But Not Always Sweet by Grundy

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A Million Candles Burning

WARNINGS: Character death (on screen), implied rape (off screen), and in-world sexism/misogyny.

Lyrics are the work of Leonard Cohen.

Written for the Fanworks prompt N5: Songfic

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If you are the dealer I'm out of the game

Pride had been their downfall in the end – pride and a refusal to see daughters as valuable compared to sons. She should have been the Ruling Queen, not usurped by her cousin. Cousin, because she refuses to acknowledge him as anything else. It matters not what words he said or what he did to her body, he is her cousin and a usurper, nothing more. She refuses to play the game on his terms.

If you are the healer it means I'm broken and lame

There is nothing wrong with her. And she has ensured that Pharazôn will have no child, son or daughter. She has denied him that much, no matter what the cost to her own flesh. He may mock her as barren and broken, but had no comeback when she demanded who was at fault if she was indeed broken as he claimed? She had not been the one that began the violence, after all. (The more fool her. Sinful as it might have been, it would have been better for all Elenna had she had her cousin quietly killed before her father’s death.)

If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame

It wasn’t just her cousin who opposed her, though. The Zigûr – Sauron, she can speak openly now, what more can he do? – had delighted in her debasement. The higher he rose, the more humiliation they had heaped on her, confident that she had no way to fight back. Before this nonsense of invading the holy West, the foul creature had even had the nerve to suggest that with him she might bear. For that, she had thrown caution to the wind and encouraged their mad fleet. A Man she can thwart, but an ainu is beyond her and she is not so foolish not to see it. If nothing else will stir the Lords of the West, perhaps the insult will.

You want it darker

She could feel what was coming in the wind, and in the spray of the sea, carried even this far inland. It pains her that so many of her people will die, of course – a true queen cares for her people. But even so, she also recognized that too many of them have been complicit. It was not only her dear departed cousin who deserved the coming judgement.

But the Faithful will be saved. It was no secret in her house that the true line of Tar-Minyatur ran not through Tar-Meneldur but through Silmariën. Let them take their chance and perhaps forge a better kingdom after the Sea washed the island clean.

“You think this is victory?” Sauron purred in her ear, a cruel parody of a lover’s intimacy. “You will die.”

She laughed.

“I will see the blasphemy you instigated destroyed first,” she replied. “Water quenches fire, or had you forgotten?”

“You will see nothing, for you will drown along with the rest,” he snarled. “It matters not where you think to run. I will see to it.”

“Where I am going,” she informed him, “you cannot follow.”

Evil or not, he was still an ainu and his foretelling was true. But the view from the Meneltarma –still sacred enough that he dared not tread it, not even when he realized too late what she intended – was splendid.

His scream as the water took him along with all the rest was enough for her to release her soul with laughter on her lips and praise for the High Ones in her heart.

We kill the flame.