@verecunda Mirdania lives!! Your suggestion of "taken prisoner not killed" stuck and...
His children have brought him a prisoner from the city- apparently, she fell from the walls. Adar knows that the seige is wearing on them all, that they've brought the elf to him because they hope it might end things more quickly, and so he is quick and open with his pride for the initive shown, and when his children- glowing beneath his praise- tell him that they took the she-elf to the command tent, he heads there straight away.
The girl is a mess. Golden hair matted with mud, blood crusting beneath her nose and by the side of her mouth, eyes closed and breathing pained. Tears are running down her cheeks and Adar suspects that the ropes binding her to one of the tent's supporting beams are the only thing keeping her upright. Still, her lips are moving, and he can just catch the murmer of a healing song beneath her breath. Not a complex one, not any great power- but it does tell Adar one very useful but of information.
"You want to live."
The elf opens her eyes. Her face sets; she fixes him with a cold look.
"Perhaps I merely think it unbecoming for a Smith of the Mirdain-i-Gwaith to enter Mandos with a broken wrist," she says, her voice steady enough, but still shot through with grief and pain.
A smith. Called up to see how the walls might be reinforced, no doubt, or perhaps working on some kind of weapon. A civillian, not a soldier, which lmay or may not be an advantage. But, Adar thinks, more to the point- where there is a forge, Sauron cannot resist meddling with it.
"You would not go before Nàmo with a broken wrist," he repeats slowly. He crosses to her and sits on the floor in front, at eye level but just shy of arms' length. "But you would stand before him having allied with Morgoth's right hand?"
"A strange definition of allyship have the orcs," the elf replies. "If to be dragged through mud and trussed in a tent is to be considered an ally. But if you think to frighten me be claiming such a terrible power, you ought not to have been so hasty to convince the Lady Galadriel you lacked it." She rests her head back against the wood and looks- sad. Tired and- more than sad. Grieved. "Adar, father of Uruks. Last of the Morriandor, you named yourself to her- am I wrong? Sauron is dead, by your hand- or was that an idle boast?"
"Sauron was killed," Adar agrees. "He did not die. Not entirely. And he has returned to his strength. He has allied with your city to forge weapons of great power-" the Elf scoffs. He modulates his voice, making it soft, understanding. "The Lord of your City might have welcomed him in secret, knowing that their people would never accept such an alliance. Is it so impossible? Are you sure-"
She's laughing. The elf is laughing; grim and humourless and hysterical, eyes closing and tears starting once again. "The Lord of the City," she chokes. "The Lord of the City- is it a spell? Some dark magic worked at a distance to keep the greatest of Eregion's mind ensnared in the darkness, unable to resist your foul intentions for his city because he is so lost to all reason that he forgets the names of his friends- hides away to starve himself in his forges and appears at last not because he appears to finally apprehend the presence of an army at his gates, but because in his madness he is convinced, utterly convinced, that the one holding the city together in the face of its Lord's dereliction is, in fact, the Great Deceiver? Tell me it is a spell," she opens her eyes again, and Adar realises with a jolt of understanding that she's begging. "Tell me Eregion has not already fallen, with none of us the wiser, and that my Lord has not been left alone all these weeks to suffer as Sauron's prisoner while his people cursed him for his absence and utterly failed to seek him out."
