Regime Change - by Nancy Brooke
Meneldil raised the sword of his father Anárion, that the light of the ascendant sun might ignite upon it and shine as a beacon of farewell.
Long he stood, watching, as far below the figure of Isildur his uncle gradually waned and faded from view. Yet Meneldil remained. One by one and in coalition those advisors and courtiers who had accompanied him for ceremony’s sake fell away. Still Meneldil stood, and from the zenith of the embrasure spread his sight upon the wounded city of Osgiliath and the blackened, blighted hills from whence Minas Ithil would shine no more. And in his mind, lofty and alone, he began the reordering of kingdom left to him.
Not until evening gathered itself about him and his fair wife Oreldis came to draw him into the comfort and warmth of indoor fires did he relinquish his watch and descend that height.
All about them, then, was shadow: the sky itself had darkened each passing night as the moon had withdrawn himself fading as if in shame since the tower of his namesake had been defiled, and the stars had not yet assembled for their evening dance.
Meneldil did not need to raise his eyes to know this. Nightly since his uncle’s arrival, he had mounted the steps of the newly renamed citadel seeking to consult the heavens, to chart the path he now must take, to seek solace among those lights of the Valar, but nightly the heavens had seemed to withdraw from him and fewer eyes to return his gaze.
All this Menendil knew, yet raise his eyes he did. As his arm passed about the waist of his faithful wife, and he felt again her softness and her strength, he raised his eyes and beheld above them the ever snow-capped and indomitable peaks of Mighty Mindolluin, and saw that they yet remained ablaze with the strength even of the falling sun. And Menendil took heart.