The Death of Estîç
The howl of wargs in the distance was what woke Medlimes from her sleep. She could feel her little elfling kicking in her stomach. Ever since she realized that she was pregnant her child had been non stop moving. It was as if he was simply waiting to be noticed and now that he was, he was making it everybody’s problem. They were already delayed due to the constant nausea she was feeling. And she was starting to feel bad for making the other elves watch her puke.
The howling got closer and they had started to pack up the camp so they could leave faster. And then all hell breaks loose, because all of a sudden the howls of the wargs are right next to them, and their horses spook. Then before any of them know it they are without horses and supplies.
“What just happened,” one of the elves asked the group.
Another one turned to the sound of the approaching wargs with a grim expression on his face, “the left one warg behind to mimic the packs calls and trick us into thinking that they were farther away than they are, while the rest of the pack went ahead to track us down.”
“They can do that?” One elf asked another in startled amazement.
And then everything went wrong all at once, because the wargs were upon them. They dwindled the elves down until they had no more arrows left. And when they were left with only their swords left they attacked as a group. They outnumbered the elves three to one and yet despite waging a losing battle the elves fought.
A sword sliced into the muzzle of a warg. An arrow pierced an eye and another shot straight into its nose. A sword was buried up to its hilt in a wargs shoulder.
She is deflecting a warg attack when she feels it: liquid flowing down her legs. Panic shots through her: something was wrong. That liquid is either blood, and she is losing the elfling, or it’s her water breaking, which is a whole different problem because it is a month early.
She tries to breathe in and focus on the battle. Her eyes take in the scene, she has lived thousands of years, so she can see a losing battle when she’s in one. She has to think about the life that’s growing inside of her body, the life that needs help right now.
In that moment she makes a decision, she chooses her child. She turns and runs.
She can practically feel the warg's stinky breath on the back of her neck. She knows that they are playing with her, that if they truly wanted to kill her then they would have done so already. Her eyes search frantically for a place to hide, a place big enough that she can fit but small enough that the warg can’t do the same. The liquid dripping down her legs reminds her of what she could lose if she doesn’t find a place fast.
It is only when she is almost out of stamina that she spots it: a massive rock sticks out of the ground, a giant crack in its once smooth surface. She prays to the Valar that she would fit. She darted towards the rock and slipped into the crack in the stone. The stone rubbed against her sides and pushed against her skin but it was big enough.
She could hear the wargs outside the stone, trying to smell or listen for her, she could feel her child’s head pressing against her uterus. She reached down to feel how far along she was only to find the top of her baby’s head halfway out. She knew that she couldn’t wait for an elven healer or anyone else to come across her. She was having this baby now and there was no way to stop it from happening.
She took a deep breath before she lifted up her dress and bit down on the fabric. She couldn’t scream, not without leading to wargs straight to her.
She counted down in her head. 3… 2… 1… push!
She could feel her legs shaking from the strain. Her muscles were sore from running and she had little strength left, yet she pushed. She could feel exhaustion calling to her mind; beckoning her to rest. She could make out the shaking of her exhausted muscles that simply couldn’t move anymore and the sweat that glistened on her skin.
And yet, even as she lay exhausted and unable to move anymore she still forced herself to push one last time. And there in that little cave, with wargs outside and a month too early, her baby was born.
She could hardly muster up the strength to pick up her little elfling. The moment her son was in her arms she was collapsing back into the cave. Her exhaustion made her miss the fact that her baby was not breathing, nor in fact was he alive, at least not at first.
A cold wind managed to blow into the little crack in the rock. The wind blew on the little elfling, bringing with it a soul to breathe life into the stillborn corpse. With a shuddering breath the newborn was alive and breathing.
Blood dripped down her leg and yet she couldn’t feel it over the wonderment she felt at her newborn child. Blood pooled around her body and yet she couldn’t feel it over the drowsiness that filled her mind. She closed her eyes, ‘Just for a second’ she promised herself, but when a second had gone and passed she did not open her eyes. Her son's wails didn’t wake her from her slumber nor did the sound of the wargs outside.
The elfling let out a final cry, before he stopped abruptly. He could feel his mom’s body growing cold underneath him and he knew that she would never answer his cries. The child’s anguish turned into something more profound than simple cries, it turned into a magical tsunami that washed over the wargs without doing anything to them. And then like a tsunami the magic receded, tearing through anything that stood in its path including the wargs.
All across Arda those who were sensitive to magic felt a strong pulse of magic go through them. Something truly powerful had been born in Arda; it was only a matter of time before they figured out who or what it was.
Far in the south a newborn child cried. Cold and alone in the arms of his dead mother. It will be many hours before he is found by a human woman who follows his call.
——
Velka had been selling handcrafted items in Bree for many years now, but the roads were getting more and more dangerous. She had to get back to her childhood village now or she would never be able to go home again.
She had been on her way through the south downs when the cry of a baby caught her attention. She had followed the sound until she had found him, the newborn lay in the clutches of his corpse of a mother. Dead wargs lay scattered around him. She briefly wondered what had killed the wargs but she didn’t care much.
She picked up the baby from the cold arms of his mother. The baby opened its eyes at her warm touch and she met wide emerald eyes. The baby was beautiful, with the creamy porcelain skin characteristic of an elf and tufts of jet black hair. Two small pointed ears wiggle slightly in the cold, like a kitten when it drinks milk. An elfling! The child was an Elfling.
Velka looked around for anyone nearby before she brought the child close to her chest, and wrapped her cloak around him. Rivendell was just a two days' ride away, she should take him there. The elves of Rivendell would welcome the child with open arms and he would be with kin, but something selfish twisted around her heart.
She had long tried to bear a child. She had slept with many men in hopes of having a little one to bless her home, and yet her womb lay barren of life.
They say that a elfling’s beauty and innocence can captivate anyone. That no one is immune to their soft gummy smiles and innocence giggles.
Velka was captivated by the child coveted by the elves. She was greedy. She wanted nothing more than a child. In the end her desires won, for the child would never make it to Rivendell.
——
Two years later in a house nestled in the far east of Middle earth a young child sits in his room. Emerald eyes look out the window of his bedroom and into the forest that is nestled behind the house. The child waits patiently for his mom to unlock his bedroom door. It is only when he hears the sound of his mother’s door creaking open that he stops looking out the window. He crosses his small room on nimble yet silent feet. On the nightstand next to his bed lay a black piece of cloth. He picks up the cloth and wraps it tightly around his head like a headband. He makes sure that it covers his freakish ears, mom doesn’t like his ears.
Adar likes his ears! Father thinks that they are beautiful and adorable. Estîç does believe father; because if his ears are pretty then why does mom hate them so. Father never answers him when he asks him that question but he always answers any other question he asks, unlike mommy who doesn’t like it when he asks questions. He likes his dad more than he likes mom; even if he can only see his dad in his dreams. His dad always smiles at him and answers all of his questions. His dad hugs him and tells him that he loves him more than anything in Arda! His dad teaches him about the world and shows him memories of his time as Harry Potter. His dad says that he will remember all of his past memories with time but he doesn’t wanna wait. His dad always laughs at his pout even when he wants him to take it seriously.
Estîç’s mom is not as cool as his dad. She never likes it when he talks and always throwns when he tries. She treats him like a glass doll, unable to do anything without her help. Her touch feels slimy against his skin and she didn’t bring the same protective feeling of his dad. She says that the outside world is too dangerous for him and that there were bad people that would turn him against her.
He loves his parents, even if he doesn’t always agree with his mom’s decisions.
The lock to his door slides open and he hears the soft creaking of the floorboards in the hallway as his mother descends into the kitchen. He waits in silence for two minutes after she makes it to the kitchen before opening his door and following her to the kitchen. She smiles at him before she turns back to the oven, “breakfast will be ready in a minute,” she calls out to him.
Before long she is handing him a plate of eggs and sitting down to eat as well. They eat in silence before his mother gets up and turns to him. She places a gentle kiss on the top of his head before calling out a soft, “good bye,” and walking out the front door. He waits in until he can no longer hear her footsteps before he is hurriedly clearing the table of dishes and washing them in a basin of water his mom brought in earlier. He placed the dishes on the table nearby and dashed out the front door the moment he was done. He edged around the side of the house until he was turned to the forest in the back of the house.
Estîç had always loved the forest, his mom had never permitted him entrance. In fact it was strictly against the rules to go out of the house much less anywhere near the forest but what his mom didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
He smiles at the trees as he walks under them. When he spots the white owl that he once called Hedwig he offers her his arm. In no time at all the owl is perched on his arm, tallens carefully placed so as to not hurt him, and preening his shoulders length hair. Before long a large black wolf is trotting towards him with a happy yet dopey smile on its face. He smiles at the wolf as it practically demands pets with just its head. He can practically feel Hedwig's indignation at having to share her resting place. The child sits down under his favorite tree, a big apple tree that grew right on the edge of the forest. The wolf practically flops on top of him. Hedwig, unhappy with the moment of his arms, hopes onto his shoulder and continues to preen his hair.
He closes his eyes in the peaceful silence, and lets the motion of petting the wolf slowly sooth his mind.
The sound of a soft, ‘so cold, how can the nest-mates stand this cold?’
Estîç opened his eyes and looked around. He was certain that someone had said that they were cold. He hesitated before calling out a soft, ‘hello?’
There was a moment of silence before a black snake popped its head out from some tall grass.
‘Who greets me for I see no other kin’ the little snake hissed out.
‘I did,’ he replied to the little snake.
‘You? I did not know that those of the tree walkers could speak the serpent's tongue,’ the little snake replied with a tiny sway of the head.
The child blinked at the name ‘tree walkers’ but otherwise showed no signs of his confusion. ‘I don’t think many speak the serpent’s tongue’
The little snake bobbed its head as if agreeing with him. ‘So then tell me, hatchling of the serpent’s tongue, why do you sunbathe with predators?’
The child laughed softly before he hissed out his response, ‘they are not predators, simply nest-mates from a different nest. If you wish you may sunbathe with us.’
He extended a hand in offering to the snake. The snake bobbed its head before it slithered over to the offered hand and climbed up his arm.
‘So warm..’ the little snake hissed out. The Elfling simply laughed gently and asked for the snake to tell him a story.
And for the rest of the day he listened to the little snake tell him stories. Eventually, Hedwig deemed his preening done and flew off to hunt. Sirius hears a howl in the distance and leaves to go check it out. He continues to speak with his newfound friend, the first one that he can actually communicate with.
In his excitement of having someone other than his mom to talk to, he doesn’t notice the time slipping away. He doesn’t hear the noise of someone coming up behind him over the hissed conversation he is having with his companion. Not until he hears a sharp gasp from right behind him. Not until it was too late.
He spins around to come face to face with his horrified looking mother. And then that horror turns into burning anger, and before he can do anything the body of his first friend is being crushed under his mom’s boot. He can hear as every bone in the small harmless snake’s body breaks under the weight. The inside flattened under the pressure and the body lay still. He hardly has enough time to let out a single choked off sob before he is being dragged away by his mother.
Her grip bites into his skin and he can feel as little drops of blood start pearling up from his wrist. The door to the house is slammed open and he is shoved into the kitchen.
“One rule! I gave you one rule, don’t leave the house, and you couldn’t even follow it! What do you have to say for yourself?”
He could feel as tears pricked at his eyes and panicked clawed at his throat. His mind was a race of panicked excuses and fervent apologies followed by promises of ‘it never happening again.’ He knew the moment he opened his mouth that he had made the wrong decision, because the thing that fell from his lips wasn’t the rough guttural syllables of western, but the musical notes of the language that mom couldn’t understand. The language that mom hated more than anything, even his ears.
The slap that stung his cheek and left his left cheek a frostbitten pink was expected, but the hand that wrapped around his shoulder wasn't.
“If you’re going to talk in that disgusting language then you’re not going to talk at all!” His mom declared.
He could feel apprehension and fear creeping up his spine. He tried to squirm out of his mom’s hold on him but he was simply not strong enough to fight back against a full grown adult. He could hear the soft clink of one of their kitchen knives. He looked up at his mom with wide green pleading eyes but it was no use, for in that second his mom brought the kitchen knife down into his neck.
There was a moment of shock where he reached for his neck only to find his hands covered in blood. He could do nothing but stare at the blood on his hands as he began to choke. He could barely hear his mother say, “now you can’t speak that disgusting tongue,” before he started suffocating on his own blood.
He collapses onto the kitchen floor as blood pooled around him. It felt like he was drowning but there was no surface to the water so he could never get oxygen.
And there on that kitchen floor, at the hands of the people he saw as a mother, is where Estîç will die for the first time.
——
His Adar met him underneath his favorite tree behind the house. He is curled up into a little ball, knees pressed against his eyes, and shoulders shaking with silent sobs. He feels his father’s cloak wrap around him before he sees him. The moment he knows that his Adar is there he is flinging himself into his arms. He feels protected by the strong arms that wrap around him and the magic that blankets him.
He looks up at his Adar, letting him gaze upon the scar that took his life. His father gasps at the sight of the jagged scar that took his life. His father reaches out a hand to run his hands along the scar, but he flinches back. His father’s eyes are painted with hurt for a milliseconds before he is cooing softly reassurances of safety and ‘just wanting to make sure it would heal properly in the resurrection.’ He allows his father to look over the wound.
“It’ll scar and you might want to wait a few days before talking but you will be able to speak again with practice,” his father tells him in a reassuring tone.
He looked up at his father with questioning eyes. He tries to speak but all that comes out is a horse hiss.
His father seems to get the question, because after a moment of puzzled staring he speaks, “Ah, your snake friend,” his Adar pauses for a moment as he tries to think of a possible solution, “I could create a new body for him and put his soul back in it?”
He thought about the solution for a moment before nodding to the suggestion. Then he turned toward his father again, eyes wide and questioning. His father smiles at him before speaking, “here’s what you’re going to do…”
——
In the middle of the night a body, four hours after death, twitches to life. It rises from a pool of its own blood. The body's eyes are an iridescent green in the darkened kitchen. The figure moves with jerky uneven yet silent steps at first, but by the time they make it outside the figures movements are smooth and fluid. Two glowing green eyes cut through the darkness of night. The childlike figure walks on bare feet through the grass and towards a singular apple tree. There, at the base of this mighty tree, the small figure kneels. And then with nothing but his bare hands that child begins to dig, roots snapped and twisted out of the child’s way as he dug.
There, a half a foot deep, buried beneath the ground sat a black dragonhide satchel. The child clutched the satchel in dirtied hands. And then, for the first time in an hour, the child lifted his head and met the eyes of a wolf standing at the edge of the forest. The child smiles before he joins the wolf in the forest.
—-
The forest is different at night. The wind sings softly lullabies to his weary ears. He had no time for the wind’s song nor the creatures who poked their curious heads out of bushes in order to see him. He had to find the gift his father had left him. He knew that it was by a willow tree but he didn’t know where that tree was.
The child turned towards his wolf companions and gave him the look of, ‘do you know where a willow tree is?,
The wolf looked up at the boy before whining softly, either not understanding the boy or not knowing where a willow tree was.
Then from the overgrown grass the head of a black snake popped out. ‘Hatchling! I finally found you, do you know why I have new scales?’
The child startled at the sight of the snake before he let out a relief filled sigh. He smiled warmly at the snake before answering, ‘my mom hurt you really badly so I asked my dad to fix you, but he had to change your scales to make you better.’
The snake bobbed his head in understanding. Then it paused before asking another question, ‘where are you going Hatchling’
The child could feel tears prick at his eyes, he could feel his mom’s hand on his shoulder, and blood poured out of his neck. And yet he smiled a sad smile when he answered the curious snake, ‘my mom… hurt me too and although dad healed me I can’t stay with mom because she might hurt me again.’
‘Then can I go with you, Hatchling with the serpent's tongue?’ The snake asks.
The child blinked at the snake with wide emerald eyes filled with confusion and surprise. He looked unsure as he hissed out a hesitant, ‘you would want to come?’
The snake bobbed its black head excitedly as it looked at its tree walker. He liked his tree walker! The Hatchling had listened to all of his stories and let him leach off of his body heat. His other nest-mates hadn’t wanted to hear his stories and had complained that he was being too loud. The Hatchling had even asked someone to help him, and now he had beautiful new scales! ‘Of course I would love to go, I need more stories to tell’ the snake hissed to his tree walker hatchling.
The child blinked at the snake for a moment, eyes wide with shock, before he collected himself and turned to the forest. He looked around for a moment before asking his companions, ‘you wouldn’t happen to know where a willow tree is, would you?’
The little snake tilted its head to the side as it thought. ‘Are those trees with long snake-like branches?’ The little snake asked him hesitantly.
He smiled at the little snake before answering back, ‘yes, do you know where one is?’
The snake bobbed his head in excitement, he could help his tree walker hatchling after all! He slithered closer to the child, mindful of the predator his tree hatchling called a nest-mate. The child lowered his arm so that the little snake could slither up and wrap around his wrist. The little snake hissed out at the warmth of his hatchlings skin before the snake lifted it head up into the air. The snake flicked his tongue out as it tried to scent the air before he lifted his little head and angled it so it was facing left. ‘The snake tree is that way,’ he hissed out to his two legged companion.
The child nodded and before long they were off.
The willow tree was beautiful in the midnight sky. With sage leaves that cascaded down from its branches like waterfalls of growth. And there beneath the swaying leaves of the mighty tree stood a horse of blackest night. The horse looked at him with eyes the colors of the midday sky. He approached carefully but the horse didn’t seem to be interested in what he was doing, instead it was interested in the way the willow leaves swayed in the wind. He placed his hand on the horse’s side and watched as it turned its face to sniff his hair. He let out a childish giggle at the action, even as a sound other than a hiss caused his throat to explode in pain.
He heaved over as he desperately clutched his neck in pain. He could feel the horse’s head nudge his own. He lifted up a hand to rest it upon the horse’s snout.
The pain was a reminder of what he was running from, and the scar across his neck was a warning sign. He couldn’t trust anyone other than the animal and Adar.