Okay so me and @junk-whunk-punk were messing around with Talion headcanons and digged a bit too deep.
And few "what if's" later I thought why the hell not make EVERYONE alive and happy. Coz Talion is such a rich character with huge Au potential so why not have fun with it
so here it is
Light of mordor au
I'm basing it mainly around the Shadow of mordor/war games and it's lore and characters.
The main premise of this Au being a world where Sauron never took hold of the one ring after its forged and during the battle between him and Celebrimbor, who fights not only for the liberation of the middle-earth but also for the freedom of his wife and daughter that are held captive by Sauron. However, unlike in the games during their ultimate confrontation, the ring decides to stay with Celebrimbor and betrays its master, who is defeated and his armies are mostly wiped out or banished scattering across the land.
With this victory, peace and prosperity come to middle-earth and Celebrimbor reunites with his family. But there are only a few beings who could escape the clutches of the Dark Lord completely unscathed, and his wife, crushed after the torment she went through, goes to the undying lands shortly after being freed.
Their daughter Etheluin, who thanks to her mother escaped almost unscathed, except for a few bad memories decides to stay in middle earth with her father.
This, of course, means that the Black Gate was not sieged. Tho that doesn't mean that Talion is without a job. As a captain, he still guards Mordors gates. Just with little less hands of a sauron or big hoards of uruks threatening him or his family.
Our fav dads live their happy lives now… to some extent. Celebrimbor set himself the task of finding a solution how to rid the ring of its evil nature and transform it into the powerful and helpful artefact that it was supposed to be in the first place. But many years have passed since Sauron fell and now, when Talion commands the Black Gate (when this story primarily takes place). And the ring does not want to bend and serve the good. It wants change, chaos and to return to it's original master. So it begins to cloud Celebrimbo's mind, slowly but surely creeping into his soul in order to devour it and get back to Sauron.
Celebrimbor notices this attempt and makes a decision. There is no other option. This ring is too tied to the dark forces and there's no other way he can protect the realm or his daughter from it's destructive nature. He has to destroy it.
So he takes off on a quest to the one place that could dispose of it. He's traveling alone tho.
Etheluin has always been an inquisitive child, and her curiosity has not left her even after her capture. On the contrary, it made her even more determined to be able to protect herself and everyone else from something like this happening again. After the war for the ring, and when everything calmed down was put back in order, she took up her on her goal. She began to work hard not only in her training with bow and sword, but also in monitoring and exploring the realms around the Eregion, soon becoming a amazing scout. She spent her days out in the woods, learning how to observe, track, and hunt like a wild cat, undetected and deadly. After few years there wasn't any tree, rock or pond around the Eregions forest's she would not recognize.
Even though Celebrimbor wasn't happy that his only daughter, his firstborn child, pride and joy is carelessly running through the woods alone. He knew that just as in his looks and demeanor she was way too much like him in stubbornness too. He understood that it was useless to deny her true nature like that. He understood that the best way to protect her was to teach her how to take care of herself and prepare her for the dangers of the world.
Despite her father accepting her bit more wild nature, Thel was not spared from the occasional elven courts. In these events, which are too exaggerated for her liking, full of false pretenses and rules, she makes sure that she smiles just long enough until she is out of her father's sight and then immediately jumps out of the nearest window to the gardens or begins to explore and wonder the estate with some poor cousin she convinced to go with her. These nights usually end with her dress torn to pieces and her hair full of twigs and leaves, with Celebrimbor left speechless, although part of him is secretly very amused and proud.
So this cautious single father (who fights with his inner demons(evil gay visions about Sauron)) and his wild daughter who is a bit too eager to go on a adventure, are about to walk into mordor to kill this evil ring.
At the same time, a certain Dirhael wanders through the forest on patrol. In reality he's just sulking because his dad, who is his boss on top of everything, told him he couldn't even fight a chicken and that he should spend less time being nose deep in books and more time practicing with sword if he ever wants to become a captain. However, this is not true coz he is a very skilled hunter of chickens and reading more would definitely benefit a lot of people. But he knows better than to tell that to his face. Coz in the end he means it well.
After all, his dad was always by his side and supports him, no matter how bad the situation looks.
Growing up in a place like the black gate was… limiting.... sometimes. Not many people to talk to aside from few other kids that are around. Not much to do except reading, training and occasionally studying, disassembling and assembling weapons in the fortress. Not that Dirs life was shallow. Talion tried to give him a rich childhood with loads of fishing and hunting trips camping and other things that were possible for someone like him. And Ioreth made sure to taech him all that he could use in life from sewing and basic cooking to a solid reading and writing basics. And the rest Dir used to learn exactly like that, from the books that he either found or was given. Those were the best times for him because whenever he felt like he was down or missing something he could just disappear to the books. But there is only so many amazing stories you can read about before you actually want to live a story that could be a book one day. And combined with a naturally high curiosity the inevitable questions start to form. "There must be something new behind the borders something fresh and exiting out there for a young ranger to experience just waiting to jump out on him."
And oh boy is he right. His ticket to experiencing all kinds of new stuff is stalking him for a solid 2 miles through the bush line.