Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He chose not to rest. She managed to find respite when the storm quieted some, and let herself curl up against one of the greater stones on the cave floor, with the cloth she had wrapped herself in. He watched her, after a time. Openly, even; her eyes had closed, and she appeared to be sleeping – and so she did not see him as he studied her, eyes roaming the soft lines of her face. It was her hair that entranced him most, then, a river of bronze that seemed to glow in the dim cave as though the light of the sun were woven into the strands. Gazing upon her made him feel warmth, as if he were in the presence of the sun even now. It captivated him, until he drew nearer to her, nearly enough to touch her, but he maintained distance. The sun was too bright, too hot, it burned his children where it touched them, drove them further into the darkness. He had been born in the dark, and had been born again in the dark, this new creature that he was. When he had felt the light that first time, when he had seen the sun after his torment, after the lord of the dark, he had been afraid of its brilliance – but afraid also of the emotion it inspired in his own heart. He had tried to abstain from looking upon it, basking in its warmth, its glow; the uruks could not do such a thing, and so he did not do as they could not.

But now, here, in the silent and serene presence of this lady of the Eldar, the one he called Emel, it felt as if he could, as if he were . She was so warm, burned with a glow from within, that now in the darkness she still seemed to be a light, and moth to the flame that he was at the core of his being, the piece of him that remained that was, still, Quendi , longed for that light that was her – after he had denied himself the touch of true light for so long.
He reached out, at last, as her chest rose and fell and she remained still, and his fingers curled around a lock of her hair.

It was like touching sunlight. Like feeling a river of warmth stream through his grasp. It was holding summer in the palm of his hand. It was true light , and his whole being sang with it in a way he thought was dead within him and that now, after feeling it so purely in his hand, he was terrified he would not be able to snuff out again.
And then her eyes were open, and she was very still, watching him.

In a flash, he had let her hair fall from his hand and withdrew his arm from near her. She did not move for a long moment, nor did he, and neither of them spoke until she broke the silence.
“I haven’t ever cut it,” she said quietly, her eyes moving from his hand that had held the lock of her hair to rest on his face. “Some years ago, my friends both cut theirs. They said it was a new fashion, that they felt lighter. One of the ladies in Lindon made sport once that if I were to cut mine, I could have woven it into a cloak.” She smiled some now, looking away. “I said I should have no need of such a thing.”
“A cloak?”
“...It was only a joke,” she replied softly, “and I am certain Lúthien’s hair was more beautiful.” His brow knit at this, trying to understand.
“Lúthien?”

And Elowen Anaíriel realizes that for all of her speculations on this man, she does not know much of anything about him at all.

“Lúthien Tinúviel, the daughter of Thingol and Melian,” she said, “the king and queen of Doriath.”
“I do not know those names,” he responded, his expression one of neutrality once more as he moved back away from her. She thought hard for a moment.
“Thingol…he was called Elwë, first.” And there was a flicker of knowing on the face of the dark elf, and Elowen saw it in his eyes.
“Elwë.” He repeated the name, and remembered. “He became a king.” She nodded.
“Yes. Of a kingdom called Doriath. And his queen was Melian, one of the maiar. And they had a daughter, Lúthien. She was the most beautiful of all the creatures in Arda.”
“What has any of this to do with a cloak made of hair?”

The storm was beginning to quiet at last. Inside the cave, Elowen had finished her tale of Beren and Lúthien, one of her favorite stories. Adar seemed lost in thought, and nearby, Elowen watched him quietly.
“You did not know of this story?”
“I did not come south into Beleriand again until what is called now the War of Wrath, as I understand it.” he said finally. “Your flight away from the lost continent.” She nodded, looking at the stone floor. For a long while, she was silent.
“Why are you called ‘Adar’?” She asked him finally, and then, more quietly, more hesitantly, “are the orcs truly your children?”
“Uruks,” he replied. “We are uruks.”
“You count yourself one of them?”
“I am one of them.” He met her gaze now, unflinching. “I am uruk. They are my children, I am as they are.” She swallowed.
“So you are their father, truly…?”
“Some, yes. And their children, and the children of their children still.” He replied, and turned to look out at the rain once more. “Which, I could no longer say. But they are all my children, by claim if not blood.” There was a coldness in her stomach at this realization, at what this meant he had suffered at the hands of Morgoth. She wondered if he viewed it as such. “They are mortal creatures now. The children of my blood remain in few, but their get are no longer as they themselves were.”
“Were they slain?” She asked him, hesitant and quiet. “Your children – the ones of your flesh.”
“No,” he answered, “not as you imagine. Not by hands of elves nor men.” Elowen’s brow knit slightly.
“What do you mean?”

He was silent, gazing at the ground, she thought, but her eyes found he was looking at his gauntlet; the angry, sharp iron of it.
“It is not a story for ears such as yours.”
“It could be,” she offered. “If you were to tell me, then it would be.”
“Do not mock me, elf,” he hissed sharply, but she turned to face him, and he knew that as with all other of her gestures, there was no ulterior motive in this. She was strange, to him, in the purity of her actions.
“You listened to my tale. I would like to hear yours.” He saw her take a small breath. “We have ridden through vale and field and forest together, to an end I do not know. And yet I know nothing of you, and now you but little of me. Please, if you have the words to speak it, then I wish to hear them.” Her slender hand moved careful and slow, and touched the spiked knuckles of his gauntlet. “Even if it is not lovely to your tongue nor to my ears, it deserves to be heard.” 

Strange, it was as if he felt her touch through the metal. He curled his armored fingers into a fist, and withdrew his hand. 

“There was no sun, in the first days.” He began finally. “Only the light of stars. Only shadow. And when we woke, that was all we could see, at first. Starlight.” Elowen had never heard such stories, not from those who lived in those days. She listened, rapt with interest. “We knew no other light but the stars, and the light in our own eyes. We knew no other sounds but the wind, and the sound of the great river, and one another. And then the sounds from the dark trees. Hooves, the rush of noise.” He took in a breath, she saw his nostrils flare, and his fingers clench. “When I was young, we were guided by the Great Hunter. Oromë. When the Valar still deemed to walk among us, before leaving us for their own safe haven. Over fields, and streams, and mountains – and many left along the way. Remained in the forests, by the rivers. And in Beleriand, over the mountains again, was another great river. We found it, and it was beautiful and dark in the light of the stars. Its banks were covered in flowers,” she could see in his eyes, almost as if she were seeing it herself. He could remember it, could call the image to his sight. “Miles of them. Sage blossoms, they were.” Elowen swallowed, nodding.
“I remember them,” she said softly, feeling her throat constrict. “And the river.”
“I walked it when I was young, swam in its waters. My people did not go further than that land. I did.” She could hear the metal of his gauntlet shift, scrape. “When I was taken, there were no rivers. No fields. No sage blossoms. No stars.” His fist clenched. “There was only darkness, and pain. There was only the Dark One, only his designs. Only fire, and smoke, and shadow.” Elowen felt something in her belly that seeped into her chest, a heavy fear that brought back visions of dreams to her mind. Shadows and flame, whispers of a dark doom to befall the land. Clouds of smoke, and distant cries . “And when I was changed, and saw the others that had been changed as well, there was a darkness as there was in the beginning, and no light in our eyes to see. And in the dark we grasped, and fumbled, and ripped, and bit, and tore–and we were not of the Quendi any longer. We were Uruk, and the children that came after were Uruk. And soon they were mortal, no longer of the blood of the first, and did not last as we did.” There was so much in his voice that it was heavy, rasping at the weight of it all. “To be in the service of the Dark One, of Morgoth, was to be changed. The Uruk. The Valaraukar. Even the men who served him were not as they had once been. His darkness was not the darkness of the world, it was deeper, and it was inescapable. It permeated, overtook everything it touched.” He could recall the creatures in the dark, the things that were not as they should have been, the things that were like him, now. “It poisoned. But Morgoth could not create of his own power, his own will. Only destroy. Only ruin . As tainted things we could only create in the way of flesh and blood – and we did.” Elowen looked down, swallowed, felt a lump in her throat at the bitterness in his voice. “And our tainted unions brought forth more creatures of blight, and ruin. An army for Morgoth and his forces, but living, breathing creatures with names. Hearts. But they were mortal, as I said. The Quendi have their spirits to keep them alive, sustained by light. What becomes of those creatures when the light is taken from them?” He did not look at her, but she felt the weight of the question sink into her chest. Somehow she was still uncertain that either one of them knew the answer. “They were creatures of blood and flesh and they multiplied in that way – among themselves, and with the men in their reach. They were mortal, and did not last, and were born and gone within what felt like the blink of an eye. When the war began, and we fought, many more were gone then as well. But after Morgoth himself was gone, when the war was ended, we still were not free.”

He had gone silent for a time, to think on his next words or to contain the emotion threatening to spill out into them, Elowen was not certain. She sat quietly and listened, waited.
“Morgoth was gone, but Sauron remained. Far to the north, he hid himself with many of the uruk, and we journeyed to find them, to bring them south.” Adar’s eyes were hard, and his voice was quiet, and Elowen listened closely, but wondered when he began this part of his tale, who had traveled north with him. “We found where Sauron had hidden. We found our brothers, sisters, children.” His gauntlet clenched, and there was a sharp sound, as if the metal were crying out, “He did not seek only to hide, to rest, to wait. He sought power, and in his pursuit of it, he used the uruks as…components.” She saw his jaw flex, his nostrils flare. She could see the tightness of the muscle in his throat, his cheek, and she felt cold. “As sacrifice.”
“How…” She shook her head, at a loss for words. “Sacrifice…why?”
“Power requires it. It can never be attained without loss,” Adar replied, “and great power requires great loss.”
“But…” Elowen’s brow knit. “If it meant nothing to him…if the sacrifices meant nothing to him, is that truly loss?” Adar turned to look at her now, his eyes roaming her face.
“No,” he answered at last. “His work led to nothing but blood, and bones, and ash.” Elowen felt a hollowness in her belly that she could not explain, and her hands in her lap felt heavy somehow. “He did not find the power he sought,” Adar continued, “but we found him. We found him, amidst dark and death, amidst the bodies of our kin, and for the loss we endured at his hands, we fought Sauron,” a strange, unsettling sort of calm came over the uruk then, “and I destroyed him. I rent him in half – I killed Sauron.”

Slowly, Elowen turned to look at him.
“You…killed him…?” The pit in her stomach felt strange, queasy almost. This did not feel right , and she could not understand or articulate why.
“Yes,” he said decisively, and she stared down at her hands, trying to understand the emotions she felt, why there was such apprehension in her bones. “He could not understand what it was to sacrifice,” he said, low and with rage simmering behind his words. “The Ainur will never understand. They cannot ,” his brow knit, his eyes cold. “They are not of flesh and blood. They do not feel as we do, and they cannot understand us because of this.” Beside him, Elowen felt cold and stiff, his words settling over her like stone. “Why serve gods who cannot know what we feel, who cannot understand the suffering of those who worship them?”
“Why do you…why do you think they do not understand us?” She asked softly, hesitantly, as if afraid of the answer.
“Because loss cannot be measured,” he said, “it can only be felt.”
“And that is why Sauron failed,” she whispered, feeling a tightness in her throat.
“I have sacrificed too many of my children to one who will never know them, nor care for them, nor mourn them. They do not need a god, nor a master. Only a father.”
“Who knows, cares for, mourns, for the father, then?”
Silence fell between them as she asked this. There was some part of her that understood what the answer should be, what she nearly expected him to say, but there was no reply. 

She realized in that moment that while they had sat together speaking all this time, she had not been afraid of the thundering of the storm outside.

“What was your name, before?” She asked, when the rains were light, and the storm was calming.
“I have no use of it. It is past, and forgotten.”
“You said your children have hearts, have names.”
“To give something a name is to give it worth. To give it being. Adar is the name I have been given. It is who I am.”
“It is what you are,” she said, “or what you have become. But even fathers have names.”
“I did, once. And now it is Adar.” In truth, his name – what he had been called before – was an echo of a memory to him now. In the great darkness, he had wondered once if his name had been real at all, if there had been anything before the dark, before the change, in the first place. But now there were the uruks, there was the plan, there was Adar.
“My name is Elowen,” she said softly, after a moment. “Perhaps it is not of use, but it is me. I should like not to forget it.” He did not look at her.
“Emel will serve.”
“Yes, but now you know me.”

He found he had little to say to that.

When the sun emerged again at last, Elowen was swift to return to its light. She danced on the wet green grass in the warm daylight, laughing, and Adar made ready the horses to leave. As they rode to exit the forest, Elowen turned to him, and offered a smile.
“Thank you.”
“I need no thanks.”
“Your attention was kind, and I thank you for admiring my hair.” She smiled, and it was sincere, and radiant. Adar studied her a moment in mild disbelief.
“It reminds of the glow of a dying sun,” he said finally, but there was no jest in his voice. She kept her eyes on his a moment longer.
“Perhaps, but that same light could also be the sun when it is only just wakening.”

He was not sure which was preferable, but the possibility of meaning in her voice made something inside of him stir, again. He was no longer Quendi. He no longer loved the light, and it no longer loved him.
Emel rode ahead of him when they broke the treeline and entered a field, her mare taking off into a leisurely canter. Her laughter carried back to him on the breeze and in the daylight, her long hair gleamed and flowed like a banner, like a river, like a curtain of light. His eyes strained at the bright sun, but found themselves watching her hair trail behind her. The light did not love him, nor he it.

But within him rose up the curious and frightening consideration: unless.

Something had shifted between them since the storm, since the cave.
They rode north still, but the air had grown cold, and Elowen found herself struggling for warmth even when the sun was high. At last a night came when she was huddled beside a small fire she had built, her mare lying down to let her warm herself against her back, and Adar disappeared into the nearby forests before nightfall. Elowen did not know where he had gone, and she remained at this small encampment until finally he returned, and over the back of his stallion was draped the carcass of a large wolf. Elowen got to her feet as he approached, her eyes wide, and he brought the large carcass to the fireside, and without a word began to dress the thing with the blade at his hip. She watched, stunned.
“Where – where did you…”
“I was seeking a deer. I found this.” He replied evenly, tossing a bloodied bit of viscera on the fire. Elowen took a step back, but did not stop him. The unspoken question of why remained on her lips, but he remained focused on his task, and Elowen retreated to her mare, settling down onto the grass again and tucking her sash and the cloth from the food close around her. As he continued his work, she took a rest, shutting her eyes a while and trying to ignore the biting cold.

Some hours later, she was roused from her meditation by warmth – he had tossed the pelt of the wolf onto her lap. Her eyes widened and she looked up at him where he stood over her in disbelief, realizing the sun was also rising again.
“We will stop again when night falls to smoke it longer,” he said, “but it will warm you.” He had already begun putting out the fire, and readying them to leave, and Elowen ran her hands over the wolf fur gently. It was soft, still a bit damp, but he was right, it would keep her warm. Leaning in over it slightly, she whispered to it gently to try and diminish the smell on it and to make amends to it for the death, and it was lighter when she lifted it with her to stand after she had tied her sash about her waist again.

Before they set off, she came to stand beside his horse with him, reaching out and touching his bare hand.
“Thank you,” she said softly, the pelt around her shoulders. He turned to face her a moment, studying her in the early light of day. He had expected some complaint, some protest perhaps, for killing an animal or for the smell of death on the fur, or for any number of things – but she only smiled, only touched his hand, and the only thing he smelled just then was something that warmed him, something that felt much more like life than death. His fingers flexed under her touch, and he swung himself up into his saddle.
“You’re welcome.”

“Where did you hear that tale?” He asked her as they rode over a barren field, the Ered Mithrin looming in sight. “The tale you told me during the storm.”
“The – ah,” she remembered, “it is called the ‘Lay of Leithian’,” she told him, “it is a song now. Or sometimes simply a poem. My mother does not much care for it, but…I suspect that may be because she knew Melian, and Thingol, and Lúthien too.” She looked almost sad to Adar’s eyes as he watched her then, “And I do not think she approved of her marriage to Beren.”
“Your mother?”
“She lived in Doriath, for a time, with her mother, and with her cousin. They were the only ones of my mother’s family that Thingol and Melian much cared for, or permitted within their halls.” He nodded slowly.
“And Beren?”
“He was a mortal man,” Elowen replied, “and Lúthien became mortal for her love for him, and died.” Adar’s mouth quirked up slightly.
“Perhaps she feared the same for her own daughter.” Elowen was a bit taken aback, and seeing even the trace of a smile on his face, she could not help but smile in return.
“She did her work well to prevent it,” she said, “I know but few mortal men – and none that I love.”
“Certainly none to weave a cloak of hair for, as I recall.” Elowen laughed at this, and he felt quietly pleased with himself for it. Realizing this, however, his jaw tightened, and he felt cold anger well up in his gut – but it was disintegrated when he looked at her again, saw her smiling in the silvery light under the clouded sky above. She’d started singing; he realized it was the ballad form of the tale she’d told. In the pale light, she still shone like the sun, and he felt warmed by her presence, by the sound of her voice.

Perhaps the light no longer loved his kind. The sun was burning, and harsh, and blinding.
Emel – Elowen – was warm, and inviting. She was, to his spirit, what light should be, what the sun should be. Perhaps it was why he felt drawn to her. Perhaps it was why he could not hate her, could not feel anger towards her. Perhaps hers was the light to sustain his changed spirit.

This was all considered by Adar in silence, unknown to Elowen Anaíriel as she rode alongside him, filling the cold, darkened day with song.