Creature of the Night • LOTR

01 • Justice

The year 3018 of the Third Era. 

Niamh sat on the edge of a bagged cart. The wood was moldered and one of the wheels had disappeared, bringing the vehicle in a crooked position. The bottom was sunken down in the mud, but did not slip further. 
Her legs hung over the side, her thumb moved over the shining surface of a red apple. A crack sounded when she put her teeth into it. The sweet juice glided as blood along the edges of the wound she left behind. 
Niamh enjoyed the silence around her. She lived for a while in this wood now, where enemies were scarce and only loners wandered around. Humans who had chosen for isolation, seeing the advantages of loneliness. 
Now and then she spoke wih one of those rangers, who naturally kept a kind of distance Niamh longed from others as well. They never hunted her, in contrary to many others who had tried to kill her the last years: elves, orcs and humans. Everyone seemed determined to take advantage of her powers. Time after time she had escaped at the last moment. She had crossed whole Middle Earth and now she had ended up in a region where small people lived, who paid no attention to her, mostly not even aware that she was around. The hobbits didn't look further than the fences of their garden, although stories of her remorseless nature were told in their few bars. Niamh didn't care. The terrifying stories made sure nobody felt the need to look for her. Almost nobody. 
Two curious eyes watched her out of the bushes. Someone else might not have noticed, but Niamh had seen how he had wrestled through the plants when he had just entered the woods. Niamh paid no attention to him, hoping he would go away. She kept chewing her apple while watching the sky. Without her eyes moving to him, she could see how he pushed himself closer to the trunk of a tree. He was gazing at her. He was stubborn. She however knew she could shake him off easily. She just had to spread her wings. And even when he was still able to follow her, she could put a magic ring around her finger that could take her fully out of sight. 

It was always funny to see someone's face getting confused, to see the eyes almost popping out their orbits. Niamh however didn't play the trick often. There was always an indeterminate feeling and whispers haunted her more often than before. Dark words bit in her mind, striking, calling up memories and fears Niamh did not understand. 
She thought about Vaughn. He had tried to steal the ring once, but the things he had seen had terrified him and remorsefully had had crawled back on his knees. She concentrated on the cave she lived in. A fire was burning, the dwarf sat before it. With chattering teeth he warmed his hands above the flames, waiting until he could be meaningful again. 
Sometimes Niamh felt sorry for him. He had done terrible things, but who was she to judge him? They had been willing to execute her before she was a month old. They had not understood her, but she knew Vaughn and she did understand each other until a certain degree. 
The dwarf had been too arrogant, thinking that he could neglect all the laws. He had betrayed her father and he had tried to rape her mother. Others would probably not understand that she still kept him alive, but his blindness and his dependency were a harder punishment than death could ever have been. It was a punishment that never ended, for Niamh could not give him his sight back. She could only share that of her own. And in all honesty she did not know what was worse: being blind for your own surroundings of being forced to see every move that was made - by everyone, everywhere. 

The bushes to the right of her were moving. A young fox showed his snout. Niamh wanted to go for it, so that their would be meat on the menu tonight, but again she was distracted by bushes that were moving somewhere else. The hobbit stepped forward, waving his hand embarrassed while their eyes met.