You were there.

You were there when the strength of men failed.

You were there when Isildur betrayed Middle-Earth and allowed the Ring to survive, and everyone knows this.

But you were also there when the strength of the Elves faded away.

You were there when you betrayed your father and your people. And yourself.

It was so long ago; those who may have suspected the truth have now passed beyond any ability to reveal the lies you have spread for so long that you are beginning to think they are true yourself. The truth is bitter, not a tale to be told on a dark night when the rain pounds in the midst of Imladris and you can see your daughter's ghost riding on the wind when all other Elda have gone beyond the prospect of mortality.

Sometimes you think to yourself that it was so long ago, you almost can't remember. But you are lying, and you know you are lying, even if no one else does. You have always had a knack for it, both the ability to lie and the ability to know when you are lying, even when the lie is told to yourself, repeated over and over again. But the lie can never be forgotten.



The Battle for Middle Earth

Minas Tirith is one of the most magnificent cities you have ever seen. It is beautiful in a different way than the traditional Elven style, but still wonderful to behold. But you cannot stay there for long. Soon you must depart to Mordor, for the Battle to come.

You have been chosen as an advisor to Gil-Galad. When he heard of your decision to remain as an elf rather than a man, he considered you wise and you began your relationship as friends. It still continues today, and as a long friend to him, you know of his possible decisions and you have the ability to see them through eyes less sullied by perspective than those of Gil-Galad himself.

You sit with Gil-Galad and Elendil and his heir, Isildur, as they examine maps. You find the King rather tiring: proud, overbearing, and much too sure of himself. And his son is worse. Not only does he seem to have all of his father's attributes, but he also follows the old Man to whatever end. You even know for a fact that he wed a woman he despised because it was ordered by his father. You have no wife yourself, and cannot think to trouble yourself with one at this time, and you know that you would never follow your father as Isildur does his own, even when your father was with you, never did he ask for anything you would do unwillingly. But thinking of him makes you miss him terribly so you push him out of your mind and focus presently on the matter at hand, something you have not done for quite a while. You prefer to let your mind wind down odd paths instead of looking at matters such as this, matters that seem hopeless.

Elendil has good battle tactics, or says he does. You cannot disagree with the tactics themselves, but one look at Isildur's face and you know that they are not the father's, but the son's. You begin to pity him, for he follows Elendil in anything, he hero-worships him, and the King treats him like some form of lesser animal, something to be exploited that will still love him at the end of the day. Isildur glances up at you, and you see the quietness in his eyes, and your heart flutters slightly. He smiles, gently, and you feel suddenly that no smile of yours could measure up to it. But you realize what you are thinking, and give him a proper smile back. His eyes return to the cold arrogance that they have adopted before, attempting to obliterate any other feeling, and they almost succeed. You drop your own. You decide that you made a wise decision in becoming an Elf rather than a Man.


You love the quiet peace of Minas Tirith in the days before the battle.

You know that they will not last, that you will, quite possibly, fall in the fight, but now is enough. It must be enough, before you envision the future, whether it will be good or ill for the Alliance. You know that if you saw the fight before you, you would no longer have the courage to face it. Already your courage seems to be a slender cord, you do not want to shave any more off the edges.

You glance upward, toward the high walls, and see Isildur upon them. The Prince of Gondor stands upright and proud, a monument to the ability and nobility of men. They, it seems, have much courage, or at least they are good at showing what they have. And Isildur watches over the soldiers from his raised place on the battlements, surveying them with the hope that he must have, the faith that Middle Earth rides upon. You want to join the Man, stand next to him in the place that should be reserved for Elves, but you do not know how to do it.

Isildur turns his head as you walk to meet him, acknowledging you briefly before turning his eyes back to the Men assembled before his father far below. He is quiet, saying nothing, but putting off no air of inconvenience or annoyance that you have joined him. He seems to say nothing, but his eyes show all that does not pass his lips. It is a great host... you feel you must say something, even though every word seems thick and ungainly as soon as you speak it.

They are not enough for this fight, I fear, he says back to you, although he does not look your way. They have in their hands the future of a race; that should be forced upon no one and can be carried by no one. I fear for our survival.

Do not fear, you tell him with sudden conviction, the glory of men is soon to come.

The glory of men has been threatened before it has been established, Isildur replies. I do not think our race will bloom as yours has. has.

Something seems to possess you then, for you take hold of his arm and turn him towards you, so that you see each other's faces then, and you tell him, we may yet be victorious. Not all hope has gone to the grave.

A friend of Men could say as much, Isildur says, but he smiles at you again. And you smile back, truly smile, and you are heartened by his soft voice and warm words.

Do you speak out of foresight...friend? he asks.

I speak from my own heart, you say.



Your part in the battle for Middle Earth was large, but you can only now remember fractions of it, even though it is a mere few minutes after the battle. You can remember commanding the archers to fire, you can remember Gil-Galad saving your life twice as you fought near him. You can remember when Sauron first appeared, when the Orcs retreated behind their master and he strode toward the Alliance, making you feel like you would be the first one to be torturously killed. And you can remember when Elendil ran for him, even though he knew it was folly, holding Narsil aloft and pouring into it a last hope to defeat the Dark Lord. Sauron killed him with one swing of his mace, the One Ring glittering like a horrible star on his finger. You can still see Isildur's face as he realized his father was dead, heedless of the danger it put him in, he ran to his father, tears flying off his dirt-streaked face and into the black air. You can still see, in your mind's eye, his terror as he cowered beneath the Dark Lord, swinging his father's sword in a last courageous, desperate attempt at life, and hope.

And at that moment, when the blade that was broken connected with Sauron's hand, cutting the ring from it, the sky began to clear and Sauron fell, not dead, but as dead as possible, unless Isildur destroyed the Ring. And your one thought was to get to your friend, to help Isildur destroy the Ring, even if you had to leap yourself into the fires where the Ring was created.

This is what you can remember from the battle, now, as you stand over the man, still clutching the One Ring in one hand, and his father's hand in the other. His own hands are beautiful, not callused like Elendil's, but soft and slender, and strong-willed. You again feel pity for him, for it is difficult to lose a father, even one such as what Isildur had and loved. But your eyes are most attracted to the One Ring: it's beauty, as it glitters with the fiery script and its seeming wisdom: with this Ring, you would be wisest and fairest of all elves, and of all people.

But then your mind finds the rest of your soul, and the attraction of the Ring fades like the sun in this black land.

Isildur, you hear yourself saying, rolling the name over your tongue and tasting it at the back of your mouth, come with me.

Isildur staggers to his feet and begins to follow you up to Mount Orodruin. The two of you are battle weary, and more than once on the climb he falls against you, and you must right him again. His hand, you discover with some misgivings, clutches the ring even more tightly than before.

The cracks where Sauron's Ring was made glow with a hellish light as you bid Isildur to throw the Ring into the fire, to destroy it and Darkness forever.

Isildur monitors the ring, turning it over in his hands. You can see the change in his face, the glittering eyes that seem suddenly as deceitful as the sea, the mouth that curves demonically into a smile. And you know, even before he closes his fist around it, before he says, no, before he himself makes the decision to keep it, you know that he will, for the hearts of men are easily corrupted.


It has been three weeks since you have left Gondor, and you cannot get the White City out of your mind. Or the Ring. Or the one who carries it.

It is odd, you have never thought about what Isildur is to his people. But it has become obvious that they love their new king, along with his wife and five sons. You know that he will be a good king, somehow, but you are concerned about the Ring. You not only fear that it will be Isildur's downfall, but you also feel attracted to it in an odd way, in a way you've never felt before and do not much care for. It is almost as if you would do anything except kill to get another look at the Ring. You do not know what to do, you feel you should tell someone, an old friend, but you suddenly fear that something will happen to Isildur if you say anything about the Ring. And you don't know why you feel so, for you have never much cared for Men, but you decide, in the end, not to tell anyone anything at all. You feel that your lust for the Ring will wear off, in time, and so you allow your mind to take you down strange paths with men and Elves alike.

It is down such a road that you find your greatest surprise, something that disturbs you beyond what anything else has so far. At the end of such a path of memory, you suddenly behold Isildur, smiling, but not in the manner which he did on Mount Orodruin, the smile that betrayed Elves and Men and Dwarves and Hobbits, Ents and Istari and all other creatures on Middle Earth, but a smile that was carefree, a smile that was full of light and life, a smile that was happy. And as you come back to yourself, to the forest that you love, you realize that this was not a dream or a fantasy, but you were seeing Isildur as he is now. And with a last flutter of your heart, you realize that it has been taken. By a mortal, a Man. Someone of the race you shunned and cast away for an immortal life. You realize that your heart is now with Isildur, King of Gondor.



At first, this revelation is difficult to accept and indeed, you decide that you cannot possibly accept it. You had always assumed that you would lead a normal life for an Elf, choosing a wife and having a normal amount of children, teaching them wisely in the ways of the Earth, or perhaps not marrying at all, but living a contented life, with everything you needed or wanted. You never thought that you would be attracted to someone of the same sex-a Man of the same sex, and a Man that you suddenly know will always be laden with the Evil of the Ring, before and after his death. But you still cannot keep yourself from seeing his smile, the quiet dignity about him, the power that vested itself within him like the swollen rays of an ingrown sun. Your mind preys upon this memory like savage Wolfs upon a lesser creature of the forest.

But you are a friend to him. Merely a friend.

You must be.


When Isildur sends word asking for aid against attacking Orcs, you realize fleetingly that your heart is not coming back. You feel your stomach lift, but quickly quash the feeling and try to convince yourself that he has become a friend to the Elves, someone else who went through the battle that you did, and a good Man. You agree to go to Isildur. If others look at you strangely for making the decision to go to Isildur yourself, they no doubt believe that you may be under the influence of the Ring. You partly believe that yourself, but the memory of Isildur is fresh in your mind always, while the memory of the Ring has become blurred and cast away to the shadowed corner of your mind.

You are silent on the journey there, giving what few orders are needed as you think. You do not understand the complications of such a thing as this, you know that now. Isildur is a good friend, yes, good since you came through the battle together, saving each other's lives and sharing the common hope that Sauron would be defeated. Friends have often shared bonds such as this before, treating each other as brothers, especially ones who have come through hopeless fights together. You share a common bond, although it is not a bond of brothers, and you do not regret your decision to become an Elf, because although they are isolated, far more isolated than men, the knowledge that they carry is vast, and little of it understood. Your wisdom is a great mystery to you sometimes, and you love uncovering what is hidden in its depths.

But you still have to wonder how you would react, were Isildur to be killed this day, or another close to this.


You join Isildur at Osgiliath, where he and one of his sons are battling against Orcs. When you arrive, the Men have scattered most of the revolting creatures, and your work is swift. You ride out to meet them, clashing furiously, driving them back until they are a pitiful mass of creatures, swarming over each other like ants to get themselves away from the fray. Within moments they are gone, and you ride up to Isildur, the two of you embracing. He withdraws and smiles again, happy that you have come and that they have prevailed. He invites you inside the City, and you agree to dine with him, although you still want a little more time to think. His eldest son, instead of dining, decides to make certain that the Orcs are gone and departs with a host of Men and Elves.

He is happy that you came, he says. He is grateful that the Men have someone they can trust in this world.

You think of how he twirls the Ring absent-mindedly in his hands and say nothing.

He holds you as a friend. He is willing to make friends, unlike his father was. He knows that things will never go amiss with a host of Elves that he can trust.

You are glad that he feels this way, but something is nagging at the back of your mind, telling you to speak and stay silent all at once, telling you to thank him and to challenge his powers of good in the same breath.

You say nothing, your mind thrumming with comments, questions, beliefs, reports, things that you must say or will die, but you would die rather than make a quarrel with this Man.

He asks you for the news from Rivendell then.

And your mind, at that moment, chooses to void itself of anything to say at all.

You shrug, give a few reports of Orcs along the eastern border, of the movements of the Ents, and a few other things. But your mind empties as soon as you tell him, and you must grasp for other things to say.

Your meal ends abruptly when Isildur is called away for a matter only he can deal with. He excuses himself and permits you to wander where you will, so you do, taking the time to organize your thoughts and mull over your feelings for the King of Gondor.


You are awakened suddenly by a shout for the King. You see that it is still dark, and the sun has no intention yet of rising, but you slip out of your room as soon as you have donned your riding attire. You fear the King will need to ride.

The Man who was shouting is running fast, blood streaming from a cut on his temple and scattering like wine upon the white stone that paves Osgiliath. He runs past you, to the King's Chambers, and you follow him.

Isildur is inside, pulling his sword belt around his waist. The Man explains to him and you what has happened. The Men and Elves patrolling for Orcs were beginning to make camp when their adversaries suddenly sprang up on every side. They were ill prepared for such a fight, and the former defeat had enraged the Orcs to the point where they fought like madmen. The Man could barely escape, and his horse was badly wounded, but he could not dare to stop and tend the injury. You glance out the window, and find that it is not quite yet midnight, and then you and Isildur and the soldier are gone.

The ride is fast and hard, even though you sit lightly upon the horse and do not need reins to clutch like the Men do. It is as you ride that the vision comes upon you, the vision of corpses strung about like the playthings of a giant child. And you know, with your gift of foresight, that when you get there no one will be alive.

Your vision was partly true, it is obvious as soon as you gather in the clearing that no one is alive. But you did not see the Orcs that would be swarming around the bodies, picking at their gems and weapons, squabbling over the limbs of the dead ones and nibbling at their flesh.

Isildur is upon them instantly, crying the name of his father and now dead son, scattering them with little other thoughts. After a moment, both you and the other Man join him.

It is the ferocity of Isildur's fight that drives them back. You doubt he could do it without your help, but without him, without his rage, you and the other Man would be sent down to join the Dead. It seems to be over instantaneously, but when you look at the moon, it has traveled farther in the sky than you would have guessed, although you would not say that the sun is close to being up.

Looking around, you realize that you have sustained an injury on your arm, and Isildur has been cut on the leg. You cannot find the other Man. He has fallen. Isildur is weak after his enraged attack, but he refuses to give up looking for his son's body. Looking at the bodies of the Men about you, you realize that if he should find it, things would be worse than if you took him back to Osgiliath now. You are rather certain that he would not be able to find his son anyway, and you have the feeling that seeing his son as the Orcs left him could very well drive him mad. So you gently take him by the arm, guiding him to your horse as he protests, fights against you to find his son. You argue with him, repressing him, fighting back your tears of sympathy, while his face is wet with them. Finally he collapses against you, and his ribcage convulses with the sobs of a father desperate not to acknowledge the loss of his son.

You take him to his horse, knowing that it will be far easier for him to ride on a saddle. You sit behind him and guide your other horse gently. You tell yourself that you keep hold of Isildur because you are afraid he may fall off his horse. You are not sure what the truth is.


The ride back to Osgiliath seems long and difficult, but you know that it is only a short way and figure that the patrol had been coming back to the city when they were ambushed. It is a good many hours before daylight when you get back into the streets, and with a surprisingly small amount of questions, you help Isildur, who is now half-dead, to his chamber. He staggers inside, leaning heavily on you, his soft breath rushing across the back of your neck. He slumps against you, and you realize he has fainted. It does not surprise you, for although Men are strong, Isildur has exerted all his strength and emotional power in a short time. Many Men would not have lasted even as long as he.

It is when you go to lay him on the bed that you realize your faces are two inches apart. And that is when you start to remember his smile, his dignity that somehow has never abandoned him throughout this, you remember him happy that you came to aid him and slowly, although you do not at first realize it, you bend a few inches and your lips meet.

The kiss is brief, and when you pull away you still taste the salty copper and saline of blood and tears. A sort of peace comes to you. Your confusion is so much clearer now, and there never really was confusion other than obstacles you threw in your own path. You lay him down on the bed, and, bending over him, whisper, almost to yourself, sleep well...friend. The last word is said in gentle reverence, with no hint of mockery.

Isildur's eyes flash open then, and you look into them for what seems like several ages of the earth. They hold immeasurable pain there, anguish that only rises out of the deepest part of the soul, but something else also.

And you do not know what it is until he rises to your face and sucks any words you might have had off your lips.

And you realize that you were wrong when you thought that he'd taken your heart when you saw the vision of him, in Rivendell only two days ago.

You realize, it was gone the first time he smiled.


The first time you lie in his arms, his ribcage slamming against your abdomen, you know that he will die before his time.


The second time you lie in his arms, you know that he will be killed by Orcs.


The third time, you notice that he clutches the Ring even now, though he is sleeping safely and without dreams.

The fourth time, you know that you will not see him in Osgiliath again.



It is nearly a year before you see him again at all. You are afraid, at first, that the separation has changed your relationship, but one smile from him and you know that it is different for neither of you. You trade formal comments, comments acceptable for the ears around you to hear. You agree to converse with him after seeing to his men and their lodgings.

You are glad that Isildur has come to Imladris, rather than you going to him at the White City, for you know the secrets of the forest and the palace there better than any others, barring some who ruled before you.

The two of you sit in silence for a long time, comfortable in the presence of one another before looking over the men and allowing yourselves to be publicly honored for your courage exactly one year ago. Isildur speaks a little about his father as well, how he honored and loved his father, and was proud that his father died for a noble cause such as this. It is as he makes this speech that you realize he has the Ring inside his fisted hand. You speak of Gil-Galad as well, but the difference between the two of you is that you know that he is not sincere about his father, although you are the only one that does know it, and you are sincere about Gil-Galad.

The formal banquet is splendid, but you keep thinking of Gil-Galad, how he would act now, and, more importantly, what he would say if he knew of your proximity to Isildur, and the Ring.

You leave the banquet early, slipping away when the drinks are beginning to have an effect on the Men and Elves present. At first, as you step silently down the hall, you think that no one has seen you go, but you feel a gentle touch on your shoulder and with a thrill you realize that Isildur is behind you.

Later, when you lie awake listening to the soft silences that slip about you, he says, I hated and loved him at once. And I honored him for everything that ever became of my life.

And you know he is speaking of his father.

And Isildur's hand runs over the edge of the Ring again and again, as though it were a second lover to him.

He stays for two nights only, and the second night he sleeps peacefully, but you do not, for your foresight has come upon you again, and you know now that the next time you will see him will be moments before he dies. And you curse your foresight, begging for rest from it. And Isildur continues to sleep beside you, blissfully unaware.

He haunts every dream for the next year. You see him every night, smiling, laughing, sharing curt words with his wife, discussing things with his sons, writing notes, orders, laws, planting a tree that will grow into a gigantic symbol of pride for a country, and running his soft hands over the Ring. And every night, for a year, you wake up with the name Isildur dying on your lips, his coppery taste fading into the far reaches of your mouth, until at last news is brought, news of disaster from the Gladden Fields.

A Man, Ohtar, comes to you asking for aid. Isildur and his men have been fighting Orcs, and they are losing badly. You give him rest and ride out with a company of your own, but even as you crash through Rivendell and toward Isildur, you know that you cannot save him from his fate. His time on Middle-earth is done.



You survey the disaster unhappily, looking for Isildur. You find him almost immediately, lying in the river as you somehow knew he would. There are two arrows protruding from his back and the water around his body is curled with blood.

Your host is driving back the Orcs, but you run to Isildur and haul him out of the water. You handle him gently as so not to cause him further pain through the arrows in his back.

The Ring, he says when he sees you. It fell into the river. He closes his eyes for a moment and you fear he will never open them again, but he does, and says, I was trying to escape. He says, I do not know why...I am a coward, Elrond. He still says your name gently, unhappily, letting it slide into the air around them. Then he looks you directly in the eye, and says, plainly, tell my sons I care. You nod, unable to tell him that they are dead, hoping for some word you can keep close to your own heart. Then he says, Tell them I will be with them always, and... He is speaking to you now, saying, I'm sorry.

Why? You ask.

I'm sorry, he says, looking at you. His eyes then stray to the river, where the Ring disappeared, and they do not move again. His mouth barely parts, the words mingling with the sounds of battle and you lean closer so that you might hear his last words clearly.

I'm sorry I could never say...

He is dead.

And suddenly you know why he was sorry. You can complete Isildur's unfinished sentence. And for the first time in your life, you wish you were mortal, you wish you could die.

I'm sorry I could never say that I loved you.

That is what he was trying to say.

And the worst part must be that even if he had lived, you could not have said those three simple words either.

And the cold bursts from his chest and flows into your heart, a heart made of iron and rust. A heart twisted by the future bitter lies in your soul that are waiting to reveal themselves, waiting to be told to the world so that the truth might be buried and forgotten.

Slowly, you turn away from the his dead body and return to the battle with mechanical strokes of your sword. You know you will survive, you will build a web of lies around your wife, your children, your house, and perhaps no one will know the truth then.

The battle is over. The Orcs are slain, what few Men are alive are given horses and a prayer is said for the dead ones. Then you turn back toward Rivendell, at the head of the procession. The future of your lies is waiting there.