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.

Comments

[tehta.livejournal.com]

1. Must fry eel at nearest opportunity. (Hmm. Smoked eel is quite popular in Poland. I could get some next time I visit and save for a hangover?)
Anyway, glad to hear she followed up on his suggestion.

2. I am full of questions. So, this G has come back to Middle-earth without even telling Ecthelion of his feelings? And now he thinks a song about his M-e exploits (with his horse) will have the same effect?

3. Interesting. Though, actually, very sad. She is not starting a new life -- she is merely evading the old one. I do hope she moves on a little, one day.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I love your Ivorwen and Gilraen!

[suzll.livejournal.com]

1. Ever since the fried eel hangover cure became a Thing in my fic-verse my roommate and I have been plotting to make it some headache-filled morning. One of these days it's going to actually happen. (and I think the smoked eel thing is an excellent idea!)

2. You are now making me think more about this drabble than I did when writing it! Which is good, I suppose, as this was the one that left me the least satisfied upon completion, and now I can expound at least somewhat.

G has come back to Middle-earth having told Ecthelion all of his feelings (and they left in a pretty good place), but is still afraid they won't survive a long-distance relationship (particularly one that, by the third age, is working only one-way in terms of communication). Of course, he does not actually bother to tell Ecthelion any of this (or really write letters much), so Asfaloth's suggestion is coming more from that. On top of that, he's amused by all of the songs Lindir has been composing about them, and thinks E might be amused as well. (somewhere down the line my headcanon evolved such that Lindir is the Slash Bard of Rivendell...).

3. I felt bad, because I know the person who sent me that prompt was angling for a happy-Gilraen fic, and I was like "NOPE SORRY have some sads instead" :(.

I'm working on a longer fic starring Gilraen about ten years after this fic, and while she's moved on in some ways, in other ways there's still a lot of things that she's only now starting to deal with. There will be a lot of confronting it head-on, though, rather than the evasion she's doing here. Seeing her family again is going to help with it, I think...

[suzll.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[tehta.livejournal.com]

2. So, as you may have figured out, I understood 'our great deeds' to refer to the deeds of G and asfaloth in Middle-earth. It makes much more sense if they are the deeds of G&E, so the message is 'remember how awesome we were together' and not 'I am having so much fun here, without you, ha.'

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

Bwa ha ha. Eels. :D

Ah, so it was lovesick Glorfindel. I was thinking it was going to be lovesick Asfaloth. LOL

And gah, the Gilraen one is so melancholy. *sniff* I'd never thought about Gilraen having a special mourning dress. Shades of Laura Ingalls Wilder!

[suzll.livejournal.com]

i've been waiting for the day I can finally put that into a fic, so this prompt made me VERY happy.

LOL Bungo sent me that prompt from the other room and I ducked my head in being like "WHY DID YOU SEND ME A LOVESICK PROMPT ABOUT A HORSE" and she said "to troll you" so I decided I might as well get creative. The other option was Asfaloth pining over Gilraen's horse, Sedilris, lmao.

*forever crying about Gilraen, the life, the blog*

[levade001.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind that I added you as a friend? Feel free to ignore me. I saw you on Cairistonia's LJ.

To echo the above comments, eels for a hangover. Huh. Not sure I'd want to try but if it worked... Definitely thought it would be an Asfaloth romance, which I haven't read yet! I liked what you did though. Poor Ecthelion, getting a letter full of exploits, horses, hobbit rescues and no feelings. One way romance has got to stink. I never thought of how much more peaceful Imladris would be to Gilraen. Really liked it even if it was sad.

[suzll.livejournal.com]

Hah, I just looked at your profile and Star Wars-->Tolkien-->Marvel has pretty much been my exact fandom trajectory, SO. We seem to have things in common! :D (which is to say, I don't mind at all!).

My roommate and I are desperate to try the eel cure one of these days. Though it seems like every time I have a hangover the last thing I would ever want to try is new food. And thanks so much for your comments! Glad you enjoyed :)