Cry

Mellow Soulmate AU.  The death of Oropher, King of Great Greenwood.  All names here are Sindarin.  Valthoron is, of course, my OMC from "Cheat" and "Shame", but he also appears in "Caring" and "Collateral".  Also, the person who kills Oropher is another OMC (who should be obvious enough if you've read "Morals", and is an elf who, for reasons you will find out tomorrow, did not kill Valthoron in battle.  Takes place during the first onslaught of the Battle of Dagorlad in S.A. 3434.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion or The Unfinished Tales

Pairings: none

Characters: Valthoron (OMC), Oropher, enemy orcs and soldiers (mentions Thranduil and Sauron)

Warning: canon compliant AU, spontaneous OMC, death scene, mildly explicit descriptions of violence on the battlefield as well as mental trauma, broken bones

Song: Orchard of Mines

Words: 1,780
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cry (verb): to utter loudly: shout; to shed tears often noisily: weep, sob
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cry

Never before had Valthoron experienced true battle.

Oh, there were scouting parties and sentry duties in the forest.  He had slain more than his fair share of spiders and orcs in the many years his grandfather had ruled over the Greenwood.  But the chaos of a small, isolated fight between an eight-legged monstrosity and an elf or a dozen rotting orcs being turned into pincushions by merciless arrows was different.  So much different.  Nothing like what was whirling uncontrollably into a miasma of confusion around him.

Everywhere he looked, there was more death.  They were outnumbered by the Dark Lord's forces, and in every direction their warriors were falling beneath heavy blows, their skulls broken open to release blood and brains, their limbs crushed and dismembered as they were beaten into the slick mire and their unraveling insides spilled down into the sludge.  Into the mud that was comprised only of scalding black dust and a mixture of bodily fluids, both of the allies and the enemies, mixing into a sickening muck.

Like him, many warriors were white in the face and filled with primal terror.  Every instinct urged the young elf to flee from the advancing forces, to save his own life in the face of overwhelming hopelessness.  His fingers trembled and his legs were locked and he couldn't move.

Everything about this reality was horrifyingly, transiently corporeal.  A nightmare he wished that he could awaken from.  That he might blink open his eyes and find himself back in the Greenwood.  Back home with his ada smiling warmly and his daeradar sitting proudly upon his throne.

But this was no dream.

Did it make him a coward that he wished to turn and run away?  That his stomach turned as he cut through another enemy, splattering himself with blackened blood, ignoring its death screams as it fell at his feet and convulsed into silence?

He wanted to go home.

But on this vast open field of battle, he could not even tell which way was toward Mordor or back the way they had arrived.  Only that there seemed to be enemies on all sides closing in, pushing his people back, picking them off one by one.  And there was the fear and the panic, the blurring of his vision as everything seemed to both slow down and speed up into a dizzying tessellation.

It was only the sight of his king appearing before his very eyes that kept Valthoron from losing himself entirely to visceral emotion.  Oropher, in all his might and glory, was stained with the blood of the enemy and bleeding himself from a cut upon his arm, but showed neither signs of fear nor fatigue as he plowed through his enemies.  Around him, the remainder of the elves amassed, of Greenwood and Lórien alike, holding back the advancing line.

Oropher was every inch the perfect leader.  Fearless with his twin knives.  And equally ruthless, never even pausing at the sight of friend or foe felled.  Lithe body running purely on instinct as it swerved and darted between wild swings and blows, weaving ceaselessly.

He never even saw it coming.

The blow that threw him down.  And it came not from any orc that Valthoron had ever seen.  Perhaps a human, black-helmed and armored, covered so completely that not even a face was seen from between the plates of metal.  Still caught in that strange place between delusional and hyperaware, Valthoron lunged forward, but he was nowhere near close enough to halt the blow, nor for his scream of warning to penetrate the din of the dying and fighting and killing from all directions.

The dark sword slammed into the juncture of shoulder and neck, carrying the body down with it, collapsing it like a flimsy structure of twigs and leaves.  The king fell, and the remaining elves scattered away from his feller.

And Valthoron almost did not notice the taste of salt on his lips as he shouted and ran.  Was too far gone to think that he should run in the other direction, away from Oropher's killer and not toward.  But the helplessness burned, scorching like acid across his psyche.  Urging his legs forward though they screamed in protest.  He needed to reach his daeradar.   Needed to save him.  Needed it like he needed to breathe.

It was foolish.  So foolish.  To think that he could defeat a warrior who so easily batted aside a king with more than three thousand years of experience.  When Valthoron had only ever killed spiders and stupid, disorganized and untrained orcs.

He barely had a chance to raise his knives when he stepped between the dark figure and his fallen kin.  Barely even clashed metal upon metal with that broadsword.  A hand already had him by the arm, clutching so tight it hurt, and was already spinning him out of the way, downwards onto the ground.  The taste of blood and foulness exploded upon his tongue as the filth splattered everywhere, soaking him through and trickling nauseatingly against his flesh.  Shuddering, he looked first upwards at his attacker, half-expecting that long sword to stab downwards through his heart and end him.

Instead, an armored foot slammed downwards on his lower right arm with a jolt of shocking pain and a snap.  Like a puppet with its strings cut, his hand fell limp, one of his knives falling from between numb fingers.  And he was too shocked to even scream at the sight of bone protruding from skin.

Too shocked to do anything but look around at the bodies with wide, stricken eyes.  And right beside him, Oropher was lying there, blue eyes fluttering, crimson spilling downwards in an endless tide that joined the mixture.  But still breathing.  His chest was still rising and falling rapidly, body still trying fruitlessly to rise from where it had fallen.

"Stay down," a harsh voice ordered.  And Valthoron knew who it was.

Watched the attacker step over his prone form toward the fallen king and knew what was going to happen.  Felt his body shudder in horror.  Felt the shameful tears that blurred and stung and spilled over hotly on his cheeks.

He couldn't stay down.  He couldn't just lie here like a coward and watch as his king and kin was slain without mercy.

And how he found the strength to stand and lift his remaining knife despite the pain and debilitating terror to throw himself at the enemy's exposed back, he could not have said.  Only that, this time, his blade did not even connect with metal.  He did not see the hilt that slammed into his head and knocked him senseless, but felt only the loss of balance as his legs turned to water and gave out beneath his weight.  Carried him back down to the unforgiving earth as deadweight.

"I told you to stay down, child."

Eyes were staring at him from behind that helm, dark and glistening and cruel without even a hint of remorse or compassion.  But, again, he was not struck down as he feared he would be.  Rather, he was left where he lay.  Left to live, dazed and sobbing furiously.  Trying desperately to find his bearings through the sudden loss of balance and the churn of his gut that brought bile up his throat. Trying to stand despite the pain and spinning reality as he heard the chink of armor and heavy footsteps drawing away.

But he couldn't do it.  Each time he moved to rise, his body revolted and sent him twisting back down like a helpless newborn kitten.

He couldn't do it.

Looking toward his daeradar--toward Oropher, who had never been overly affectionate but whom he loved dearly all his life nevertheless--he caught hazy, distant blue eyes, pained and fast-fading.  But soft also.  Holding no blame.  Piercing straight through his being.

Resigned eyes.  And forgiving eyes.  He could not have said which was worse.

Because he couldn't save his king.  Couldn't save his daeradar.  Couldn't even stand.

"Please, no..." It was a soft cry, pleading, but the enemy did not turn to look.  Did not seem to hear.  Or did not seem to care.

A towering shadow converged over the other elf's body, and then a boot rose over the helpless, prone form bleeding out so swiftly.  Valthoron heard only the sickening crack of a snapped neck and saw the king's body fall slack beneath one of those armored feet.  The blue eyes that, moments before had been gleaming with life, were now dull.  Empty.

"No..." Nothing but a whisper of denial.

And all he could do was lie still, aching and bleeding, and cry into the mud like a frustrated, terrified child.  Unable to move.  Unable to fight.  Unable to even speak or look away from the broken body mere feet away, cooling and dead.  The screams and shrieks of battle faded all around, and there were only the bodies and the pungent reek and the bitter sting of fear surrounding and embracing his trembling body.

And the why that burned through his mind as he stared wide-eyed at his dead kin.  Why was he still alive when he had been so weak?  Why was this happening to him?  To them?  What was the point of this fighting in the first place?

It seemed only to be destruction.  Offered no direction or reason.  It was just senseless death.

Why?

Even had he tried to ask through his choked weeping and aching throat, the figure was turned away already, marching off into the mass of fighting with his crimson-painted sword aloft as though nothing had happened.  Leaving him there on the ground as though he weren't even worth killing.  As though he weren't even worth noticing.  As if he was not even there.  Nothing but useless child that didn't belong on the field of battle, who had failed his family and his people.

Who did not even have the strength to rise and take his king's place as was the duty of the prince.  Who did not have the fortitude to rise again and strike down he who dared murder their sovereign, his daeradar.  Who did not even have the will to do anything more than shiver in the cooling mire, even after the ringing in his ears and the shooting pain in his skull gave way to a dull ache and the dizziness faded to clarity.

Who could only cry.  And wish his dreams would take him away from this world and swallow him whole.  And never allow him to wake back up to this nightmare.
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Ah, another OC-centric piece.  Don't kill me!  At least this one is based off of completely canonical events.  It was actually a daydream I had a couple of weeks back and I've been waiting to write it (because I knew this was the prompt that I wanted to use for it, because I'm a dork like that).  Poor Valthoron, I'm so mean to you! *huggles* I really do love you and Thranduil and Oropher!  I swear!

Forgive me if the battle scene sucks.  I write introspection, dialogue and smut, but I absolutely hate reading and/or writing fight scenes.  I find them to be incredibly boring and annoying most of the time (unless they're written very, very well, which they almost never are) and thus it took me longer to write this one because I still hate the fight scene and death scene.

On the other hand, I felt that the song fit perfectly atmosphere-wise.  Orchard of Mines (by Globus) is one of my absolute favorite songs ever and probably always will be.  I still, however, do not know what the lyrics mean and do not care.  I've written everything from death scenes to romance to pure angst to this song and I just don't care about the lyrics themselves, other than that they are fascinating to listen to and try to interpret in as many different ways as possible.  In any case, it fit and it pleased me, so there LOL.  Hope you like <3.

Sindarin:
ada = daddy or papa
daeradar = grandfather