Out of darkness....

[Cerridwen]

Out of darkness, yet shall I follow a path of greater darkness?
From the mountain crest, far off moon , give me light



The sea breathed. Where the steep, green slopes of the gulf of Lune reached up into the night, they were lost in a spring mist which mantled them like heavy gauze. Ithil looked weary, as he sunk into the sky.
The water lapped over her leather boots, the tide of the huge gulf gradually coming in. She turned, the prints she left in the sand barely visible.

This was it, her destination. To finally give up the ancient struggle by sailing into the West.
And yet... the struggle had only increased the closer she had come to the sea, like an invisible cord in her heart, tugging her.
He would not let her go so easily, she had always known it, each time they met, and each time she had gone, but almost seeing the smile on his face as he tightened their twin-bond and heart bond - heart! And at that a grim smile crossed her lips - he had none . No, no heart, but he was possessive, and he deemed she was his. He always had.....and in the beginning had he not sacrificed himself to save her?
Sometimes she had caught glimpses....of what his punishment had been, before his power slammed it shut in her face denying her access.
Iluvatar, I must go! She felt the seas call, the call of her people. It tore her, that longing and her twins imperative pull, sometimes so light it seemed non existent, but then a brutal tug on it would remind her of who she was. And who he was....Her fathers mindlock had never been so strong. She believed Sauron had lost track of her and forgotten her existance. He might have. Saeren never had.
He never would.

I am going! I am leaving! She hurled it like a challenge out into the night, into the aether. A pre-dawn wind took her hair, the thick spill which flowed to her knees, shredding it like a banner, the wind bore a scent... of far off places, of heat and incense, she thought, and then , just as suddenly it was gone.
Silence. The heartbeat, the pulse, of the cool northern sea.

[Saeren]

Saeren knew his voice would reach into her mind as easily, and as intimately as two friends sitting together pver a cup of wine.
*You will never leave* he sounded indolent and amused, as his inner eyes recreated her sultry beauty, felt the torment of her heart. He had often wondered what she would be like now, had he not arranged for her to escape so long ago, to find refuge with the Eldar of Beleriand.
A quixotic act, but he had been so young even for one of his blood, and in all that place of darkness, of torment, of creeping , cold evil, she had shone like a flame of proud beauty, a recognition that their mother had been Noldor, and she was made in the womans very image.
It was before he had been changed, before Sauron took him to Morgoth, it had been an act of self sacrifice that he now regarded with tolerant disdain. But no matter where their paths lead them, their link was always as strong as reforged steel.
*Do you remember? * he dropped the three words into her mind, with a smile.

[Cerridwen]

Did she remember?
Suddenly the universe contracted, the air became cold, and chill... dark, but a darkness that was more than lack of light , it was a crushing of all hope, and all colour. The walls, once, had been white and etched with carving, now they were stained grey....as if everything wept tears of dust.
A clinging mist seeped through the delicate arches of the windows, and from beyond came terrible sounds, manic, mad laughter, growls, hisses, screams, and then there was he. Perhaps he could assume a fair shape still, but if he could, with his two children, he did not assume it, his look ripped through the eyes and into the mind, making her cower, making her feel a wasteland of something which was worse than fear, it was utter despair.
Their food was little, and the water tasted as if it had lain too long in some old, rusted barrel, with a bitter tang to it. The thin blankets scratched the skin, their clothes were stark black, shapeless tunics and their feet bare. The children of Sauron, who could talk at one year, like elven children, fared little better than houseless beggars in some rotting city of men.


Ceri? The door opened a crack, and she sat up, her eyes huge and dilated, as a boy slipped through, he looked to be about ten, in human years, and was thin, his hair unkempt in tangled whorls over his head. He spoke into her mind, and she answered him in kind.

He came across to the bed, and drew out a hunk of bread from his ragged cloak. She stared, for this was fine bread, not the black, gritty stuff, they usually were given.
I found it in the kitchen he gave a white grin and sat down, as she broke it in half and shared it with him, it tasted so fine she thought she would faint. He had stolen it of course.
Where is he? She asked.
He gave a shrug of thin shoulders, Not here, Sauron was frequently called away, that was all they knew. They knew that * he * had a master who lived in the distant north, some-one more terrible even than he. Her own shoulders relaxed from their almost permanent tension.
Is that better? he asked of the bread and she nodded and took his hand. Sauron supposedly ignored them, - of course he did not, he had plans for his son, especially, but their maltreatment had only forged stronger the bonds which twins invariably bore.
' Thankyou ' she whispered, a merest cadence of breath.

Her eyes flew open. he sudden salt tang of the sea was so strong that for a moment she gasped, as the old images dissolved, her throat closed. Oh yes... she remembered.

[Saeren]

The manacles compressed his bound hands and feet, pain tore through every nerve ending of the youths body, as his father tortured him. not to the point of death, for Sauron was very skilled at that.
Elves did not mature fully until they were around forty or fifty, the Ainur blood in Saeren and his twin had speeded the process, so that they looked like young adults when they were much younger than that, but the girl-child Sauron had deliberately ignored for a time. She was to go north. As a gift to his Master. The boy would be trained as a captain of the men of the East

And then Sauron had returned to find the b*tch gone. Only one person would have risked his wrath to aid her escape, and now he would be the gift given to Morgoth , not her. He allowed the marks on his sons body to heal, before he clad him in fine robes and took him.

All this Saeren knew his sister knew, not the whole, but the meat of it. he knew she had never forgiven herself. He knew that was one of the strongest bonds and holds that linked them.

Saurons servants knew that his son would one day have influence and power, they saw it by the way he was trained, daily, nightly, his young body toughening under the regimen.
And Saeren guessed it too, and gambled that he would not be questioned when leaving .
Sauron was in Angband, they did not have much time, but he took his sister as far as he could, southwards, towards Brithiac and the forest of Brethil. Both looked like ragged wanderers, unless a chance hand had pushed back their tattered hoods, little food, weapons, yes, for Saeren bore them. he had taught his sister some rudiments of swordplay to protect herself, but he trusted more to her native toughness and his fathers blood to see her through the future.

* I have to leave you now, * he had said, *Go! Run! His voice became rough. '' I will find you again! '' He had given her a push.

[Cerridwen]

It was spring in the north, but a bitter wind flowed from the north . It would have had to be an intense cold indeed for these two to feel it, but what she felt was the creeping darkness reaching out from the farthest north.
'' Saeren... ai no, he will know, he will ..hurt you! Come with me! Whyfor would you go back now? '' her eyes were as golden as his, she would not cry, she had learned very young, not to cry, all her weeping was done on the inside. She clutched his upper arms feeling the hard muscle there, from years of training. But to her, he looked shockingly young, vulnerable, and a premonition she could not shake seized her. Desperately she tried to shake him, she might as well have tried to shake a boulder. '' We can escape, you have seen maps, you know these lands! Do not go back to him!'' All she had known, the only kindness, ever shown to either of them, had been from one another. Without him she was worse than lost, she was but half of a whole.

[Saeren]

" Do you not see, - ah you ...! " he raised his hands, gripped her own. " For me he has plans, he would hunt us forever, if we both vanished, for you I suspect something terrible, but as long as he has me, he may cut his losses. There is no time for debate, GO! Find the Elves! South lies Doriath, the Hidden Kingdom. "

[Cerridwen]

Brethil, southwards, belonged to the realm of Doriath but was not guarded by the Girdle of Melian and when the Secondborn came over the Ered Luin Thingol granted the people of Haleth the land if they would aid in defending its borders and the entrances to Beleriand and his realm. This they did with honour and courage and friendship grew among the two people. The people of Brethil raised there home; Ephel Brandir and Obel Halad upon the hill Amon Obel in the midst of the forest. Eastwards, lay Neldoreth, part of Doriath proper, and under the protection of the Girdle. But the way, across the fords of Brithiac and then south east to the crossing of the Mindeb river, was exposed and too far. Sauron had many spies, he used vampires werewolves, as well as orcs an other creatures of darkness.

In a frenzy of fear for her twin, Cerridwen allowed the momentum of Saerens push to stumble her on , and then she was running. She did not stop until she reached the great trees thst formed the northern edge of Brethil.
These woods were not elf woods, but to her born where she had been moved to other places of cold , dark dread, they emanted beauty and peace.
The scent of a fecund spring was all around her. If it had not been for her clenched fear, not for her, but for Saeren, she would have believed she walked through some sweet, grace of a dream.
then the trees around her became alive, as around her men armed with arrows and swords, surrounded her. She put up her hands, and stood quite still.
Hands patted over her, not ungently, and removed her long knife, then a callused hand pushed back her threadbare hood. Her tousled hair fell back from her delicately pointed ears .
'' Elf? ' The man spoke in the Common tongue of men, which one day would become standard Westron. The orcs in Saurons service, and the Easterlings spoke different tongues, but not too dissimilar to this, and her mind allowed her to thread words together and understand.

'' Please.. '' she said, '' there is danger, we... I am beign hunted by servants of .. my,.. of Sauron, ''

They stared at her, but to them she was an elf, and so wayworn , her clothes poorer han any of theirs, that they concluded she could be not threat.
'' Bring her, we will try to find the Marchwardens of Doriath''

[Saeren]

It was more than forty years before he saw her again.
News came of the assault on Doriath by the Sons of Feanor, and the fleeing of the refugees down Sirion. Saeren was sent south, to ascertain the truth of this.
Even in those years, he had changed from the youth who had protected her, being moulded day by day into a general of men, a student of war, a killer, who's own sould bore tortures and abuses which would ever remain with him. He could move as silently as any elf, through the darknes, passing the fens of Aeilin Uial, crosssing the Andram, and past the Gates of Sirion whence came the mighty river in a vast , fuming torrent as it flowed towards Nan tathren, the Land of Willows.

Elves had a glow about them, and so were easy for him to see, - they marched in an ordered company and were guarded, these relicts of Doriath. He * knew * Cerridwen was with them, even before he saw her, he felt her, and reached out, calling her, as the company made camp for the evening. They set guards, but he knew she would come, she was not without her own powers.

She looked like an elven queen, not the frightened, shabbily dressed figure he had last seen. Her beauty was in bloom as full as effulgent cherry blossom, unbound hair falling in thick, ribbonlike coils to her knees over a gown of pale yellow, but there was a knife at her girdle, and her eyes were alert, her face strained .
He rose noislessly and before she could react, or even sense anything, his arm was about her slim waist and a hand over her mouth.
* Be silent! * he uttered into her mind. A perfume surrounded her, honeysuckle, lilly-of-the-valley, roses. He could feel her heart beating hard against him.

[Cerridwen]

Saeren! Her minds voice throbbed with unfeigned joy and shock, she naturally made no sound as she was allowed to move and turned, flinging herself against him, muindor! She stepped back to see him, and smothered a gasp. She knew he would be changed, but not this much....! Her mind reached out and was expertly foiled. But just for a moment she felt something which made her recoil.
Tall he was, and nothing about him was soft, his mail blackened, not silver, his eyes like fiery golden suns.

Saeren... have you come to...? Her mental voice faltered. She wanted him to have come to be with her,to leave behind his heritage as she had, but she knew he had not. He had embraced it. Something inside her started to weep.
I have thought of you each day. What happened to you?

[Saeren]

What happened to me....? he thought with a mirthless internal laugh. He drew her further away, night mists flowing around them like swirling gauze.
*Well, look at you, daughter of Sauron, raised by Melian, as a Princess of the Eldar. A shame your home is no more. I was sent to see. And report back * He tilted up her chin, despite the flight from Doriath jewels winked here and there in her hair, pale fiery gems in the cloud of darkness.
*You missed me, then?* His white teeth showed in the dimness.

[Cerridwen]

Saeren... she seemed to grope, and indeed was floundering, he could have been a stranger except he was not, he was still her twin. Her heart felt sore, for she knew him, she knew what he had been, she knew what must have happened to take away that sensitivity, and that sweetness which he had shown her even in their young days.
Do not go back, muindor, Tears caught in her lashes, like diamonds. Saes, Saeren, she moved towards him and caught his hand. What did he do to you, ah Elbereth? What happened?...And because of me...?

[Saeren]

*|Sweet sister, ....* He caught her hand, his fingers could have tensed and broken her bones, but they did not, *My beautiful muinthel, you never did truly understand. Do you know that Morgoth wanted Luthien? What do you think you were being kept for? Oh, he likes beauty, our Lord, he likes to destroy it* his eyes flamed like lamps of gold. * If he can. *
His hard formed lips set grimly for a moment. *Our beloved sire tethered my mind to his long ago. I am no mere toy you see, I can be used for other things. He would know wherever I was. I am of his blood. I must always go back to him. his fingers loosened and traced one of her high cheekbones. *You would be dead by now, even with your blood, they hate and desire beauty, they love to break it and twist it, and hear it beg for the mercy of death. *

[Cerridwen]

A shock of horror thrilled through her like an arrow striking, this time, she could not rein back the tears, which were not for her, but for her brother. She had lost the brother she had known, and lost him because he had taken her place, but not died, because he could be other things than a toy. She had trained with the warriors of Doriath, she knew how a warrior moved, held themselves, she saw it in him, Maia power, Elven beauty, transmutted into something lethal and dark.
May Iluvatar cast their souls into the Void forever! The words were a flashing, searing flame of fierce hatred No... no! Saeren, what can I do?

[Saeren]

*And my soul forever? * he laughed soundlessly. *What can you do, I wonder, ..... * he drew her closer, You can confort me, muinthel, he swept her up in his arms, *And you know if you scream, your warriors will come, do you not? And there would be many deaths... they might even succeed in killing me? * He allowed that to sink into her shocked mind before carrying her away, the mist enveloping them both like a shroud....

[Cerridwen]

Sand scattered under Cerridwens boots as she ran , pulling herself over a breakwater above the beach, she rose. Out in the water a bell from a floating boy clanged at a shift of tide. Further to the south, the white walls of Mithlond bore lamps, but soon the sun would be rising.
She pushed back her hair with a hand which shook, as she began walking towards the walls, the white streets, the inn where she had taken a room before her supposed departure.
Leavemealoneleavemealone! the words looped over and over in her mind, as she passed into the tavern up to a quiet room. throwing off her cloak.