This is the last you’ll get of this AU for a while, I think. Until then...bonus points to whoever accurately guesses where/when Whitestone comes in!
[Prologue / 1 / 2 ]
Flashback to several hundred years ago:
Vex did not fall back onto her bed so much as fling herself delightedly, with the express purpose of bouncing. The famed elven bards of Rivendell had, this night, utterly failed to induce restfulness in their listeners.
“I shall be just like Luthien when I am older,” she announced. “Wham! Ha! Aaaa!” She punched the air, and sang a ringing note.
“And marry a human?” Vax, sitting calmly on his own bed, gasped in faux-horror. “Father would be furious.”
Vex rolled onto her elbows and grinned at him. “That is another benefit. You're growing so wise, brother.”
He stuck his tongue out at her. She propped one hand under her chin and continued.
“I do wonder if Men are more...energetic, than Elves. You'd think so, wouldn't you, with how little time they have? It's not just here - even back home, everyone is so dull. Slow. Not at all fun to-”
“Stop!” Vax put his hands over his ears. “I do NOT want to hear about you and...anybody, ever. Not in Mirkwood, not in this shitty house-”
Now it was Vex’s turn to stick out her tongue. But she abated her musing.
“Anyway,” said Vax, once it was safe to uncover his ears, “Tinuviel wasn't as badass as her father.”
“Thingol?” Vex’s voice could not have been fuller of scorn. “What did he do?”
Vax wobbled one hand in the air, palm up. “Banged a Man?” He lifted the other and shook it up and down firmly. “Banged a Maia.”
Vex replied, with that tone of almost genuine sympathy that only a sibling can truly achieve, “I really don't think Gilmore thinks of you the way you-”
A lesser being might not have caught the pillow, so quickly did Vax fling it at her face. But Vex’ahlia, daughter of Syldor, had come of age hunting beasts beneath the dangerous eaves of Mirkwood. Her reflexes were second to none.
“Shut up!” her brother shouted, already reaching for another pillow. “That's not what I- and anyway, no one knows whence- we were just talking, Vex’ahlia, it's not like-”
The rest of the scene was lost in quite a lot of torn cloth and flying feathers.
Even the great translator Professor Tolkien of Oxford University did not dwell, in his similar tale, on every detail discussed at the great council we now come upon. So nor shall I, overly much.
For some context, I should say first that Pike wakes after three days, and when she does, Gilmore has arrived at last, and they are delighted to see one another well. It had been a couple close calls: Gilmore had been attacked on Weathertop just a few days before Pike and her companions, by four of the Nine. As well as had some previous troubles of his own. And Pike, of course, had nearly passed away into wraithhood herself, the sliver of the Witch-Queen’s blade working its way steadily toward her heart for days. But Syldor Half-Elven* is a mighty healer, well-practiced in battling evil wounds of such type, though perhaps never so severe. But hobbits, as Gilmore has been saying for years, are surprisingly hardy folk.
The even dearer reunion is with Wilhand, who has been in Imladris for many years now. He earned his retirement in the Last Homely House with his own great deeds and adventures, if you will recall previous tales. There were several dwarves, and one dragon. He has gone a little deaf, now, and partakes a tad much of wine and sweetmeat—just think what the neighbors would say, he japes to Pike, once they are done hugging. After so many years of adventurous reputation, he’s acting like a respectable hobbit at last!
(This tale that I am telling now has fewer dwarves, and…well. We shall have to see about the matter of dragons.)
It is another couple days before Pike is well enough to see Grog, for he is camped out on the opposite shore of the now-quieted river. There is a limit to how far people will go to make good with unlikely allies, and that limit is an orc in Rivendell. Grog, frankly, agreed. The valley is too bright everywhere for his tastes. He has not been too alone: when Scanlan was not fretting at Pike’s bedside, he was across the ford, teaching Grog drinking songs from the Shire. With accompanying drink, of course. Minxie visited a time or two, and Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan more often. They brought much of the best drink.
First, however, the Council of Syldor. Dark times are come to Middle Earth, and so it is not just for Pike’s burden that people have assembled from near and far, seeking advice in trade for ill but urgent tidings.
From Uriel’s elven court of Mirkwood comes Allura, a lady and a scholar, to say that dark things are stirring once more in Dol Guldur. Not long did the fortress lay silent, after the cleansing dealt by the Wise back when Wilhand was out adventuring. Once more, spiders spin their webs, and orcs move and Black Riders have been sighted.
Lowbearer Vord, a dwarf of the Lonely Mountain, comes with his ward to bring similar news, and darker yet. War is brewing to the east, for the Lonely Mountain and Dale as well. Messengers have come in Vecna’s name to treat. They also ask after a hobbit, and a ring - “a trifle”, they say. Twice they have been rebuffed, but a third and final choice approaches…
Maryanne Darington of Minas Tirith arrived just this morning, with tale of a city beset and a dream most strange. For the latter, she seeks council; of the former, she speaks only with weariness and pride. Long has Gondor stood against the Enemy, and long shall it - she hopes. Osgiliath has fallen, and her brother’s dream spoke of Isildur’s Bane.
And what if that ring, that trifle, that doom of Elendil’s eldest son? That tale falls to Syldor, who was there for much of it - for times lost save in song and story, and the living memory of a very a few still on this earth.
I will not bore you with a retelling of those great events. The forging of the great rings, the betrayal of Sauron, the Last Alliance of Men and Elves… I’m sure you are likewise familiar with the parts of the tale that Gilmore fills in, of the finding of the One Ring by first one small person, and then another.
There, of course, the tale does a hop, skip, and a jump, as Wilhand tells his part - how he lost his party beneath the Misty Mountains and came across a small golden ring instead, as well as a young orc being strangled in the dark by a pale, slippery sort of being. This was the selfsame orc who had earlier tried to defend Wilhand against his own monstrous kin, so Wilhand sought to return the favor. Together, though it was not quite the tender-hearted hobbit’s plan, he and the orc killed the strange, frog-like beast, and tended each other’s wounds and escaped into the sunlight before parting ways.
That young orc, of course, was Grog, because orcs live as long as I, the storyteller, want them to live. He is very much not at this council - but while Pike was recovering, Gilmore and Minxie together got a story out of him, of wandering south and east, as countless of his kind were summoned over these last many years, and saw many terrible things and endured far, far worse, until the Great Eye knew the name “Trickfoot” and the race “hobbits”, and the land “Shire.”
(This, GIlmore tells with sympathy in his voice, and Wilhand takes and squeezes Pike’s hand as she shudders for their friend, remembering too well the Nine’s deathly cruelty. Because fuck you, Tolkien; even orcs don’t deserve that.)
Gilmore also speaks of his own recent captivity at the tower of Orthanc, at the hands of the wizard Curunir. (“Sauruman” in other tales, but in this world of Exandria, so enamoured was she of the name the elves gave her that she entreated its use by all, and they weren’t assholes so it stuck.)
So...the quest.
In the books, the moment is still, as they all stare at the Ring on the table in the center of the circle. This small, golden ring, which holds all their fates. In the films, there is shouting, discord already being sown by the power of the Ring. To guard it with the wisdom of Elves, or the strength of Men, or the strange, untouchable nature of Matthew Mercer, back in the Old Forest t the edge of the Shire, who would be First and Last? Or to take it, to use it, to overthrow the Enemy and win peace at last for Middle Earth? No, no--it must be destroyed, that is known. But how? And, moreover, who? Who could bear such a perilous quest, unspeakable temptation and greater peril, to the Fires of Mount Doom itself?
“I’ll do it.”
Pike’s voice rings clear, through silence or hubbub. She does not stand tall but she does stand forth, with her head high and her eyes alight. Her shaking hands curled into steady fists.
“I will take the Ring to Mordor. Though I do not know the way.”
[and now, for dramatic effect, I think I will follow the films]
“I have some knowledge of it,” says Gilmore, and comes to stand beside her, a tall and steady presence. “I will help you bear this burden, Pike Trickfoot, as long as I may.”
“And I.” Minxie - or Keyleth, perhaps, we ought call her - kneels to hobbit height. “Broken or not, my sword is yours.”
“And my axe!” Kima of the Iron Hills, the Lowbearer’s ward, jumps to her feet. She has been fidgeting since the council convened.
Allura shoots the dwarf a skeptical look, and steps forth as well. “Whatever aid the Kingdom of Mirkwood can give, or even just I myself, is yours, little one.”
“I think that’s our line, darling.”
Syldor scowls as Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan step from the shadows by the door. His children by a Silvan elf, now deceased, they are estranged, and had not been invited to this meeting. They came anyway, and now take matching places at Pike’s back.
“We’ve got you, Pickle,” says Vax, with a comforting hand on her shoulder. She smiles up at him.
“And me!”
Scanlan’s appearance from hiding is much less graceful. He falls out of a tree. But he picks himself up and scrambles to stand by Pike. “No way is Pike going to go destroy all evil without me.”
Syldor casts his eyes to the heavens, as if seeking salvation. Maryanne snickers for just a moment as she stands, before her sobriety returns. “If this is truly the will of the Council…” she says slowly, and puts a hand on the hilt of her sword. “Then Gondor will see it done.”
“Fine,” Syldor says with perhaps more force than necessary. But he, too, sobers as he surveys the group assembled before him. “The Enemy fields Nine Riders - so we shall send forth Nine Walkers. The Fellowship-”
“Actually,” Scanlan interrupts. “Mr. Elf Sir Guy. Sorry, but we’re ten.”
“What? No, you are-”
Scanlan Shorthalf, who knows his way around a story, crosses his arms and stares down Syldor Peredhil, son of Eärendil, of the line of Beren and Luthien. He says, confidently: “There’s no way Grog is gonna want to miss this.”
*A/N: This is the character swap-in I’m least comfortable with, because tbh Elrond deserves better, but I am assuaged by how much canon!Syldor would hate this title.
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