#second;

            SHE IS A BEAST LOCKED IN A CAGE,  CORNERED AND FURIOUS.  where once her wrath would make man and elf tremble and the earth shake,  there now is  nothing,  the quiet thrum of power she’d felt from the crown of her head to her fingertips to her feet has gone,  taken with the destruction of the ring and her master.  the elves say they will take her before the valar to face her judgment,  while the men of the west argue her fate should lie in their hands for thousands of years of death,  but she has always mastered her own fate.  she swore an oath of vengeance on the men of the west when she took up her ring and mantle,  and she would keep that vow until her death.  they would not have her,  no,  she would go before the valar willingly,  and she would curse them in person for their abandonment.

            she settles a hard glare on the elf maid at her cell door,  the evenstar  she’d heard them call her,  a name well deserved,  in all her years she had not scene a face so fair.  she can see the reflections of herself in the girls face, of her mother and grandmother,  of ancalimë and telperiën and vanimeldë,  but she sees none of the hardness all númenórean queens shared,  none of the stifled anger.  perhaps that would be a blessing for gondor and arnor,  a queen who did not resent her husband,  because she was to be queen was she not  ?  for all that she’d been separated from the outside world,  she had still heard talk from her guard,  the child before her would be queen.  she might pity the girl,  if she could.

            ❝    did your father not warn you not to stray too close to me,  child  ?  come no closer lest something ill befall gondor’s future queen.    ❞    she mocks cruelly,  though her threat bears no weight,  her power is too far diminished to cause any harm    ❝    i wish you luck with the men of gondor,  they are descended from my own people,  and none know their cruelty better than i.    ❞    it was difficult to look at the evenstar and think her anything but a child,   as one who had lived through several thousand more years than the girl had,  most spent as a servant of sauron bringing terror to the men of the north and gondor,  perhaps she was as wise as she claimed,  she would not doubt it from a daughter of elrond,  but she had not lived or seen men as angmar had.

             ❝   you will be a  beloved  queen,  then.  and they will love your husband as well,  as they loved elros in his time,  but history repeats,  girl,  and whatever golden age your husband and your son lead your people through,  there is no promise that it will last with his son,  or the one after.  your father’s line has been spared the fate of his brother’s children thus far,  but yours will not.  there is an endless hunger in all of the dúnedain,  and when there are no other enemies to fight and destroy,  their eyes will turn to their neighbors,  allies or not.    ❞    perhaps she is being cruel in this,  desperate to cause any pain she can,  but there is no lie in her voice    ❝    sauron’s evil has left a permanent mark on this land that will never go away,  in a thousand or three thousand years from now,  men will still be cruel,  perhaps even more so,  for it is in their nature to be,  and your line will be no exception.  you are lucky in that you will not live to see its fall,  as i watched the splendor of númenor crumble and wash away with the sea.  i could almost envy you for that.    ❞