Windwalker Aftershock

A Lord of the Rings Fan Fiction

by Murasaki99

Any LotR character you recognise belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien

Coros sat on a bench in the small audience chamber. Bright sunlight spilled through the open stone window. Birds sang outside; he could feel their life-energy as they darted back and forth, bearing food to their nestlings. Beside him sat Kou, her small body radiating warmth. It eased his shivers, a little, that warmth, like a single candle holding back the dark in a closed room. The girl from the South said nothing, but still she sat beside him voluntarily and that fact cheered him as nothing else could since he had regained his senses to find himself a prisoner in the city of his victorious enemies.

He stirred; pulling the blanket wrapping his shoulders a little closer. He wore a linen nightshirt given him by the Healers and little else beyond bandages. It was not simply the matter of being a prisoner that was so galling. He had endured vile prisons and tortures at the whim of his dark master over the long centuries of his servitude. It was the strange circumstances of his imprisonment he found so disturbing. Coros had awakened in the Houses of Healing in the city of Gondor and prisoner or not had been attended with care. Retribution he understood. Death and destruction and vengeance were consistent landmarks on the map of his mind. Compassion was something unlooked-for and alien. It made him nervous.

Once he had recovered enough to ask questions of his caretakers, he got the story out of them readily. He had been found sprawled on the stony wasteland beyond the Black Gate, naked and more broken than whole. Everything on his body had been destroyed, save the ring on his hand. His armor had melted away, his clothing flashed into dust, and his body… Coros snorted to himself. Beside him Kou shifted a little, but when he made no further sound she settled again. His body was solid and visible, if chalk-pale. A little too solid for his tastes, given the many wounds he had suffered in falling from the sky as his flying beast bucked him off and fled in blind panic. Now at last he was sound enough to hobble with help the short distance to this place, to meet his captor.

The door opened and a tall man entered the room. He was dressed simply, in clean shirt, leather hauberk, breeches and boots, as if he had been riding earlier this morning. At his side hung a long sword. Coros stared at the blade, his skin prickling. The weapon was familiar, and the man himself… dark haired and grey-eyed he was, with a lean, noble face. Gritting his teeth, Coros struggled to rise.

"Do not exert yourself," said the King of Gondor, holding out a restraining hand as he approached. "You were grievously wounded and you would not even be up from your bed were you not so insistent."

Coros settled for a stiff half-bow, the best politeness he could manage given his shattered ribs. "Why delay the inevitable, my Lord?" His voice was rusty from long disuse.

"What is inevitable?"

"My execution. I am a servant of Sauron. You should slay me at once."

"You were a servant, but your master is now dead," Aragorn said gently. "It is a miracle you survived the battle and the earthquake when the Dark Tower fell into ruin. My men were astonished to find you breathing in the ashes and my healers and I have been at some pains to preserve your life. Why do you ask to die now?"

Coros stared at Aragorn. "You healed me, lord King?" Coros caught the subtle tang of the man's scent. It was oddly familiar. He inhaled again - another habit that had lain unused for ages. Coros breathed slowly and deliberately. Familiar why? he wondered.

"Yes, as I healed your servant and many others. And again I would ask, why do you wish to die?"

"It is the custom, is it not?" Coros shrugged and winced. "We fought before, I thought surely now…"

Aragorn blinked and looked sharply at the man seated before him. "I should think I would remember your face, had we crossed swords, my Lord."

Coros smiled slowly. "You could not see my face then, young King, when you fought my comrades and I on Amon Sûl nearly two years ago."

"What?!" Aragorn leaned forward to catch Coros by the shoulders. The pale man shuddered in pain but made no sound as his mending bones were flexed. His own eyes looked steadily into Aragorn's.

"You cannot be one of the Nine. They perished with the Ring."

"Yes, certainly I should have done so, was doing so. But this one," he gave his head a sideways nod toward Kou. "Called me back to the world, although," he smiled ruefully, "not in a condition to be of use to anyone."

"It cannot be." Aragorn's voice held disbelief. "You have been very ill, perhaps you dreamed…"

Coros held up his right hand. The elven-ring glinted in mute witness on his white finger.

"Who are you?" asked the king calmly. "Or rather, who were you?" Releasing his grip on Coro's shoulders, he tipped the man's head up and minutely inspected his ravaged face, taking in the high-bridged nose and sharp angles of his jaw. Tangled grey-white hair spilled down to hang in his eyes. Aragorn brushed it back to get a clearer view. "You have the look of Numenor."

"You are correct. In my youth, I was named Corollairë, of the house of Tar-Surion. My mother's line is from the house of Atanalcar, youngest son of Elros Tar-Minyatur. I have been called simply Coros for a very long time."

"Corollairë?" Aragorn frowned as he thought. "My mother once mentioned someone of that name. A person who came and went like a shadow, she said."

Coros felt as if someone had thrust a rusty blade through his guts. Again he breathed in the familiar scent of the king. Speaking around a suddenly dry tongue he asked. "Who are your people, lord King?"

"I am of the Dunedain of the North, a descendant of Elendil. We are distant kindred, you and I."

Coros sat frozen. He wasn't sure he had a proper heartbeat any more, but surely it had stopped at those words. The knowledge was in his nostrils as well as his memory. This man was the child of the woman who had bespelled him nearly ninety years ago. The ancient sorcery she had cast had worked well indeed, the proof now sat before him, looking somewhat bemused and thoughtful. My son or part-son, he thought in wonder, and immediately after, he must never know. His vision, not that good to begin with, greyed and darkened. "Kindred. Yes," he croaked, not trusting his voice to say anything further.

"Lord Coros, you are fainting," said Aragorn. His voice sounded as if it were coming from the other side of the room. "You have risen too soon from your sickbed."

Coros found he could not answer before the world went away entirely.

To Be Continued