Are You Not Entertained

Eltariel internally laughed as she sat in the central throne of the Royal Box in the colosseum with Galadriel to her left in a lesser chair. A few Avari women served them, and the other dignitaries. Their reversal of fortune tickled a bitter part of the enhanced Vanyar Elf.

Down below on an arena of white sand stood her husband in his gold and mithril armor with his long cleaver blade. Across from him the first challenger, Orome the Huntsman stood in silver with a long spear in his hands. The massive crowd was completely silent as a god took his stance, and her husband just tapped his foot, shook his hips, and bobbed his head.

The Vala lunged with incredible speed, a blur even to the eyes of the Elves, but not to Thrag. The Uruk King continued his small dance as if he didn't just stop a spear strike with his hand. He gave a casual tug that almost pulled Orome from his feet forcing the Vala to let go an leap back.

Thrag silently spun and hurled the spear back to the jumping Vala, and the silver weapon shot like a star across the sand burying itself in Orome's heart.

"Noooooo!" shrieked Vana the Ever Young.

She had good reason to cry out, as Thrag's nature as an outer god negated their ability to shrug off the death of an avatar. When facing her husband what you see is what you get as he exterminated Orome both body and soul with another twisting strike of his sword beheading the stunned Vala.

A pair of Uruks took the body off the field for Thrag to continue his great work as he explained to her. Another white ship would rise up from his bones, sinews, and hair. The earth would drink his blood and his flesh would form great predators and mighty monsters such as the cerberus, manticore, and chimera. His organs would become a new multifarious race, the Beastmen, some full beasts shaped only slightly like Men, and others Men with slight beast features.

Or in Thrag speak, 'A cornucopia of interesting people to fight and to fuck. Do you feel that Tari, a great disturbance in the internet, as if a thousand zippers suddenly opened because I am creating kitty and bunny girls.'

Eltariel's musing ended when Thrag's next challenger thundered out of the gate atop his horse, lance held on point to skewer her husband who side stepped and parried the thrust into a counter slash that bisected both Prince Theoden of Rohan and his horse.

A team of Uruks pulled Theodin and his horse away while the next challenger strode out. Lean, tall, dark with shaggy gray flecked hair. Nothing about the man denoted anything of worth beyond his courage to face the King of Mordor and the sword glowing orange in the sunlight.

"The Strider." her husband spoke, "Oathsworn and here for the One Ring."

Thrag stabbed his curved great sword into the sand and drew his side sword.

"I hope you don't feel too offended, it's just I've heard you are the best mortal swordsman in the world, and don't want to bury all that skill under the weight of my chopper." Thrag chuckled and took up a long stance with the tapered tip of his side sword on point with the Strider's chest.

Strider took up a comfortable plow guard on his longsword and the king advanced, touching their sword tips and rubbing them together before easily guiding the Striders sword off point. The man in black obviously moved in this time as well, circling around the larger opponent looking for a safer angle of attack.

Despite his sword functioning as a longsword, his blade came up short against the kings, as a side sword for a fighter ten feet tall is quite large in its own right. Strider stepped in suddenly while transitioning to the roof guard to keep his sword between his body and the blade of the king. Trying to get outside her husband's stance and deliver an downwards swipe that transitions to the ox guard at lighting speed showed the Strider's skill, but the king simply drew his arm back, repositioning his own sword and foiling the attack entirely.

The return of the king's arm to his long stance thrust his blade at the Strider's chest as the Man hastily disengaged and batted the point away. The king rolled his wrist, causing his sword to pass around the Strider's without making contact and finished the thrust scoring a stab to the Man's right breast.

The Strider's breath quickly became wet and ragged and his guard weakened on that side. In the next pair of exchanges the king landed another pair of easy stabs before bringing down a quick cut on the final disengage that split open the Strider's forehead.

The Man dropped his glowing sword and took a shaky step forward before falling onto his belly.

Eltariel noted the immediate grief of Elrond's daughter and briefly wondered why Uanor never talked about her when plotting his dream of seducing a princess. Sure, Arwen Evenstar was the daughter of a herald, not a king, but descended from a king on her mother's side.

Why that boy fixated on the girl from Dol Amroth puzzled his mother, but the arrival of Glorfindel on the sands of battle pulled her from that line of thought.

The Elf truly deserved his place as Lord of the House of Golden Flowers, for Glorfindel embodied everything of traditional golden Elven beauty from his hair to his sabatons. He carried with him a winged great sword, and in response to his arrival Thrag took up his shield.

A golden pavise strapped to his arm with a vicious spike on the end for delivering deadly jabs posed a difficult question to the strongest Elf warrior, one blessed with the power of a Maiar, and despite his gilded armor he danced around the arena with greater ease than the strider before him, but never did his great sword find any purchase, always caught on the shield or sword while the other hand thrust to deliver an ill intentioned point to the warriors exposed face under his barbute helmet.

Thrag respected the Elf's armor, choosing not to simply break the flesh under it with great impacts or hew it like he did with the sloppy charge of Theoden. Eltariel watched her husband tease out Glorfidel's techniques over several minutes before seeing enough and running his sword into the golden Elf's face.

The fall of Glorfindel impacted morale harder than the death of Orome, as the golden warrior had been a mainstay in the fight against evil since the first age, and the sight of Lord Celeborn approaching just filled the non-Mordor audience with even more dread, as the man though mighty and experienced lacked the fullness of Glorfindel's blessed power.

The husband of Galadriel simply lay his sword on the sand in surrender and left from whence he came. Valid under the official ruleset as battle was not yet joined, but it earned the ire of nearly everyone assembled. Prince Legolas took enough personal affront to fling himself into the arena as Celeborn's replacement, but more likely than not wanted to be on the roster of champion's from the start and was prevented by his father, King Thranduil.

Before the Elf Prince drew his blades, the large form of Ulmo, King of the Sea, stopped him.

"Not today." the Vala growled, trident in hand.

"Don't worry, Poseidon. I'll make this quick." Thrag spoke as he pulled his great cleaver from the sand.

The audience readied the hearts for the death of another god.