Fractures by Elleth  

Chapter Three: Alphangil

Alphangil is confronted with her captor, Cýronil.

A sharp prickle in her hands and fingers woke Alphangil, and the chafing of ropes against her wrists.

Her consciousness followed the sensation like a beacon out of the dark. Keeping her eyes closed, she could feel the sockets of her shoulders protesting; her arms were stretched above her head. Her dignity momentarily took offense at being strung up like a piece of game, half-slumped among what seemed to be twisted roots, and half suspended from a low branch, the rough bark of a pine tree against her back, but she knew that dignity was a concern she could not afford. With anger and fury trapped behind her teeth, she concentrated inward instead - had they hurt her any worse than this?

She felt ice cold, from the tips of her bloodless fingers to her toes. Her head ached with a dull pulse of pain and at the back of her skull were damp, bruised spots of blood growing crusty in her hair where they'd struck her, those two blows. In spite of the darkness that had engulfed her, her memory was clear: She could not forget the icy edge of steel against her throat, the tunnel and then the sudden darkness - and Fingon's terror-widened eyes.

She gathered her resolve and finally opened her own eyes, wincing and blinking against what must be daylight. It stabbed into her eyes with force and she closed them again quickly - it was so bright that it was hard to make anything out clearly, but she could recall enough. Winter sunlight, dark shades on the ground in the mouth of a cave where they sheltered - the Orcs. Not far away, unbothered by the daylight, sat Cýronil, dragging a whetstone along the blade of her dagger with slow, deliberate precision. On her head lay, crooked and mocking, Alphangil's circlet of office, silver with a blue stone in its center.

She re-opened her eyes with more care and caution.

Cýronil hadn't noticed that Alphangil was awake yet, and Alphangil intended to make the most of the moment's respite, turning her head only slightly so her cheek rested against the rough bark of the tree she was tied to. She could smell the sap running underneath, and something half-burned, could hear the tree's whisper - something of small comfort, nothing of help for getting loose. On Alphangil's left, the pine had been scorched. No wonder that it was no kinder, it was badly hurt - worse than she was.

And only feet from her, she realized, snapping her eyes open wider, began the ashy sands of Anfauglith. Without looking, she knew Thangorodrim loomed in the distance, and her stomach dropped, realizing that only nightfall stood between her and a march into certain doom. Frightening, but not yet so real that she would allow terror to cow her.

Yet.

She cast around for others, flickering her eyes this way and that, to the scattering of trees burned and unburned around the clearing, to patches of dead heather in the field of boulders around her that might have once toppled down the slopes to form some rudimentary defenses, the opening of the tunnel - and found no one of Maedhros' host.

She had not expected Fingon or Maedhros to lie captive - both such prolific fighters that Orcs fell before them like leaves, but had hoped perhaps to see a warrior or two who might have experience in escaping their bonds and help her not only get free, but overpower at least Cýronil. She'd have to bide her time, if she had any time left.

The sun, she determined finally, considering where they must be, with the highlands vaulting up southward, on her right, stood east and too high for the early hours - it was perhaps midmorning. As they were nearly at Anfauglith, perhaps they'd come through the tunnel in the cellar into caves that spat them out here. They must have marched swiftly for half the night at least, now insisting on their own rest. Unless Morgoth stretched out his hand and cast them a shadow, the Orcs would not go far in daylight, least of all across open terrain.

This far north, that meant she had maybe four or five hours to rest and to think of a plan until the early dark of winter rolled in. She moved her feet, finding them unbound, for good measure, curling her toes into her boots and, stretching them out again, shifted her legs fraction by fraction until she could push herself into something resembling a sitting position.

Alphangil bit down on the inside of her cheek against the nausea that vaulted up like a wave, but the eruption of pain in her head made her groan.

The sharp shhhrk of the whetstone across Cýronil's knife stopped.

"Ah, the little princess is finally back with us," she said in a low voice, rasping out laughter. Alphangil did not think that she had ever heard her speak unguarded before the evening, and her un-altered voice was all that she had expected of a former thrall - no, a thrall still, and a traitor - low and rough, and a perpetual edge of tears and screams that lived in it.

Like Maedhros', she thought, had he not healed as best he might. Or, perhaps, learned to pretend just as Cýronil had while they had talked on Himring.

"High Queen," Alphangil corrected through a mouthful of anger that got the better of her for a moment, then she inwardly scolded herself for a fool. Fingon's temper was rubbing off on her.

"I know, and all the better for me." Cýronil righted the circlet on her head, sheathed her dagger and moved in on her. "You do want to shut your mouth, Your Highness, however. I do not have any problem cutting out your tongue if you annoy me, if you scream or make any noise. You'd not be the first."

"What, Morgoth does not want me to sing all I know of the councils that are being taken?"

"Morgoth has other means of learning those things from you. All he demanded was that I bring you alive. He never so much as breathed the word 'unharmed'."

A frisson of fear passed through Alphangil. She allowed it, embraced it, and let it go, although now that her captor moved closer, the eyes trained on her - a once-lovely Noldorin blue under a shock of light brown hair now streaked with grey - were the most disquieting thing about her. No flicker of the light of the stars in them, and with a name like hers, Alphangil did not think that she had been born in the Blessed Realm, so there was no light of the Trees either. And there, as in her voice, was a terror that Cýronil's nonchalance failed to hide, the look of a haunted person, a fleeing animal brought to bay by the hounds of its hunters.

"I pity you," Alphangil said softly. "Perhaps more than I fear you."

In a flash, those eyes hardened like a starless nightfall, and the pommel of Cýronil's dagger, etched with the Fëanorian star, cracked across her face. Alphangil felt her nose fracture. Blood gushed hot and salty over her lips and down the back of her throat. She spluttered and choked, and spat out what she could. The pain bloomed up a moment after, once more chasing black spots over her vision.

She leaned back against the tree, gasping for breath and blinking the unbidden tears away. This was nothing. Nothing to what she knew by now Maedhros had endured in his captivity, and the thought gave her strength to keep speaking.

"What else, then." Alphangil spat out another mouthful of blood that was coagulating in her throat. "He could have taken any of Maedhros' allies. Why all this for me. I may be Queen, but it is Fingon who rules the Noldor."

Cýronil laughed, wiping a smear of blood off the dagger's hilt on her shirt.

"I'd say that that would be a typical question for a Noldo, but I know that you're a Dark Elf. Except of course that you've thrown in your lot with them and become like them - just as arrogant and just as stupid to never see past your own reflection. The trap was not only for you, although you make beautiful bait for them, and quite a lovely treat on your own - but if we are very very lucky, we'll be bringing home three birds for the price of one, or demoralize two of them so much that they will abandon their war games and remove to the south. It's such a little thing to not throw their lives away… but they didn't see reason for an even greater reward after we dangled him from the Mountain, so I would not hold my breath that they would give up their plans for the likes of you. Once the gates close behind you, it's farewell to your husband dear and his bed-companion."

Alphangil swallowed her fury and made a noise that she hoped sounded incredulous - they did not know about the three of them, strange as it seemed - and Cýronil glanced at her. "Oh, my love, my Queen, you did not know that your pure, noble, oh-so-kingly husband has been letting Maedhros fuck his arse ever since Valinor?" She mocked. "You're an afterthought at best, but don't cry. We might become fast friends instead. You are very fair, and Morgoth rewards those who do his bidding well… "

As Cýronil moved closer and cupped her cheek in the mockery of a caress, Alphangil forced down the feeling of empty despair that overpowered her disbelief and disgust. She had to trust, at whatever cost, Fingon would shut his love for her away and continue to be the leader the Noldor needed, and not risk countless lives for her single one. She trusted that Maedhros at least would be capable of restraining him - for long enough to wage their war, and perhaps rescue her, if she were still alive then - and if they were.

She did not relish becoming this woman's plaything until then.

Cýronil's touch filled her with disgust, unclean and orcish-seeming under the gentle surface of the gesture. Nonetheless she turned her head into it, closing her eyes and letting the tension go from her body so she hung almost slack in her bonds. Her shoulders and wrists once again protested the weight placed on them, and she could feel her wrists bleed where they broke skin, but perhaps - hopefully -

Cýronil breathed out, very softly. Her fingers ran across Alphangil's face and over her bloodied lips, teasing and pushing inward. Alphangil forced herself not to think of Fingon and Maedhros and their shared tenderness in this moment, and forced herself not to retch.

It was too much. She could not play along and pretend to be seduced by her captor.

When Cýronil had two fingers on her tongue, Alphangil bit down with all the force her jaws could muster.

She heard bones crack, tasted blood that was not her own.

Cýronil shrieked and backhanded her with her left, slamming Alphangil's already-aching head hard into the tree. She let go of the fingers between her teeth. Pain exploded like a star behind her eyes. The world dipped into a storm of brightness. She hung breathless but triumphant in her bonds for a moment.

"I'll throw you to the Orcs!" Cýronil howled. The pressure on Alphangil's shoulders abruptly released as her bonds were cut. Unprepared and unable to catch herself, she crumpled into a heap on the ground, falling against the pine's roots with her head, and her hold on her consciousness became more tenuous still.

She was dragged across the stony soil by what was left of her unravelling braid, scraping her cheek raw and beat helplessly at the air as the cave-mouth, where the Orcs were now startled from their rest, gibbering and grunting, loomed ever closer.

Before they reached it, Alphangil grasped at the one thought her mother had drilled into her since she had been old enough to understand what torture meant, since too many of her kin had returned with scars that were not from battle alone. Do not prolong their games by fighting them. They will at last tire of hurting you if you fail to provide the sport they want.

It was not hard to shut the over-bright world away behind her eyelids, to stop fighting and to plunge into unconsciousness once again. The last thing flashing through her mind before it pulled her into darkness was the image of Maedhros's and Fingon's hair mingling in the wind on the mountain. She only hoped fervently that they would be able to do the right thing, and that her son would not have to grow up any more lonely.