Darkened by reindeer_pizza

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Chapter One

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He had thought he had known hunger, when the snows were deep and the hunting poor, when his stomach clutched at his spine. What a fool he had been. The harshest winters were nothing compared to the pits of the Iron Hell. 

 

He clung to the edge of the pit, keeping his back to the wall. Food was thrown down regularly, but not often, and the ones who had been trapped here longer, who had already started to turn would sometimes grow impatient between feeding times. As long as he remained unobtrusive, showed no weakness, he had what passed for safety here. When he first arrived, he and the others had been stripped and their hair shaved, but he knew as it grew back the white locks would stand out in the perpetual gloom. He had already rubbed the filth of the pit into his skin, trying to blend into the jagged rocks and shadows of their cage. 

 

He stayed as still as possible, trying to conserve his energy. He had last eaten before his capture, and was trying to hold off from feeding on whatever scraps they tossed down. He would break eventually, he knew it, but he wanted to remain himself as long as possible.

 

Morëol. To be shadowed. That’s what they called them, the ones the Dark Rider and his Lieutenant had twisted into His servants. So many of their people had been taken in raids, only to come back and face their old clans in battle. Their skin was gray and pulled tight over their bodies, their fangs and claws grown long, and their eyes would radiate an unlight. Yet the morëol were not completely unrecognizable. They still looked like elves. Elves that had been dragged out of the realm of nightmares, but elves nonetheless. And whatever had been done to them, their skeltekta, the marks inked into their skin when they came of age, could still be seen on their faces.

 

He had heard the debates over if it was kinder to kill their own clanmates, or let them be slaughtered by strangers. His clan, the Cuind, viewed it as a mercy, though other clans disagreed. It didn’t matter. There would be none left to grant him the release of death, whether they recognized the marks on his face or not. 

 

The Cuind were the clan with the northernmost range, the ones who dared to stray closest to the Dark Rider’s strongholds. They were the ones who had suffered the most raids, and had lost the most kin. This last raid, the one he had been captured in, was the most brutal he had ever seen. He doubted there were any of his people that hadn’t been taken or slaughtered. When he closed his eyes, he could still see his mate, his Walkabani, being dragged away by a morëol bearing Hwenti clan marks. He hoped she was dead. It was a kinder fate than whatever awaited him.

 

He was pulled from his memory by the sound of fighting. A large Kindi male, skin already going gray, was locked in a scuffle with a smaller elf. They snarled as they circled each other, ears slicked back, each testing for a weakness. The smaller elf was already bleeding from a few scratches. The others in the pit gave them room to fight, eager for the outcome. Their jailers had taken too long. They had to make their own food.

 

The Kindi broke first. He lunged forward and grabbed the other elf. They wrestled, rolling over the broken stone floor. He could smell the blood. Against his will, he leaned forward. He didn’t care who won. All that mattered was who lost.

 

The Kindi reared back and bit down hard. A spray of dark blood gushed from the challenger’s neck. The Kindi swallowed his mouthful and went back for more, devouring his opponent while they were still alive. Some of the spectators rushed forward, trying to snag even a scrap of the dying elf. 

 

He dug his claws into the rock, holding himself back from the frenzy. He didn’t know how much longer he would last without food. 

 

His ears pricked at the sound of voices above them. He glanced up towards the top of the pit and saw a couple morëol standing there, holding stained sacks. They were pointing and laughing. One said something in their harsh language, which wrung another cruel laugh from their companion. They nodded at each other and upended their sacks into the pit. It was feeding time.

 

Dismembered pieces of elves rained down on them. He assumed that not all of those stolen in raids were taken to these pits, that some were kept unchanged as slaves. The Dark Fortress was a cruel place, yet they weren’t wasteful. When the slaves inevitably died, their bodies could be used to feed the next generation of monsters. 

 

The others noticed the new bounty falling on them, and left the Kindi to his meal. They scrambled around, snarling and snapping over arms and legs, tearing into elven flesh with abandon.

 

An arm landed by his hiding spot. The skin was pale with blue skeltekta criss-crossing over it. He could tell by the markings that it had belonged to a smith once. He had similar marks on his own arms. This was a person, someone who had lived and loved, someone with a name, with a family. This was a person, but now it was just meat.

 

And he was so hungry.

 

~*~

 

His skin was light gray when he was taken from the pit. He was dragged out in chains and taken to a chamber with a few other elves (Were they even elves anymore? They already looked so different from when they had first arrived). The flames of the torches along the walls flickered as the door at the opposite end of the chamber opened.

 

There was no mistaking the one who entered for an elf, despite their general shape and pointed ears. No elf had hair of living flame, and no elf could give off such an aura of malice. The very air was thick with his power, making it difficult to draw enough breath. The Lieutenant stepped closer. He went down the line of prisoners, looking over each one. Some he dismissed with a wave of his hand. Others, he would stand and stare deep into their eyes. What was he looking for? What was he judging?

 

The Lieutenant reached him. He tried to meet the Lieutenant's gaze. Slit burning eyes bore into him. He was pinned down, a spike of agony thrust through his skull. His soul lay bare, the Lieutenant picking and choosing the tastiest morsels at his leisure. Flashes of his life before were brought out and examined. Starlight in his mate’s hair. Burying his children, all too young to have names. Hearing tales of the Hunter, and those who went with him. The Lieutenant pulled at the thread of the stories, drawing out every scrap of information about the ones who left. Rumors of Elwë meeting a spirit, his people unwilling to go on. The forest that sprung up around them, twisted by the powers from elsewhere. He didn’t even remember hearing most of this, yet the Lieutenant dragged it from the recesses of his memories with little effort. 

 

The Lieutenant blinked and it was over, and he moved to the next elf in the line. 

 

~*~

 

After that initial meeting, he did not see the Lieutenant again, for which he was infinitely grateful. Instead, it appeared that his darkening was the responsibility of another spirit. He and the others who had survived the ordeal of the first pit (predators among prey, devouring their kin, even now his stomach roiling against what was done to survive) were shoved in cages too small to even stand in, and the spirit would come and rip apart their minds, twisting them into something new. 

 

Why do you struggle so, little one?the spirit asked. Its voice was a sweet lie, poisonous words dripping honey. Give in to the glory of Melkor, and you will be made anew, more powerful than you could ever have been without him.

 

His ears slicked back against his skull. He growled at the spirit, showing off his ‘improved’ fangs.

 

He could see now, what the elders had meant when they said the fëa shaped the hröa. All of them had already started to turn, skin graying, claws lengthening, yet they still appeared mostly elven. Now, he could see where the morëol had come from. The large Kindi who had dominated the pit was the first to be lost. His skin clung to his wiry muscles, fangs growing so long he could no longer close his mouth. The light gray tinge of his skin darkened as his blood turned black. His eyes were the worst. They had been pale, once, like all Kindi, but now they were two pits in his skull, emanating a dark unlight. After his eyes changed, the thing-that-was-once-an-elf was taken away, and did not return.

 

He could feel his own body changing, though much slower. His fangs were sharpening, and he had to relearn how to eat without cutting up his lips. He didn’t want to know what his eyes looked like, if they were starting to go dark. His mate had loved his golden eyes.

 

So stubborn, the spirit said in his mind. It matters not. All things break in time.

 

The spirit pulled back. He breathed a sigh of relief. The spirit smirked and slammed back into his mind. His body was on fire. White hot knives carved at his flesh. He twisted and writhed from the pain. 

 

The longer you resist, the more it will hurt.

 

“Fuck you!” he yelled. Not the most eloquent reply, but it was all he could force out through the pain. 

 

As quickly as it started, the attack stopped. He lay panting in his cage. Physically, there was nothing wrong with him, though he could still feel where the imaginary knives had cut him. 

 

Do you know what you said to me? the spirit asked, its tone light, almost conversational.

 

“Fuck you,” he panted.

 

The spirit shook its head. No. You didn’t speak in that miserable dreck your people call a language. You spoke the tongue of Angband. You are already one of His.

 

~*~

 

He wanted to die. Why couldn’t he die? He tried to will his fëa to leave his body, to flee from this place. The mark branded into his chest burned with each attempt. His struggles grew weaker and weaker. Death would not be a release, not for him. There was only one path forward. He would be a morëol, a mindless monster, set against his own people to rend and destroy. 

 

“Let me die,” he prayed to the ancestors, the first elves who awoke on the shores under the stars. 

 

“Let me die,” he prayed to the stars themselves. 

 

“Let me die,” he did not pray to the Valar. The Dark Rider was their kin, and though they had taken Him away, they were still of the same kind. The elves who had followed them were probably no better than him now, twisted and shaped into new forms to better serve their masters.

 

He took a deep breath. He only had enough energy for one more attempt. He visualized his fëa freeing itself from the prison of his body and floating away, free to dance among the stars. He had been too gentle earlier, trying to set his fëa free. He reached deep inside himself and ripped.

 

He screamed from the pain, worse than anything the spirit had ever done. He couldn't stop. He was so close. He could feel freedom in his grasp. A little more. Just a little more.

 

~*~

 

There was a rough grip on his ankle, dragging him across a floor worn smooth by time and use. He blinked, the dull torches still too bright for one who came so close to death. He glanced around, though his vantage point is oddly at floor level. What happened? He had been so close. It must have failed. 

 

He looked towards the thing dragging him. A morëol had him by the leg and was pulling him along. He was out of the cage. His hands weren’t bound. There was no one else around. Did it think he was dead? Was he being taken to be cut up into food?

 

He took a slow, deep breath. It was an awkward angle to launch an attack, but this was his only chance. He pulled back his free leg, and kicked out.

 

It dropped his ankle in surprise. It turned, and he leaped. Claws and fangs out, he ripped and slashed at the morëol, using every trick he learned from the pit. It was startled, off balance. It swiped at him with its claws, getting a lucky hit on his face. Blinking blood out of his eyes, he pulled its head back to expose the throat. He sank his overgrown fangs into its flesh, holding on until it stopped twitching. He shook it, making sure it was dead.

 

The hallway was empty for now, but he didn’t know how long that would last. He tugged the body into a small alcove and stripped it of its gear. Maybe he could pass as one of them long enough to get out. 

 

He licked the black blood from his lips and looked at the corpse one final time. He was loath to walk away from that much food, but there was no way to carry it with him, and he needed to be long gone before it was discovered.

 

He crept through the halls, not sure where he was going. He sniffed the air, trying to go where it was fresher, but that always led him to more and more of the Lieutenant’s creatures. He couldn’t trust his nose, so he followed his ears. They flicked and twisted, trying to catch every scrap of noise. His wanderings took him away from the populated parts of the fortress, down little used utility halls, until he heard a new sound. Running water.

 

He followed the sound until he came to a small, stinking waterway carrying away the fortress’s filth. It had to drain somewhere. Maybe outside? He followed the water. His little stream was soon joined by others, and it grew and grew into a river of waste water.

 

The smooth brick had long ago given way to rough hewn rock when he had to stop. The water passed through a metal gate set in an archway in the rock. He couldn’t see anything past a bend in the tunnel, yet the air was fresher than he had scented in ages. 

 

He looked at the grate, then at the river. His escape, foiled by a few metal bars.

 

No. He had come too far for this to be the end. He called on his training as a smith and hummed at the metal. It shrieked back at him, its Song made discordant and raw. Someone, something had tortured this metal, ignoring proper crafting in the name of efficiency. It would take too much time to unravel the Song.

 

He turned to the rock the grate was set in. This, too, had had its Song disrupted, but the agony was old and mild compared to the grate. He Sang to the rock, coaxing it to reshape itself, to shift just enough to make the grate loose. The rock grumbled and groaned. He Sang louder, desperation leaking into his voice. The rock cracked. He shoved at the grate, and it pulled free from the rock. He thanked it, weeping from the joy of almost freedom. 

 

He took a deep breath, and plunged into the water.

 

The armor he stole, while useful for hiding his identity in the fortress, weighed him down and interfered with his swimming. He struggled to get air before being dragged down again by the current. He was buffeted about, slamming into the stone walls. Another gasp of air. Twisting and turning through the waterway that people were never meant to see. Breathe! Scraped against the rough rock. When would it end? Would it end? Stop struggling, the current is stronger. Let it carry you.

 

At last, at last the water spilled out into a river snaking its way through the mountains. Using what little strength he had left, he made his way to the bank. He crawled onto the shore and collapsed. He should keep moving, he was still too close. He couldn’t find the energy to move. At least if they found him, he would die free, under the stars.

 

~*~

 

Now that he was out, the next question was where to go next. He had no more immediate plans than ‘away’, which was accomplished easily enough by following the river. Yet he knew he couldn’t keep going forever. The river would eventually feed into a lake, or maybe even the sea, and what would he do then? He could probably use the stars to navigate back to his home, but he doubted there would be anyone waiting for him. Even if some of his clan had survived, what welcome could he expect, changed as he was? 

 

So he followed the river, hoping that a better plan would find him before the Enemy did. He had plenty of water to drink, and was able to do some meager foraging, but the ever-present hunger hounded his steps. The time in the clean air, away from the foulness of Angband was doing him good, but his physical recovery was slow. It was little surprise then, that he didn’t see the people until he was almost on top of them.

 

The sound of singing pulled him from his reverie. A tributary flowed out of a cave mouth to join his river. Deep voices singing in a strange tongue drifted in the air. The sound was too lovely to have been made by dark creatures. Though he did not recognize the words, he could feel the intent. They were not merely singing, but Singing to the stone. 

 

He crept forward to get a better look. 

 

What odd creatures they were! Shorter than any adult elf he had ever seen, and with hair covering their faces. Their bodies were thick and muscular, yet there was a solid grace to their movements as they worked.

 

He shifted, and sent some rocks scattering. One of the creature’s head snapped towards him. It warned its fellows, and they all turned towards him. 

 

He stood and held up his hands, showing he wasn’t holding a weapon. The one who had noticed him stepped forward and spoke. 

 

He didn’t understand them and shook his head.

 

They muttered amongst themselves before another one spoke in broken Sindarin. “You elf?”

 

While his clan did have some contact with Elwë’s people, he personally spoke very little of their language. As for the question, well, that was the question now, wasn’t it? Did he still count as an elf? The process to darken him had already begun, it was obvious in his face, his skin. Yet they had asked, had not attacked. Perhaps they were unfamiliar with the Enemy. Perhaps they did not know.

 

Yet he would be honest. His voice was rough from disuse. “Morëol,” he choked out, garbling the word.

 

The speaker cocked their head. “Eöl? You…Eöl?”

 

He opened his mouth to correct them. He wasn’t Eöl, he was…he was…

 

He blinked. His name. What was his name? He had lost so much in that pit. The memories of his life before were fleeting and fragmented. He knew of his clan, he knew he had a mate (and oh, what was her name? Their children, he didn’t think any had survived to earn names, but what if he had forgotten them too?), he knew the vague outlines of history. But there were so many gaps, like moth-eaten fabric. What was his name?

 

A misheard scrap of a word. A sound that didn’t mean anything. Yet it was all he had. He nodded. “Yes. Eöl.”

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Chapter End Notes

Tolkien did not write much about the various Avarin languages, so I use Primitive Elvish as a stand in when possible. Words used in this chapter:

Skeltekta: skin mark/tattoo
Walkabani: (name) Fierce Beauty
Morëol: become dark