Turdae smiled at her little girl.  "It's been a few weeks since you've seen your daddy, Durwen, but-"

"Your highness."

Turdae froze.  The tone of that voice made her extremely uncomfortable, sent shivers running down her spine.  Something wasn't right.  She turned around, back towards the castle door, holding tightly onto her daughter, who she knew she would defend with her life, whatever happened.  "Yes?"

"Queen Edhelien, you're under arrest."  The woman standing behind her who had spoken both times motioned to the two men on either side of her.  They stepped forward as Turdae stared in shock, as did the woman, who tried to lift Durwen from her arms.  Instead of getting the young princess, however, she got a swift kick in the stomach.  She doubled over and Turdae backed up, until she ran into a wall, the two men following her every step.  One again tried to take Durwen away from her.

"No!" she shrieked, lashing out once more.  "You can't have her!"

Durwen began crying as the second man succeeded in taking her from her mother's grasp.

Turdae screamed and flung herself at him, but was caught around the middle by the first man.  "Let her go!  She's only a baby!" she cried, trying unsuccessfully to escape the hands holding her back.  She was crying more than she had when she'd been banished by her father.  "Please!" she sobbed in desperation.  "Give me my baby back!"

"The princess," began the woman she had kicked, who has straightened up and was no striding not-too-hapilly over to Turdae.  "Will be taken to her father, the King.  You, madam, will go to the dungeon to await your fate.  Depending on the decision made by the king and his advisors, your daughter may yet live.  However, you will certainly be put to death for treason, and the assuming of a false identity, Amarth Turdae."

Turdae stared numbly at the woman.  "You've got to be kidding!  Ask Eldarion!  He can straighten out this rididculous mess!"

"Call it what you will, my lady, but your fate does not rest in my hands."  The woman motioned for Turdae to be taken away, and the man restraining her began prodding her along at once.

"What about my baby?!" Turdae screamed one last time, but there was no answer as the heavy door sutting off the hall to the dungeons from the rest of the castle closed, severing her visual contact of her child, and plunging any hope she had into the dark of blackest night.  It felt somehow more oppressive than the darkness at home in Mordor, for it meant she might never see her child again.

***

She watched, and waited, wondered, and hoped, thought, and tried time and time again to contact her mother, brother, anyone, mentally, and attain help.  Mostly, though, she listened, and waited for anything that would tell her of her fate.  Her father had been right.  She could die here, in Gondor, out of her family's reach.

Around what she thought might have been midnight on what she suspected was her twentieth dat in the dark dungeon, the door creaked open, and a voice she had been longing to hear for, again, what she figured was twenty days, rang off every stone wall.

"Mommy?"

She sat up immediately, running to the iron bars that held her in the cell.  "Durwen!  I'm here, darling!"  She was ready to weep with joy as the child ran to her, throwing her arms as far around her as she could through the bars.  Turdae let out a laugh, a true smile graced her strained face, and she pulled her daughter as close as was possible, kissing the top of her dark hair, refusing to let her escape her strong grip again.  "Who brought you, child?"

The answer could not have upset Turdae more, but it was the one she had instinctively known would come.  "Daddy."  Durwen turned to point to the shadowy figure still lingering by the doorway.