Oops! I deleted this review and submitted it again because I first posted it under Chapter 1.

Terrific job, 'scribe!

I'm fascinated by so many different aspects of this story.  First off, the physical (no, not that physical, I'll get to that in a bit, but well done there too!) elements of the story.  I'm intrigued by Mairon's bodily weakness, which causes me to wonder, as it has other readers, of the role of Fingaer in this.  I was also wondering about Sula becoming ill while casting the spell another time.  Both this and Mairon's remembrance of Dolgu would not seem to bode well for Sula.  I look forward to learning the reasons behind this when you choose to reveal them.

I was delighted as well to see that Mairon's expert manipulation of Ar-Pharazon continues, and, on a totally different note, glad to see that Tigon and Sula have had a lovely moment and, yes, I'd love to see the rest of that scene.