Release from Bondage – Chapter 1

squirrelwrangler:

So I’m posting the chapters finally to the blog, as they were the only one that didn’t have a full version here. Plus, I’m greedy and I want this fic to have as many readers as it can.

The later half of the First Age from the perspective of two elves trapped in Angband, loosely inspired by A Dance of Dragons. 

The childhood companion of Finduilas Faelivrin must take the princess’s identity to survive in the enemy’s hands. Another prisoner, regretting he did not join Beren’s quest, tries his best to save her.

AO3

“The eyes of the bride were brown, big and brown and full of fear.“ 

The princess’s eyes were light and bright as the source of the River Narog, the fair pools of Ivrin for which Lord Gwindor had named her, the green-blue of leaves reflected in clear water. But the eyes of this maiden were brown, dark and deep with fear.

”Is this her?” the orc overseer snarled in the foul language Faron had learned to understand, jabbing at the emaciated elf’s scarred back with the butt of a iron spear. The blow crumpled the last strength in Faron’s knees, and the thrall went from prostrated bow to lying flat on the wet stones of the cavern. Had Angband any poetry, the broken elf would have described himself as a squashed spider. More coal dust flew into his nose and mouth, and after a long pause because he had no energy to breathe or cough out the dirt from his mouth, Faron spat and slid his hands back under his body to push himself from the ground. It was a slow process. The open sores from the missing fingers had started to bleed again, but the pain from his back, from his stomach, from the despair in his heart, overpowered the sensation. He needed to answer the overseer before the orc struck again, before the next finger was taken. The elven thrall, one of the unfortunate thousands in the bowels of Angband, glanced up at the newest arrival.

Faron was not so broken as to misunderstand why he had been dragged forth. Perhaps it would have been kinder if he did not, but kindness was as foreign to Angband as poetry.

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