andie, she/her, 26, united states. this blog is full of Tolkien. also other art, photos, fandoms, and big-eyes-emoji stuff, but mostly Tolkien. i tag! my girlfriend is bright ivanaskye, who is a lot, but not too much
It is night, it is deep night, and I remember the sunrise, I remember the sunset, I remember it all! Every light of every star and every position of the sun and my father, my father now long set from the sky but still traversing across it each evening and morning, the very last Silmaril on the helm of his ship—all of it!
The wind blows in my hair now, as I run down a hill near the sea. I know, I know that I should sleep, and I love to wrap my memories around me—but there is so much to experience! There is so much to feel and see, here and now, with my eyes and heart changed, although not changed at all—in my core, I must have always wanted this, there is no other way I could have chosen it, but now it is, and I want it all, even though I will never run out of this life.
(second chapter of this bc I’m unstoppable. once again I’m sorry @ ppl who follow me for my original work and aren’t prepared to drown in elf fic,,,, I’m so sorry)
The stars, the stars, the stars! I have always loved them, and yet to see them now is somehow a greater joy; which reminds me to ask Elros if he feels the same of the sun, and of course to remind myself now is to remember, to remember completely.
How strange and yet how right it feels to remember each and every thought! Eternal, eternal, not even death can forever take me, for it is told that those who are killed yet become reembodied after time in Mandos’ halls—not even death, not even death.
Additional Tags: Light Angst, Romance, Edain, Poetry, Gondolin, Dor-lómin, reference to canonical death
Summary:
Trying to settle back into his old life after his return from the hidden city of Gondolin, Huor of Dor-lomin meets his future wife Rian of the House of Beor for the first time.
The Enemy wore his father’s jewels upon his crown, and he took the light for that awhile.
One would think that the self-claimed Lord of Arda had better things to do than leer at thralls, Maedhros told him and laughed a little.
But there was only one light and no jibes, no pain greater than that he had already learnt to bear.
He had seen and dreamt more awful things than a blind, pale eye, opening like a wound in the sky. But the wolves down in the depths began to bay, so he knew it wasn’t his fancy.
The whole of Thangorodrim heaved with tiny, scuttling bodies like an antheap overturned, and under the howling wolves he could hear screams. Not Morgoth’s light then, unless it was and he did not care that his thralls suffered. Maedhros turned his face up to it and felt no pain himself, save the smarting of eyes gone too long to the dark.
It was familiar, this light, but he shied from making the comparison.
In the cold glare of it, whatever it was, the mountain’s jagged flanks were frosted silver. He thought of bones and teeth. Did not look down to where his own bones stretched thin, corpse-white skin.
It died eventually, as all things seemed to now, choked by coils of smog and sunk beneath the earth. But new light came and no wan corpse-glow, this. The orcs down in the pit cried out in earnest, and Maedhros hid his face.
A trumpet shrilled.
It burnt just as the light did, with a familiarity that sunk claws into his chest. The same bright notes that had welcomed them home when they were children and their grandfather was king, before all had gone to ruin.
That could not be real.
He screamed anyway, because pride had died long years ago but hope, somehow, had not.
There was no answer.
Of course there was no answer.
Eventually, the noises stopped. The light went away.
And came again.
And went.
And came.
He counted. Ten blinks of light and Morgoth was back to gloat. He was angry, maybe, or afraid, or maybe there was no difference.
A hundred, and the smog grew thick enough to turn the light’s coming to the merest flicker.
(if you followed me for my actual professional original writing content, I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry.)
Oh, how lucky, how lucky am I! To have been offered this choice, I am so lucky—and look, look, here, my footsteps crunch on the fallen leaves, fall has come and with it a wind in the air. It is my third day now—only my third!—fully tethered to this world, living immortally, never leaving it, and oh! How would I ever wish to leave it? How, how ever?
He clutched at the bright scraps of them during the long lonely nights in Taur-nu-Fuin, then started to push them away when he could no longer bear to remember who he had once been. But they never completely left him, and in those fragile spring days in Doriath she began to draw them out of him again. It was to her that he spoke the names of family members, haltingly, for the first time in years.
Some days in Tol Galen, they torment him. Every scent, every sound, the color of his wife’s hair, the little chirp of his son’s voice, every sense summons bursts of memory that he cannot suppress. They rub him raw, every touch reminding him of all that he has lost – it is too much, too much for one man to face, would that the creatures of Sauron had finished me along with all my kin –
But some days he looks at his son and (though Dior is the very image of his mother) he can see Emeldir in the warm grey of his eyes, or Baragund in the stubborn set of his shoulders, and knows that they would have loved this child as much as he does. And some days Lúthien sings a simple song while she works, a song that Andreth sang to all the children in his family even before they knew what the words meant, a song that had been with them since long before Bëor came west, ancient beyond reckoning.
He remembers singing it to Dior himself when his son was only a baby, even though every word tore at him like a wolf’s claws – but now he can hear it and smile, or weep, or both, and some days that is enough.
How about seven of them? Well, six of Matt’s Worst Exes and one…you’ll see.
(We’re stretching the definition of Ex a little here; Learned Their Name is as close to an LTR as Matt’s ever managed)
Robbie
“Hey,” Matt said. “Hey, Robbie. It’s Matt.” He paused to give Robbie a chance to answer, and wished the phone had a cord he could fidget with. The plastic was already slick with the amount his palms were sweating. “Funny story, actually – after you left, I think you- the door kind of-” but he couldn’t say ‘You locked me in your dressing room,’ without sounding whiny and uncool and sixteen, and that was the last thing he wanted. “Anyway, it’s no big deal, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out. Some time. I’m free all- I’m not free but I could, um, I could sneak out if you wanted to- ugh.” Even he knew a lost cause when he heard one and he flopped back on his bed and let the phone slip from his hand to thud on his bedroom carpet.
The dial tone sounded back at him resentfully until Matt groaned and picked it back up for rehearsal number five. He could memorize lines standing on his head – or would be able to if he could stand on his head – but coming up with a script himself was impossible. Every time he thought about calling Robbie he started thinking about Robbie; Robbie’s dark, tousled hair and switchblade grin, Robbie’s dark eyes and the way his voice went rough when he’d run his thumb across Matt’s lower lip and called him sweetheart, pressed him back against the dressing table and tilted his head up-
Matt pinched himself because if he started thinking about Robbie kissing him then he definitely wasn’t going to be calm enough to call him. He pressed his hands to his eyes, watched the little pinwheels and galaxies of colour spin against the black and determinedly didn’t think about how warm Robbie’s hands had been on his hips, where his shirt had hitched up, or what his mouth had tasted like-
Fuck it. Maybe improv was the answer. Matt tapped in the number he’d shamefully memorized and hit dial before he could change his mind.
Should I write Thingol sitting on the floor next to Huan after Beren and Lúthien’s wedding, half-drunk and trying not to be to emotional, and talking to the Maiarin hound about how he remembers the suspiciously large and intelligent canines that appeared in Cuiviénen after Oromë came and who guarded the elven villages while the Valar were capturing Melkor? Sad reminiscing about their families back in Valinor. One of the hounds who liked to play in the water of the lake and who then hung out in Alqualondë later. (Huan awkwardly and shamefully covering a bite mark that only looks like it comes from a wolf). More awkward ‘thanks for looking after my daughter and keeping her safe, being a better friend’ remorse. Begrudging acceptance of new son-in-law gets ecstatically overpowering tail wagging and slobber kisses. Melain finds the pair of them sleeping in the corner, does best to preserve the shreds of their dignity as she sighed. Mablung helps.
Luckily grey dog hair doesn’t show up on gray cloaks.
Came back to this in an upcoming Of Ingwë Ingweron chapter. Still keeping this full idea around for a possible short fic, but here’s the relevant passage:
Millennia would pass before Elwë, now Eu Thingol King of Beleriand, would slouch on the floor of his palace in Menegroth and reach a hand to pet the ears of the Hound of Oromë, valiant Huan. Quiet and subdued, Elu would murmur words of thanks to Huan’s kin.
“Where you there, loyal friend of my daughter and her love?” he would ask in a wine-slurred voice. “What did you and your people think of us and our simple villages?”
Still wiping away tears from his eyes, Námo calls to the other side of the enveloping darkness that formed the outermost ring of the Circles of the World, hoping to reach the ear of Ilúvatar or one of his brethren that did not journey into Arda. He knows there is a counterpart of his that must be the one to hold and handle the mortal souls that leave his Halls and enter Beyond (he hopes, in the way the Children have described and defined hope). Finally, someone answers. At first it is hard to separate the tones from the reverb of his call, and there is a terribly annoying static to the vibrations on the upper places of thought. Manwe never has these issues, he thinks, and never has to wait this long. It is a vaguely familiar voice, but one he has not heard in so long he has forgotten the name that their father assigned them. Something that started with a Ha or He sound, he thinks. Or was it Nef?
“Námo!” the voice calls. “You were not supposed to contact us unless it is of great need. What is this request you ask for?” There are undercurrents of peevishness and stress to the voice, a sense that they are distracted and cannot give him their full attention. It could be merely the distortion of communicating across barriers of existence. Námo tries not the feel any personal offense.
“A great boon,” the Judge says, pitching his tones to those of resolve and determination, and as succinctly as possible describes the situation with Melian’s daughter and her mortal lover. “They wish to remain together, and thus Lúthien is willing to join Beren to his mortal fate, to leave the confines of Arda.”
A great sigh echoes through the Outer Void. “Look, Námo, I know you have all your First Children to deal with and they can be a tad unruly, but we are swamped. Do you realize how exponentially greater the number of the Second Children are, and how swiftly it increases? And how fractious they are? I would trade you positions for some peace and quiet, even if it meant having to share a universe with Melkor. And you want to dump an extra soul on my overworked shoulders? Truly?”
The moratorium on the coldness of his heart has ceased; his sympathies can no longer be manipulated. Námo steels himself and replies, “My brethren and I wish to grant them some years together here on Arda, then allow them to leave together. I will give you time to prepare, and I am only asking you accept one soul. Not even our most intractable. But I swear by the name of our Father and Creator, I will not suffer a second permanent resident of my Halls declaring to never leave my couch and spend all of eternity bemoaning their lost mortal beloved. I have one already, and Vairë is exhausted already listening to him weep and pout and get accidentally tangled in her skeins as he searches for fresh handkerchiefs and frozen dairy sweets. Aegnor is bad enough. I won’t have twice the misery.”
The humming sound that signaled that the Ainur on the other end was only humoring Námo’s rant without giving it consideration screeched to a halt and the line of communication intensified with sudden loudness and clarity. “What was that name?”
“Melian’s daughter that wishes to have a fate of one of the Second Children?”
“No, no, the other. The one already moping in your personal wing of your Halls. The one that was in love with a mortal- it was mutual, wasn’t it? The name, please!”
“Aegnor,” Námo says slowly. “Ambaráto Aikanáro Arafinwion. And the woman he cries over was of the House of Bëor named-”
“AEGNOR!” the counterpart howls with the chords of extreme vexation that he thought only Melkor’s disharmony could inspire. “OH YES, HIM. We are sick of hearing that name. We know the woman of the Third Song, Andreth Saelind. There is not a soul here that does not, to our sorrow. For more than ten of your years, we have had to listen to her complaints, of her list of grievances of the inequalities and ill-planning of Eru’s Songs, critiques of your jobs and ours and philosophical bitching. Of which we always hear from the newly arrived, mistake me not – but this one! Brother, she has gone to Ilúvatar himself and has not shut up. Your Lúthien at least could sing with incomparable beauty and skill. We got her. If I never have to hear another word about her beautiful block-headed Aegnor, I would take all the First Children into my keeping.”
Námo is aghast at what to possibly respond with.
“Look, I’ll talk to Father but I can guarantee he’ll agree. We’ll swap you Lúthien for Andreth. And it’ll take a while for any of us to interrupt her diatribe to inform her of the deal, which should give your Lúthien and Beren a grace period for a second chance at life together. Oh, Most Joyous of Songs! Peace and Quiet at Last! We can be rid of Saelind! I was almost tempted to pull a Tulukhastaz to get away from her. I have never cried before. What are these things on my face?”
ephal ephalak idon hi-akallabeth 