To Live Again: Waiting Between Worlds {Lord of the Rings Fanfiction}

Decline

Ruins of Amon Lanc
Greenwood the Great

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Clara POV

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I never knew what it felt like to be as fragile as glass, like one more word would shatter my mind and all the little fragments of who I was would fall into nothing. As I lay in this forsaken pit, chained up and beaten until it hurt to struggle, I realised that what was left of me stood precariously close to obliteration.

I had been wrong, the orc monster was not just intent on physically removing my capacity to endure - it was far worse than that - he wanted my mind broken and my spirit just as chained as my poor rattled bones were in this very moment.

It surprised me how easy his dark, shamanic, mind was able to enter mine. He waited until I was at my weakest; when I was thirsty, hungry, and in so much pain from the torture that I felt myself unravelling even for the hope of a drop of water to ease the suffering. He weaselled his way in then, chanting and grumbling in that horrendous black speech that ripped through my soul and sent it into itself in total fear of the words.

I knew it wasn't just the monster, for the weight of that wind, that soulless, dead, and oppressed spirit came over me and weighted itself above me so even the very air I breathed was poison. It was so much harder for me to remember why I was supposed to hold on.

I fell into a black void and in it I saw the death and decay of my whole world. The forest turned to ash, the kingdom burned like charred remains, the people suffocated in a terrorising flame. I was forced to walk through this memory over and over until I felt for certain my home had been lost - perhaps it had?

No, this wasn't right!

When I struggled, it's evil claws sank ever deeper, when I retreated to the warmth of my fea, where I could hold onto the bonds of my family and feel them pulse with life and love - so I could remember my reasons to hold on - it followed.

That was my greatest mistake.

It followed me into the secret places of my heart and it poisoned me.

Like black ink it spread through the threads of my bright spirit, and found purchase in the tight connections that anchored within me. I thought my bonds were like iron, I thought them unbreakable, but I was wrong.

The darkness dove straight into the heart of me and found my mated bond. It wrapped it's evil around its warmth and turned it to ice, and then it drove into my soul so it felt like I had been pierced by the one thing I was never frightened of, until I quivered in pain and fear.

My mind was flooded of images of my mate. I tried to remember his name, his face, I wanted to recall him but all I felt was horror...the memory of him dying...was he dying...had I lost?

No!

My children?

But, it's claws were there too; my memories of a dead baby in my arms, a failed pregnancy, a lost hope...all my dreams shattered...my children were gone. It took away my children, my whole world, my little ones...I wanted to go to my babies...let me follow my children.

I slipped into the darkness, my fëa turned to black, to nothing, all it's reason to burn with light had gone. I had nothing left. Nothing worth fighting for, nothing worth living for, my home was gone, my people, my family...my sanity.

In the dark my mind drifted back to places I had forgotten. Green rolling hills, a thatched roof barn, a lonely child sitting at a window waiting for her mum and dad to come get her, to take her back home...but no one ever came?