The Unexpected | LotR Fanfiction

Chapter 35

OOOF

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The first one appeared.

Gray wafts of smoke billowed towards the awaiting sky and silence rode the winds. It filled our noses with its acidic essence. I'm sure we'll be smelling it awake and in our dreams for days.

Fire stretched its arms towards the clouds, each tendril of orange and red licking the heavens. Immense heat emanated out like a hug, the air around it warped and danced.

The wooden and straw-thatched homes didn't stand a chance.

My hand came up and covered my gasp.

It looked as if a whirlwind of destruction had passed through this small town of Rohan.

Objects littered the streets, houses and stables burned. The horses' cries had stopped a long while ago.

A little girl's cloth doll lay half in a mud puddle, its right arm drenched in blood.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

The girl herself lay beside the doll, her arm outstretched for her toy. Blood bloomed from her chest while her leg lay three feet away.

An old woman lay in a puddle of her own blood, a couple lay motionless in each other's arms, and a spotted dog lay whining next his owner.

Many lay dead with swords in their hands. Or any other weapon they could find—a knife, a bat, a fire poker. Others had a black-feathered arrow in their throat.

How many were charred in their houses, burnt black to the core?

Orcs had left their mark everywhere in the form of blood, arrows, and death. What would it take to stop the madness?

My teeth ached from clenching and I couldn't stop the shaking.

How could anybody do such a thing?!

I jumped down from the horse and strode to the little girl. I brushed aside her brown hair. She was probably only seven.

Angry tears dripped onto her cheek.

"How could such evil reside in this world?" The words were barely a whisper.

I set the soggy doll in the girl's hands. She was too young, too precious.

My heart wept for Arda.

My soul cried out.

The body Eru made for me yearned to do some good.

To right all the wrongs of evil and to bring peace to the people.

Is that too much to ask?! I cried. Is it too much for the good people in Arda to have their rightfully deserved peace?

"The Creator will right the wrongs, when it is time."

I looked up at the white Mithrandir who sat high up on his horse. The sun crowned his head, making him seem like a holy messenger come down from the heavens.

"Why can't the time be now?" How many other children had died in the massacre?

"Only He knows the time. His will will be done when the time is right."