Xandilif took Cily's chin in her hand again. "You ain't never seen no elf like me, honeybritches...and when I go, I won't be going alone."
Cily looked at her in surprise, not bothering to pull her face away. "What do you mean?"
Xandilif smirked and stared her in the eyes. "You and me, Morsel...we are gonna kill that syphilitic spunk gobbler..and we are gonna look good doing it"'
Cily stared at her warily. "What do you mean?"
"You gonna set Mans up, Morsel...and I'm gonna knock him down."
The bronze-haired woman smiled sadly. "You think he sees me as one of his friends? I bought my freedom from him. If he catches me again, I'm going back to the cage."
The elf nodded, unphased. "Yep...but you gotta think like a shitesmear like Mans, girl. And I do, curse me blue. Once a Balrog's boyfriend like him sees something like you in your skanties stuck in his box, he ain't gonna take you serious no more, no how. You are just another profitable piece of girlcandy to him. He will never dream you would have the balls to set him up."
Cily shuddered and looked away...but listened.
Xandilif smiled. "He will underestimate you, he will assume you are beat, he will assume you are less than nothing and he will be so fecking busy congratulating himself for taking your gold and STILL selling your tasty little mortal ass, he will never look down to see his own dingus burning...And that is where I will come in."
Cily suddenly looked afraid, then shook her head soundly, her voice growing hard again. "THAT'S what I was waiting for. He's sent one like you before. I had enough sense to decline, then...just like I do now. He... likes to play, I know. How much is he paying you? How long have you served..."
The woman's words died in her throat and for a moment she was sure the elf was going to strike her, or worse...a look of almost horrific rage had come over the champions porcelain features. Xandilif raised one gauntleted hand and Cily squealed despite herself and braced for the blow...but instead the elf unlaced the neck of her hauberk, jerking it open to display a massive magenta scar, looking as if the skin had been decayed, covering her left shoulder and the upper slope of her breast.
Cily stared in shock...as far as she knew the firstborn didn't scar from normal wounds.
Xandilif was practically snarling...but her voice was low, and tears fell down onto the scar, one by one as she spoke. "Mans' little slaver friends gave me that, with a cursed arrow, dark as troll piss....and they took something from me, something I can never get back if I live till the tenth fecking age. I should not have survived that arrow, but I did. I survived to kill him and maybe when he is dead and sent screaming into the abyss, when I have stared into his beady little eyes and watched em go dark with SilverWand through his skinny little chest, when I have burned everything he has ever made or ever done to the ground around him so that before he dies he will see that its as if he never lived at all...maybe then what I lost will stop crying at me and leave me alone at last."
Cily just stared, her mouth open, whispering. "Oh goodness! I'm sorry. I'm...so sorry."
Xandilif closed her hauberk, looking away. "I'm gonna kill him,sooner or later, with you or without you, morsal...you'd just make it sooner is all..I got all the time in the fecking world, unlike you disposable monkeys"
The girl winced and Xandilif looked practically sheepish. "Sorry about the monkeys crack. Anyway, he still set up in that Kheledur cesspit, huh? With his Angmar bangbuddies in plain sight like herpes on the goblin king? He must have quite the set-up going on...arms and spies from Harad into Gondor or Rohan up to Angmar, then across to mountains to the snow lands, then down the Lhun to Kheledur. From there its an easy, open ride through the Shire and up to Bree. Then slaves and stolen goods go back in the opposite direction. No muss no fuss. Clever bastards."
Cily nodded softly...clearly this strange elf knew even more about Mans' business than she did. "You really think you can get to him? How?"
Xandilif snorted and turned away, scanning the valley below. "I ain't gonna talk about there here, or now Morsel...but if he is still running with the Angmarim and worse, then he may be what I've been sent to find...and that Rian has been trying to chase up...and if he is, then my tasty little sweetmeat, you are the least of his troubles.'"
The woman tried to make sense of it all, catching a word she thought she knew. "Rian? You mean Xanderian? Your sister?" The concept still seemed amazing to her.
The Banshee sighed and spun on her. "Are you slow or something? Yes...Xanderian, Rian, the Monk, the Longtracker, Nightwind, little Lethril Droopypants....try to keep up Morsal, I got no patience for stupid. You may be pretty, but ya ain't that pretty."
Cily shrugged, ignoring the outburst. "I've spied on Mans long enough. I know you won't get to him, Not on your own. Not even with my help."
The elf moved close again and lowered her voice. "If he is sneaking Angmar trash onto the doorstep of Ered Luin, then I don't think it is to look at the pretty fecking waterfalls and bang prissy hobbit boys...and the Host will want to shut him down right sharpish. I just hope they let me do the honors and kill him as a reward for finding the little runt...and maybe if you treat me nice I'll let you kick him once before I send him off to tell Mordor "Hello" from the wrong side around."
The woman shifted angrily. "The host? You mean the rest of the elves? They know. They must know. They have those tall towers in Duilond, and what? You immortals, don't care, do you?!" She braced for the argument, but was too angry to care. She had heard about the lofty ideals of the firstborn before.
However there was no argument...the champion looked at her, eyes level and sad, and nodded slowly. "No...they don't...they don't give two damn shakes. Duilond, Mithlond...they don't give a damn about you...nor me...they are just waiting for their ride West so they can sit around for eternity watching each other's hair grow and drinking colored ales. I am talking about the Host of the West...the lords of Men who will be taking sole possession of this dung heap when I and all of my filthy kind are just a bad dream."
Cily stared in surprise but nodded too. "I'm glad I never went to the elves then. This is what I thought. They outlive all of this. You... you will outlive it too."
The elf smirked and caught her chin with her hand again, too fast for the girl to avoid. She jerked her face close so they were practically touching noses. "Yes my toothsome little morsel...I will outlive you, your children, your children's fecking children and all of this crap. Lucky me, huh? You know what the wise call your mortality, sweetmeat?'
Cily was too afraid to struggle. "No..."
"They call it "The gift of Iluvatar". No damn joke."
The girl saw red again, feeling mocked..."The gift of Ilu... THE GIFT!?"
"Do you know why?" Xandlif's tone stunned the girl into silence. "Before you give me your shite for living forever...why don't YOU try it, huh? 'You ever loved somebody who got sick...and kicked it...a grandma or something? You ever stand around with your thumb up your own damn ass and watch them die, day by day, week by week, knowing there ain;t nothing you can do to make it even one bit better, or to keep them there even one day longer? Imagine that happening to everyone you have ever known who gave a damn about you..and then to all their kids.,..and their grandkids...and every time you think something may be home and you get comfortable.,..you close your eyes for a second...JUST FOR A SECOND...and everybody is dead. And all your so called kinfolk are laughing down their noses at ya like you are just as dirty and meaningless as your dead friends. That is a hard damn lesson, morsel...my stupid sister ain't learned it yet, but she will. By Elbereth she will...and then where will she be."
The elf dropped her chin and looked back out over the valley, her voice suddenly sounding far away and incredibly old. "Somedays I would give a lot to just die already, and be done with it."
Cily followed her, finding her nerve. '"You sure sound a lot like that sister you call stupid, now. If you really want to die then going to Kheledur might be a very good way of making sure we BOTH die. I can tell you everything that there is to know about it, but it's a foolish errand, if you care about what I think."
The elf turned...hooking her thumbs in her belt. "We ain't just gonna go and knock on his fecking door, cupcake...this is gonna take some thinking..and time to get our ducks lined up. Are you up for that or are you gonna hide forever?"
Cily thought for a longer moment then looked her straight in the eye. "I'm alive because I've been hiding, damn it! But...I want him dead and this entire... business finished."
Xandilif nodded..."Good. Then lets get this show on the road...first, we are gonna have to have a parlay with Xanderian...but when we are done with all this, sugar-thighs, Mans is gonna pay in spades for what he did to you...and to me...and to Tris."
