[Amanaduial the archer]

Arthain swayed slightly as if from a blow as Gil-Galad pronounced the words to Anwenelme, not even looking at the man. He felt himself go pale, and a roaring seemed to cover his hearing, his breathing seeming to stop...a child? A half-elven child, and he the father? And...the mother... He closed his eyes, not sure what he was meant to be feeling, remembering...remembering the last time he was told he was to have a child, remembered it clear as day...

His eyes closed, his lips slightly parted, the breath on them still seeming frozen. Gil-galad's voice, still addressing Anwenelme seemed to come from a distance. "Hear me, woman. You will have a son, the image of his sire, bearing within him all the love and loyalty his sire bore for Melost. I will send word to Cirdan and all others who guard the shores of this land to never allow your passage into the West. His doom shall be to live out his life in sole devotion to you, and you...yours shall be to remain here, remembering the lives you have destroyed. Now, go! Leave my sight!"

You will have a son, the image of his sire, bearing within him all the love and loyalty his sire bore for Melost - was that irony? Did the king mock him, contemptuous of the foolish mortal who had betrayed one so superior by soiling one of the elven women folk...

His eyes remained shut as Anwenelme passed him, her footsteps still even but fast. He did not open his eyes to see the expression of she who carried his child. It would be the same one of contempt and mocking disdain she had showed him ever since Melost flew from their camp. But before then...what of the softness in her eyes before then, at Rivendell that night when she comforted you...or when you lay with her, blind to who she truly was, but seeing no less her expression, tender and kind...

He shook his head slightly to himself, his eyes still closed, dropping his head so his gaze would have been on the ground a few metres in front of him.

"Arthain." Gil-galad's voice was as cold as before. Raising his head in the direction of the elf king, Arthain's eyes, when he opened them, were wet with tears held back. But Gil-galad paused for a second, as one of his soldiers murmured something in his ear. He nodded. "Summon him," he replied in an undertone. Then he looked back to Arthain, forcing himself not to sway, their eyes meeting, but he said nothing. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably about three or four minutes, Arthain could not bear it any longer. He heard someone else enter the anti-room of the king's large tent, but kept his eyes on Gil-Galad.

"What would you do to me, Lord?" he said quietly.