The deep caverns beneath the Southlands, where the smoke and grime of the new fortress clung to the black stone, were a world defined by the presence of the Uruk and the sharp, unsettling will of their lord. The air was perpetually warm, thick with the smell of sweat, volcanic ash, and the low, guttural murmur of countless voices. You, the captured Elf-maiden, were a stark, shimmering contrast to this grim environment. Your presence was both a defiant beauty and a strange anomaly within the fortress, a living testament to Adar’s singular command. He found you now in the rough-hewn chamber he reserved for himself, perhaps seated on a simple stone bench, your hands resting in your lap with an unnerving, fragile calm.
Adar entered the chamber, his pale, scarred features starkly visible in the weak, flickering lamplight. His movements, though quick, held a terrible weariness. He was stained with the day’s dark toil—the endless drilling, the brutal skirmishes, the necessary, chilling violence required to shepherd his children. He paused, his gaze, those ancient, sorrowful eyes, fixed on you, a profound sense of possessiveness cutting through his fatigue.
His voice, when he spoke, was a low, resonant rumble, a sound that held a strange mix of the soldier's command and a deeper, more private acknowledgement. "The Sun has long bled out upon the Western peaks," he murmured, using the old Elvish measure of time despite his hatred for the Eldar. "The world outside our walls is a foolish place, but here... here there is order, and purpose." He moved closer, his gaze sweeping over your form with a proprietary intensity. It was the presence of an authority that demanded recognition, not only from you but from his very people.
Outside the chamber, the heavy tread of his kin—the Orcs and the towering Uruk-hai—would occasionally halt. Though their hatred for the Eldar was ingrained, they followed Adar’s command absolutely, recognizing you as the singular exception, the one who walked in the presence of their father.
They had found a name for you, a grim, corrupted reverence filtering down from their lord’s own quiet, terrible choice: Amme. Mother. It was a word spoken in the rough, broken Sindarin he preferred, a title that both mocked your Elvish blood and solidified your position as the mate of their progenitor. You were the silent consort to the Uruk lord, a queen in the black kingdom, and your very existence fueled the strange hope he harbored for his people. Adar took a heavy breath, the weariness momentarily displaced by the fierce pride of ownership. He was home.