Drabbles ahoy!

[saelind]

After a week of fucking terrible writer's block, I reblogged a drabble meme on Tumblr, which requested that people send in a word matched with a character as a prompt. Several people sent me prompts (THANK YOU FRIENDS), and now I've got three Tolkien-drabbles, two of which I'm pretty pleased with (I still can't seem to write Glorfindel to my satisfaction?? It's a continual upward struggle). But I digress. If you're interested, they're behind the cut!

Ivorwen, Fascinated

Ivorwen was not normally prone to experimentation. She was a healer, and trying out an untested remedy at the wrong time could lead to disaster or death for her patients. Better to use the methods she had been taught, and trust herself to carry them out to the best of her ability.

But hangovers were harmless enough, unpleasant as they could be, and when it came to the folk cures her husband brought home from Bree her curiosity often got the better of her.

She poked lightly at the eel that lay in the frying pan. It seemed cooked enough.

"Do you really think this is going to work?" she asked, and struggled to keep the amusement out of her voice.

"I’ll try anything," Dírhael groaned.

Asfaloth, Lovesick

"Do you know the pain of love, Asfaloth?" Glorfindel sighed. "To know your beloved dwells still beyond the sea, never to return to Arda? I am sure he has forgotten my by now, has moved on to other affairs, perhaps less adventurous…"

Asfaloth made an impatient noise and shook his head in exasperation. His bells jingled. If his master truly wished to be remembered by Ecthelion, he would do well to make his affections known, rather than brooding over them from afar with his horse. Ships were still sailing to Valinor, and pen and paper had been invented for just such a purpose.

"I suppose you’re right." Glorfindel patted Asfaloth’s neck. "It has been awhile since I’ve written to him, after all. Why, he hasn’t even heard Lindir’s latest composition of our great deeds…"

Asfaloth nickered in satisfaction. Elves could be truly dense, sometimes.

Gilraen, Warm
Gilraen dreaded the return of summer’s heat. It brought back memories she had done so well to forget, and anniversaries she did not care to confront. She stopped marking dates on the calendar, went quiet when Elrond talked of midsummer celebrations, and hoped she could pass by the day of Arathorn’s death without reliving it.

She had nearly fainted on the day of his funeral, the black wool of her mourning dress suffocating her in the heat, oppressive in its grief. She had stayed upright only through sheer stubbornness, unwilling to be broken before her people, and stumbled through the rites in a haze of dizziness and faint nausea. But she collapsed onto the floor as soon as she entered the Chieftain’s house, and her mother had to tend to her until she felt well enough to partake in the debates that would decide her future and that of her son’s.

Decisions that had brought her to where she was today.

"Do you think you could call this home, one day?" Merineth asked her one night. The air was filled with the sweet smell of nectar, and the quiet only broken by crickets and the faint tunings of a harp in the corner of the courtyard. The peace of life in Imladris was still not something Gilraen could get fully used to, and the languid warmth of summer only served to increase Rivendell’s serenity. Her son ran across the lawn, laughing as he tried to catch a firefly, and she marveled once more at the safety she felt, safety her former life had never afforded her.

Summer here would not be the same as summer in the Angle. She prayed that would be enough to help her see it through.