Under Cloud and Under Star by StarSpray

One

Maglor had grown used to the darkness deep in the forests that clustered thick and ancient on the northeastern edge of the Sea of Rhûn. Even at high noon on a cloudless day the world beneath the forest canopy was dim, green-tinged and tangled with mossy roots and low hanging branches. It was a forest of a kin with Fangorn in the west, and the ancient woods that had once covered Eriador before Númenor had come seeking wood for ships, and before war came to raze the rest.

But the darkness of this starless and moonless night was something else entirely, as the Elves who dwelt in the wood fled and fought all in confusion against the Men who marched into the trees bearing biting iron and hungry fire. The smoke was thick and choking and the air was filled with the creaking and groaning of trees furious at such an invasion. Perhaps the trees aided the other Elves of the wood in their escape or in their battle, but Maglor had not lived among them long enough to be called a friend; he was still a stranger, and so he was left to his own devices as he tripped his way through the darkness that was deeper than night, fighting the dread that rose in his heart at the coming of Men with a power that they should not have had, with its coppery tang and foul phantom smell and the echo of faraway and long ago wolves in other darker woods now drowned beneath the Sea.

Somehow, Maglor managed to find his way out of the heart of the forest and into open grassland. Beneath a sky heavy with dark clouds the hills stretched rolling away, the grass like a sea rippling over them in the wind, as thunder rumbled in the distance like war drums, and lightning flickered at the edge of sight. The air smelled, beneath the power of Mordor, like rain. Rain, fresh and clean water to wash away the stink of Sauron and to quench the fires of his servants—that was what they needed. Maglor had lost his harp, but he raised his hands to the clouds and began to sing. He sang of falling rain and flowing water, of quenched flames and hissing steam, and thirsty earth soaking up the flood, and of a world washed clean and bright beneath a golden sunrise.

As his song reached its crescendo it was met with a loud clap of thunder from directly over his head, and the skies opened. Rain fell in torrents, soaking Maglor in minutes. He turned to find his pursuers only just emerging from the trees, stumbling in the sudden rainfall. He turned to flee again, too spent to fight, but had hardly taken two steps before a voice behind him rang out in command and he felt that horrible power coil about him like a snake. With great effort he threw it off, turning back to face the figure wielding it. It was a Man, tall and dark-haired with eyes black and flat as a snake's, and on his finger was a ring of dark metal set with symbols and runes that made Maglor's skin crawl, and with a gemstone that gleamed in the darkness, red as blood.

Even if he were not drained by the storm summoning, Maglor would have struggled hard against the ring-wielder. Their words clashed like thunder and the air filled with steam and a reek of hot metal as they strove against one another, one singing of freedom and escape on swift feet beneath wide open skies, the other chanting ugly words of chains and darkness, of breaking and of binding.

In the end Maglor, feeling as though he were drowning, choked, and fell.