Watch by Lingwiloke

Watch

Do you know of Minas Tirith?

It has not been called by that name in a long time, by the standards of your kind.

Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Isle of Werewolves, is what they call the place now.

But it was held by the Eldar once, and it was they who built the watch tower of Minas Tirith, to guard against the Enemy in the North. It was I who held the Pass of Sirion from that fortress tower, once.

Minas Tirith - Tower of the Guard in your tongue, or Tower of the Watch. Yes, that is perhaps more appropriate. After all, watching from afar was all I could do when my father and uncle perished in the flames, when it was your people who fought and fell in my king's defense.

It was not my strength that built Minas Tirith, not my strength that flowed in the river that protected us from the worst that day, but it was my weakness that saw it fall.

My weakness that allowed it to become your kinsman's prison cell and my uncle's grave.

(My weakness, my cowardice, that kept me from dying at his side, as I should have.)

Yet you come to me now, talking about honour and pride and bravery?

You have come to the wrong place, son of Húrin, if you are looking for the glory and valour that once lead your forebears to believe us Lords of the West.

There are no heroes here, not anymore.

They are all dead.

You have harsh words for our secrecy, our caution. You liken us to the servants of the Enemy, hiding in the shadows and fighting only where deception and secrecy may win us the day.

I owe it to my people, I want to answer, I owe it to them to keep them safe, I owe it to my daughter to protect her when I could not protect her mother, I owe it to my uncle to keep a secret the refuge he once built with Lord Ulmo's guidance.

And yet. I am tired. Tired of watching those around me fall, one by one, tired of trying to keep alive the last remnants of a doomed people. Tired of holding onto a hope that I have not felt since that day made choking night by the Enemy's foul magics.

Maybe it is time to stop running.

(Maybe it is time to follow in my father's footsteps and go out in a blaze - if we must burn, let us burn bright.)

***

And burn we do.

When our doom comes, it comes from the isle of Sirion, the guard post I once abandoned now the gathering place of those who shall bring our demise.

Dragonfire fills the plain of Tumhalad, and as I watch the flames' glow dance on the golden hide of the advancing beast, I am not sure what I regret more - the decisions that led me to this fiery death, or those that led me to avoid it for so long.