What am I?

"The steward!"

"Lord Faramir is coming to Eastwood!"

The news spread rapidly. Soon the village was bustling with excitement and all villagers gathered outside the northern gate to welcome the steward. Many of them were so awed by the appearance of the Lord of Ithilien, that they did not even notice the orc who was walking close behind. Beleg did notice him, of course, and he could hardly keep himself from rushing past the steward to embrace him.

"People of Eastwood," Faramir addressed the villagers, "this is Gurnak. Strange it may seem to you, but I am beyond doubt that he is as honest and peaceful as any of you. So I granted him the right to live in Gondor as a free man. Since he already has a friend in your village, he chose to live here. I know that many of you will not like it and I know why. As your lord a can not command your feelings, but nevertheless let me express my wish that if you respect my judgement, then you should give him a chance!"

There was silence. Some of the villagers smiled. Others looked like they would like to turn on their heels and walk away, though nobody dared to do that in the face of their lord. Most looked at the steward as if they expected him to say he was just joking.

Faramir signalled Gurnak to step forth and a moment later the orc embraced his friend. Meanwhile Athos advanced to stand next to the steward.

"One peaceful orc does not mean that all of them have changed," the steward went on, "and so my the rangers will keep on patrolling to protect you. One of them however has volunteered to remain with you for the time being. His task might be easy, or it might be much harder than his usual duty. I plead to everyone not to make it more difficult than necessary."

"Two more people in this house?" Beleg's mother asked with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. "Well, it should be possible."

Gurnak and Athos were standing in the living room of the house of Beleg's family. The place looked slightly crowded indeed.

"We had been two more when father was still alive," Beleg remarked.

"Yes, but you and Míri were a lot smaller then and we all were one family," his mother replied.

"I can just as well live in my tent or find another place," Athos intervened, then, looking at the orc, he added, "and Gurnak will be happy with a tent, too, I guess"

"No! That is out of the question," Beleg's mother cut him short. "You can surely find another place. People would be quarrelling on who has a right to host you. But I know you are not here to protect the village from Gurnak, but to protect him from false accusations. And Gurnak can not live in a tent in the middle of a village, if the people shall ever accept him as a civilised person."

Beleg, Gurnak and Athos looked at each other, while Míriel wore a smirk as if she had known it by herself and wondered why the men were so surprised.

"It won't be for too long anyway," Beleg finally said.

Everyone now looked at him.

"You wanted me to teach you how to work wood, didn't you," Beleg continued, looking at Gurnak, "why not learn it while building your own house."

"That would be great," his friend replied.

"Well, that's it then: We'll all move together for a while and you start building a house," Beleg's mother concluded. Then she shook hands with both Athos and Gurnak. "My name is Eliana, by the way."

Gurnak and Beleg were preparing some timber when a elderly, yet still agile man approached them.

"Hello, my name is Olchar," he introduced himself to Gurnak. "I've heard that you have lived on your own for years. You know how to hunt, don't you? I am the leader of the hunters of Eastwood and I wonder whether you'd like to join us."

"That would be great, wouldn't it," Beleg replied, looking at Gurnak.

"What about the house?" the orc replied less enthusiastically.

"It will get finished, it doesn't matter if it takes a day or two more. Haste makes waste, as we say. And you should find more friends, or at least people that respect you for what you do."

"Maybe you are right," Gurnak said to his friend, then asked Olchar: "Will the hunters really accept me?"

"I can not say that all are positively thrilled. But once you join the band, the will cooperate, I can assure you, and in the end you have to convince them by being a good hunter."

"Well then, I will join you. When do go out next time?"

"Tomorrow morning. We'll meet at the southern gate when the cocks crow."

The next day Gurnak returned in time for supper. When he entered the house, only Beleg and his mother were sitting at the table.

"Hello! Where are the other two?" he asked while sitting down.

"I don't know. Míriel is a big girl and I won't even dare to tell a ranger what to do," Eliana replied. The tone of her voice indicated that she did not approve their absence nevertheless. "How was the hunting?"

"We had to walk quite far to find anything worth hunting, but that was just the same on the edge of the mountains where I hunted on my own. Olchar said it was much better before the war, but Sauron's orcs have over-hunted the forests badly."

"And how did the others receive you?" Beleg asked.

"It was quite as Olchar said: Most were careful and uncommunicative, but nobody complained openly. Olchar told me how they work as a group and when we were on the track, I was just another member of the band. In the end they were impressed, not so much by might hunting skill, but because I carried home the big stag all on my own."

"So you will go out with them again?"

"Yes. It felt good be with a group of men that accepted me as a peer and also to work for my own food for a change."

"That's good to hear," Eliana said, "the more people know you personally, the better. But if you wanted to work for your food, you should have brought some here."

"Oh, I almost forgot it, there's a rabbit in my bag. I've shot it personally!"

A few days later Gurnak was planing wood while talking to Míriel, when a young man approached them.

"So that is the kind of man you prefer, my dear," he addressed Míriel, "strong and ugly?"

Gurnak look up, but before he even think of a reply, the girl shot back:

"I am not your dear, Telgor, and I never will be!"

"That is not an answer to my question, Miri," Telgor replied.

"Am I bound to give you one? Gurnak may be ugly as only an orc can be, but he is lot more interesting to talk to than you. Telgor, you're a moron. Get lost!"

Nobody noticed how Gurnak's face dropped when Míriel called him ugly. He said nothing, but looked away and concentrated on his work piece. Meanwhile Beleg, who must have heard the conversation, came around the corner.

"Oh, Telgor, how often does she have to reject you? How often do you want to make a fool of yourself, until you finally give up?"

"Ah, the big orc friend," Telgor replied, venom virtually dripping from his words, "you must like the situation. After all he is your 'friend'. Once I was your friend, too, but that is long gone."

"If you consider Gurnak to be your rival, you are blind anyway," Beleg added with a grin towards his sister, who blushed slightly.

"Oh, you have noticed me and Athos," she replied a lot softer and slower than usual.

"I wonder if that was why he volunteered," Beleg remarked while Telgor stormed off.

"So I am ugly," Gurnak grumbled when the were alone again, "ugly as only an orc can be!"

"Hey, I did not want to hurt you," Míriel replied taken aback, "I like you the way you are!"

"The other orcs say, I am not an orc, because I do not behave like one. But to humans I am but an orc, because I look like one. Who am I? What am I?"

"You are Gurnak, the most unique person I've ever met," Míriel proclaimed with a smile.

"Oh, well, maybe that is the best of an answer I will ever get," Gurnak sighed. "Is it true that you once were a friend to that guy, Beleg?"

"We were playmates. That is not the same, although children use the same word for it."

Gurnak's house was making good progress and it was almost finished, when an impressively garmented messenger rode into Eastwood and headed for him.

"You are Gurnak, I reckon. Is that so?" He addressed the orc in a boastful, though not unfriendly manner.

The appearance of the messenger had not passed unnoticed and so many villagers were now watching curiously. Gurnak first cringed from so much attention, but then he pulled himself up to his full height before he replied: "Yes, I am!"

In the meantime Beleg had passed the ring of spectators and placed himself next to his friend.

"And you are Beleg, correct?" the messenger now addressed him.

"Yes," Beleg replied, nodding.

The messenger looked to see whether anyone might object, then addressed the two friends: "The King wishes to meet you. If it suits you well, a guard of honour will accompany you to Minas Tirith next week."

The friends looked at each other, too surprised to answer at first. After a while Beleg finally turned towards the messenger again and replied: "We will be ready!"

Some days later the two friends were ushered into a private room at the royal palace, where they met the King and Queen. To their surprise the Queen inclined her head towards Gurnak most gracefully and addressed him.

"I am Arwen, daughter of Elrond. It was actually I who wanted to see you, Gurnak and I am delighted to meet you."

"I am honoured beyond imagination," the orc replied, copying her gesture as best he could.

"Would you care to tell me what you know about how orcs came into being?"

"We were told we have been created by a god named Melkor."

"Do not speak that name," the Queen interrupted him with a sharpness in her voice that totally contrasted with her behaviour so far. "He is Morgoth, the dark enemy!"

"Well, what did you expect Sauron to tell them?" the King intervened, softly touching his wife's hand.

"You are right, Estel," Arwen replied. "I guess I should simply tell the whole story myself. Then you, Gurnak, will understand me better and learn something about yourself."

"The world was created by Eru, the One and he was helped by beings called Ainur," the Queen began. "The Ainur were then sent to live within the world and form it. The most powerful ones are called the Valar. The Valar created many things and tried to make the world a most beautiful place. There was one amongst them however, who did not like the works of the others and who fancied destruction more than anything else. Some time the other Valar, growing weary of seeing their works destroyed, decided to settle on an island in the west and leave Middle Earth to the enemy.

Thus was the situation when the first elves awoke. They were strong and powerful and the land supported them, but they were guileless, too. Before long servants of the enemy detected them and caught some of them. The Valar knew that the elves were to come and after a while they found them, too. They then decided that it was time to act against the enemy. They waged war on him and finally bound him in chains. He was brought to the west were he remained a prisoner for three ages. The Valar then invited the elves to live with them in the west. Some went with them, others remained in Middle Earth. That, and why my ancestors came back, is a long story by itself; what matters now, however, is what became of those elves that were caught be the enemy.

Many of them were found and freed during the war. They bore the scars of torture, but overall they still looked like elves. What really appalled my ancestors though, was that they had lost all creativity and had turned aggressive and destructive instead. You must know that elves esteem creativity more than any other virtue. These pitiful creatures no longer found a fitting place among us, so in the end, with great sorrow, my ancestors chased away their own brethren."

The Queen took a deep breath. It was apparent that it was not easy for her to tell that story.

"So that is why you call him the dark enemy," Gurnak exclaimed. "But I do not yet see how this story connects to me."

"Oh, that name he got much later, in fact," Arwen replied. "And how you are concerned, you will soon see. Let me continue:"

"My ancestors went into the west and for a long time they lived there happily, their lost brethren they considered dead. The enemy was bound, but some of his servants still lived in Middle Earth, amongst them one whose name you know all too well: Sauron. For a long time he hid and Middle Earth had peace. But he must have recaptured those wretched elves and secretly bred them into an army. When he finally let them out to pester Middle Earth, they no longer looked like elves. Instead their bodily appearance had turned as hideous as their minds and it took quite some time until the elves recognised their former brethren. In the meantime they had been given a name, which is used for them still: orcs!"

When the Queen ended, there was a complete silence for a while. Everyone looked at Gurnak.

"So that is how we were created," he finally said, "it is rather that the enemy spoiled some elves to get us. Have you heard about a place called Utumno, by the way?"

"That was the name of the stronghold where those unfortunate elves were tortured," the Queen replied.

"Ah, that's it. Every orc knows Utumno as a mystical place of dread."

Beleg meanwhile got a wooden figurine from his pouch.

"But if this enemy has deprived orcs of all their creativity," he said, presenting the figurine to the Queen, "how could Gurnak have done this?"

Arwen reached out her hands and carefully took the wooden orc. Then she looked at her husband questioningly.

"The ranger did not mention it," the King said.

"The story of the tent already caught my attention," the Queen said. "More so than the peacefulness. This however is even better. To men, orcs are hardly more than nasty animals, but we elves never really forgot that they are of our own kind. When I heard your story, I wondered: Can it be, that after such a long some some orc recovered from Morgoth' corruption? I had to see it myself. How it happened, I do not know, maybe the destruction of Sauron played a role. Possibly only Eru himself could answer that question. I dare to say however, that by virtue of your personality, you, Gurnak, are an elf."

The End

A/N:

As much as I like Tolkien's stories, I never liked the idea of a race of sentient beings that are evil to the very core.

Some of you might have noticed that the orc chieftain was quoting a few lines from Goethe's Faust:

Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint!

Und das mit Recht; denn alles, was entsteht,

Ist wert, daß es zugrunde geht;

Drum besser wär's, daß nichts entstünde.

So ist denn alles, was ihr Sünde,

Zerstörung, kurz, das Böse nennt,

Mein eigentliches Element.

(I am the spirit that always denies!

And rightly so; because all that originates,

Is worth, that it shall perish;

Hence better it were, nothing would originate.

So it is all that you call sin,

Destruction, or simply evil,

My actual element.)

While thinking about Melkor, how he behaved and what he might have done to turn elves into orcs, it occurred to me that this self-description of Mephisto fits quite well to him. This gave me the idea that orcs could use it as a kind of philosophy.