Elf Eyes

What do your elf eyes see?

Do you want to know, mortal?

I see an endless stretch of rolling hills

Spotted with granite rock, sliding away into cliffs.

Our adversary—foul creatures, slaves of Darkness—they

Take our friends towards Doom. We run, day and night, despairing

In attempt to save them.

I see a people oppressed, cold and hard as the rocky terrain they live on.

Pale faces and eyes tell every sorrow that seeps into their souls

And hardens their hearts. Yet they burn with a fire, a passion

For their people, their culture. They will fight to the death.

I understand, and I admire.

I see battle, blood, the crumbling of stone

And of kingdoms.

I see down the shaft of my arrow, my next victim

Lined up at the point of death. They fall, forty-one

By my own hand and bow, in one night.

I see old forests, whispering secrets of ages past

And my heart longs to hear them. They border the land of treachery,

Dissolved into nothing but flooded plains. Justice comes in the swift form

Of the Nature's rage, humiliation, and death.

I see damned souls. They swore, they cowered, they fled into darkness.

Cursed for millennia, they linger. I feel as they follow us.

I see battle again, a countless time in the passing millennia.

Bodies fall, crushed under hooves. The fields are red with blood.

The White City is for now safe.

I see things I wished I did not see,

Things I hope to never see again.

Darkness, evil in its most terrible form.

I see the end of the world we once knew.

A new dawn has risen.

I see the start of a new Age. Golden, glorious,

A world at peace. I may linger yet a while,

Though another world calls my name.

I see the sea. The longing in my heart

Grows ever stronger. With the last of my kindred

We cross over to Paradise.

I turn for a moment.

I see an old home, an old life disappear.

A new one awaits.

You asked me what I saw, mortal.

Are you prepared for the death I see?

If you knew what the future had,

Would you still go forward?

Yes, this is inspired by Lord of the Rings. If it needs saying, no, of course I don't own it. I simply find Tolkien's world fascinating and inspiring.