A great flash lit up the sky and blinded the surrounding area for an instant, followed immediately by an immense roar. A great thunder of immaculate whiteness had just ripped through the menacing drake, dropping him inert to the ground. He was gone, a victim of chance or strange justice.
Further away, another immaculate presence watched the now dead drake and the orcs gathered around it. Orcs this presence had just saved, in any case. But not an evil sorcerer, or even witch. Nor even an apostle of dark forces. Instead of a hideous face, there was a pale, fair face, bluish starry eyes, golden hair and a slender form... A high elf. The elf put away her staff, her presence luminous in these lands before discreetly leaving the scene, all the while keeping her gaze on them.
Why save them? They'd kill, defile and pillage at the slightest opportunity, many men would think. Her lightning should have struck them too, killing two birds with one stone. But absolute evil didn't exist in her eyes, and not everyone who wanders is lost.
She couldn't help feeling a kind of compassion for them, a desire to help them find a better way. She was sure of it, she said to herself when stroking the elven ring on her finger, she would be able to save them. The influence of her ring, her mastery of words of power, her way of reassuring...
If evil could create nothing, only corrupt, then orcs could not have been created evil, and it would be possible to set them right. Not all experiments were conclusive, but she had to try for everyone. No matter how many ages passed, until Middle Earth was safe. And this troop seemed to have the potential.
