The battlefield shudders beneath my boots — mud trembling, steel clashing, the stench of orc-blood thick as smoke. Men cry out. Orcs snarl. The world is noise and violence.

And then the noise changes.

Not quieter — but sharpened, as though the battle itself holds its breath.

I turn.

And she is there.

The High Queen of the Teleri, Eärwa-Faë Singollo — but not as in the tales men whisper over campfires. Those stories never mentioned the way moonlight seems to cling to her even in the fury of war.

Her armor is nothing like Gondor’s steel. It is pale as dawn-silver, etched with flowing patterns that resemble tides and wind and ancient songs. The plates catch the firelight and scatter it like shards of the moon across the field. Living birch leaves — real ones, impossibly alive — crown her brow, rustling though there is no wind.

Her hair — pure white — streams behind her like a river in stormlight.

And in her hands, she wields a spear I have heard named only in fragments of distant lore:

Eärnaurë — Sea-Fire.

The weapon blazes with pale-blue light as she moves, every strike a streak of cold flame. She pivots, sweeps, strikes — each motion too fast to track, yet impossibly controlled. When the spear-tip meets orc flesh, it is like watching the sea carve stone.

Seven feet tall. Cloaked in moon and silver. Terrible and beautiful and unstoppable.

I forget to breathe.

Around me, soldiers stare as if watching the ancient world rise from the ground. I can feel something inside me shift — not longing, not desire, but a recognition so profound it rattles the bones:

This is no legend. This is no song. This is the truth behind them all.

An orc charges her from the flank.

I open my mouth to call a warning—

But she has already turned. Eärnaurë arcs like a falling star. The creature collapses before it even understands it is dying.

The River, I think. This must be what the old songs meant. The River in full flood — relentless, bright, cleansing, ancient.

And then, gods help me, another thought follows:

Thorin Oakenshield once stood beside her. Thorin Oakenshield once held her loyalty — perhaps even her heart.

I have heard the tale — the Mountain and the River. How she stood with him. How he might have claimed a queen beyond all mortal reckoning. How pride shattered what could have rewritten the songs of Middle-earth.

I see him now across the field — frozen, watching her fight with an expression carved from grief. The kind of grief that lives in the marrow. The kind that no crown can soften.

And understanding hits me like a hammer:

He had this. He had her. And he lost her.

What kind of man stands before a miracle and chooses pride?

Another wave of orcs breaks toward her. She steps forward — no hesitation — Eärnaurë singing in her hands like the meeting of tide and fire.

Something steadies inside me.

Not desire. Not claiming. But resolve, bright as a drawn blade:

I will not waste what others cast aside. I will not overlook what the songs failed to honor. If fate circles her path to mine — I will meet it with open hands, not pride.

When she lifts her spear again, moonlight pouring down the blade, I realize no song ever came close to the truth:

The High Queen does not simply fight.

She remakes the battlefield.

And I — Boromir of Gondor, Captain of the White Tower — can only watch in stunned, breathless awe as the River carves a new legend before my eyes.