#burkhanlig

       The Lôke-Khan laughed under his own veil of skepticism, looking towards this cardinal point from the terrace of his Alcázar. There was no wind, or at least, not too much. The vastness of the Sea of Rhûn occupied the full width of the horizon on that warm summer afternoon. He knew well the lands beyond it; he had walked them during his youth countless times when his father’s commercial trips took them to the north coast, to the lands of his ancestors. However, the phrase rumbled in his head and Margöz knew that there was a metaphorical connotation beyond the geographical… you can’t “trust” a wind. What was she exactly referring to?

       -   “Considering my origins, I could consider that an offensive comment. It is not the case… Although I am intrigued to know what are the reasons why you do not trust this natural phenomenon, miss.”

                                      MAIRON refrained her brown eyes from being rolled out of frustration. The Race of Men were never the most intelligent in her own opinion that ever was  ENTITLED  upon her. They were  SAVAGES  and  BARBARIANS . They lacked a certain grace that only brought them for her look down upon them with  SNEER  and disgust. Mairon never trusted the winds, for they were the element of Manwë and she had loathed him greatly. She had brushed off the remark where he expressed he may be insulted of her statement and instead, she buried her  ANNOYANCE  of the title he had given her.

                                     ❛ MISS ❜ ? She was no spinster woman !

                                    Independent Original Characters                                    Emissary of Mordor | Lôke-Khan of Rhûn

“Wonder how far we’ve gone now.” The small orc muttered to her companion. Travelling South East had been no easy task, far more troublesome than she’d first thought it to be but a trek she was determined to make none the less.

Endless days of travel had left both Warg and rider at their limits, she hadn’t considered anything past the choice to find a new land to call home, one where she hoped life would be a little easier. 

It was late into the night before they came across any indication that they weren’t alone in the wilderness. Clad in what she guessed was the custom armor of this land she saw a man, the first person she’d come across in weeks.

Cautiously leaving the side of her companion she ventured forward, hoping for a bit of luck she took a deep breath before speaking.

“S’cuse me, mister. Can ye tell us where we are? W-we’ve come from far North an’ we don’t know where we are now.” Viola spoke softly.

Agandaur simply nodded at the rather poetic statement. He may not be of those keenly engaged in flowing verses or songs of old, more likely to focus on ancient lore as well as vortex of what creeps around and lurks ahead, yet these words did not stand out malapropos. Long road awaited before Middle Earth is at last is on his knees before Great Shadow. 

“I suppose you are right” the Sorcerer spoke calmly, small sigh escaping his throat “I believe you are aware of the news... forces sent to Mirkwood were either slaughtered or captured, very few escaped” he attempted to sound as cold-minded as he could, harsh ages of war and darkness forged Agandaur’s heart into steel, no glimpse of tremulous emotion could emerge without being unleashed by will. Pale blue eyes remained unfeeling, not a muscle twiched underneath scarred skin. Ah, why was it still the so difficult?...

       What was he thinking? All these days behind the bars in this dark, cold, and humid dungeon had made him reflect on his methods and actions. The rebellion in the east had lasted only a short time, King Turambar had wiped out each and every one of the Easterling leaders, and there was only one small resistance that came to last three reigns more as a stone in the shoe for the kings in the west. They were the times of King Tarannon (whom they called Falastur), and the eastern border of Gondor had diminished its guard due to the expansion by the south and west coasts of the mouth of the Anduin. As leader of the resistance, Margöz thought it was the right time to give Gondor back some of its own medicine.

        However, everything went wrong. And there he was now, in a dark dungeon of Osgiliath, under who knows how many subsoils full of guards. Escaping was impossible. The Easterling only had to wait down there until rotting or until they took pity on him and executed him on the gallows. The sound of the Great River sounded like an echo that hammered his conscience and barely let him sleep. The food was horrible, it was cold all the time, and the acid odor of the excrement emanating from the cells of the other prisoners made him vomit what little he had been able to ingest.

        His only hobby was collecting the chicken bones that came with his food and using a loose stone to carve figures into them. Sometimes the splinters of the bones made his fingers bleed, yet he preferred to bleed to death than to remain captive, feeling every thousandth of a second as an eternal moment. He was focusing on his task when a strange figure spoke to him from the other side of the bars. Margöz looked at her. She had a torch in her hand and his eyes accustomed to the darkness of his prison were dazzled for a moment. He never saw her face. Margöz understood little Westron, though he didn’t know to speak it. Using his mother tongue, he replied with a notorious amount of sarcasm.

       ❝Unasan? Bi Gondor tukhai bag, dund takhia baisan medekhgüi baisan. Ügüi bol bi taktikaa öörchilj baisan.❞

         Berúthiel’s lip curled in disdain. 

        How she hated Osgiliath. Hated the thick, mud and rot stench of the river, the perpetual dampness of the air which clung and coated the whole of the city in its fug. Worse was Pelargir, at the hungry mouths of the Anduin, where the air smelled also of cloying salt and the gulls shrieked out their ceaseless plaints.

        Osgiliath was hateful, but it was not Pelargir. She walked in its gardens, with the statues brought from her homeland to decorate it. The plants were not the same, the smells were not, but she could almost, in its solitude, pretend herself in the gardens of her father’s palace in An Karagmir, at the edge of the great Dune Sea. Almost.

         Never could she forget entirely that she was a stranger in these lands, raza in their weird tongue. Never could she forget the taste of true Adûnâyê in her mouth. The Adûnâyê these folk spoke was not hers; Adûni, they called it, its words strangely formed and only half-familiar, its vowels shortened, its consonants bitten off. Worse, they spoke Nimriyê as their cradle-tongue and Adûni only as afterthought, seeming to have no delight in it at all. 

        They would not let her forget it, even should she want to. Their eyes followed her, seeing her strangeness and balancing it, judging it. Ever did she feel the pressure of their eyes, their thoughts, and the weight of it would crush her, should she let it. She would not. She wore her blacks, and had set aside the jewelry which once hung from her ears and pierced through her nostril. She would not make herself palatable to them. She would not.

         She stepped forward, curling long brown fingers around the rust-flecked bars. Everything rusted here, or mildewed, or grew slick moss. The damp air bred filth and decay; and yet they called her people savages, they who lived thus! She lifted the torch, that it would light her features. It was not the face of a Gondorim woman, though the tarnished silver of her eyes bespoke her father’s heritage, the blood of Anadûnê which had come down to her through him.

        She had learned the speech of the eastern lands in her youth, their many dialects and languages. She was a woman of high and noble blood, meant to be a queen. She was educated, and so she understood what the man had said to her. Haltingly, the language awkward on her lips after so long in disuse, she answered in the same tongue.

          Long before making her arrival at the camp, the elf’s keen sight catches glints of gold shining from the Lôke-Gamp’s armor. Northeast to Easterling lands the crow rides, carried swiftly on the back of a twisted but fearless Mordorian steed. Its foul hooves trample and kick up an abundance of dust and dirt, but it is the impatient crew of Núrniag mercenaries and orcs lining her periphery that mark a ominous trail across the Vale of Talathrant to where the descendents of Umli, Dyrian, and Desdursy settle along the River Kol. The men are fitted for battle. She is also, but her armor is light and unassuming for she is only a messenger.

          When beholding the Lôke-Khan, grey eyes gleam with pride in knowing the bargain struck not ten days prior is fulfilled on her end. All that is left is the subduing of the Ahar and the Easterling armies are secured for Mordor.