Yield

by bunn

Summary:

An orc considers writing home.

I would write to my mother, to my father, if I thought that they could be free enough to read a letter, if they were able to care what it said.

If they were free from the Eye. Free from the whips. But more than that: free from the hate that keeps them pinned there, serving Him. They hate and fear everything that isn’t them, and most of what they are, and that’s the real chain, the one you can only break yourself.

If there was no Eye, and no Nazgûl, and no big bosses, and no whips, could they walk away from who they are? I wish I knew.

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

What would I say to them?

I’d say: I threw down my arms. I’d say: I cried for mercy. I said I was wrong.

I was terrified, so terrified I couldn’t walk towards them, only lie there, weeping, and that was so much harder than it would have been to fight or run. I thought they would be as cruel as I had been, that I would suffer as I had made them suffer.

I’d say: They did not kill me. They fed me food I could barely eat and clothes that were so very hard to wear. But it got easier with time and now I would choose nothing else.

I’d say: I learned to write the elven letters, and make them beautiful.

I’d say: they trust me now, and I trust them, some of the time, most of the time, enough of the time. I almost trust myself.

I’d say: I want you to know that I’m not alone any more. I am among the Elves, and I am not alone.

Notes:

This story was inspired by the bit in Morgoth's Ring, where we find out "If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost.† This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded.

(† [footnote] Few Orcs ever did so in the Elder Days, and at no time would any Orc treat with any Elf. For one thing Morgoth had achieved was to convince the Orcs beyond refutation that the Elves were crueller than themselves, taking captives only for 'amusement', or to eat them (as the Orcs would do at need).)"

So obviously, I thought, there must be an exception to the rule. All rules have exceptions.