Penance

Penance (Working Title)

*Written by Magdaleina*

Author’s Note - This is just the start of an idea that’s been rolling in my head for months. This is the intro, and the rest of the story will likely not be told from this point of view. I am seeking a beta-reader for this, someone who might be willing to consult with me regarding the timeline, terminology and all that happy stuff. I took a Tolkien Course before the summer but not everything stuck. This tale starts after the War of the Ring, in the year that Master Samwise Gamgee leaves with his wife and daughter to stay a year in Gondor. A lot of the foreshadowing for what will happen in this story lies in context and the use of names, including new ones. But if you don’t get it now, you will later, if other chapters are written.


Introduction - A Journal Entry

Summer, date unknown, in the year of 1442

It is so peculiar, conveying my personal thoughts in writing; so long have I delved into the word and record of those long past that I forget the process from time to time. I forget that written words had to be placed first. That such wisdom failed to benefit me in the later years of my first endeavor still astounds me. Such a revelation leaves me to wonder if my words might be read by someone else, that they might try to learn something from me. This leads me to ponder: do I want that? The question comes not out of concern for the reader but for my own satisfaction. Do I wish to make this hardship of mine into someone else's advancement and possibly their good fortune? If I am here to learn from my supposed mistakes, then how is that to help me?

I suppose I must try, though. If in the end this bit of tactic that I am loathe to call my testament fails to aid me, then I can always burn it.

In my previous time in Middle-earth, I have had many names. Curunir among the Elves. Saruman to Men. One of cunning, of skill, of treachery. A great smith. Forger of things of power. The White. The Many-Colored. Then, Sharkey in the Shire. Warped Orcish for "Old Man."

…What an appalling digression!

And now? A new name, thrown together in a moment of panic, needing to give any name but my own to protect my life that is entirely too new and too simple to lose of late.

Now, I am not like I was before. I am no longer Istari. I am of the race of Men, which prompts me to further caution and greater fear. As one of Men -- stupid, filthy as they tend to be -- my fate as of this point is so unsure. Were I to welcome death again, I know not where my spirit might go.

Being dead. Now, that was an experience. On one hand, there was some relief to be suddenly free of the constraints of a body that ached too much and too long, past its time even before the long journey to the land of the Halflings. I could feel myself stretch -- so free, so liberated of weight and boundary.

But as quickly as the comfort came, I was suddenly cold, and to a bodiless spirit middle-earth was unfathomable in its size. It became an overwhelming bombardment of a world, where the wind and light and dark came crashing in around me, tore through my being and stretched what senses I had left beyond their limits. The west and the dusk, so far away from me then, felt so foreboding, like a door slammed shut in the face of a starving child. I knew then that I erred, yet my mind cannot envelop its origin, the "why" that remains. Despite my view that the only wrong done was the contradiction of the victorious, I recognize there is indeed something else there, and I will not be free until I can find it. My demise is one fear; that the truth I must seek might indeed be a lie is the other.

So in the beginning, all I am left with is this frail but young mortal body. And a name. A name that speaks of many former names, and can therefore be Man’s only clue to what I once was.

Sulloeneth Dûnrosiel.

-- If Mithrandir could see me now, I am sure he would laugh. Part of me suspects that he is partially to blame for this anyway, regardless of where he may be.



To be Continued.