In the darkness of night, high up in a tower of marble, and there in a dark, luxurious chamber lit only by moonlight spilling through tall arched windows, a high elf woman lay sprawled in restless abandon. Her pale skin gleamed like polished ivory, her breasts heaving as her own fingers worked in vain.
"Ahhh… estarlish hantanar, igh!"
The moan rang out in a voice as clear and musical as a harp string, so sweet it could have stilled a battlefield. Instead it echoed through the rafters, carrying only to the tufted ears of her pet owl.
"Ku-kuu!" the bird hooted, tilting its head as if in chorus.
But her pleasure sputtered. Frustration clouded her delicate features, and with a sharp sigh she pulled her hand away. "Useless," she muttered, glaring down at herself as though betrayed. "I need more than fingers. More than my poor, wilted lord could ever provide."
The owl blinked solemnly, feathers rustling.
Unbothered by her nakedness, she rose from the bed in a fluid motion, silver hair spilling over swaying shoulders. Each step made her curves jostle and bounce with unstudied grace: hips rolling, breasts jiggling, her bountiful backside shifting like a challenge to the very moonlight.
She reached her writing table and leaned forward with a theatrical sigh, pressing her ample chest against the cool, polished wood until her pink nipples hardened against its surface. "Mmm," she murmured, "at least oak is firm."
But she was clever as well as restless. If she could not conjure the great satisfaction her body craved, she would invent it. Ink, quill, and parchment lay ready. A wicked smile curved her lips as she began to scrawl, her breath hot against the page.
"If I cannot find something big," she whispered, "then I shall write of it… and remember."
The quill scratched. Her voice lowered into a chant—half jest, half spell:
"Ia mar prestar aen…
The world is changed.
Han mathon ne nen…
I feel it in the water.
Han mathon ne chae…
I feel it in the earth.
A han noston ned gwilith…
I smell it in the air."
The owl hooted again, sounding suspiciously like laughter. Then she contained writing her tale.
Much that once was is now lost, and none now live who remember it. Only a few ancient scrolls remain to tell of the beginning—of the age when we, the Firstborn, descended from the stars and claimed the continent that mortals now call Middle-earth.
In those days we contended with the vile evils of this world and, through battle and craft, raised mighty Elven kingdoms. For a time we reigned supreme—alone, unchallenged, without the clamoring of the lesser races.
But all changed with the coming of Men. First came the thunder of the heavens, and then flaming stars of metal fell from the sky. Where they struck, mountains split and Dwarven and Elven cities alike were buried beneath their hulks. The earth itself shuddered, and for two days and two nights the world quaked without ceasing.
Then followed the long shadow: six years of darkness. The falling stars had cracked the bones of the earth; fire and ash billowed from broken mountains, veiling the sky. The sun vanished, winter seized the land, and no green thing grew. Hunger ruled. Beasts and humanoid beings alike turned to desperation. Our elven people, once united, splintered into warring clans, weak and scattered.
When at last the ash thinned and the sun returned, the world we had known was gone. Kingdoms lay in ruin, and only scattered tribes survived. Then from their shattered stars the humans emerged. They brought strange seeds and beasts unknown to our kind, and they sowed them in the wounded earth, reshaping the land into their own vision of paradise.
Yet their triumph was short. Men are frail, their lives but flickers. Leaderless and divided, they warred ceaselessly with one another. Their ancient knowledge—once mighty beyond reckoning—fell into neglect, and in time it was lost, buried beneath the dust of ages.
Yet in the turning of an age, with the passing of a comet, a mighty figure came down from the stars. He named himself a god, a Valar, and men hailed him as such. Under the banner of his double-headed eagle he gathered the tribes of humankind, and with but a single hammer and his bare fists he swept aside all who dared oppose him.
In those days the humans multiplied like rabbits. They swarmed across the land and laid chains upon any they could subdue—Elf, dwarf, or beast. Their bodies, broad and brimming with vigor, outmatched the slender grace of our kind. Sheer strength and number drove the Elven clans to the edge of extinction.
But even the mightiest of men cannot outlast the years. At last the Hammerer fell, as rulers of their kind always do. His empire cracked, his hosts scattered, and the Elven slaves fled their bondage. Some fled into the shadowed forests and learned to dwell among the trees. Others sought the shelter of the world's islands. Still others crept into the ruins of elder days and made their homes among broken stone.
Thus the continent of Middle-earth drew a weary breath of respite. The dominion of men waned, and for a time the Elves were left in relative peace, each hidden in their own refuge, apart yet unbroken.
However, of all the Elven kindreds, none have fared worse beneath the brutish hands of Men than our wretched cousins, the Dark Elves of the East. Truly, their plight was ordained from the beginning, for they carry the curse of the goddess: their kind brings forth only females, as if the heavens themselves judged them unfit for balance.
Now, we High Elves, of course, stand as the model of perfection. Our bodies are not mere ornaments but instruments—honed to grace, agility, and power. Our limbs are long and hard-muscled, our torsos carved with the lines of strength, our waists narrow, our forms resilient and capable. Our stomachs ripple like river-stone, our backsides are firm, our very stride a hymn of motion. Even the dull human women, coarse as they are, confess themselves weak-kneed when allowed the briefest touch of our flesh. Beauty, yes—but beauty armed with vigor. That is the mark of High Elves.
The Dark Elves? The opposite in every respect. Their bodies seem sculpted not for war or artistry but for idleness and indulgence. Cursed to birth only daughters, they grow their broods from trees—yes, trees!—as though they were fruit to be plucked. From bloated cocoons their women fall, all soft flesh and languid smiles. Ninety of every hundred are near-identical: curvaceous, glossy-skinned, and so thoroughly impractical that one wonders whether they were fashioned by the gods in jest.
Their villages sprawl along beaches and sunlit groves, where they spend their days gathering fruit or reclining naked beneath the sun, giggling like children who have never grasped the seriousness of existence. They do not comprehend war, nor even the concept of violence; the very idea is alien to them. And so, being peaceful, they are also pitifully weak.
For the human males the sights of these female Elves seemed to fill them with surges of lustful arousal and a raw, primal urge to conquer and to mate.
In the face of this most Dark Elves were hopeless to do anything. Most of their instincts seemed to merely tell them to simply give in to their enemies and not to even run as they knew that with their voluptuous bodies it was no use anyway.
They were physically so weak and so could only rely upon their dark magic to defend themselves. Still there was hope as amongst their numbers a great many necromancers were born and other spell users as well.
But due to their easy going, lazy and cowardly natures most could only cast basic spells. They simply lacked the dedication to learn and improve themselves or to even try and fight back at all. At best they used their time to learn protection spells to protect their fertile eggs from being seeded by the humans. Some could totally block out the humans foul manly meat sticks from entering, but with some persuasion all dark elves usually broke.
Then one day, when the men of Kislev put another Dark Elf village to the torch, a single young woman of striking beauty managed to slip away. In her flight she even dragged along a smaller child—a blonde-haired, wide-eyed girl scarcely old enough to understand the horror behind them. Barefoot, clad in nothing but their underthings, they fled across the fields.
They ran until their lungs burned. As was the curse of their kind, exhaustion overtook them quickly. At last they collapsed among the tall grasses, sweat sheening their dark skin, chests heaving, tears shining in their great green eyes.
From their hiding place they saw the smoke rise, heard the distant chorus of screams and the vile laughter of men. For the first time in their lives they felt the ember of hatred. In that moment, grief and rage tangled together, and they swore that one day they would do something terrible to the humans who had stolen their families and their world.
The elder girl—unwittingly the future Queen of Darkness—stamped her bare foot in the dirt, trembling. The oath left her lips in a rush, but almost at once fear caught up with her. Never had she harmed anyone. To even imagine doing something bad felt strange, unnatural, as though she were breaking some invisible law of her own soul.
So, with the naïve cunning of their people, the two resolved on another path. If they themselves could not bear to do wickedness, then they would find others—stronger, crueler hands—to act in their stead. Thus began the uncertain scheme of two beautiful yet hopelessly sheepish Dark Elf maidens. Deep in the eastern mountains, within the very fires of Mount Doom, they conceived a plan most daring: the forging of rings.
Not rings of war or wisdom, but delicate things—pretty bands of feminine design, glimmering with promises of everlasting beauty, wealth, and dominion over their peoples.
Three were given to the High Elves: eldest, fairest, and most insufferably smug of all the races.
Seven to the Dwarf-lords: stout, stubborn, greedy little miners who hammered their halls of stone until they rang with the sound of coin.
And nine—nine rings—were gifted to the race of Men, young and rash, a people whose two greatest hungers are for power and for women far too beautiful for them.
But all were deceived. For in secret, within the firelit caverns of Doom, the now exceptionally voluptuous Queen Olga forged a master ring. Into this one band she poured not only the ability to turn invisible and wield unnatural might, but also her own embarrassing desires: her submissive streak, her longing to be adored, and her rather desperate wish that everyone would simply be nice to her. One Ring to make them all bow, not in terror, but in awkward harmony beneath her rule.
And yet, her scheme unraveled in the most ridiculous fashion. For the intended bearers of the rings—the kings, lords, and champions—found them… unimpressive. "Too dainty, too girlish," they grumbled, and promptly gifted them to their wives.
Thus it was not rulers but housewives who bore the rings. And one by one, as the jewelry's strange powers stirred, they turned reckless: gossip became treachery, flirtation became scandal, and soon whole households were in chaos. The women were accused of wickedness, tried, and burned, while their lands stayed stubbornly uncorrupted.
Queen Olga was horrified. Her great plot had not conquered kingdoms, only set village gossip aflame. Out of sheer fear she proclaimed herself a true queen at last, and with the aid of her nervous assistant she summoned vast legions of undead. These obedient thralls raised her a black fortress—less a bastion of conquest than a hideaway from the terrifying outside world.
But the free peoples of Men, Dwarves, and High Elves would not allow even this nervous peace. United under a single banner, they gathered into a vast host, the so-called Alliance of the West, and marched—slowly, very slowly—on the long road to the mountains where Doom lay waiting.
Yet Queen Olga did not remain idle. From the wilderness she gathered allies most foul. From the vast plains of the East came the centaurs—hideous things, half horse and half goat-faced man, their very appearance an insult to creation. From the southern mountains she lured minotaurs and shrieking harpies. Mercenary ogres lumbered into her pay, and alongside them marched the two-legged beastmen, cloven-hoofed like goats and every bit as filthy.
With such creatures, and with the promise of plunder and "ravaging the beauties of the West," she assembled a horde beyond counting. But in truth, Olga did not command them—they kept their own chieftains and pursued their own hungers. Many were more interested in her than in conquest.
But the Dark Queen was no fool. She surrounded herself always with her grim knights of the dead and forbade any beast from entering her black citadel. The horde camped instead upon the plains, penned outside like dangerous cattle.
Then the great day came. The armies of the West, sixty thousand strong, marched to the slopes of Mount Doom. Men, Elves, and Dwarves in glittering ranks halted at the sight before them: more than a hundred thousand beasts snarling on the heights, eager to tear flesh, defile, and devour all in one unholy banquet.
The hosts of the West faltered. Hope wavered. But then, upon a boulder that crowned the field, one man strode forth.
He was vast, clad in shining silver plate with a scarlet cape flowing behind him. A massive two-handed sword rested in his grip. He lifted his helm and his voice thundered across the field:
"Sons and daughters of the West, hear me! I am the Silver Knight, Vanquisher of Evil, Slayer of Dragons! And yes—my name is Jeff!
"Know also this: I stand not 220 but 222 centimeters tall! I have slain men by the hundreds with my bare hands! I have lain with countless wives and sired many fine children! Aye, even some of you woodland maidens and High Elves here present—my thanks for that, by the way!"
The humans roared with wild cheers. The High Elves growled in thinly veiled disgust. A few woodland maidens flushed scarlet and looked at the ground. The dwarves, unmoved, merely muttered about who had crafted such fine silver armor.
Then Jeff, without another word, drove his great blade into the boulder as though it were butter under a knife, and the armies of the West found courage once more.
Jeff's boast had silenced all, and then he raised his voice again, ringing over the ranks:
"Now listen up! Every race here—Man, Elf, Dwarf—shares one thing with me. I know your peoples, and I know you love freedom as much as I do. But more than that—I know you all love prestige, the glory of winning! So let us fight, and win, for victory's sake alone!"
A roar thundered back at him, drowning even the snarls of the beasts. Jeff waved his hands, and the army roared louder still, until the mountains themselves seemed to quake.
Across the slope, the monstrous horde stirred. One beast, half-goat, half-brute, tried to bellow a speech of his own, but no one understood a word. Only when he ended with a deafening roar and a sudden charge did the rest of the horde grasp his meaning and follow suit.
The ground trembled under their feet. Yet the West did not falter; victory-lust burned hotter than fear. And besides—the dwarves with their stubborn spear-wall stood in front, which meant the more delicate Elves and the cowardly Men could keep their skins intact for at least a few moments longer.
Then the tide of beasts slammed down like an avalanche. From the rear, dwarven ballistae twanged, Elven longbows thrummed, and crossbows snapped in disciplined volleys. A few human archers loosed arrows as well, though they were hardly worth mentioning—after all, they were but men.
Arrows and bolts darkened the sky, and in the opening storm hundreds upon hundreds of monsters fell. The dead tripped the living, and the living trampled them underfoot until thousands lay crushed in seconds. But far from breaking, the horde only howled louder, bloodlust sharpened by the reek of death.
"Tangado haid! Leithio i philinn!" shouted the Elven captains in desperation.
"Position halten! Pfeile abfeuern! Feuer, Feuer, Feuer! Erschießt, ihr Wichser!" bellowed the humans and dwarves in their common tongue.
Still the beasts surged on, and at last they struck the dwarven line. Spears bent and shattered. Shields splintered. The front ranks were swallowed whole, bones cracking beneath the sheer weight of bodies.
Men and Elves behind the dwarves slashed wildly with swords, axes, and pikes. Whole knots of dwarves simply vanished beneath the crush, while others fought on with hammers until buried in blood.
Minotaurs smashed through, tossing soldiers into the air like children's toys. Ogres lumbered with cleavers meant to carve weaker flesh into ready portions for their cookfires.
Then fire blossomed along the ranks—mages had joined the fray. Fireballs hurtled into the horde, incinerating beasts and allies alike, turning screaming men into living torches. Ice mages froze minotaurs in their tracks for precious moments, long enough for frantic swordsmen to hack them apart. And when hope seemed to dim, the bravest of fire mages burned themselves out entirely, overloading their cores and hurling their own bodies into the enemy in great flaming suicides. Their sacrifice lit the sky with pillars of fire.
On the flanks, centaurs thundered around to encircle the host of the West—only to be met head-on by the Kislevite bear cavalry. Enormous armored bears, with spear-bearing riders atop them, crashed into the flank like a force of nature. Even the minotaurs found themselves buckling beneath the claws and teeth of those unstoppable beasts.
Everywhere was chaos. Blood soaked the earth until the battlefield became a marsh of gore. Limbs, torsos, and corpses piled into grotesque heaps. Yet amidst it all, the line of the West held, inch by inch. For every dwarf crushed, ten beasts fell. For every knight torn apart, a bear dragged down three. And slowly, inexorably, it seemed the tide was turning toward victory for the free peoples.
In that dire hour the High Elven king, Gil-Galad, saw his chance to turn the tide. With regal calm he drew from his cloak a whistle of polished cedar, carved in the likeness of an eagle. Raising it to his lips, he gave a sharp, clear note. At once, sixty eagle-riders stooped from the clouds, their golden pinions flashing in the sun, ready to tear the enemy lines asunder.
Not to be outdone, the human kings leapt forward, eager for glory. Trumpets blared, summoning the reserve: the proud Demigryph Knights and the Pegasus Knights, men astride beasts as strange as they were magnificent. Thus, Elf, Man, and their winged allies prepared to smash through the foe with steel and feather.
But the Dark Queen Olga had long foreseen such vanity. With a wave of her hand, she unleashed her own aerial host. First came the harpies—creatures half woman, half carrion bird, with feather-matted hair and twisted talons. Naked but for their ragged plumage, they shrieked like nightmares given flesh.
Behind them wheeled a black storm: a flock of bats the size of wolves and hosts of undead birds, their talons dripping venom. Their bite was doom itself—for too many scratches weakened the body unto death, and death was but the beginning. The poison bound corpses to unlife, raising them as shrieking revenants that struck down friend and foe alike.
And so the skies above Mount Doom became a writhing chaos. Eagles clashed with harpies, gryphons tore bats in half, Pegasi plowed through clouds of shrieking carrion. From the ground it seemed as though vast swarms of flies and mosquitoes had locked in battle—yet each corpse that fell from the heavens crushed men and dwarves beneath it like hailstones of flesh and bone.
Archers on the field loosed shaft after shaft to aid their lords in the sky. But soon the undead birds fell upon them, raking with poisoned claws and tearing eyes from sockets with hooked beaks. Screams rose, then fell silent. One by one the archers crumpled—and one by one they rose again, pale and bloodied, clutching their daggers in dead hands.
With hollow shrieks they fell upon their living comrades, stabbing and slashing without hesitation. Some bit, others clawed with bare hands, spreading the rot further. In moments, the neat lines of bowmen had become a butcher's yard, where the dead multiplied faster than the living could cut them down.
Victory seemed close at hand for the Dark Queen, and at last her curiosity overcame her fear. Never before had Olga seen a true battle. Back when her village burned, she had run before the slaughter began; she had never watched men hacked apart, never smelled the iron of blood. So, with trembling excitement, she resolved to witness history. For encouragement, she brought along her loyal assistant.
Seated upon a grand black throne borne aloft by skeletal knights, the pair ascended the slope. The busty queen clung nervously to the less-busty yet more composed girl on her lap, their pale legs tangled as they peered down at the carnage below.
What Olga saw there horrified her: endless shrieking, stabbing, smashing; blood and fire everywhere; beasts and men reduced to pulp in the mud. It was madness. In that instant, she reached a decision. She would destroy everyone—foe and ally alike.
Raising a delicate hand, she gestured once, and her undead knights surged forward. Liches in the vanguard began pulling the very souls of the fallen back into their broken bodies, commanding them to rise again and butcher the living without distinction.
But even as her army spread, two pairs of eyes marked her. High above, astride a great eagle, King Gil-Galad himself beheld the queen and her scantily-clad companion. Desire stirred—he longed to drag them off in chains as his playthings—but he quelled the impulse and chose instead to win eternal glory by ending them.
Calling his sky-riders about him, Gil-Galad cut a blazing path through harpies and carrion fowl. At last he was close enough. He stood upon his eagle's back, raised both gleaming swords, and leapt, hurling himself like a golden meteor toward Olga's throne.
So say the songs. In truth, it is more likely the king simply forgot how very high up he was. Regardless, he plummeted like a shining rock, and as he fell he shrieked his final cry:
"God is truly great! Eternal glory!"
The roar carried across the mountainside. Olga and her assistant, hearing it, panicked. With girlish screams they scrambled backward—and in doing so toppled clumsily off their throne. The king's trajectory ended not in their breasts or bellies, but in the empty seat they had just abandoned.
The crash was thunderous. Dust billowed high; the mountains shook. Across the field, soldiers cheered, believing their king had struck a killing blow. But as the cloud cleared, the truth emerged: the throne lay shattered, the two Dark Elf girls very much alive, while Gil-Galad himself was nothing but a broken smear of gold and silver upon the stones.
So ended the High King of the Elves: not in triumph, but in dust, his foes saved by blind panic and the mercy of their own clumsiness.
The High Elves, seeing their king reduced to glittering pulp, fell swiftly into despair. Across the way, the two Dark Elf maidens—disheveled, trembling—clung to one another in equal panic. Never had they imagined men could be so mad, so blood-hungry, as to hurl themselves from the sky. To them, Men looked like true monsters—demons wearing flesh.
Their first instinct was to squeal, shake, and run. They nearly did. Unbeknownst to them, however, the battle was already tilting their way: the High Elves, leaderless, were buckling; the West's line was fraying. And in that precise moment—when hope seemed to gutter for the free peoples—Jeff the Silver Knight came pounding up a rocky path.
By a cocktail of skill, stubbornness, and outrageous luck, Jeff reached a ridge opposite the Dark Queen. Even he hesitated at the sight: thousands of undead seething between them. There was no path through. Victory was impossible. But at least he could finally shout his truth.
He cupped his hands and bellowed, voice rolling across the vale:
"Hey, Dark Queen—put on some clothes! I can totally see your pink, beautiful—uh—nipples, tits, and ass! Same for you, little missy! Not that I'm complaining—you both look fantastic! You, blonde missy! And you, long black-haired, tan-skinned—er—majestic Queen!"
The two Dark Elves looked down, blinked, and discovered—horror of horrors—that their loose gowns had indeed come entirely loose. They were, in fact, naked; soft, generous curves pressed together in their panicked embrace, everything on display.
"You—you brute! Pervert!" the Queen shrieked, scarlet with shame.
And they ran.
They bolted downhill toward the black citadel by Mount Doom—or so they thought. In their fluster they veered right, scampered up the wrong slope, and burst onto the lip of a lovely waterfall. Before either could stop, momentum carried them over.
"Ahh—yih—kyaaa!" they cried, young maidens by Elven measure, vanishing into silver spray. Their light bodies hit the pool with only a delicate splash. But in the churning depths, fate played its final jest: the One Ring slipped from Olga's slender finger. She had crafted it a touch too large.
With the master ring lost, her will unraveled. The beast-hosts wavered, then fled. The undead shambled apart, drifting off to harry whatever living they happened upon, mindless and masterless. The armies of the West—by a miracle known only to a few—found themselves unbroken after all.
And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.
History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two hundred years—or thereabouts, give or take—a single ring passed out of all knowledge.
Until, when chance allowed, it found a new bearer: a small hobbit named Gollum.
Exiled from his family for gambling debts and "other sins," Gollum might have taken the ring and sold it for coin, then secured honest work. Instead, he slunk into the tunnels of the Misty Mountains. There, alone in the dark, the Ring consumed him as thoroughly as any vice, and he gave himself over to it. He became an addict of both shadows and gold.
In his caves he muttered endlessly, carrying on conversations no one else could hear:
"It came to me—mine, my love, my precious… unlike my ex-girlfriend, that bitch! Gollum, Gollum!"
Yet the Ring was merciful in one respect. It did not let him die quickly. It stretched his life to unnatural length—three centuries or so—though bereft of bitches, sex, or companionship. In his cave, which he grandly named Gollum's Cave, the Ring lingered, patient, biding its time.
Meanwhile, darkness crept once more into the forests of the world. Rumors grew of a shadow in the East, whispers of nameless fear. The Ring of Power felt its time had come. And so, like Gollum's girlfriend before it, the Ring abandoned him. One day it simply slipped from his hand while he wasn't paying attention.
But here the Ring was taken by surprise. For it was not seized by some dark lord, nor claimed by a ruthless thief, but by the most unlikely of all creatures: a decent hobbit.
Bilbo Baggins, wandering the caves in search of his companions, stooped and found it. Instead of donning it, he merely turned it over in his hands and muttered:
"Well now, what's this? Someone's wife is not going to be happy about losing a thing like this. Dropped in a dark cave, of all places! Best keep it safe until I find its owner."
And so, once again, Gollum was left abandoned. His cave echoed with his shrieks:
"Lost! My precious is lost! My love, my girlfriend, my wife! How could you leave me again? F-f-f-fucking bitches!"
Thus the wheel of fate turned. The time was drawing near when hobbits would shape the fortunes of all—if only until some busty queen came along to claim the Ring for herself.