Written for the LOTR-Community "Some Like it Hot" challenge: 313 words long. Beta by RiverOtter.
“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour! Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” From The Siege of Gondor in The Return of the King.
“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour! Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” From The Siege of Gondor in The Return of the King.
Old fool, do you call me? And you think that you are Death, and so I must fear you? You do not recognize that already I have faced Death and gone through it and been sent back! How can one who has been through Death, who has known the fire and the water, the scorching of the flame that sought to consume my body and the chill smothering of the wave that sought to drown both Man’s breath and Balrog’s fire, fear such a one as you?
Who is the fool now? The one who has suffered Death and so cannot fear it further, or the one so terrified of Death that he has accepted the cheats of Sauron so as to try to avoid it, delighting instead in inflicting it upon others? Oh, Angmar, our old enemy, your own time is upon you and yet you will not see! The Creator Himself has the shining blade ready to cut off the thread of your life; what then will you do when you find your life spent at last, totally sundered from this pale echo of what your body once was? Your pride now leaves you undone, and you will not recognize the danger until it strikes you!
For it approaches at a gallop now, your last moment bound to this world. And I very much fear there is not sufficient of you left to find your way to the place appointed for the fëar of Men and so know what Eru Iluvatar has prepared for their further delight and fulfillment!
How I can feel pity for you you shall never understand, but I do. Manwë himself appointed me to counter your Master, my own brother, even as he countered the Master of your Master, who was his brother in the thought of the Creator.
Your own Death is come--at last.