#the orcs now living in mordor: get out of our house

[ladyespera]

[lesbiansforboromir]

"Yet even so it was Gondor that brought about its own decay, falling by degrees into dotage, and thinking that the Enemy was asleep, who was only banished not destroyed. 

 'Death was ever present, because the Numenoreans still, as they had in their old kingdom, and so lost it, hungered after endless life unchanging. Kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living, and counted old names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons. 

  Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked questions of the stars. And the last king of the line of Anarion had no heir." 

Faramir's explanation for Gondor's ‘decline’ is... incoherent.. what the hell are you on about m’love?

The way this reads is so completely misleading when looking at the actual history and reasons for Gondor's receding borders and the loss of the watch on Mordor. Faramir puts the onus on Gondorian Kings wanting to live longer and not having kids... babe? Did you forget... the plague? Gondor WAS watching for activity in Mordor. For 1640 years! And then there was a plague so devastating that it turned the country’s most populous city into a near ghost town. It took 200 years for Gondor to recover, and even then it never truly reached the population levels it had maintained before. Osgiliath was never the same! And by then Mordor had taken the fortresses at the Morannon! 

There is absolutely no mention of Kings or Stewards who were desperately seeking to extend their life in Gondor’s history. Where are these tombs more splendid than the houses of the living? All the Kings not buried in Osgiliath are buried in the Silent Street... There is no mention of achingly elaborate tombs anywhere! 

There WERE however some Kings who did not marry or have children! ... Two, there were just two of them... out of thirty three. Narmacil I was Atanatar's son and reigned in the HEIGHT of Gondor's wealth. He essentially allowed his nephew Minalcar to run the country whilst he had a great time writing poetry and kissing men. And Minalcar did a really good job! He fought wars, he made alliances, he built the Argonath and when it actually came around to his time to be King, he had a nice and peaceful reign! And when his son Valacar wanted to marry a Northern Princess? Even though the worry in Gondor was that that would ‘weaken’ the King’s line and reduce their lifespan? He supported him! Gave his blessing! 

The other King who never married or had any children was Earnur! You all remember Earnur? Oh sure, he desperately wanted to extend HIS life past its natural limits! Fighting in two wars and then riding off into an obvious trap just because he'd been challenged really gives me a whole 'old man in his dotage fears death' vibe. And that was the ‘last king of the line of Anarion who had no heir’. You know WHY he was the last king? Because the King before his father Earnil II (King Ondoher) and his two sons had died! In a massive fuckall war with the Balchoth that nearly saw Gondor destroyed! PRINCE Faramir was TOLD to stay behind! But he was so anxious for his family and so wished to not simply sit and wait for death that he HID amongst the ranks of the Eotheod and went to war anyway!! AND DIED!! Asking questions of the stars??? Making strange elixirs?? Mused uselessly on heraldry??? WHEN? FARAMIR?? Was Ondoher daydreaming about stars and heraldry as he was cut down by a chariot??? Was Artamir brewing potions mid-battle?? WHAT are you talking about!!!

Where are these men fearing death who brought Gondor into it's decline that Faramir is talking about? Is he lying? No, I actually believe Faramir when he says he would not even snare an orc in a falsehood. The things Faramir says are things he believes. But then how, when he is so well known for his loremastership, can he be so misleading and plain wrong about something so basic to Gondorian history? Well I have a suggestion but it means Faramir’s at least a little homophobic so bear with me and I promise this is relevant.

So, obviously, the ups and downs of Gondor society in terms of queer liberation would be complex and rely upon a diverse number of factors. However, I’d say that, if you looked at an overall trend, it goes up in times of peace and takes a hit during times of strife. The basic reasoning for this is that one of the fundamentals of Gondorian society is the concept of doom and fate. This can give both correct and erroneous impressions of cause and effect throughout history. Gondorians tend to believe everything happens for a reason. And due to the (sometimes quiet but always present) elf-and-faithful-numenorean-ruled thinkers, who push ideas of proper marriage, celebacy, romance-superiority and other cis-het-normative agendas, the ‘reason’ that bad things happen is often blamed on the queer liberation of the times. The populace is open to being given reasons for bad things happening and Academia in Gondor is very much elf-revering, so it is often respected scholars who are pushing that narrative. 

HOWEVER, the queerness is rarely what is actually remembered or recorded in history, the wording of records are often bound up in the faithful numenorean rhetoric of ‘heretical kings’ and ‘they fell into the trap of king’s men ideology’ and so on and so forth. Scholars might understand what this means at the time, but it gets muddled further down the road and even academics in the future have trouble finding the intended emphasis. So! By the time we reach 3018 TA, the academic community as a whole has reached a general consensus that ‘the old sins of our past’ are to blame and that, whilst queerness was a part of it, it was more a symptom than a direct cause. 

So! The thought process I’m proposing for Faramir should be easy to guess at now, but I’m going to go more specific for the sake of... me uwu. 

GONDOR has not known peace for the last 500 years, not since Steward Denethor the first’s reign wherein the so called ‘watchful peace’ ended and Sauron returned to Mordor. NOW, before Denethor, his uncle Dior was the Steward and, as you’ve probably guessed, he had no children and nor did he marry. I would suggest that Dior lived through one of the most tolerant and open portions of Gondor’s history. I think he not only was open about his choice not to marry, but he also had a socially accepted partner and lived with him all his life with only a small, vocal minority voicing their objections. 

But then Sauron returned! And it was brutal, bloody and horrific. And that vocal minority saw an opportunity to use Dior’s life as a method to push Gondor once again into it’s regular crisis of conscience, faith and purpose. ‘We betrayed our founder’s’ and ‘We should have been ruled by Dior’s son but because of his weakness against his ill-fate we are doomed, he abandoned his duty! A pitiful fate but pitiful for us as well!’ And so on and so forth, there are reems of academic works written about it.

Now, this doesn’t have an immediate crushing effect on queer rights that one might fear. Denethor I loved his uncle dearly and would not hear a bad word about him, as did Boromir I! And Cirion? Cirion was almost more alternative than Dior. He sold off portions of land when the Stewards had been told to keep them IN TRUST for the king’s return. He made enduring and reciprocal alliances with the Eotheod ‘middle men’, he was very much anti-traditionalist! However, it was after his reign that Gondor truly felt the backlash of all this, spurred on by Cirion’s very alternative views, actions and methods. Because whilst he may have been an effective and charismatic Steward, Cirion had not found so much time to be a good father. And Hallas had been fifteen when his father had left him behind and ridden to war. He had a frightening and lonely childhood and was very open to the idea that his father was wrong, had gone too far, that things should be ‘brought back to normal’. Stability being key and all. The vocal minority had his ear. 

And since then, whilst opinion has still fluctuated, the constant unrest and simmering crisis of Gondor’s day to day has made progress against such concepts difficult and slow going. And it’s informed the opinion of history too, a lot more academic writing has compared Dior to Narmacil I (the first unwed and unmarried King) and has tried to find parallels between them and Earnur. Any explicit discussion of queerness has been relegated to Sindarin scripts (the language only really understood by academics and the upper classes), but the underlying tone is there HENCE! 

“falling by degrees into dotage, and thinking that the Enemy was asleep“ = Dior ‘abandoned his duty’ and Narmacil I ‘was indolent’.

“the Numenoreans still [-] hungered after endless life unchanging.” = A melding of heretical beliefs that occurred over centuries into one monolith that applied longing for endless life automatically.

“Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; [-] compounded strong elixirs, [-] asked questions of the stars.” = This is all both reaching back to heretical practices in Numenor, whilst also harkening back to the periods of time in which Dior and Narmacil lived, peaceful times where more introspective and experimental pursuits could be indulged. 

SO! This is where Faramir’s erroneous and misleading opinions come from. And why he is at least a little homophobic. There, I told you all I’d get there. 

[wheres-everyone-going-bingo]

Alright imma just throw a concept out there, good sexy orc/uruk hai reader tops Legolas. I'm just saying, if there were good boi versions 👀

Night Watch

Pairing: Legolas x Uruk Hai Male Reader

Warnings: smut

——————-

The campsite smelt foul, not only did it have the stench of orcs but it was accompanied by the smell of burning flesh of an orc who stood out of place. We had been on the trail of the fellowship for a few weeks now, finally catching up to them when they rested in a clearing in the woods. The party had split up, trying to escape, but our numbers had overpowered them. Now they sat tied to an old oak tree. I wasn’t a stranger to killing, I had done it many times. However I had done it in self defense, I didn’t see the honor in tracking down, and killing a group of people trying to better the world. I wasn’t on board with Sauron’s rule, it sounded like hell.

I stood from my seat on the ground, heading towards where we kept our food. Opening the sack I was greeted with various pieces of bread, and a few stashes of rabbit. I picked out my rations, turning to glance at the fellowship, I tried to remember the last time they had eaten. My mind came up blank. I grabbed a few extra pieces of food, making sure no other orcs saw me.

The elf noticed my approach first, he tensed up, warning the others of my presence. I gave them a smile, trying to be as comforting as possible, but judging by the smallest hobbits reaction, it didn't work.

“What do you want, orc?” The dwarf spat at me, I grimaced at the harshness in his words.

“I uh, just noticed that my tribe hasn’t fed you since your capture” I replied, revealing the food in my hands. They all eyed me with suspicion as I placed the food next to their hands.

“It’s poisoned isn’t it?” The dirtiest looking human asked, obviously not seeing my good intent.

“Look, I know that I’m an orc, it’s obvious. However I would appreciate it if you thought to yourself that maybe all of us aren’t bad. It’s impossible to have an entire race with rational thought, and for all of them to be evil, some of us think for ourselves” I spoke to them, desperately trying to get my point across. They stared at me, watching my every move with caution. I sighed, noticing their stubborn distrust in me. “Fine, I see you don’t trust me, but you either die of ‘poison’ or starvation” I muttered, walking away from the group.

“He does have a fair point” Boromir offered, picking up his food to examine it.

“I’ll try it” Legolas spoke up, willing to put his life on the line for his friends. Legolas brought the bread to his mouth, taking a small bite. Everyone looked at him intently, waiting for him to drop dead or something. He then took another bite, not realising how hungry he was until now.

“It is settled then, we shall eat” Aragorn said, taking a bite of his food. The fellowship watched the strange orc intently for the rest of the night, noting how he kept to himself.

The sun rose along with the orc warriors. However this morning was more chaotic than usual, a fight had broken out among the tribes. The Snaga had gotten out of line and questioned my people, resulting in a massive fight. I made sure to stay hidden, not wanting to get involved in the bloodshed. I noticed a gangly Snaga creeping towards two of the hobbits, licking his lips as he drew his knife.

“Please don’t eat us!” Pippin pleaded, eyes wide at the rusty blade in the orc’s hand

“Yeah! We’re only skin and bone!” Merry added, as the rest of the party struggled against their restraints, trying to save the pair. The orc raised his knife, ready to stab Merry. He let out a horrible squeal as blood rushed from a stump where his hand used to be. Everyone’s eyes turned to me as I held my sword, now stained with the Snaga’s blood.

“You! You cut off my hand!” He snarled in fury, clutching the stump close to his chest.

“Yes, now run away before you lose your head too” I warned, pointing my sword at him, he took the hint and scurried off in fear. “Are you okay?” I asked the hobbit, scanning him with my eyes to make sure he wasn’t wounded.

“I, uh, yes, I think so” He responded, mouth agape. I nodded, kneeling down, bringing out my knife to cut the rope that was tying them to the tree. The rope gave up, falling to the ground in pieces.

“You should go, while everyone is distracted” I advised them, handing them their stuff. The group got to their feet, taking all of their stuff and equipping it. They started to walk away quietly until one of them stopped, turning to me.

“What about you? Surely they’ll kill you” Legolas questioned, worried about my well being

“They most likely will, yes, but I’m okay with that” I smiled at him, walking back towards camp.

“Wait!” I felt a hand on my arm “Come with us? We could use someone of your strength and you know the enemies plan” Legolas pleaded with me, not letting go of my arm

“We are not allowing him to come with us!” Boromir exclaimed, looking shocked at the very idea

“Are you daft, elf? He’s an orc! He’ll kill us” Gimli tried to reason, not forgetting what terrible things orcs had done to his bloodline.

“They don’t want me to come, majority rules” I smiled at the elf, grateful for his concern, however his grip only tightened.

“You do not have to come with us all the way, but please, come with us, come with me” He begged, I sighed, nodding my head, knowing that he was too stubborn and every second more we spent at the camp, would put them in even more danger.

--------------------

It had been a few weeks since that day at the camp. The group, especially the dwarf, did not trust me at all at first but had slowly begun to warm up to me. The hobbits had shown their thankfulness of my rescue by putting together a cheerful song about ‘the orc with a heart of gold’. Although Legolas was not like the other party members. He did not engage in friendly sparring but instead rested his head on my lap when he found it hard to sleep, something about him was different.

I was supposed to be on watch tonight, but the others, besides Legolas and the hobbits, didn’t trust me to watch over their sleeping bodies, so they had Legolas stay up with me. We were discussing beautiful landscapes that we had come across in our travels, he had a lot more examples as Mirkwood was a lot prettier than Mordor.

“I love hearing you talk” I told him “You just have so many good stories, sounds much better than being an orc in Mordor”

“You know when this is all over, you can come live with me in Mirkwood” He offered, I scoffed at the idea

“An orc? In Mirkwood? I’d be killed on the spot”

“I won’t let that happen, I don’t care if my father disowns me and I’m banned from Mirkwood, I’m not going to let you go back to that life” He turned to me, his face dead serious. I grinned to myself, glad that he cared for me. “It’d be great, we could get a house together, I’d introduce you to elven traditions and foods, and we could even share a bed” He said the last bit quieter than the rest.

“You want to share a bed?” I asked, meeting his gaze.

“If you, uh, I mean, if you wanted to” He tumbled over his words, his face heating up.

“I’d like that” I told him, finding his embarrassed state very cute.

“What else would you like?” Legolas pried, leaning closer to my body

“A nice meal, to not be so cold, and avo have ukex wiavh lat” I admitted, saying the last part in orcish. Legolas tilted his head, not understanding orcish.

“What’s that last part mean?”

“avo have ukex wiavh lat translates to ‘to have sex with you’” I looked away, my turn to be embarassed. I heard Legolas chuckle next to me

“You’re not very subtle” He joked “But as long as we’re quiet we don’t have to wait for that” He whispered to me. I smirked, iking where this was going. Legolas crawled onto my lap, steadying himself by putting his hands on my shoulders. He rolled his hips, pressing down on me. I let out a primal snarl as I grabbed onto Legolas’ hips.

I pressed my lips against Legolas’ my tusks getting in the way slightly. I trailed my mouth down Legolas’ neck, biting at his smooth skin with my teeth. He gasped as I found his sensitive spot, quickly biting down on his knuckle, trying to keep quiet. My hands tugged at his pants, desperate to remove them. Legolas lifted himself off of me slightly, pulling his pants down.

I wrapped my rough hand around Legolas’ cock, giving it a few pumps as he bit down on his knuckles harder.

“Oh, please, take your pants off” Legolas breathed in my ear, clawing at my garment. I obeyed his request and tugged my pants down to my ankles.

Legolas put his fingers in his mouth, coating them in saliva. He started to push them in and out of his ass, putting on a show for me.

“I’m ready for you now” He purred in my ear, as he lined himself up with me. I let out a low guttural sound as he pushed himself down on me. He started to move, pushing himself up and down on me over and over. I couldn’t hold in my urge anymore and threw him to the ground, me on top of him.

I growled in his ear, roughly thrusting in and out of Legolas. The biting of his lips and concentration to be quiet displayed his pleasure. I started to growl and make animalistic sounds as I pounded the elf into the dirt. He started to swear in elvish nearing his release.

“Y/N, oh, I’m going to cu-“ he stuttered, losing control of his body’s movements. The feeling of Legolas’ body clenching around me was enough to push me to my orgasm. I came inside him, we pulled away from each other, looking around to make sure we woke no one up.

“Looks like we got away with it” Legolas whispered as we clothed ourselves.

“I’m glad, maybe we could do it again some time?” I offered, leading him back to the rock that we were sitting on.

“Yeah, let's do that” he smiled at me.

[katedrakeohd]

After the Rain

(Wacky Drabbles #51)

On a drizzly grey, February morning, Drake is in his closet picking out clothes for his morning workout. The renovations to the basement gym facilities were finally complete and he was anxious to try them out. The former Duchess of Valtoria had been an eccentric woman and an exotic animal collector. Along with her menagerie of wild animals she had also kept an alligator pool under the manor. Thankfully the gators had been relocated after one had tried to escape. After the old Duchess died, the pool was drained and that part of the building had been closed off for safety reasons.

Drake missed having access to the Royal Palace’s training gym and swimming pool and upon hearing about the available space under the manor he couldn't wait to make an exercise gym of their own. And with an indoor pool no less. Kate was sceptical that Drake could make the dudgeon-like, former reptile habitat into anything useful, and being pregnant she had other priorities. But she promised Drake that once the necessary baby proofing of the upper part of the manor was completed, he could pursue his own project.

Once Drake was dressed in his sweats and running shoes, he packed a towel, his bathing suit, extra t-shirt, shorts and phone into his duffel bag. He wasn't sure yet what kind of workout he was going to do, but wanted to keep his options open. On his way out of the closet with his bag, he hears the sound of a notification coming from his phone. He pulls it out of the pocket to check. It's a weather report:

⛈ Heavy rain, and possible thunder showers are expected in Valtorian County for the afternoon of Thursday, February 13th.

Drake frowns, knowing that Kate suffered from anxiety about thunderstorms. He decides to ask her if she wanted to come along with him, so she wouldn't be alone. Or if she wanted him to stay to keep her company. Turning the corner and walking into the bedroom, Drake finds Kate sitting up in bed with a nest of blankets all around her. To him she looked adorable with her hair piled up on her head in a messy bun, wearing his pyjama shirt with the long sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She had a magazine open in front of her and was sipping a cup of tea. When he approaches the bed, she looks up with a smile, “Don't you look all sporty, off to wrestle some gators down in the dungeon?”

Drake laughs, setting his bag on the corner of the bed and leaning down to kiss her on the cheek. “It's hardly a dungeon anymore. Why don't you come with me and I can show you the improvements we've made?”

Kate carefully leans over to set her tea cup on the end table, trying not to tumble out of bed, her large belly made her top heavy. “I'll pass for now. Take some pictures of what our new gym looks like. I'm hoping it's more spa like, and less stone walls, chains and rocks for weight lifting.”

Drake shakes his head, placing his hands on his hips “Who do I look like to you, an orc from the depths of Mordor? I know we live in a stone house that looks medieval, but come on, I can accomplish something a lot more modern than that.”

Kate looks Drake up and down in his sweat pants, and t-shirt that accentuated the swell of his biceps and showed off his hairy forearms, thick wrists and strong hands. She knew how much he loved to show off the physical results of his daily workouts. He may have adopted the cushy life of a Duke, but he refused to let himself appear soft and weak because of it. Knowing this though, Kate can't help but tease him a little after his Lord of the Rings reference.

“Definitely not an orc, but with that shaggy hair and those big feet of yours you could pass for a tall hobbit.”

Drake snorts with a smirk, picking up his bag, “Just for that I'm not inviting you to spend Breakfast with me later.”

Kate giggles, “Not even second Breakfast?”

“Nope,” he attempts to frown but can't, raising his chin to hide a mischievous grin on his way to the door. He drops the act as Kate goes back to her magazine, “All goofing aside, it's going to rain all day and there's a chance of thunder. Are you going to be Ok if I'm not around once the rumbling starts?”

Kate smiles, her eyes shining with gratitude, “I'll be fine, thanks honey. Hana is coming over to keep me company, and have a girls day with me. If the thunder gets too loud I'll just use the noise canceling headphones you gave me. Go get all buff and sexy, and I'll see you later.”

Drake turns back from the door to crawl across the bed to give Kate another kiss before he leaves. When she leans into him, and wraps her arms around his neck, he reluctantly pulls back, whispering, “Or maybe I'll skip the workout and stay here.”

Kate smooths the hair back from his face and traces the shell of his ear with her fingers. She enjoys the way his eyes darken as he lifts his eyebrow and gazes back at her, accepting her touch as an invitation to stay. She playfully traces his bottom lip with her thumb, as he leans in for another kiss. He avoids her mouth and kisses the side of her neck instead, causing her to cringe and giggle at the tickling of his lips on her skin. “But Hana…” she squirms, as Drake works on unbuttoning her top.

Drake kicks off his shoes, pushing the magazines to the side, as he moves over to straddle Kate's knees. She places her hands on his shoulders in an attempt to push him back as he leans forward to press a kiss to her lips and lean her toward the headboard. He braces his hands on the headboard on either side of her head, and she shakes her head with a grin. “She's going to be here any minute.”

“I only need another minute…or two.” He chuckles, sitting back to finish unbuttoning her top. When her shirt falls open he grins at how her full breasts rest on top of her full belly. He leans in again and Kate sighs, dropping her hands to her sides. Expecting him to bury his face in her breasts, she's pleasantly surprised when he delicately cradles her belly and kisses it instead. “Baby needs kisses goodbye too.”

Kate strokes his hair as he places little butterfly kisses all over her belly, murmuring sweet nothings to the baby. “Daddy can't wait to meet you…Give me a little wiggle if you can hear me…hehe I felt that. Daddy loves you."

Happy tears mist Kate's eyes as Drake caresses gently with his thumbs and she feels their baby move. “Someone else is eager to meet Daddy.” she whispers.

There's a gentle knocking at the bedroom door, and Kate blinks, wiping at her eyes. “Time to go.” She smiles, laying her hand on Drake's cheek.

He sits up and gives Kate one last kiss before climbing off the bed, “I'll go let her in.”

Drake grabs his bag, and shoves his feet back into his shoes as the knocking comes again. “Coming,” he calls out.

Kate hears Drake and Hana exchange quiet “Good mornings,” and quickly pulls her shirt back together managing a couple of buttons. She sits back up in bed just in time to see Hana wheel a Breakfast trolley in with various sweet and savoury offerings, along with a pot of tea. On the bottom of the trolley is a basket of magazines, along with a basket of various beauty supplies for their Girls Day.

Drake quietly slips out the door with a wink to Kate, and then closes the door behind him.

“Good morning, Kate!” Hana bubbles with enthusiasm, as she leans in to give her a hug.

“Hi, sweety.” Kate answers, hugging her back.

Hana scampers over to pull a chair over to the side of the bed, to sit down. “Ready for Happy Friends Day?”

Kate frowns slightly and glances at the heart shaped cookies and red, white and pink themed items on the trolley. “Oh yeah, tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I can't believe you remembered to do all of this for us today.”

Kate couldn't believe she had forgotten that tomorrow was Valentine's Day. This was going to be their first Valentine's Day together, and she had totally forgotten a gift for Drake.

@julychoiceschallenge #Day14-Love

[tanoraqui]

i know this is super old, but for the crit role/lotr crossover you wrote, what was your plan for percy? (my instant thought on who he might be was saruman, but more reasonably i'm guessing he would have been eowyn?)

[the AU in question]

I was going to give Cassandra half a break, actually, and let her be Eowyn.

It’d go a lot like this:

…

It’s difficult to travel incognito across open plains with a bear, so they didn’t try. They stopped before the Riders could get to them and let themselves be circled, and when Vex put her hand on her bow and Vax fingered a dagger hilt, Keyleth put her hands on both their shoulders and stepped forward. “Riders of Rohan! What news?”

The blond young man at the head of the company kept his hand on his sword, and leaned forward over his horse’s neck only warily. “I should ask the same of you. What brings two elves, a bear, and a woman to the Western mark of Rohan?”

“Hunting orcs,” said Keyleth, unflinching despite the warlike stares of the riders. “They’ve taken a couple of our friends. We want them back.”

“And who are you, to hunt orcs on our lands?”

“I am called Minxie,” she said, “and I am from the North. My companions hail from Mirkwood.” Her eyes sharpened upon a brooch on his shoulder, and armor that would be white, were it cleaner. “What brings a warrior of the Paleguard to the Western mark? Should you not be tending upon King Fredrick?”

“Fredrick is dead,” the captain said bluntly. “Percival now sits the throne, and-”

He swallowed some speech, and continued roughly, “I am Kynan. Lady Cassandra bid us here. To hunt orcs, in fact, which we have done.”

…

Whitestone was beautiful in the afternoon light. In the morning, once could suppose the pale stone that gave the city its name would sparkle with dew; in the afternoon, the sun turned them to gold and fire, so that the whole king’s palace of Rohan seemed alight.

The guards at the door held strange weapons, stocks of wood attached to cylinders of dark metal, triggers as though for crossbows where they joined. They were much like the weapons the orcs had carried, which shot pellets of metal and sounded like thunder.

“What are those damn devices of Isengard doing here?” Vex murmured to her friends.

“Maybe they’re allied after all, and we’re all about to die,” Vax murmured back. Keyleth just grimaced.

The guard they were passing, it turned out, had sharp ears. “Percival invented these weapons,” he said sharply, “who is now king. The Lady of Isengard is an ally, but how the orcs began making them, we do not know.”

“Is that the word, in Whitestone,” Gilmore said darkly. The guard blanched, but Gilmore still looked grimmest of all.

…

The Lady Cassandra was pale; the darkest thing about her the dark hair that fell in ringlets around her shoulders, and even that seemed faded, and streaked with white. She did not move upon the bed; she barely seemed to breathe.

“As I said, it was her own foolish fault,” said Percival. He was less frenetic, staring at his sleeping sister rather than the inventions of his laboratory, yet it did nothing to ease the wanness of his own face. “She raced out to the Westfold, even though I bid her stay here, and a Black Rider fell upon them. They brought her home four days ago, and she has not woken since.”

“Another grave loss,” murmured Anders. “All the more reason to keep our forces-”

“Nonsense,” Keyleth said briskly, and pushed him to the side. “Percy - that is, sire, do you have any athelas? Or kingsfoil, or-”

…

“Percival son of Fredrick, esteemed King of Rohan,” called the wizard, and her speech was proud but respectful, melodious and warm. “Why do you attack me? I have only created great works - and you have done the same! In this we are matched, and I consider it with pride, for I have only ever admired and supported the ingenuity of man. The other races, Percival, and you know thisin your heart, they lack your dynamic ability to adapt, to build upon failure so quickly that success becomes an inevitability.”

Vex and Vax rolled their eyes in mirrored motions; Keyleth pursed her lips; Kima shifted her axe with a growl and might have drawn it were it not for Allura’s hand on her shoulder. All seemed to wait on Percival, who did not speak.

Ripley continued, a hand outstretched. “If you leave this place in peace - or better, if you will come and discuss your plans with me, your thoughts for the future - I have faith that you will all succeed in your mission. And I am glad - for I have no interest in the tyranny of Mordor.”

Her words were reasonable - a mentor to a promising but wayward student, a queen to a beloved ally. Forgiving of the past and burning with passion for the future. To those who fell under its spell, it seemed inevitable that Percival would nod and ascend the steps of the tower; to those who hadn’t, it seemed equally inevitable. Gilmore watched without a word.

Percival scoffed, and looked past Ripley to where Anders crouched on the roof. “You really follow her? Are you an idiot?”

…

Get up, Vex whispered to herself, in the silence of her own mind. Quiet seemed to have fallen over the battlefield as well, or at least her small corner of it. The terrible black beast and its dark Rider demanded it. Get up, daughter of Mirkwood. Daughter of Imladris. Get up, or the idiot king you promised to protect is going to die, and so will everyone else. Vax is in that city somewhere; get up.

But it was not her hand that drew a ringing sword; it was not her voice that declared, “Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, queen of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!”

A voice as cold as a night on Weathertop hissed back, “Come not between the Nazgûl and her prey! No mortal man may hinder me, and any who try shall be borne away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.”

And then Vex did look up, for what answered the Nazgûl was a laugh, bright and clear and nearly as cold, and yet bearing in it the echo of sunlight. What she saw was a young woman, standing between the Witch-Queen and the fallen steed and body of the young king of Rohan, and her sword was steady as she removed her helm to reveal dark hair streaked with white.

“But I am no man! I am Cassandra, de Rolo and shieldmaiden. I have looked on your kind before and I fear you not - but I do swear, you shall not touch my brother, for living or dark undead, I shall smite you where you stand!”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: 01 Mar 2020 (Make Mordor great again, N95 Mask of the Red Death, Medicare for All with Covid, Necessity Defense)

Today's links

Trump's rhetoric fits eerily well into the Tolkien canon: AR Moxon makes Mordor great again.

The wealthy are chartering jets to avoid coronavirus: The Masque of the Red Death takes to the skies.

The US already has Medicare for All: The day that Trump declares a national health emergency.

America's uninsured will turn a covid crisis into a covid disaster: Our shared microbial destiny cannot be denied.

Jury refuses to convict Extinction Rebellion activists: Long live the "necessity defense" and the human race it protects.

This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Trump's rhetoric fits eerily well into the Tolkien canon (permalink)

AR Moxon's satirical riff on how Trump would play as a Tolkien villain is not only hilarious, it's also exactly the kind of thing the Tolkien estate used to threaten to sue people over.

https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1233207274992263168?s=19

(which is why Pat Murphy's astoundingly great genderswapped retelling of The Hobbit, "There and Back Again," is no longer in print.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_and_Back_Again_(novel)

Especially good is how Moxon digs into the way that Tolkien's concept of "races" was uncomfortably close to "racism" (especially orcs, who, honestly, have no conceivable basis for subsisting as a species, let alone a society).

https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1233682097463873536

"While I was here, this orc came up —a big guy, very tough, like out of central casting, handsome, could've been a fighting Uruk-hai—and he's crying, weeping, he says 'sir, thank you for the meat.' Incredible. He hadn't had nothing but maggoty bread for three stinking days."

Other Trumpland rhetoric fits in eerily well. Just like Murphy, Moxon claims Hobbits: "We have Hobbits coming in folks, and they're smoking the pipe-weed, and eating second breakfasts, third breakfasts, your breakfasts, your children's breakfasts."

https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1233221682309083137

And just as with Murphy, Moxon's satire is full of deep, Silmarillion cuts that demonstrate that his work is coming from a place of deep, if conflicted, affection.

https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1233328631734206475

"Fëanor, son of Finwë, King of the Noldor, is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more. We all appreciate his contributions, and we're looking into him, and we're looking very strongly. Nobody was talking about him before me."

(Image: Cornel Zueger, CC BY-SA)

The wealthy are chartering jets to avoid coronavirus (permalink)

Plutes are chartering private jets in the hopes of avoiding #coronavirus, assuming that if they only fly in fart-tubes that other wealthy people have farted in, they won't get sick.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-29/wealthy-jump-to-private-jets-to-duck-airlines-and-cut-virus-risk

To make this pay, you really need to fill that Gulfstream. NYC-London is $140k for a 12-seater — flying those 12 buttery soft asses from JFK to Heathrow in BA First will run you $120K.

So you're basically assuming that if you use the plute-only terminal at LAX (whose management company once threatened to sue me for criticizing it in print!), and LHR (originally royals-only, now open to any oligarch), you'll avoid covid. Presumably because the Better People have Better Masks and the Luxury Decontam Wipes and that will keep the bad stuff at bay. Nevermind that we're finding covid in people who've been in psych ward lockdown for TEN YEARS.

https://twitter.com/AskAKorean/status/1233046896719126533

Elite Panic is definitely a killer. I mean, people have been pointing this out since Poe wrote "Masque of the Red Death" in 1842. You can't shoot germs.

https://www.poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death

Humanity has a shared microbial destiny. Crises get resolved by people running TOWARD the problem, not cowering in luxury bunkers while better people do the work. This is the point of my own take on "Masque."

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250242334

Public health crises show that reality has a well-known collectivist bias, and this challenges right wing orthodoxy, which is why the right has only two responses to epidemiology: "It's a hoax" and (later) "Exterminate the dirty poors!"

"The Reactionary Mind," Corey Robin's magnificent 2011 book (updated 2017), traces the history of right-wing thought to find the factor that unites Dominionists, imperialists, white nationalists, libertarians and other strains of right-wing thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reactionary_Mind

Robin's conclusion: the thing that unites these different strains is a belief that humanity is naturally arrayed in hierarchies, with some people simply born better than the rest of us, and the world is best when the best people are in charge. It's an idea as old as Plato's Republic. Dominionists want Christian men in charge of women and children. Racists want white people in charge of racialized people. Libertarians want bosses in charge of workers. Imperialists want America in charge of the world.

It explains why right-wing movements hang together (because they all agree that the "wrong people" are running things) and why they splinter (once they take power, they can't agree who the "right people" are).

This "divine right of kings/bosses/America/whites/men/Christians" philosophy is coterminal with the idea of the natural leaders having special stuff that makes them better: just as the touch of a king will heal leprosy, so too can you expect that a plute won't have covid. It's wrong, of course — lethally so.

The US already has Medicare for All (permalink)

Did you know the US already has "Medicare for All"? But only under very specific circumstances: under the National Disaster Medical System, if the President declares a public health emergency, the federal government steps in to pay all out-of-pockets.

https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/responders/ndms/definitive-care/Pages/coverage-guidelines.aspx

Any medically necessary service which is authorized for reimbursement as long as the patient sustained:

Injuries or illnesses resulting directly from a specified public health emergency;"

("If you have covid symptoms, you're covered")

Injuries, illnesses and conditions requiring medical services necessary to maintain a reasonable level of health temporarily not available as a result of the health emergency

("if you have any other problem and can't get treatment due to covid chaos, you're covered")

As Carlos Mucha points out, Trump declaring a national health emergency would create "Medicare for All with Covid-19," which could easily become just plain Medicare for All, "as surely as the UK's Emergency Hospital Service morphed into the NHS."

America's uninsured will turn a covid crisis into a covid disaster (permalink)

The last time Carl Gibson saw a doctor was 2013, when an arm-sling and an Rx for painkillers ran him $4000, creating a permanent blot on his credit report. He hasn't been since.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/28/coronavirus-millions-of-americans-uninsured

He's not alone. 44% of Americans do not see doctors despite medical necessity, because of cost. About a third of Americans do not fill their prescriptions because they can't afford them.

27.5m Americans don't have health insurance, thanks to a mix of Republican state-houses blocking Medicare expansion and Obamacare's intrinsic shortcomings, which invite price-gouging and under-coverage from America's sociopathic health-insurance industry.

This is terrible under the best of circumstances, but it's the thing that turns a coronavirus emergency into a coronavirus catastrophe. Because Carl Gibson is sneezing into the same air you're breathing.

("All the common people breathing filthy air" -The Pointer Sisters)

Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar, is a former pharma lobbyist who has ruled out price controls for a Covid-19 vaccine.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/27/pluralistic-your-daily-link-dose-27-feb-2020/#pandemiccapitalism

And Nancy Pelosi has said that treatment must be "affordable" – not free. What's "affordable" when 61% of Americans don't even have $1,000 saved to cover a medical emergency?

It's hardly a novel observation to say that we have a shared microbial destiny: "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/few-americans-have-enough-savings-to-cover-a-1000-emergency.html

Jury refuses to convict Extinction Rebellion activists (permalink)

An Oregon jury has refused to convict a group of climate activists who blocked a rail line that Zenith Energy used to transport tar sands crude. The Extinction Rebellion activists presented a "necessity defense" for their actions.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/28/landmark-win-fight-habitable-future-jury-refuses-convict-climate-activists-who

The activists were charged with trespassing for planting a "victory garden" that blocked the track. There was video. 5 of 6 jurors decided that maintaining the habitability of the only planet in the known universe capable of sustaining human life justified the action.

"We need to take note of the lessons learned by the labor movement—mass civil disobedience works. The climate crisis is a workers' issue, we need to unite to shut down business as usual. Right now." -Margaret Butler

The result was a mistrial, and now the local prosecutors have to decide whether to haul the activists back into court again.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Deluded Sony music exec can't read his own study https://constitutionalcode.blogspot.com/2005/02/us-market-not-antagonistic-towards-drm.html

#15yrsago Euro software patents reanimated through corrupt officials 0wned by Microsoft https://yro.slashdot.org/story/05/02/28/2223232/eu-commission-declines-patent-debate-restart

#15yrsago Comp sci profs smackdown the movie studios https://web.archive.org/web/20050303023425/http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000776.html

#10yrsago Architectural fan-drawings of classic sitcom houses http://origin.www.markmoorefineart.com/artists/mark-bennett

#10yrsago Petition to make "Hella" the prefix for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 https://www.facebook.com/The-Official-Petition-to-Establish-Hella-as-the-SI-Prefix-for-1027-277479937276/

#10yrsago Cyberwar hype was cooked up to sell Internet-breaking garbage to the military https://www.wired.com/2010/03/cyber-war-hype/

#5yrsago North Korean defectors undermine totalitarianism with smuggled pirate sitcoms https://www.wired.com/2015/03/north-korea/

#1yrago Oakland teachers' union declares total victory after seven-day strike https://oaklandea.org/updates/oea-reaches-tentative-agreement-with-ousd/

#1yrago German Data Privacy Commissioner warns at new Copyright Directive will increase the tech oligopoly, make EU companies dependent on US filter vendors, and subject Europeans to surveillance by US companies https://torrentfreak.com/german-data-privacy-commissioner-sounds-alarm-over-upload-filter-oligopoly-190301/

#1yrago University of California system libraries break off negotiations with Elsevier, will no longer order their journals https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

#1yrago Satanic Panic 2.0: The Momo Challenge hoax https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/momo-challenge-hoax/583825/

#1yrago Striking West Virginia teachers won swift and decisive victory; Oakland next? https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/28/rapid-victory-west-virginia-teacher-strike-shows-what-happens-when-progressives

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/)

Hugo nominators! My story "Unauthorized Bread" is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Canada Reads Kelowna: March 5, 6PM, Kelowna Library, 1380 Ellis Street, with CBC's Sarah Penton https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

Currently writing: I just finished a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel now, though the timing is going to depend on another pending commission (I've been solicited by an NGO) to write a short story set in the world's prehistory.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Gopher: When Adversarial Interoperability Burrowed Under the Gatekeepers' Fortresses: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/02/24/gopher-when-adversarial-interoperability-burrowed-under-the-gatekeepers-fortresses/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

[blankdblank]

Blood and Bonds

Pt1 of combined prompts 25/26

@annwoods91​, @sherala007​, @lilith15000​, @himoverflowers​, @alishlieb​, @deepestfirefun​

“Please Thorin..you are my friend, my brother, my King. Please see that this is changing you. The Lass has abandoned us. Bilbo is growing ill. The men are hungry and tired, we need you.”

In a snarl Thorin opened his blackened lids revealing two differing eyes, one with a slit for an iris surrounded by a deeper glowing blue than the other glowing eye. Wing now hidden by the fur coat across the King’s back shifting and in a guttural tone he near to roared out, “Find My Stone!!”

Flinching back Dwalin watched the lips of the King darkening and protruding to a snout. It was more than a sickness it was a curse and their only hope, the Wizards they had brought with them from the Shire had abandoned them. Bowing his head in a pained groan of the King slinking back into the shadowy throne room Dwalin stepped back three paces and turned to join his kin hoping that you had not left them entirely, that you had gone for help, for supplies, anything. Anything but just having gone.

 **

Will you hold the line?

When every one of them is giving up or giving in, tell me

In this house of mine?

Nothing ever comes without a consequence or cost, tell me

Will the stars align?

Will heaven step in? Will it save us from our sin? Will it?

'Cause this house of mine stands strong

 “Bilbo?” Your hand smoothing across his forehead with a cloth as he muttered in a tongue you could not identify echoing a deeper hiss. In and out of consciousness he had slipped and again you had found his fist clenched in his pocket while he slumbered. Wrenching his hand back you muttered an immobilizing spell locking him in place unable to fight back as you folded the ring in his hand in the cloth you had wiped his face with. Lowly you muttered a deep sleeping charm and loosened the immobilizing charm.

Elrond has told you about the Ring, mainly his try to have it destroyed. All you needed was a volcano, ironically enough, normal fire or forges wouldn’t cut it. Mordor was three months away, however, Angmar just a two day trek, across equally as dangerous orc infested lands, but two days none the less with a convenient volcano smack dab in the center of it. There was magic for this. In this you could help. You had no clue how to fix Thorin, how to free him from his curse so you had to flee and try this before he would turn entirely.

.

That's the price you pay

Leave behind your heartache, cast away

Just another product of today

Rather be the hunter than the prey

And you're standing on the edge, face up 'cause you're a

 It wasn’t hard to slip back out of the mountain and cross those plains again. Though you would have to trail the northern borders of the self King’s land. Meaning you would have to explain how you escaped and what you were doing. And surely this was far more dangerous than waking a dragon. Thousands could flood straight down to the unsuspecting Elves, meaning you had to be fast, you had to be stealthy. Two words that anyone with eyes could see you weren’t as you clambered sloppily up onto the first boulder to get up onto the rocky path outlining the massive trees.

A glance back at the hand that caught your foot that slipped off a crumbling ledge to find a familiar red headed Elleth followed by the blonde haired Prince and Lord Glorfindel behind them. Facing forward again you pulled yourself up onto the ledge you had been trying to reach and sat down asking, “What are you doing here?”

Tauriel, “Where are you going?”

“You don’t answer a question with a question, why are you following me?”

At once when he hopped up after Tauriel Legolas stayed, “You kidnapped us.”

“I beg your pardon?!”

Tauriel, “It’s the King’s pardon you should be begging..”

On your feet you hoped up, “I did not kidnap you, you lot followed me!”

Sharply you turned and Glorfindel trotted a few steps to catch your side asking, “Where are you going?”

“I did not kidnap you! I am going this way and you are going home!”

Glorfindel’s hand folded around your upper arm turning you to stop for a moment, “Where are you going? You are unarmed.”

“Says you. Angmar.”

They all asked, “Why?!”

In a huff you replied, “Bilbo and Thorin need help.”

Legolas moves closer, “They are in Angmar?”

“No.”

You said pulling your arm out of the Lord’s hold, only for the Prince to move with you making you say, “Go home!”

Hastily Legolas sloppily tied a slip of rope from his shoulder around his hands and looped the other end over your arm, “You kidnapped us.”

“You-!” In a growl between your clenched lips to keep from shouting you threw the rope back at him and stormed away, “Go home!”

Tauriel, “But we are witnesses!”

Over your shoulder you asked seeing them hurrying after you while Legolas wound his rope up again he slung over his shoulder trotting after you as well. “Witnesses to what exactly?!”

Legolas, “We would know that if you would tell us why you are heading for Angmar!”

“I said, to help Bilbo and Thorin!”

Glorfindel, “Who are not there?”

“Exactly!”

At your side Tauriel asked, “If they are not in Angmar then why travel there?”

“I have something I have to do.”

Legolas, “Yes and you have kidnapped us to aid in the matter.”

Sharply you stopped and flared up at Glorfindel, “You are older than the both of them! Make them stop saying I kidnapped them!”

Glorfindel, “Technically I was reborn 400 years ago, they both outrank me in age.”

“Well then technically…oh if I didn’t have self control I would bite you.”

A blush coated his cheeks and you inhaled as he said, “I was not aware that you shared my affections.” Turning forward you kept moving onwards and he hurried back to your side, “Kindly, forgive my ignorance. I did not believe I could have deserved your affections. Now that we have voiced our intentions I certainly will not abandon you.”

In a grumble you kept going and Tauriel asked again, “Are we retrieving something? In Angmar?”

In a huff you replied, “There is a spell I know, and it has to be done in Angmar.”

Legolas, “Ah! So what is our battle strategy? Have you uncovered a secret passage?”

“I am not entering Angmar.”

Glorfindel, “Surely we are not being ordered to go in alone for an item while you cast this spell?”

The worry in his eyes had you say, “No one is going in Angmar. Now stop asking.”

You looked forward again and Tauriel asked, “Why? Will harm befall us if we are informed of the tasks?” For a moment you inhaled sharply then reached up to grip the top of another boulder that had blocked your pitiful excuse of a path. Glorfindel beside you bent grabbing your shin to help you up over the boulder he could clearly see over and bounded over with ease to help you slide down the other side.

Legolas, “Yes, a back handed aiding spell were the captives must remain ignorant!” Like the Lord he and Tauriel both leapt over the boulder making your brows droop a moment making you shift the shoulder of your dirt splattered sweater back closer to your neck and you brushed your midnight blue curled ponytail back over your shoulder that fell back to your belt.

“No, it’s just… it sounds stupid and I would rather not have you mocking my plan.”

Glorfindel’s hand settled in yours, “We would never mock you.”

Legolas, “Yes, it is poor etiquette to mock your captor.”

You rolled your eyes, “I have to boil a rock.”

Tauriel paused with the Prince and they both asked, “Boil a rock?”

Legolas, “Is it a special rock?”

“Not, really.”

Tauriel, “Is there a specific incantation?”

“Few words here and there.”

Glorfindel, “Boil a rock, what could that do?”

“I have to boil it for five hours.”

Legolas, “Five… What does it do?”

“It wakes up volcanoes.”

Tauriel, “What is a volcano?”

At that you huffed again, “You’ll see. If you don’t get bored. Though you’ve imagined that I’ve kidnapped you no doubt out of boredom from your home. You’re bound to go racing off eventually.”

Legolas, “We would not!”

Glorfindel, “We will never abandon you.”

 Natural

A beating heart of stone

You gotta be so cold

To make it in this world

Yeah, you're a natural

Living your life cutthroat

You gotta be so cold

Yeah, you're a natural

 **

“Get that Elven filth off my land!” A loud roar followed and Dwalin’s eyes shut and he smoothed his hand over his eyes. “You demand war, we will have war!”

Behind the wall Thorin remained out of sight before racing back to his hoard leaving Dwalin to state, “Now is not exactly a good time to barter with Thorin.”

Thranduil down below stated, “I have not come to barter with Thorin. I received a letter requesting I come and I have. Now I demand to know why I have been summoned here.”

Dwalin, “wh-,”

Beside him Balin appeared, “We seem to be missing our Wizards, you have not seen them?”

“I do not have time for your wandering Wizard my son and Captain of my Guard did not return from their patrol two days past.”

Dwalin, “Perhaps they’re together! Our Wizard Lass left two days past!

Thranduil, “I highly-,” a muffled explosion in the distance followed by crying of birds taking to the air from the forest had the King’s lips parting in noticing the rising plumes of smoke billowing into the sky.

Balin, “What is it? What is happening?!”

Thranduil, “Smoke is rising over Angmar. I must find my son!” At once his Elk reared up in a turn and the mounted guards behind him followed in the race back to the forest to join in the searches now worsening at the fleeing animals scattering into their paths.

 **

Will somebody

Let me see the light within the dark trees' shadows and

What's happenin'?

Lookin' through the glass find the wrong within the past knowin'

We are the youth

Cut until it bleeds, inside a world without the peace facing

A bit of the truth, the truth

Two days you had trekked, and finally up the final rocky barrier between you and Angmar you climbed ignoring the burn of the tiny cuts and scrapes you had earned in the trip. Atop a decent sized ledge behind a row of tall jagged rocks helping to aid in your cover you sat opening your bag a simple piece of chalk you, in a crouching turn drew a wide circle the trio stepped into as you said, “If you are staying, get in, and don’t leave or I can’t protect you.”

Curiously they eyed your bag as you put the chalk away and brought out a circular stove and a cauldron that you set on top, “Aguamente,” you muttered and the cauldron filled with water. A lean forward later and you held your hair back blowing in the sliding latch you opened lighting the upper ring growing hotter at the closing of the latch. Around you the trio settled and watched you pull out a jagged grapefruit sized chunk of obsidian in a bright blue shade. Sight of the stone made you lick your lips and force your hand lower knowing just what you were doing, into the water your hand lowered and as droplets of your blood mingled with the water it turned to a shimmering silver shade seeping to fill the cauldron when your hand rose out again.

Inhaling sharply you stated with your eyes closed, “My name is Pluto Pear.” Through the ground a sharp pulse shot out from under the cauldron stirring a loud crack from the city in the distance. Angmar mainly full of orcs and goblins also held in it a smaller citadel of people descended from the now Witch King’s glory days before is dark turn. Now turned and swayed to aiding the dark creatures they dwelled with and their masters who seemed to do as others ignorant of what the smoking mountain’s origins and powers had done. All through the citadel markers of a great eye to symbolize their having a matching smoking mountain to Mt Doom that they were chosen as a sacred place for the Dark Lord Sauron to have blessed with what they deemed as plenty. Their idiocy would be their undoing, and your emancipation.

 That's the price you pay

Leave behind your heartache, cast away

Just another product of today

Rather be the hunter than the prey

And you're standing on the edge, face up 'cause you're a

 That crack had done more than what the Elves had expected, the soft white plume of steam from the top of the peak now darkened and tripled filling the air above it stirring up screams in the distance. Legolas asked, “What is that smoke?”

“That is the first sign the volcano is waking.”

Glorfindel, “What is a volcano?”

In catching his gaze you said, “It’s a mountain, or what looks like a mountain, full of lava, which is essentially liquid fire, which when erupting bubbles up and pours out of the mouth of the volcano.”

Tauriel, “How is this helpful? Waking the volcano?”

“If the screams will bother you, best you head home now.”

Glorfindel’s hand folded around yours on your lap and he asked, “Why must you wake the volcano? How will this help Bilbo and Thorin?”

“Bilbo found an item that cursed him, he’s dying, if I don’t throw it in the lava he will die. Thorin has fallen to Dragon Sickness, hopefully if I am in time the destruction might save him as well.”

Out of a tall tower screeches were heard in the smoke pillowing around it and suddenly a swarm of bats making you draw out a small pot near to the size of a grape you unscrewed the lid on and tossed upwards in their flight over your head sucking them inside. At the end of the stream the open mouthed Elves watched the lid screw itself back on and its fall back into your open palm while your other hand swirled in a circle stirring the shimmering mixture at the first bubble rising to the surface only making the smoke darken and pool out more.

Legolas wet his lips seeing your tongue easing anxiously against the tip of one of your slightly pointed canine teeth and asked, “The screams, they wouldn’t trouble you?”

Shifting your gaze to meet his you said, “I know a muffling spell, so I won’t hear them.”

Glorfindel asked almost heartbroken at your glum gaze at the bubbling cauldron, “You would not warn them?”

Weakly you replied, “I can’t.”

Tightening his hold on your hand he asked, “Why?” Using is spare hand to raise your chin to look at him only to have his lips part at your teary gaze. “Tell me, please.”

“There’s a blood curse on my family,” instantly his body went rigid as did those of the other two listening in, “A woman centuries back, cursed a woman in my family that unless she did not wake a volcano by her 27th birthday she would turn into a Sphinx. If she refused the curse was passed on through her children, men and women until the next of her namesake was born and would face the same task or the curse would live on again.”

Tauriel, “Sphinx?”

“It’s a creature with the face of a woman and a lion’s body. They treasure riddles and often prey on people.”

Glorfindel asked on the verge of tears, “How old are you?”

Catching his eye again you replied, “I’ll be 25 in January.” Your tongue tapped your sharpened teeth making their lips part again, “It’s a slow change, fangs are the first sign. I have to do this, and I can’t warn them, or I’ll kill everyone I know.”

In the tear rolling down your cheek Legolas asked, “Your mother, she did not break the curse?”

“She refused to kill innocents, so did my Gran, both insisted on passing down the name.”

Legolas, “How old were you?”

“I was six, when she changed. Dad, he tried to keep them at home, Mother, Gran, Great Gran and her daughter. He got arrested, keeping Sphynx domestically is illegal, no matter the circumstances. They killed my Great Gran and Great Aunt trying to take Dad. I managed to hide the others.”

Glorfindel, “Where did you go?”

“They sent me to an uncle, who, blamed me, for ruining Dad’s life. When is wasn’t at school I was told not to leave my room, to show any sign I was still there, intruding upon his generosity.”

Tauriel, “This is to break two curses then?”

“In a matter of speaking, yes.”

Glorfindel gave your hand a gentle squeeze, “I am staying.” His eyes searching yours until you glanced away to the Prince, who said the same with Tauriel not a moment after.

 Natural

A beating heart of stone

You gotta be so cold

To make it in this world

Yeah, you're a natural

Living your life cutthroat

You gotta be so cold

Yeah, you're a natural

.

More and more the sky darkened with the falling ash eventually muffling the cries and shrieks of the creatures below while you sat under the hovering large umbrella floating above you. With bubble charms covering your mouths and noses to help you breathe through the gaseous fumes matching those of the fox trio who had spotted your shelter and curled up with you. Five hours had eventually been called at the triple beeping timer you had set you slid back into your bag. A deep reach inside however had the trio watching you draw out a bow and quiver along with a sewing set.

Next once you had threaded a hooked needle a folded cloth was drawn out and the trio’s eyes watched you set it down and flick the cloth back. Instantly Glorfindel’s eyes snapped wider and he asked, “Where did you find that?”

“Bilbo found it. In the Goblin Tunnels.” His eyes followed you in drawing out an arrow to tie the ring to the tip of before biting the thread from the spool you tossed back into your bag. In a hop up onto your feet you readied your bow in your right hand and you said, “No laughing,” notching the arrow with your left hand you drew it back only able to see the faint glow of the streams of lava now flooded through all of Angmar through the pitch black clouds.

Up Glorfindel hopped and lined up his gaze with yours in a mild hunch and guided your bow up a bit then watched you let the arrow fly. A distant screech and with Glorfindel’s arms circling your middle he brought you down to your knees covering your back with his body beside the others covering the foxes through the shockwave the Lord had assumed to be coming after having seen Sauron fall. Pitch black smoke billowed out down the crevice you had climbed through giving a glimpse, if only for a moment of the reddish orange glowing river.

 Deep inside me, I'm fading to black, I'm fading

Took an oath by the blood of my hand, won't break it

I can taste it, the end is upon us, I swear

Gonna make it

I'm gonna make it

 ***

Back into the mountain Dwalin strode rubbing his face with Fili and Kili inching closer to his sides partially afraid of their uncle and knowing that in his stead Dwalin would be interim King until Fili was old enough. Lowering his hands his eyes turned to the youngest of their group whose eyes flinched wider. “Ori, Pluto, she leave anything?”

“Most of her things. Looks like.”

Dwalin, “What about that carpet bag?”

Ori nodded knowing the one, “Yes, with her violin.”

Dwalin, “Good. Here’s the plan.” The men all grouped around feeling a bit more energized after having found the bag of lembas and other Elven treats you had left for them left over from Rivendell that Ori had discovered a few hours after you’d left. “Just how Pluto got rid of Smaug.”

Kili, “How will we get Thorin out of he mountain and into the river?”

Dwalin, “He’s not leaving the mountain. We tell him we found the stone in the bathhouse.” Nods ripples around and he said, “Bofur and Bifur you help Ori set up the crystals round the green pool. Bombur you and Gloin get all the rope you can muster up, worst comes to worst we’ll be needing a net to drag him in. Oin is with Bilbo so Nori and Dori, you make sure we’ve got spare clothes for Thorin when he comes to.”

Fili, “What do we do?”

Dwalin, “You And Kili are to head to the overlook.”

Kili, “But-,”

Dwalin, “If this goes south you two will be safe and we need an update on those smoke clouds. It’s half past noon and it’s pitch black out there. Keep the torches low so you won’t be spotted, in case of orcs or goblins. If you can’t see anything just wait on the stairs till we come and get you.”

Ori, “Dwalin, do you really mean to drown Thorin?”

Dwalin, “We’ll tug him up to breathe so he won’t.”

Ori, “Only-,”

Dwalin asked, “Are you part of the plan?”

Ori, “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

Nori butted in, “What a horrible way to live.”

Locking his eyes on Ori’s Dwalin replies, “Worst comes to worst and he snaps back furious it was my plan. He’ll naught blame you.” Ori nodded and he said, “Alright, let’s go.” Splitting them up while he made sure to check on Bilbo before seeing everything was in place and off to Thorin he went.

In a chuckle rubbing he back of his neck he eyed Thorin lowly humming to himself on all fours with knees as elbows bent awkwardly showing the first signs of his joints shifting in his continual shift to what seemed to be a dragon. “You’ll not believe where we found the stone.”

At that Thorin’s head turned with glowing eyes wide and pupils blown then narrowing at the torch holding Dwarf in the doorway of his apartment in front of the barren fireplace. “Where is it?” Halfway across the room he seemed to slither towering over his cousin when he finally stood eying him hungrily, “Show it to me!”

Dwalin, “I know you’d have preferred it brought up here, only we thought it might be a chuckle to see just where we spotted it by chance.” Thorin’s eyes narrowed and he added, “Just thought you could use a chuckle.”

Deep in Thorin’s throat a rumble sounded halfway between clearing it and a grumble of discontent, “That I could.”

All the way down to the bathhouse Dwalin remained silent and holding back his tears while Thorin awkwardly skunk behind him scouring each inch with his fiery gaze until onto the tile he strode further closer to the pool asking, “In the bathhouse? Why would it-,”

The drop of the torch came and Dwalin had tackled him armor, furs and all with Bofur, Gloin, Nori and Bifur all jumping in after him. Above the water Dwalin repeated the words sylible after sylible you had causing the crystals, totems and water to glow while Thorin thrashed and swung at them from below the surface. Each verse they would tug him back up allowing him to cough some air into his lungs before dunking him again continuing the struggle for several minutes until they felt a pulse through Thorin’s body under the glowing water. And in the next cough Thorin surfaced himself and clung to his weeping kin holding him tightly between them in a fierce hug.

Halfway through a cough Thorin stayed, “If I still have a tail all of you are banished.” Stirring up weak laughs while he clung to them tighter in return then helped the soaking wet King out of the water.

Halfway changed Thorin asked, “Why wasn’t it Pluto holding me under?”

Ori, “Pluto left when Bilbo got ill.”

Thorin, “Bilbo’s ill? I don’t attack him did I?”

Dwalin, “No. just woke up ill after you did.”

Thorin looked around, “Where are the boys?!”

Gloin, “I’ll fetch them.”

Thorin, “What time is it?”

Dwalin, “Near to one.”

Thorin looked up at the pitch black room around them and Balin said, “Smoke had been flowing out of Amgmar for hours now.”

Ori, “Um, where are the totems?”

Looking around the pool the men searched for them only to have Bofur ask, “Did we knock them in?”

Bombur, “No, they were in-,” in a step away from the edge of the other larger pool nearby he teetered only to be steadied by Dori and Ori in the wave of water rippling through the water, “What was that?!”

Thorin moves closer with his torch only to step back at the trio of figures under the water who vanished again in the shadows tearing strips of the algae coating the pool walls and floor free. “Pluto did give you clearance to use her totems?”

Dwalin, “She left them. We had to do something.”

Thorin muttered to himself, “Great, now we have more beasts loose in the mountain!”

Dwalin, “Well if you hadn’t gone and sprouted a snout we’d not to have freed the beasts trapped in the totems!”

Suddenly making the men all flinch Fili and Kili asked by Gloin’s side, “There’s more?!”

Dwalin huffed, “It seems Pluto’s totems have vanished, and there’s beasts in the water.”

Thorin huffed, “Where were you?”

Kili, “Dwalin said to see if the sky is clear yet.”

Fili shook his head, “It’s only grown darker, had to close the exit to keep the smoke out.”

Kili, “It’s raining ash.”

Thorin nodded looking grimly off into the distance, “We stay together, and we stay out of the water until Pluto returns. Had they been dangerous on their own I doubt she would have left them with a meddlesome group like us.”

Bombur nodded, “I’ll get you some lembas, we’ve rationed it. Miss Pluto left her supply with us, which turned out to be all we’d refused to take from Rivendell. Ample left. Get something in your belly.”

The men hurried to gather up the remaining stones with eyes fixed on the shifting shadows in the pools leaping from one to the other to clear all the algae they could cleaning them. Hurrying back up to the Royal Wing Thorin settled at Bilbo’s side stroking his palm across his forehead. “He’s so pale with his veins so dark, and yet he’s burning up..” he looked to Oin, “Pluto left when he turned like this?”

Oin nodded, “Just when his complexion faded and he began to shiver. Mumbled something about curses.”

Thorin whispered tearily, “cursed..?”

Bofur, “She found him asleep in the gold ya see. Brought him to bed, then she sent out this spell into the hoard. Maybe he found a cursed gem or something of the sort.”

Thorin, “If she left she must know what to do and how urgent it was.”

Dwalin, “We hoped that was the reason. Come with us this far to just leave.”

 ***

Mile after mile of Northern Greenwood was scoured without sight nor sign of the missing Prince and Captain of the Guard. Panicked animals now flooded the forest the Elves in the branches above with glowing crystals in hand had confirmed was folding together to keep the smoke from seeping too low into the levels its people were at while the ash falling stopped a few yards north of its farthest borders.

To himself the King muttered, “Where are you Little Leaf? What have you gotten Tauriel roped into.”

Up to his side another guard arrived with a note in hand, “My King, news from Rivendell, black smoke is covering it as well and Lord Glorfindel is missing for near to a fortnight now.”

Lowly the King replied in the duck of a scared fawn under his cape luring his hand down to stroke its head in a calming motion. “Perhaps he is with them…and what of this Wizard?”

“My King?”

“Did Elrond mention anything of a visiting Wizard?”

“No, my King.”

“Where could they have gone to,” he muttered to himself then called out, “Everyone inside the gates now!” Striding through them he ordered them shut keeping his hand atop the head of the fawn who scurried to head to safety at his side. A welcome distraction for his fathering side to keep from growing mad for the mystery of where his son was and why the sky was still blackening around his woods and growing thicker by the hour.

Pt 2

[thewarriorandtheking]

Galadriel

The Warrior Queen: The Warrior and The King Book II

4. Galadriel

*******************************************

Early the next morning when it was time to set out Thorin could not raise Kaylea. She had laid down when they stopped and passed into the deep sleep she had warned him of. He checked her wound, it was open and draining a white fluid but it continued to look very ugly. The edges were black with dark tendrils spreading from it. Thorin was just debating how he was going to get her on her horse when Hector came running into the campsite. He nosed at Kaylea, seeing she was unresponsive he looked pointedly at Thorin. Thorin met the wolf’s eyes, trying to prepare himself. An image of warg-mounted orcs filled his mind, a distance off on the crest of one of the brown hills behind them.

Thorin’s heart sank, how could he fight them off by himself? He would have Hector’s help, but would that be enough? He could not communicate with the wolf as well as Kaylea did. There could be no doubt the wargs had their scent and were hot on the trail. He looked at the wolf, trying to think of the best way to prepare a defense. Another image came into his mind, a long, flat-sided metal weapon with a stock on one end and a sighting spyglass on the top. Thorin looked at the long scabbard under Kaylea’s saddle, then back to Hector.

Hector snorted at him and started to trot off up the nearest hill, he looked back to see if Thorin was following. Since he had no better ideas Thorin reached into the scabbard and drew forth Kaylea’s metal weapon. It was heavier than he expected, he put it on his shoulder and followed Hector, trying to recall every detail of the way he had seen Kaylea use the weapon.

As they reached the top of the hill, the wolf lay down and crawled forward on his belly, Thorin mimicked him getting down on his hands and knees. From the top of the hill they could see quite a way south. Thorin could see the wargs plainly, a group of six on top of a hill almost directly south maybe half a league away, another two down on the trail he and Kaylea had travelled last night. They seemed to be paused in their hunt, maybe deciding if they wanted to go on in the light. Thorin lay down, holding Kaylea’s weapon to his shoulder, as he had seen her do. The weapon reminded him very much of a crossbow, as soon as he put his fingers on the trigger he felt the weapon vibrate slightly. Looking through the glass again he could see the orcs as close as if they were standing before him. The glass had a sort of red cross in it, he braced himself on his elbows and lined it up with the orcs chest and felt for the release. He squeezed it and heard a soft sigh, the orc fell back off his mount, hit in the shoulder. Thorin moved the glass to the warg, aligned the cross differently and fired another shot. The warg dropped, shot in the head. Thorin quickly moved the glass from one orc and warg to the next, dropping them where they stood. When he adjusted his aim to find the two that had been at the bottom of the hill they were both running back toward Mordor, so he shot them both in the back. He then sat up on his knees and looked at the weapon in his hands. This weapon, whatever it was, could change the way wars were fought forever. Is this how they were fought in Kaylea’s land? He saw now it had little doors on it, he flipped one open and a flat metal case slid partway out, he pulled it out and looked in it, it was filled with tiny metal cylinders. Thorin inspected them carefully, so this was the secret. Shaking his head to clear it he got to his feet, he slid the case back in the weapon and closed it up. He did not have time to waste pondering these mysteries. He had to get on the trail again, hopefully they could reach the Anduin today.

When he got back to the campsite Thorin put Kaylea’s weapon away and saddled the horses. It took him a moment to figure out how to get Kaylea on her horse, she was surprisingly heavy and her horse very tall, but he could put her over his shoulder and slide her face down over her saddle. Hector helped him by standing on the opposite side of the horse and pulling her over by her sleeve. It took them two more days to reach the river where they turned to follow its course, Thorin leading Kaylea’s warhorse with his mare. Thorin and Hector developed a system for getting Kaylea on and off her big horse, every time they stopped Thorin would lay her down and check her wound. It pained him to keep inserting a knife in it to keep it open which he had to do at least once a day, but he told himself she could not feel it. Her wound continued to look uglier, the black tendrils growing longer. Once he had checked her wound Thorin would lay Kaylea’s head in his lap and put his hand on her chest to feel her breathing. He was too worried now to bother looking for food, he just ate her cram and hoped he would get to the Lady of Lorien in time.

After two days along the river the mountains were getting very close, they came to a wide, fast flowing stream that wound its way out of an impressive wood. Thorin could see many tall trees that seemed to get thicker further in. Unlike Mirkwood, this forest had a welcoming feel, the ground carpeted with thick mosses and grass, the sound of the wind in the leaves almost musical. There was a level path along the stream, lined with white stones. Thorin followed it, wondering how long he would travel before he ran into the border guards Kaylea had warned him about. He had been following the path for a couple hours before he realized that Hector had disappeared. He stopped to look around for him, but saw no sign. When he turned his horse’s head forward again there were a group of Elves standing in the path, bows at the ready.

“Who are you and what are you doing in this land?” The foremost Elf asked, stepping forward. Other Elves came forward to take hold of the bridles of the horses.

Thorin dismounted his horse. He bowed as low as he could make himself. “I am a stranger in this land, but my errand is urgent,” he began in Elvish. “My companion Kaylea Wolf is known to you. She has been stabbed with a Morgul blade and needs the healing skills of your Lady if she is to survive.”

The Elves looked at each other. One of them came forward to look at Kaylea lying face down across the back of her horse, he moved her to look at her face and saw the wound. Thorin heard his sharp intake of breath as his fingers touched the edges of her wound. He traced both edges carefully, as if feeling for something. Thorin heard Kaylea take a deep breath, he looked sharply at the Elf. The Elf looked back at him, his face concerned.

“He speaks the truth about his companion,” the Elf said, turning toward to the others.

The first Elf looked at Thorin curiously. “Who are you that comes asking aid from the Lady of Lorien?”

“Give me your name and I will give you mine,” Thorin replied gruffly. He never liked dealing with Elves and his patience was already near the end. They could see Kaylea was wounded, why did they hesitate?

The Elf smiled. “So, you are a Dwarf. I thought at first you were too tall to be one. Very well, I shall speak first. I am called Elrik, a Captain of the Guard of Caras Galadhon.”

“I am Thorin, son of Thrain. Also called Oakenshield.”

Elrik’s eyebrows shot up. “Also called the King of Erebor.” He regarded Thorin with renewed suspicion. “What is the King Under the Mountain doing riding a horse into Lorien with a Human woman wounded with a Morgul blade?”

Thorin took a deep breath. “That is a long story, Master Elf. And while I do not mind telling it, better it be done as we travel to your Lady.”

“I have not yet decided to admit you into our land, your majesty. Dwarves are not allowed to pass the borders of Lothlorien, that is our law. Because of your companion I may allow it, but I must consider carefully.”

The Elf who had inspected Kaylea’s wound put a hand on Elrik’s arm. “I do not believe our Lady would refuse to help one so injured.” He led Elrik away, the other Elves not holding the horses joined them. They had a long discussion out of Thorin’s earshot.

Thorin stood by Kaylea, knowing he could do nothing now but wait. He leaned his head against Kaylea’s back, listening to her breathing. It was low and shallow, sometimes with long pauses between.

After a time, the Elves came back. The Elf who had checked Kaylea’s wound stepped forward. “There is not a question of admitting your companion to our land. We will take this Kaylea Wolf to the Lady Galadriel, you will have to remain here and await her permission to continue.”

“No,” said Thorin flatly. “I go where she goes.” He looked from one Elf to the other. “I am no spy, and I do not believe I should be treated as one. I have told you Kaylea Wolf is well known to the Lady of Lorien, indeed to all the White Council. Do you really want to face your lord to tell her you let an Elf-friend suffer on her doorstep?”

Elrik looked at Thorin skeptically for a long moment, considering his words. “An Elf-friend she may be, but we do not know you. I am responsible for the safety of this land,” he said at length. “Our security must be protected, if I allow you to accompany her when we have set foot in the Naith, you must go blindfolded.”

“I will not,” Thorin replied, crossing his arms. “I have done your people no wrongs. When your people came to Erebor they were not treated as criminals. I have been a guest in the house of Elrond, I must say he is a much more welcoming host than his kindred on this side of the mountains.”

Elrik glared at Thorin. “Lord Elrond does not have a host of goblins living on his doorstep thanks to your people!”

Thorin scowled at him. The word Kaylea had used back in Udun came to his mind, he had no idea what it meant, but he had liked the way she spat it out: Fucking Elves!

The two of them stood staring at each other for several seconds, Thorin willing himself not to strangle the Elf. Finally the other Elf who had examined Kaylea stepped between them. “My captain, a gravely wounded warrior is at our door, she is fading. Can we not come to some agreement?  Send a runner, he will be back when we reach the Celebrant, then we will know our Lady’s decision in the matter.”

Elrik looked at Kaylea and seemed to consider for a moment, then he nodded. He turned to the other Elves and they had a conversation in hushed tones, one took off running through the forest, the others surrounded the horses and Elrik led the way along the path. Thorin took the bridle of Kaylea’s horse and started after the others, who were leading his horse ahead. The Elf who had spoken fell in beside him.

“Thank you for your words, Master Elf,” Thorin said gruffly.

“I am Vanya, I am a healer,” the Elf said. Thorin looked sharply at him. “I could not stay silent, not once I had set eyes on that wound.”  

“Can you heal her?” He asked.

Vanya shook his head. “No, she has passed beyond my skill,” he said. “The Lady Galadriel can, you were right to come here.” He looked at Thorin, his face grave. “You must not give up hope.”

Thorin nodded, but did not reply. The forest of Lothlorien was one of the wonders of Middle Earth, but Thorin remembered little of it. The trees became larger, with white bark and golden leaves, the stream they travelled beside ran fast and clear, making a merry sound. The Elves talked among themselves. Late in the day they came to a kind of ford, the Elves quickly strung up a rope bridge to cross, Thorin mounted his horse and led Hadrian across. On the far bank the Elves paused. Now they were in Naith, the heart of Lothlorien, it was their law that all strangers must go blindfolded from this point. As they were obviously going to wait for the messenger, Thorin pulled Kaylea off her horse to check her wound, and sit with her while they were waiting. Vanya came to help him. Kaylea’s wound was starting to close again, it was almost ridiculous how fast she healed. Thorin took out his knife to open it when Vanya spoke.

“If you will permit me?” He asked. Thorin nodded and the Elf carefully probed the edges of the wound. Thorin watched as he closed his eyes and spoke softly to himself. Kaylea took a deep breath, a tiny shade of color came to her face. The wound gaped open, Vanya carefully wiped the white fluid and blood away with a cloth, then handed it to Thorin so he could continue. He wondered at the Dwarf king. He could see by the way Thorin touched this woman, how he smoothed her hair away from her face, the way her wound pained him, that he cared for her deeply. Vanya could see the same braids in her hair as the king, Were they married? A very strange couple, if they were. He could sense the Dwarf had pushed himself beyond exhaustion and was moving almost on instinct. The king took a seat against a tree and gently lowered the woman’s head into his lap, he leaned his head back and almost immediately dozed off. Vanya sat nearby to keep an eye on them, that wound worried him.

The sun had set and stars were just beginning to twinkle overhead when the runner came back. He went immediately to Elrik and they held a long, hushed conversation. At length Elrik came over to stand beside Thorin, who saw him coming and stood up.

“I have received a message from the Lady of the Galadhrim,” he said. “She gives you leave to travel freely in her realm. Your companion is known to her, as you said. She asks that you make haste to her at Caras Galadhon, she knows what has brought you.” Elrik bowed to Thorin. “It seems I owe you an apology, your majesty. I hope you will forgive me and understand I only acted as I did to preserve the safety the realm.”

“I understand,” Thorin replied, his face dark. “Forgiveness I may grant you some other day. Now, if you let me ride I can bring Kaylea Wolf to this Caras Galadhon before dawn. Or is it another rule that we must walk?”

Elrik smiled. “It is not our way to travel about on horseback, but the Lady has bid you come with all haste so you are free to ride, if you wish.” Thorin nodded and turned to lift Kaylea back on her horse. He shortened the stirrups, as he intended to ride her horse. There was no way he was going to let her ride with an Elf. He looked at Vanya who was standing beside him.

“If you would give me a leg up, Master Elf.” Thorin said. “Whoever is to guide us can take my horse, the sooner we are on the move the better.” Vanya gave Thorin a boost as another Elf caught the reins of Thorin’s horse and jumped up lightly. “Lead on,” Thorin said. He clicked his tongue and Hadrian leapt forward, Thorin had to hold him back to let his guide get ahead. The Elf set a fast pace through the forest, Thorin holding Kaylea against him in the saddle, ducking to avoid low hanging branches. In the grey before dawn the path led them toward a hill crowned with immense trees and enclosed by a high wall. The Elf led them along a paved road to a gate and knocked, it swung open though no guards were visible. A wide paved path was laid between the trees, as Thorin looked up he could see many wooden platforms overhead. Though he saw no one Thorin felt there were many Elves in the trees, a hum of conversation drifted on the air and he felt many eyes were on him. They came at last to a huge white tree with a sort of covered stair leading up it. There were two guards who came forward to take the reins of the horses. Thorin jumped down and pulled Kaylea off her horse, putting her over his shoulder. The Elf who had guided him came forward to help but Thorin waved him off.

“I will carry her,” he said. They started up the stair and climbed for many long minutes before they reached a huge platform on which was built a wide structure, doors at the end flung wide. Two Elven women came out to greet them and guided Thorin to one of the rooms. It was furnished like a bedroom, with a wide sideboard beside the bed and table and chairs. Gratefully Thorin laid Kaylea on the soft bed, feeling real hope for the first time in days. He sat back in a soft chair and watched as the Elves removed Kaylea’s outer clothes and bathed her wound in hot water from a basin. The steam from the water filled the room with a cool fragrance and Thorin found himself feeling refreshed. The Elves finished their task and left him alone with Kaylea. Thorin moved to sit on the bed beside her, taking her hand in his. The attention from the Elves had brought a faint hint of color back to her face, but her hand was still cold. Now that she was wearing only her undershirt Thorin could see the dark tendrils spreading from the wound now extended across her chest and down her arm, the wound itself open and ugly. Her breathing was slow and shallow, he had to listen to make sure she was breathing at all. Thorin brought her hand up to hold it against his face.

“Do not leave me, my love,” he whispered. “I could not bear it...stay with me.” He had been sitting there for some time when the door opened and the two Elves returned. Behind them came a tall, regal Elf who could only be the Lady Galadriel. She was dressed all in white, a circlet of fine silver on her brow. Thorin rose and bowed low to her, she reminded him immediately of the other golden-haired Elf Lord he had met in Rivendell. The same grace and sense of concealed power. The lady inclined her head to him.

“Thorin, son of Thrain, it has been since another age that a member of the House of Durin has walked in this land. I am sorry you were so long delayed at the border, but we must guard the safety of this land. Welcome to Caras Galadhon, your majesty.”

“Thank you, Lady Galadriel,” Thorin replied, bowing his head. “It has been a hard road I have travelled, I only hope I have not come too late.” He cast his gaze to Kaylea.

Galadriel turned to her then, she stood beside the bed and bent over her, her hand just over the wound in her shoulder, fingers moving like she was searching for something. “When did this happen?” She asked. Thorin had to think for a moment, the last days had been a blur.

“Two days over a fortnight, my lady. At the pass of Udun.”

Galadriel looked quickly at him, her surprise evident. “She has carried this for sixteen days? And across the Dagorland?” She turned her attention back to Kaylea. Thorin felt the energy in the room shift, Kaylea suddenly drew a deep breath. Galadriel straightened up. Thorin immediately went to Kaylea’s side, more color had returned to her face, her breathing was deeper. He took hold of her hand again.

He looked up at the Elven lady, she smiled at him. “It was good work keeping this wound open, if it had closed this task would be much more difficult.”

Thorin looked back at Kaylea. “She mostly did that herself,” he said. “She has only been in this sleep for the last five days.”

The three Elves looked at each other. “She was awake all that time, with this wound?” One of the other Elves asked, she seem astounded. Thorin smiled at Kaylea.

“She is very strong,” he said, he looked up at Galadriel as he spoke. “If you know her, you know that.”

Galadriel nodded. “I do indeed, your majesty. But still this surprises me, most who are stabbed with a Morgul blade live only a few days.” She looked at him closely, her voice turned serious. “I will try to remove the fragment of this blade now, it is not a pleasant thing to see.”

“I will not leave her,” Thorin replied, daring the Lady to try to send him away.  

“I did not think you would. I wonder if there is anything that would keep you from this woman’s side,” she said. “Do you have what remains of the knife?”

It was in the pocket of Kaylea’s coat, now hanging over a chair. Thorin went and retrieved it, Galadriel took it and examined it closely, turning it over in her hands. She then laid it aside and stood beside the bed, the other Elves stood across from her, their heads bowed. Thorin felt the energy change in the room again, but this was different, it was far more intense. The temperature dropped and he could feel Galadriel gathering power to her. She spread her hands over Kaylea’s body, holding them a few inches away and began to chant softly, almost to herself. Thorin did not understand the words but he saw Kaylea’s body move, her back arched, the wound turned blacker and started to bleed, slowly at first, then blood poured from it. She started to thrash violently, the two Elves held her down, Thorin grabbed hold of her arm and held it down, his other hand on her hip to keep her still. This went on for some minutes, Kaylea continued to fight the arms holding her. She was so strong the three of them could not have kept her down, Thorin guessed something the Lady was doing was also holding her. Galadriel continued to speak, more stridently now. The temperature continued to drop, until Thorin could see his breath and there was frost on Kaylea’s wound. The Lady moved one hand directly over it, her fingers searching, Kaylea suddenly went still, her body rigid. Thorin felt the energy shift again, sharply. He found it hard to breathe, then as he watched a tiny triangle of metal rose out of Kaylea’s wound into Galadriel’s waiting fingers. She plucked in from the air and brought it close to her eyes, it vanished in a puff of smoke, just as the knife had. The room suddenly grew brighter, the silver light returning. The two Elves quickly moved a dish to catch the blood flowing from Kaylea’s wound, but they did not try to staunch it. Her color was already returning, her breathing deep and regular.

He looked at Galadriel in amazement, she smiled at him. He could see the fatigue in her face.

“Kaylea Wolf is out of danger now,” she said. “We will let that wound bleed until the blood is a normal color, then bind it. We must be sure all the poison is flushed from it. That was the large piece of the blade. She will sleep for some days yet.” The Lady looked thoughtful. “I have done all I can to heal her body, but I fear her mind has gone far afield. Now she must come back to us on her own.” The Elven queen laid her hand on Thorin’s shoulder. “You have travelled a long road, burdened by much sorrow. You could use some rest yourself, your majesty. Will you not bathe and at least treat yourself to some clean clothes and hot food? Your lady is safe here.”

Thorin looked at Kaylea. He really did not want to leave her, but the Lady Galadriel’s words reminded him that he had not bathed in many days and had not eaten in at least two. Kaylea was in good hands now, he knew he could leave her for a few hours.

“You are right, my lady,” he said at last. “I am in need of all those things.”

“And you shall have them, but first I must ask one more thing of you. I wish to know how Kaylea Wolf was wounded, and also about the orb we found on her horse. Where did you find it, and where are you taking it?”  

Thorin and Galadriel sat at Kaylea’s bedside while he told her about the fight in the old watchtower. Thorin also told her how they came by the palantir, and that he had no idea what Kaylea had planned to do with it. This seemed to satisfy Galadriel, and when he had answered all her questions she took her leave. One of the other Elves stayed to tend Kaylea’s wound while Thorin followed the other to a nearby room where he found his bags had been brought up, a bath already drawn and food laid out on the table. He took advantage of both, and put on the soft clothes that had been provided for him. He was not overfond of the idea of wearing something made by Elves, but they fitted him well and it did feel good to lay aside his heavy travelling clothes for a time. With clean clothes and a full belly he returned to Kaylea’s room. She also had been washed and changed, her silver beads shining in her clean hair, her body wrapped in a soft white garment. Her wound now bound in fine cloth. The black tendrils had already faded. Thorin thought she looked as beautiful as he had ever seen her. He laid down on the bed beside her, his arm across her body, his head against her shoulder, and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Read the complete adventures of The Warrior and The King on AO3 & FanFiction, author is akdogdriver. All three books also on Wattpad, author is dogdriver.

If anyone wants to be added to the tag list for this one, let me know!

[silmarillionwritersguild]

Hidden Figures Challenge Stories List

Our Hidden Figures challenge ended on April 10. There have been 22 exciting contributions, and we hope you’ll find the time to take a look at some (or all) of them if you haven’t already! The links in this round-up post go to the respective Table of Contents, where you can view more information about the story. If you enjoy an author's work, please consider dropping them a comment to let them know!

--- Character of the Month Biography: Hareth by Oshun. As we honor rare characters and textual ghosts this month, we consider Hareth of the House of Haladin, on the surface yet another woman defined primarily by her [male] relations but who, with a closer look at the details of the text, begins to come to life and ask for a story of her own. Lullaby by grey_gazania. A brief interlude between Fingon and his wife. Diplomacy by Fernstrike. Elendur awakes one morning as the Alliance prepares to march for Mordor. Fate & Faith by Grundy. A glimpse of Tar-Elendil's daughter Silmariën at two key moments in her life. Comeuppance by Tilperiel. If you're going to upset the lords of Gondolin and get caught, you should probably expect some retribution. Especially if your name is Salgant. A Wax-sealed Letter by Independence1776. Veryë, wife of Arahad I, receives the invitation for Elrond's council about the orcs in the Misty Mountains. Wrestling by hennethgalad. Scenes from the life of Glóredhel, eldest child of Hador Lórindol and Gildis, married to Haldir son of Hamdir, of the Haladin. Hathaldir at Tarn Aeluin by Himring. Hathaldir the Young, one of the followers of Barahir: Tolkien called him the Young and spoke of his death in the same breath. Part of the collection "Atanatari: Of the Three Houses of the Edain". Sisters in law, sisters in expatriation by Himring. Hareth and Gloredhel married each other's brothers in a double wedding; both went to live with their new husband's people. Part of the collection "Atanatari: Of the Three Houses of the Edain". Harts and Minds by Tilperiel. A small vignette between Galdor and Egalmoth as they leave to meet the Noldor in Nevrast for the first time. Out of the Great Sea by Lyra. Vëandis, formerly Lady of Andúnië, has been shipwrecked in Middle-earth. Now she and the other survivors of the Downfall must find the strength to carry on. O72 by eris_of_imladris. Glorfindel’s mother muses on the dangers of having a child destined for greatness. Part of the collection "B2MeM 2019 Double Drabbles". B12 by eris_of_imladris. Bëor’s mother laments his choice to leave. Part of the collection "B2MeM 2019 Double Drabbles". N44 by eris_of_imladris. The eldest child of Aragorn and Arwen considers her role in history. Part of the collection "B2MeM 2019 Double Drabbles". N45 by eris_of_imladris. Ulfang’s wife reflects after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Part of the collection "B2MeM 2019 Double Drabbles". N32 by eris_of_imladris. Círdan’s mother pushes her desires aside for her people. Part of the collection "B2MeM 2019 Double Drabbles". A Poison Smile by StarSpray. Lady Tanith is well known for her gardens and her potions. The Battle of Fornost by hennethgalad. Bilbo asks Glorfindel about the Battle of Fornost, Glorfindel tells him of Eärnur, the last king of Gondor. Exit, Pursued by Lyra. Annoyed by her suitors, Ancalimë needs Zamîn's help. Part of the collection "Most Bright". Familiar Stranger by StarSpray. Curufin returns from Mandos. Telpaltië isn't sure she wants to see him. Tempestuous Waters by Raiyana. The First Kinslaying as seen by a young Telerin maiden. Eavesdropping by hennethgalad. Aradan overhears the truth from his beloved... Alone by SilverTrails. Makar sees one of Thranduil's sons near Oromë's forest.

--- Thank you for taking part in this challenge! We’re looking forward to seeing you around for the next challenge, which will start in just a few days' time. See you then!    

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #19: Favorite Minions/Henchmen

1.      Minions (Overlord [Video Game])

There is only one creature we call ‘Minion’ in this house, and it is the Minions from Overlord. (The game, not the anime.) The Minions are the perfect… well, minions. They’re design is mostly goofy, but there’s also something kind of horrible to them; they’re like somebody threw an imp, a spider monkey, and a goblin in a sack and didn’t open it up again until the screaming stopped. Those buggy yellow eyes, the hunched backs, the crooked tails, the shrill voices; this is what pops into my head when I think of what an evil minion is supposed to be like. They are utterly and totally devout to their master; they have one purpose in life, and that is to serve you. They think absolutely nothing of throwing themselves into a forge just to upgrade your weapons or taking on a monster just because you tell them to.

Watching them swarm over a cyclops like a nest of army ants is always fun, but that hivemind mentality shouldn’t be mistaken for a lack of individual. The Minions are kind of precursors to the uruks from Shadow of Mordor; the longer they live and the more fights they survive, the more unique they become. They’re given names and titles, and they start gathering weapons and armor. It’s never made clear what exactly the Minions are in Overlord, but the implication isn’t that an Overlord chooses them; they choose the Overlord. Without the Minions, and Overlord is just some spooky adventurer in a suit of armor. The Minions make the man, and the fact that you need them as much as they need you is a pretty interesting power dynamic.

2.      X-49 (Samurai Jack)

Just… do I really have to say anything? It was one of the best episodes in Samurai Jack, one of the best animated series of all time. And the music and the writing and the cinematography and oh god it’s all coming back at once

3.      Igor (Young Frankenstein)

There never was an Igor in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; he’s a fabricated character at least partially concocted from Edgar Allan Poe’s Hop-Frog that somehow wormed himself into horror mythology. And honestly, thank goodness for that or we wouldn’t have had Marty Feldman’s fantastic performance for Young Frankenstein. Feldman looks like he was born for the role; his exophthalmos was a problem he dealt with his entire life, but Igor is just one example of how he incorporated his condition into his comedy personas. Igor is a good comedic counterpart to Gene Wilder’s Frankenstein in a classic double-act kind of way. Where Wilder’s Frankenstein is driven to escape his destiny or conform to it, Feldman’s Igor is committed to his role from the beginning, with no real perspective on it in the grand scheme of things. Igor undercuts Frankenstein’s deliberate melodrama to remind the audience that it’s all a joke.

4.      Kobolds (Dungeons and Dragons)

Kobolds are one of the greatest success stories in tabletop roleplaying monsters. Kobolds have been in Dungeons and Dragons since the beginning, but they spent 1st and 2nd edition as basically another kind of goblin. Outside a few rare exceptions, kobolds were just an adventurer’s in-between step as they transitioned from clearing out rats in cellars to goblins in caves. For 3rd edition, the designers felt they needed to give kobolds something; a hook, a feature, a raison d’etre. So the design team though, “What if the littlest monsters had dreams about being the biggest? What if kobolds thought they were dragons?” The rest is history; kobolds became dragon minions, cultists who firmly believe that they are descended from the great wyrms they worship. Inside ever little kobold beats the heart of a mighty dragon, and their pluck and determination pushes them to reach for heights most humanoid races never even dream of. Kobolds are not only great examples of how to make a monster interesting from a game design perspective, but also of how endearing characters can be when you give them goals.

5.      Pleiades (Overlord [Anime])

It always bothers me when evil overlords leave their castle staff of their minions list. A great villain should have their power displayed in everything around them, from their captains to their cooks. That’s why Ainz Ooal Gown’s Pleiades are so great; the castle maids for an evil fortress, each on is an individual fighter with her own superpowers. Following organization rules, each of the maids is also a monster; werewolves, shapeshifting oozes, a sentient swarm of insects, etc. And that’s the kind of creativity and attention to detail I love to see in an evil overlord’s forces. Look at where there isn’t a superpowered minion, and say, “No, this will not do. More evil.”

6.      Hunchbacks (Castlevania)

I remember that my mind was blown when I finally realized the ‘fleamen’ from Castlevania were supposed to be hunchbacked Igors. While I was kind of disappointed that bizarre insect men hybrids, I am still happy that Castlevania didn’t neglect a favorite horror trope. Castlevania actually has a pretty unique staff; undead maids, zombie butchers, a plague doctor groundskeeper, and skeleton butlers. But it wasn’t until the Lords of Shadow games that the hunchbacks started being explored. One of the good things about Lords of Shadow was the implication that Castlevania itself is alive; the castle has always existed, and can’t even really be fully pulled through to our world. When the castle needs repairs, though, someone to repair it and expand it, it summons the hunchbacks out of nowhere. The hunchbacks are tied to the castle; they’re like cells in its body. They might know more about Castlevania itself than even Dracula, but they aren’t letting on. Their only job is to serve their master, whoever or whatever it might be.

7.      Maleficent’s Goblins (Sleeping Beauty)

Maleficent’s goblins are little bundles of medieval monstrosity with enough character to be charming. They’re like the Minions, where I honestly can’t imagine them existing without a master. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out they were just demons conjured up by Maleficent from her firepit. The odds and ends of medieval armor and weaponry on top of their gargoyle aesthetic makes me think of very early Tolkien, like the first covers for The Hobbit and Return of the King. These little guys were the forerunners to orcs, uruk-hai, parademons, and every other evil monster army. Sometimes I still wish we could go back to minions like these.

8.      Lurch (Addams Family)

The quintessential creepy butler. I feel like Lurch parallels Marty Feldman’s Igor in some pretty interesting ways. They’re both essentially half a joke, part of a comedy routine that requires someone else to land the punchline. The difference is that while Igor undermined Frankenstein to lighten the mood, Luch is deadly serious to contrast the Addams’ playfulness. Lurch wasn’t just a straight-man; he was a brick wall that you could throw anything off of. To be honest, I always kind of wondered what exactly Lurch was; I never really thought of him as human. My favorite theories are either that he was a flesh golem (since he was clearly based off Karloff’s Frankenstein), a homunculus grown for the family and passed down through generations, or just some really tall guy in a suit.

9.      Dwergi (Van Helsing)

The Dwergi in Van Helsing have an unnecessarily cool design for what amounts to being Dracula’s grunts. The goggles, spines, and full leather outfits make me think of aliens or something that would be working for Clive Barker’s Cenobites. I can’t help but think of the ‘jawas’ that were through the gate in Phantasm. But I think that I love the Dwergi most as concepts for evil dwarves; ‘dwergi’ most likely derives from ‘dvergar’, a German word for dwarf. There are even evil dwarves in Dungeons and Dragons named duergar and derro. And that connections opens up so many possibilities for me. Imagine a dwarven sub-race mutated to be classical Igor characters, or adventurers encountering derro dressed all in mad scientist gear underground. The Dwergi have hidden depths when you know where to look.

10.   Stormtroopers (Star Wars)

Out of the standard henchmen armies, Stormtroopers are still my favorite. Stormtroopers are up there with Red Shirts in terms of incompetence and mortality rates. Every now and then some random Stormtrooper manages to stand out and look like a badass, but even they usually have a lifespan of however long until the heroes arrive. I’ve heard some people argue that the humanizing elements of Stormtroopers, the way they talk about their day or are just trying to do a job, makes the very Nazi-coded Empire too sympathetic. But I would argue the opposite; the human aspects of the Stormtroopers make it clear how actually farcical the whole Empire is. The Stormtroopers aren’t some elite kill-force, they’re bumbling idiots. Whatever brutal efficiency they’re ascribed usually happens off-screen, and it quickly gets drowned out by the chorus of Wilhelm screams heard while trooper after trooper dies ridiculously. The Stormtroopers make it clear how fascism doesn’t raise the individual up but uses them as a disposable resource. The Stormtroopers as human characters make the Empire look inept, not empowered.

[hogwarts-headquarters]

The Fellowship's Hogwarts Houses

[I’m going to make this a separate post I’m on an old version of the app that’s not letting me reblog asks]

[Someone’s been flicking through our blogs… forgive me if this becomes a super long post discussing personalities and events possibly with direct quotes that last forever and whatnot ��]

Frodo: Ravenclaw. He literally never stops asking questions. The entire time. Questions. At one point, he asks Gandalf, “What news of the outside world? Tell me everything.” And Gandalf’s response is, “Everything? You are far too eager and curious for a Hobbit. Most unnatural.” At the start of the series, he’s shown to be a great deal like Bilbo, in that he is always reading. Frodo is forever thinking, which can confuse Pippin a little, “And now leave me in peace for a bit! I do not want to answer a string of questions while I am eating! I want to think!” His curiosity does not end once the Ring begins to corrupt him, but he does become more understanding. When Gollum tries to steal the ring, and Frodo is advised against trusting him by Sam, Frodo is very reliant on his own intellect, almost to a fault. While his judge of character in the past may have been pretty good (such as with Boromir, “I know what you would say, and it would seem like wisdom, but for the warning in my heart”), it isn’t always as perfect as he may think, such as when he offers the Ring to Galadriel. But still he relies on it, and values it above all else. I think he’s definitely a Ravenclaw.

Samwise (may I just say I hate his name because it literally means halfwit and he’s anything but): Hufflepuff. “Don’t leave me here alone. It’s your Sam calling. Don’t go where I can’t follow.” If Sam isn’t the epitome of undying loyalty, I don’t know what is. His pure faith and trust in Frodo is undiminishing. He’s loyal to a fault, and he knows full well that this endeavour could easily get him killed, “If you don’t come back, sir, then I shan’t, that’s certain,” and still he chooses to stay by Frodo. When Frodo tries to leave the Fellowship, Sam knows exactly what Frodo’s doing, chases after him, and wades into deep waters even though he knows he can’t swim, trusting Frodo with his life. If Sam isn’t Hufflepuff, then I don’t know who is.

Meriadoc & Peregrine (same sorting): Gryfferin. These little shits (and I say it in the most affectionate way possible) are both incredibly brave and chivalrous and still cunning as characters can get. Remember at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring when Frodo’s being an angsty baby and they’re just, “something’s up” and literally get Sam (Sam being… not worried… concerned (sorry not sorry for the Night Vale reference) about Frodo) to spy on Frodo for them so they can figure it out and when they do they’re not even afraid they’re just, “hey we’re coming too” and they completely ignore everything Frodo (angsty Frodo) is saying about certain death and whatnot. And then they completely defy the rules about the “secret” meeting (they figured Frodo was up to something yet again) and spy anyway and just burst out out of the bushes the second they know they’re going to Mordor and oml they display both the traits of Slytherin and Gryffindor. Fight me on this.

Legolas*: Slytherdor. This little shit (and I’ve done it again) is literally one of the most resourceful characters. He pulls the orc arrows from literally everywhere (probably Boromir’s dead body too fight me) even though they’re not so great and fixes them up and reuses them literally every time he runs out of arrows and all the time he’s making no big deal about it. Like a Slytherin, his loyalty does not extend to literally everyone the way a Hufflepuff’s does, and, once his loyalty’s earnt (see Frodo being brave enough to take the Rings to Mordor even when everyone bigger and stronger than him is fighting over that responsibility, admiration for Sam’s undying loyalty, the pure cunning and positivity of Merry and Pippin, Gimli being kind and brave and then being accepted by Galadriel with the strand of hair thing, also Gimli surviving Helm’s Deep and beating him in death count (Legolas accepts this entirely in the books because he’s so glad to see Gimli alive), Aragorn’s heritage and bravery and leadership, I could go on) being so completely loyal he’d kill anyone who harmed them with zero hesitation possibly even if it wasn’t an enemy (see Éomer). He’s also really super brave (fight me) and he values this to no end. Legolas is definitely Slytherdor.

Gimli: Gryffinpuff. “Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” He’s incredibly brave and fiercely loyal to the just cause. Galadriel and Legolas both trust him. Two elves. Elves hate dwarves and dwarves hate them in turn but here we see Gimli defying those roles because he believes it is what is right. Isn’t that terribly Gryffinpuff?

Aragorn: Gryffindor.First off, if there’s anything he’s not, it’s Slytherin. He could so easily have gained so much power (kingship and the Ring) and yet he turned it down without a second thought (granted he wound up being King anyway) despite him being resourceful (being a ranger and all). He’s not Hufflepuff, either. His loyalty is something to be earnt. Perhaps he’s not Ravenclaw either, simply because he is primarily brave, chivalrous, and just and those are hid defining traits and those are what make him a great leader and eventually a great king. Nothing he does makes me doubt for a second he’s anything but Gryffindor.

Boromir: Gryfferin. “Warning? Against what? We are all afraid, Frodo. But to let that fear drive us to destroy what hope we have… don’t you see? That is madness!” I think Boromir is, like Merry and Pippin, Gryfferin. Primarily, he’s clearly Gryffindor, though his type of bravery and justice is different to his brother’s. His sense of bravery is that of the one wielding the power, and the ambition to come into power is a Slytherin trait. His leadership is Gryffindor in that he feels it his duty to defend his people and he feels the best way to do that is with power, and therefore with the Ring. And he’s prepared to sacrifice anything for it (dramatic music plays).

Gandalf: Gryffinclaw. His logic is unparalleled and he only ever uses it for just causes. Better than most Gryffindors is his understanding of justice and what is right and we see this when he explains to Frodo why Bilbo’s decision to spare Gollum’s life was a good one, “ Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.” He sacrifices himself to save the Fellowship, the one power doing anything at that time to stop Sauron, in the hope that maybe, just maybe, they could make it. That’s a very Gryffindor thing to do.

This turned out to be a 1226 word essay. Sorry.

~ Tara (Slytherin)

* Legolas’ house may be slightly biased I love him.

[garden-ghoul]

two blogs part 2

“the upstairs neighbors are being really loud and my tarot deck told me to relax can you believe this bullshit”

THE URUK-HAI

Ah, Uruk-hai. What could possibly be worse? I am here to tell you that what could be worse than being kidnapped by uruk-hai is if someone is fucking mowing a lawn outside and people will not stop walking around and moving furniture upstairs. Dump my body in a ditch and write ‘CAUSE OF DEATH: AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDER’ on a scrap of paper tucked under my tongue. Anyway Pippin is not having a much better time than me. He wakes up from a nightmare lying tied up on the ground, looking at his scared (and also tied up) best friend. And FINALLY some Pippin interiority! He is dismayed that he has been worse than useless on this journey and also, obviously, that he is now at the mercy of a bunch of orcs. I like that his primary characteristic in Fellowship was that he kept trying to look tough when he thought he wasn’t... but as we’ll see he really is tough and resourceful!

The orcs notice Pippin is awake and start being mean to him immediately. One of them says “Curse the Isengarders!” out loud, which seems like a pretty bad idea unless you assume this orc is looking for a fight. I guess the fact that orcs have no common language between tribes is just a plot point that allows Pippin to understand what they’re saying? Basically they are just arguing about whose orders supersede who else’s orders. Some of them are even Moria orcs, and just want to do a revenge murder; why the hell did the professional warriors let them join?? Like it’s clear that the Mordor party and the Isengard party have sort of good reasons to cooperate, but I’m honestly surprised they didn’t just chase off the Moria orcs as soon as they showed up. Like who even are these guys? They don’t work for either of our masters. Deadweight. At any rate, Ugluk of Isengard doesn’t seem to want to let them leave now?? Just to show how In Command he is.

The orcs fight and a bunch of them get killed. Pippin takes the opportunity to cut his bonds on a dead man’s knife and retie them looser. Just in case. Then the party sets off again, and somehow Pippin actually manages to fall asleep while being carried by an orc. These hobbits, I swear. Anyway he wakes up later and is given some kind of... alcohol? Opiate? Some kind of painkiller. Merry gets ointment for the cut on his head, but because of Tolkien’s weird Thing this is portrayed as creepy and awful. Ugluk also tells Merry ‘You'll get bed and breakfast all right: more than you can stomach.' What. Ugluk you’re really bad at threats, that doesn’t even make sense. Well, they let Merry and Pippin run on their own legs, anyway. Everyone was tired of carrying them. The Moria orcs say they can’t run in the sunlight; Ugluk threatens them into silence. Aww.

Later they decide to run home through Fangorn--over a hundred of them. Oh holy shit how many orcs are there here?? I was picturing more like 40... but it sounds like after the northerners leave there’s around a hundred left. Apparently the Mordor orcs come back too, and there’s some delightful boasting:

‘What else did you come back for?’ said Uglúk. ‘You went in a hurry. Did you leave anything behind?'

'I left a fool,' snarled Grishnákh. 'But there were some stout fellows with him that are too good to lose. I knew you'd lead them into a mess. I've come to help them.'

'Splendid!' laughed Uglúk. 'But unless you've got some guts for fighting, you've taken the wrong way. Lugbúrz was your road. The Whiteskins are coming. What's happened to your precious Nazgûl? Has he had another mount shot under him?’

Sorry I kind of like Ugluk. He’s... fun.

The riders start to catch up, and the orc party camps out in the dark, waiting for them to attack. This seems pretty dumb--even if Rohirrim have better night vision than most humans and their horses “can see the night breeze” (ah yes... horses.... famously nocturnal animals...) it still makes more sense to attack at night. Well, while that standoff is going on, Grishnakh of Lugburz shows up and starts trying to get into Pippin and Merry’s pockets. Pippin decides to trick Grishnakh into thinking he has the Ring... for some reason?

'My dear tender little fools,' hissed Grishnákh, 'everything you have, and everything you know, will be got out of you in due time. You'll wish there was more that you could tell to satisfy the Questioner, indeed you will: quite soon. We shan't hurry the enquiry. Oh dear no! What do you think you've been kept alive for? My dear little fellows, please believe me when I say that it was not out of kindness: that's not even one of Uglúk's faults.'

Oh I looooove the way he talks. Merry succeeds in making him angry and frantic--he’s running out of time! And he runs toward the forest with both of them. But unfortunately, riders. He gets very murdered. The battle moves away, Merry and Pippin are left alone in the dark, and so obviously the very first thing they do is have some lembas. Hobbits!! After having their tea (at midnight. whatever.) they crawl off toward the Entwash. Merry, who unlike Pippin has actually looked at a map in his life, says they ought to go through Fangorn despite the warnings. So they go to the eaves of the wood and look back out at the battle taking place at sunrise.

Out of the shadows the hobbits peeped, gazing back down the slope: little furtive figures that in the dim light looked like elf-children in the deeps of time peering out of the Wild Wood in wonder at their first Dawn.

GOOD IMAGERY, very sweet. Our hobbits almost stay, but it looks like Ugluk and a few others are about to get away into the forest, so they end up running. You were soooo close guys. Now instead of meeting their companions straight off, they’re going to end up with

TREEBEARD

They follow the Entwash for a while until they find a stony outcropping they can climb up. They go on quite a bit about how old and treeish the forest is (no duh) but when the sun comes out Pippin “almost feels he likes the place.”

'Almost felt you liked the Forest! That's good! That's uncommonly kind of you,' said a strange voice. 'Turn round and let me have a look at your faces. I almost feel that I dislike you both, but do not let us be hasty.’

Here he is! The reason I say HOOM every time I am thinking for the last ten years. Tolkien actually describes him as fairly humanoid, although he is fourteen feet tall and also has fourteen toes. He says he’s an ent, but doesn’t know what Merry and Pippin are. He sings the whole “all the creatures there are” song, which is very endearing, and doesn’t find them in the list. I love Treebeard’s preoccupation with true names; he doesn’t want to tell his (and at any rate, it would take a very long time to say!) and he’s absolutely honored by Pippin and Merry’s confidence when they tell him who they are. He also does some cute monologuing, and mentions Gandalf, “the only wizard who really cares about trees.” Surely Radagast must care a little, if only for birds to nest in!

Treebeard knows a lot of tongue-twisters. He knows one about Laurelindorenan (which is almost a tongue-twister itself); he would have advised people to stay away from queer Lothlorien just as Celeborn advised our heroes to stay away from Fangorn! So insular... He talks a lot about the old days, and sings some too. I love him very much. I find it hard to summarize anything to do with Treebeard if I read too far ahead; at any rate we come to a place that may be called Wellinghall, and the hobbits tell him of their adventures. Treebeard is troubled by Saruman and wonders what to do about him. He gets himself worked into a right frenzy over Saruman’s awful doings--and then says, now, I mustn’t be hasty. He’ll call a council tomorrow, but for now he explains the curiously sexist reasons all the entwives are gone.

Entwives like order, and they like to direct things to grow just so, whereas ents are more nomadic and live as herdsmen and wanderers. What the fuck Tolkien. Can you just... not... I’m not sure he has properly talked with a woman in his life. Anyway, the gardens of the entwives have been destroyed by Sauron, and nobody saw where the entwives themselves went. IMO the safest bet would be east of Sauron’s domain; he probably doesn’t have a huge amount of interest in spreading out there, far from the organized resistance in the west.

So. Entmoot. Takes place in the Derndingle. A dingle, by the way, is a landform also known as a dell, sort of like a very small valley. Not to be confused with a dale, which is both derived from the same Old English word and apparently has an almost identical definition. Thanks, Wikipedia. I’ll be sure not to get those confused. Anyway after a few hours Treebeard comes and finds the hobbits to tell them it will take a couple of days to explain everything to the other ents; he’s brought as a companion for them an ent named Quickbeam, who is so hasty that he has already decided what he wants to do about Saruman. Yowza. He’s a fun guy, laughs a lot, likes to sing. They stay at his ‘house,’ and he talks about the beautiful rowan grove he used to live in, and how the orcs destroyed it. “That seemed to the hobbits quite enough to explain his 'hastiness', at least in the matter of Orcs.” At last, after three days, the ents have come to a decision. Their war song is so delightful--its unstoppable rhythm!--that I have to put the whole thing here for you. 

To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors of stone; Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone, We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door; For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars - we go to war! To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come, we come; To Isengard with doom we come!

Burarum! “We are made of the bones of the earth. We can split stone like the roots of trees, only quicker, far quicker, if our minds are roused!” Treebeard says this might be the last march of the ents--Saruman is powerful, after all. But better to face doom this way and destroy Saruman than to wait as he grows ever stronger for doom to find them! The ents are going to war!

[stars-forever-dwell-blog1]

Blinded by the Light: Part Three

So I was in the belly of Smaug at this point, heading down the Lonely Mountain and towards the ocean, with eight other people and a dog.

Besides the girl who owned the dragon, Melissa, and I, there were six guys. They all turned out to be weird and creepy in their own way, and they don’t really factor into the story much. I don’t remember particularly getting a crush on any of them, but one of them named Richard was cute. I thought he was out of my league, though. Melissa started dating one of them, a guy named George, who was tall and big and dark, he told me he was part Orc, and he was. Part good and part bad. He always wore a trenchcoat and carried a staff, and he would sing this song he wrote about the mountains, the rainforest and the ocean in a deep voice. I thought he was pretty cool, and he was, at first.

Now, a VW microbus is pretty small as far as vans go, so to cram it full of nine people, nine travel backpacks and a large dog is kind of pushing it. So as we were driving out of the mountains, Smaug was having a bit of a hard time. The guy driving didn’t seem to really know how to drive standard, so it was pretty painful all around. It was one of those drives where one by one, everyone drops into silence, and you’re all leaning forward, kind of willing the vehicle to get you where you need to go and not die.

We were still deep in the mountains when two of the guys, incidentally the creepiest and weirdest of the two, randomly decided they were done with the red dragon and got out. I don’t remember where they were going or why they left, but it was definitely a relief for Smaug.

One of the guys who left was the one who had been driving, and I don’t remember who took over, but we made it about six hours before Smaug took one last fiery breath and died. I don’t remember why, but luckily we had made it into Hope, a town which definitely had a car garage we could take him to. So we all spent the remainder of the night in the van, and in the morning Melissa had him towed to the garage to be fixed.

The mechanic told us that it would take at least a week to get Smaug fixed, so we all kind of settled into Hope for the time being. I don’t remember where we all slept or “lived” while we were there, but there was one experience I had that is definitely noteworthy.

When I was in my last two years of high school, my school had started to offer this class called Native Awareness because there were a lot of Aboriginal and Metis students. It was taught by a Native woman, and she would give teachings to the students on the culture, history and spirituality of the Native people that were local to my home province. I’m not Native, but I took it because it interested me, and I had some pretty powerful experiences through it. I still incorporate elements of what I learned into my spiritual practices today.

During my time in that class, I learned about the concept of animal totems and teachers. So ever since then, it had been in my mind that I wanted to know what mine was. Meeting Peter had strengthened this desire, because he shared with me the story of how he learned of one of his. I wasn’t around any elders after I left Winnipeg, so every day I kept praying and asking “the Universe” if it would show me what my totem was.

So on one of the first days we were stuck in Hope, I woke up early, and I was on the go from morning until sunset. And everywhere I went that day, everywhere I looked, I found crow feathers. By sunset I had at least thirty of them.

We were all hanging out in a park that was called, interestingly enough, Spirit Park,. All throughout it, among the tall pind trees, were wooden carvings of animals. The sun was about to set and I was sitting there looking at all these feathers, and I decided I needed some kind of irrefutable answer. I walked off by myself until I was standing under one of the tallest pines in the park.

I stood there holding this bundle of feathers, and I raised my arm above my head. I stood looking up at them, and the setting sun knifed through the trees with one last dazzling blaze. I said out loud, “Okay, if the Crow is my animal totem, give me a sign!”

At this point, about thirty crows flew into the tree above my head, cawing. I kind of paused and went, “Well, I’d say that answers my question.”

What makes that story extra-interesting is that Peter had almost the exact same experience when he was seeking his totem.

The only other thing of note that happened in Hope was that I started to learn that I am not the kind of person who can live in a VW bus with six other people and not start to go crazy for wont of personal space. I also started realizing that I don’t like sharing everything I own. But back then, that was the whole philosophy we all lived under; share everything, peace and love, all is one, blah, blah, blah. Vomit. But at the time, I was afraid to speak up and tell people to bugger off once in a while, get their own bread and peanut butter and jam, because, well, I didn’t want to seem unenlightened, or like I wasn’t “one of them.” Peer pressure. It happens among hippies, too. Not that they’d ever admit it.

So we stayed until Smaug was fixed, hung out with some other sketchy people, then were on our way again. Our goal was the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island, and not much else of note happened between leaving Hope and arriving in Vic. I was rather eager to get to said city, because Best Friend Guy was there, and I still had a mad crush on him.

Even though a few good things came from my time spent in Victoria, I can say that it was by far the lowest, darkest, most scary point of my adventures / misadventures. Welcome to Mordor.

I remember that summer as August was coming to an end and September was drawing near, thinking of what September used to represent to me back in my Winnipeg: school starting again, shuffling through autumn leaves, cozy sweaters, the smell of woodsmoke, sitting inside reading books and watching the leaves fall, movies with friends. . .and on some level I knew that summer wouldn’t last forever. It was going to get cold, and I was living out of my backpack. Well, it was around the beginning of September when I arrived in Victoria, and you know how you can sort of feel autumn creep into your bones; how even when a part of you is clinging to those last few tendrils of summer, another  part of you knows that fall is coming, heralding winter approaching? This aspect of the Goddess is never easy to face, no matter how many “turns” of the Wheel you’ve been a part of. It never gets any easier. It means death.

There was one more Rainbow Gathering that summer, since September is still technically summer (at least on the Gregorian calendar), and I decided to go, mostly because Best Friend Guy said he was going, but also because I don’t think I was ready to let summer go yet. It was held on a beach by the ocean this time (the last one had been on a lake) on the Island, and I hitch hiked out there with a guy I became friends with, who went by the name of Turtle. We got there way after dark, and it was a crazy hike through the marsh to get to the beach, at least two hours from the highway, the darkness not making it any easier. We finally got there around three in the morning, and I was pretty shocked and disappointed that there were under ten people there. Not quite like the last two, that numbered in the hundreds. It was kind of foreboding, really. The whole gathering had a sombre feel to it, much like September itself does, if you compare it to July and August. I could feel autumn seeping in, though I tried to ignore her and tell myself “It’s still summer!” It’s funny, now that I’m more familiar with the Pagan calendar, and how the seasons changing are not quite like the calendar that most people in our culture reference. Because if you go by the Pagan calendar, the mood of that Gathering made perfect sense. Harvest time begins around August 1st, and when I learned that a couple years later, it made perfect sense. The seasons don’t just end and begin; they flow into one another, like water from different pools. There is a transition period.

So Crush Guy never did come to that Gathering, and neither did Peter, which disappointed me more than I let on, which was not at all, because I told myself (and others) that I practiced the Buddhist concept of “non-attachment,” not that I had any clue what that actually meant. What I thought it meant was not getting disappointed if the guy you have a huge crush on doesn’t come to the party that he said he would meet you at.

The beach was beautiful, but my disappointment was pretty raw, so leaving wasn’t really a sad affair like it had been at the other Gatherings. This one was different.

There was a girl there who I had become friends with, though in retrospect I really don’t know what she saw in me; I just became friends with anybody back then, so me questioning what I saw in her never happened. She went by the name of Blue, and she was, as she called it, “hardcore.” Army boots. Metal buckles. Lots of black and patches. Could handle junkies and street kids. Tough. La di da. Whatever. I, as it turned out, was not hardcore. This was, I gathered from her reaction when it was discovered, a bad thing – though for some reason not obvious. Maybe because I wore army boots too. With my tie dye.

I remember this one night, this guy Turtle, Blue and I had hitch hiked into Vancouver, and Blue had introduced us to some street kids she knew who were all-around sketchy people. I remember standing there with her, and she told me they had invited us to crash at “their place,” which was nothing more than an abandoned house. For whatever reason – maybe I was tired, maybe I was really tired – I just could not handle the idea of sleeping in abandoned house with some sketchy homeless people. Call me whatever you want, I just couldn’t do it. When I told her no, she kind of snapped on me an announced that I wasn’t “hardcore” enough, which upset me at the time because I wanted to be able to handle anything and everything with grace and awesomeness, the way I thought my sister always did. So she went with her friends, and Turtle and I found a “nicer” place to sleep, down near a pond, I think it was.

As we were lying there going to sleep, I talked to him a bit about how I had felt before, downtown. He asked me if I wanted him to do something for me, and I said yes, not really knowing what I was agreeing to.

He had told me before that he had training in martial arts, and that he knew some things about Eastern energy work. I had basically ignored him, maybe because I heard a lot of people talk a lot of shit back then, but down by that pond, he said he was going to do some “energy work” or something on me. I didn’t feel completely comfortable with it since I barely knew him, but I was far too nice back then to say anything.

I lay on my back and he sat beside me. I closed my eyes, and I felt him trace something on my forehead. And all of a sudden, I just felt this rush of pure energy enter my body and completely envelop me. Suddenly I was no longer drained, depleted, scared, stressed, none of that. It was shocking because it was so intense, and so real. And I can honestly say there was no “placebo effect” going on there, because I had had no idea what to expect, and a part of me had been resisting. It was pretty cool.

So, to resume: the Gathering over, we all hitch hiked into Victoria, and there I put down some shallow, dubious roots for the winter. What a mess.

It turned out that the reason Peter never came to the Gathering was that the beach was Native land, and the tribe was not happy with the Gathering being held there, so he didn’t go, out of respect. I wish I had known that beforehand; I wouldn’t have gone either.

The first thing I saw upon arriving at “the park” or “the square,” which was the unofficial hub of hippies / punks / street kids / drug dealers there, was Crush Guy sitting in the grass with a cute French girl, who later turned out to be his FWB (friend with benefits.) I ran up to him all excited, and he played it all cool, and she got all jealous, then I got all jealous, then I found out that sleeping with her was kind of a rite of passage to become part of this group of us that hung out together that winter, so I was less jealous, but hurt because he didn’t want a relationship because he was a manwhore, but all my friends said he totally liked me, blah, blah, blah. Like I said, boring story. The only cool thing about that part of the story happened after he left to go home for the winter. This was around December I think, so we had all been hanging out for a couple months, and I had never stopped liking him. He was taking the Greyhound home to Calgary, and another friend, let’s call her Sapphire, and I went to see him off at the bus station.

Me being the hopeless romantic I was (am), I cried a little bit, which shocked his hardened manwhore heart, and then he left and we waved goodbye, and that was the end of that.

A few days later, Sapphire and I were having one of our deep conversations. She had recently gotten this new Tarot-type deck called The Oh Cards. They’re not like a traditional Tarot deck, but more like an oracle; there are actually two different decks that make up The Oh Cards. One is larger than the other, and it has a word, or a couple words, printed around the edges of the cards. These words are be things like “Childhood,” “Love,” “Fear,” words that spark something in you. The other deck is smaller, and is only pictures – seemingly random pictures. The smaller card fits inside the larger card, as you draw one of each together, and the way they are drawn has a pattern, something to teach you.

So Sapphire and I were talking about Crush Guy leaving and how I was kind of heartbroken, and she asked if I wanted to do a reading. I agreed, and the two cards that I pulled kind of blew my mind.

The smaller card, the picture card, was of a person standing waving goodbye (or hello), and of a bus in the background. The larger card, the one with the word(s) on it, read Letting Go.

I never did see Crush Guy again. I tried calling him a couple times in Calgary, but he never returned my calls. Looking back, I kind of shake my head at how I let myself fall so hard for someone who “didn’t do relationships.” Nowadays, I know not to waste my heart on people like him, because guys, generally, are really straightforward. When they just want sex, that’s all they want. Oxytocin just doesn’t do to them what it does to women.

The Dragon Dwellers kind of went their separate ways once we got to the city, but a few of them come back into the story a little later.

A note here about Sapphire. She was this beautiful, sensual, short, fiery mermaid creature from Quebec with a French temper and passion to match. I adored her and was scared of her all at the same time. She was my sister’s age so I looked up to her quite a bit. We met over a crow feather, and we are still in touch today. She comes into the story more later.

So it didn’t take long to get drawn into “the group,” which was just basically everyone who hung out together in “the park” or “the square.” I really didn’t even notice when I first got there (again with the naiveté), but everyone I met there either sold drugs, or did a lot of them. A lot of them just sold weed, which I still don’t really see as a “hardcore drug,” but to say that I was hanging out with sketchy people, whatever they were selling or doing, is a definite truism.

This is one of the hardest parts of the story to recount, the most disturbing in some ways, and the scariest. Looking back, I can’t honestly tell you how I got out of that time without being raped, murdered or chopped into little pieces in a ditch somewhere. I thank my spirit guides, my creature-teachers, my angels and my ancestors – certainly not my common sense or worldly wisdom. My “everyone is awesome and trustworthy!” beliefs were about to get me into trouble.

Like I have said, I knew that winter was fast approaching, and I would need to settle down somewhere for the duration. Up until that time, I had been basically going wherever the wind took me, trusting in “my path” to guide me to wherever I needed to be. I believed in some sketchy “everything that is happening is meant to happen” destiny, so when I landed in Vic and winter was on her way, I decided that it was meant to be, and so I made some plans to stay for awhile. That didn’t include much planning; it was basically, “I am going to stay here the winter, sleeping in the big park down the road, and just hanging out and doing what all my friends happen to be doing. . .which in that town meant panhandling and doing lots of drugs. I never got into the drugs. Panhandling, I’m ashamed to say, I got quite into. It appealed to my so-called Buddhist beliefs at the time, but the reality was, I was lost and confused and didn’t want to get a job because that meant I was a sell-out. So again, hiding my low self-esteem and confusion beneath the “spiritual” veneer.

I remember well my daily routine, or lack thereof. At the beginning of my stay there, I was closest with a guy named Mike and a French girl named Mary Eve (pronounced “ehve,” not like Eve.) The three of us were basically living together in our various camping spots throughout the park, and of course it was a love triangle. I liked Mike, but he liked Mary Eve, and she didn’t seem to like anyone, at least not at first. I think I trusted Mike and felt safe around him (which was weird because he was really untrustworthy), and since I was still a virgin at the time, trust was a big thing for me in someone I liked.

So we would go sleep in this huge park called Beacon Hill that was down the road from the downtown core area, a beautiful spot that ran right into the ocean. There were tons of tall stands of trees and places to hide a tent, which we did for quite a while. We would walk there after sunset, smoke a bunch of weed, talk for a while, and go to sleep. It never got cold enough to snow there, only rain, so as long as you had shelter and a sleeping bag and stayed dry, you were fine. In the morning (or afternoon) we would get up and wander downtown, and then panhandle for a couple hours. Mike and Mary Eve started selling weed, but I never did because if I got caught, then it would show up that I had a court date I had missed. Not to mention the fact that I am a horrible liar and always have been, and would get myself all worked up into a paranoid frenzy if I were a drug dealer. So I panhandled and ate from “the food van” that came to the small drug-dealer park once a day around 6:00 PM. They gave out free sandwiches and juice and hot chocolate, and you could take as much as you wanted. We had all learned the soup kitchens in the city, too. How awesome.

So that was my life. Yes, I had moments when I questioned what the hell I was doing, and if I was happy, which of course I wasn’t. But I was still holding onto the belief that I was meant to be there, and that it would all become clear at some point as to why. And of course I was happy! I didn’t need material things like a house, food, or showers to be happy! I wasn’t that shallow! I was way more enlightened than the masses. And maybe I actually would have been, if I truly had been happy living a simple day-to-day life with no material possessions. But I wasn’t. If that’s the life for you, then go live it, I say, and live it to the max. Don’t let anyone judge you for it. But it wasn’t what I really wanted.

When I would have enough money, I would take the ferry to the mainland and then hitch hike the two hour journey to see my sister in Whistler, and that was probably the only healthy thing I did in that time. Get away from that hole I had dug myself into in Victoria. She always let me stay with her, but our relationship was kind of strained during that time. She was living in a different log cabin in the woods with her best friend, a girl from New Zealand. There wasn’t a lot of room and they were doing their own thing, so I always kind of felt like a fifth wheel, awkward and uncomfortable, smelling like a street kid and all jangly with city-energy, and ever so lost and confused, looking to them for answers that only I could give myself. I never stayed very long, always finding some reason that it was totally my destiny to go back to the city.

My sister had a made friends (yes, just friends) with an older guy who owned a property north of Whistler. I still don’t know what he does for a living, but he was, and is, pretty well-off. He was always off in Vancouver doing business stuff, and he would pay my sister to take care of his two Bouviers des Flandres, two awesome dogs that I grew to love, his large, beautiful property with the mountain view, and his beautiful house. I would go up with her sometimes and help out, and, holy of holies, shower. A few times I went by myself, and it was sooooo good; probably one of the things that kept me sane. A safe, warm, dry house with running water that I could drink and shower under! And do laundry! And sleep in a bed! And not worry about being woken up by the cops in the morning! Holy crap! Of course I felt like a huge sellout and hated myself. I was supposed to be non-materialistic, enlightened and hardcore. But clearly I wasn’t, and now, I see that that’s an awesome thing! I had standards. I had self-respect. I wasn’t okay with living in the gutter.

The guy who owned the dogs and the land and the house was a really generous, good guy, if not a little crazy, but only in a minimal, neurotic way that was mostly from living alone for too long and was actually quite funny. Once I decided I was done with living in the gutter and had moved in with my sister, he bought me a really nice pair of good winter boots that cost over a hundred dollars, just because we lived in the woods and I needed them. He was that kind of guy. He had money, you needed something, he liked you, he got it for you. Simple. As a result of his big heart, he had been burned a fair few times, and for a lot of money by one person in particular, but it still didn’t stop him from being generous. A really good guy. He’s still friends with my sister, and we hung out with him at her wedding a few years ago.

So my winter was basically a lot of back-and-forthing, which I loved because staying in one place was totally anathema to me then. Every time I got sick of the city and needed to be in the quiet and the green, I would hop the ferry and hitch hike up to see my sister in the woods. Then I would miss my friends, and head back down.

I met tons of people that winter in the city, and called them all friends. Some were definitely not my friends, some were more like acquaintances, and a few are still my friends today, though we haven’t seen each other in a long time. Sapphire is one, Rhiannon is another. (Peter kind of faded out of my life. . .I just creeped him on facebook, and there he is. He wasn’t for a long time. I’m not sure if I want to know him now, since my definition of cool has changed a lot.)

I met Rhiannon one day that was just like any other day, and I think that neither of us had anything better to do than hang out. We had seen each other before, of course, because the whole group of everyone kind of moved in circles around one another, but we had never hung out. I was, in her mind, a flaky hippie (and I totally was, for the most part), and she was, in my mind, the really cool-looking, interesting, beautiful girl with the beautiful black Lab puppy. Tall, with beautiful black hair, greenish eyes, and an exotic face. So this one day she invited me down to the ocean to smoke a bowl, which I agreed to, because I was in my “I-have-to-start-liking-weed” phase.

To explain: everyone smoked weed out there. I mean everyone. And since I was now living there and wanting to become completely enveloped by that world, I, of course, had to smoke weed to. But I hated it. It was horrible. It made me paranoid and it made me think too much, which I already did anyway, so it made me think way too much. I would tell this to people, and their response was always the same: just smoke more, and that will all go away. So, for about six months, I was stoned. Every waking minute of the day, I was stoned. Literally. I was determined.

But after six months of being a dribbling, useless mess that could barely walk, let alone talk or function in any capacity, I quit. And I didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. And it felt awesome. I think since leaving “paradise” and coming back to reality, I’ve smoked weed maybe three or four times, and I did it because I wanted to prove to myself that I could control my thoughts while I was stoned, that I didn’t have to become a gibbled mess. And I learned that I can, but it’s hard. Once I proved it to myself, I stopped. I think it’s been at least five years since I last smoked.

No one knew what to do with me anymore. My lack of smoking was actually the centre of more conversations than I can count. It’s like it was actually really, really interesting and baffling to those people. They would try to convince me to smoke with them using every argument you can think of. They would try to analyze me to figure out why I wasn’t smoking. It actually got really annoying after a while, to the point that even now I hate being around people who are smoking. If you want to do it, go for it; just don’t try and push your lifestyle choices on me. Maybe it’s because I’m an HSP, but when I’m around someone who’s stoned, I immediately start to get contact high, and I don’t like the feeling. And I don’t let anyone into my home who’s stoned or high. It upsets my balance, and my cats’ balance too.

I really believe that smoking weed is kind of like getting a tattoo (at least in some circles): all the cool people are doing it, you know. You have to do it. A little while ago my boyfriend and I were talking about tattoos (I have five, he has none), and he told me that once his brother (who has lots) told him that he has to get one. That really kind of pissed me off for my boyfriend’s sake. I mean, who says you have to get a tattoo? Because they’re cool? The point of a tattoo is that means something to you, something that you will honour for the rest of your life. Period. And if someone chooses not to do that, who is anyone to tell them that’s wrong? And who says you have to smoke weed? Is it just that same old truth that when one person quits something, it threatens the people who are still stuck in their addiction? But the universal argument of potheads everywhere is that weed isn’t physically addictive, only psychologically. Anyway, done rant.

So back to meeting Rhiannon. We went down to the ocean, sat, and smoked. And for two hours, we had the most amazing conversation. It just flowed out of us, beautiful and natural and true. At the end we kind of looked at each other, and it was like we were seeing each other for the first time. From that moment on, a beautiful friendship started growing. We had a million more awesome conversations like that first one, we laughed and were silly and shared spiritual ideas and thoughts and experiences, and she was totally there for me and I for her.

Obviously no friendship is perfect, and one thing I noticed that was sort of a bridge that I, at least, had trouble crossing, was the difference in our childhoods. She didn’t talk about hers much, but from what she said, I gathered she had been through some really rough times. There was an anger there, and a darkness, both deep. Her mom lived in Victoria, yet Rhiannon was living on the streets like the rest of us. I never asked her why, but obviously they didn’t have the best relationship. Sometimes she would go home to her mom’s and try to make it work, but she inevitably ended up back on the streets.

From the time I met her, Rhiannon had a mad crush on this guy named Bob (fake name), and it was fairly obvious he liked her too. At one point during the winter I took her up to Whistler (a big deal; I wouldn’t take just anyone to my haven) to hang out for a few days, and we were in a cabin of our own at that point. We smoked a lot of weed and talked endlessly about her crush and mine (I was still pining for Best Friend Guy at that point). Basically, we were being girls, and it was fun.

Once we were back in the city, she and Bob got together, and I was stoked for her, since she’d liked him for so long, and he really seemed to treat her well, and they seemed happy.

At first our friendship remained really solid. I remember this one day when I was sitting with her and Bob downtown, with my didgeridoo resting on the bench beside me. (For those of you who don’t know, a didgeridoo is a wind instrument that originated in Australia with the Aborigines. It’s generally long, almost as long as a person, and looks like a pipe, straight, with no holes or anything in it. You purse your lips in a certain way and blow into it – it’s called circular breathing if you can do it right – and it makes a really cool, deep sound that can be sustained for as long as you want. There is some disagreement as to whether women should play the didgeridoo, as in traditional Aborigine ceremony, it is only men who play; I wouldn’t play one now.) So a guy in town had made me one of bamboo, and I didn’t let just anyone play it, since it was special to me, my instrument. Anyway, this guy who was generally a creep came wandering up to us, and Rhiannon and I were talking and laughing together, so I didn’t even notice him pick up my instrument and start playing it. When I heard it, I glanced over and saw him staring at me with this nasty smirk on his face, daring me to do something about it.

This is one of those moments I’m embarrassed of now that I look back, but at least I tried to stop him. I asked him politely to stop and put it down, and he replied by shooting a string of swears and insults at me, and then he kept playing. I took a deep breath and asked Bob if he would help me out; he told me to just let him play it. In other words, he didn’t think it was worth getting into a fight with this idiot over it. So I, in all my dignity and maturity, tried to wrestle it out of his grasp, which obviously didn’t work, since I’m a tiny girl and he was a big smelly dumb guy. So I sat back down on the bench and stared straight ahead, angry and hurt, while he kept playing it until he felt he had made his point. Then he put it down, gave me one last dirty look, and walked away.

I started to cry, and Rhiannon covered my face with kisses and we went for food at this amazing vegetarian restaurant down the street. She always had money, since she sold weed.

So our friendship was awesome, but gradually I noticed she was distancing herself from me more and more. At first I think I thought it was because she was really in love, and it was kind of natural for her to start spending more time with her boyfriend than with me. But over time, I started to notice that something was definitely wrong, because every time I asked her if she wanted to go hang out, she would reply with, “I have to go sell.” She and Bob were inseparable then, always selling together, always together, always selling.

I decided I needed a break from it all, and went to see my sister. While I was there, we stopped in at the library, and I had resolved to ask Rhiannon what was up. I sent her an email telling her I was hurt, asking what was wrong. And her reply was not what I had expected.

Me in all my shelteredness, had expected her to say she was just really in love, or mad at me, or something, but instead, she told me that she and Bob had started doing heroin. Suddenly, it all started to make sense. She was addicted, so she had to sell enough to make enough to keep doing more and more. I can’t even say how I felt. Shocked. Hurt. Scared. Confused.

I told my sister, and that night I decided I had to go back to the city. Quite frankly, I think she was glad I was leaving at that point; I was a pretty big mess at that point in my life, really a draining person, and I know that I smelled. I had to show Rhiannon I was there for her, that we were a team and we would work it out. What I don’t think occurred to me in that moment was that maybe she didn’t want to quit and get better. That maybe me riding up on my white horse to save her wasn’t what she wanted. I couldn’t wrap my head around that.

When I got back to town I kept trying to get her to hang out with me so we could talk, but I kept getting the same answer: “I need to go sell.” I remember one of the last times I saw her, right around when I gave up. She was sitting beside Bob in front of this coffee shop, Blenz, on Douglas Street, the main road in Victoria. He was nodding off with his head on her shoulder, and I remember thinking she looked like a little girl and his mother, all at once. Then I walked away.

It took a while, but Rhiannon ended up quitting heroin with huge strength, and we figured things out and became friends again after a couple attempts, though we’re not as close as we once were. Having seen and heard how this drug and others like it have destroyed other people I knew back then, I’d say it’s pretty awesome that she did it. I’m pretty sure she’s made peace with her mom, too.

So while all that was going on, I was busy making some very bad choices in regards to the company I kept. I remember this one night in particular, I somehow ended up hanging out (alone) with this guy who sold hash and was a special breed of creepy. So somehow we ended up alone together after everyone had retired to their various sleeping spots, and he and I were sitting on a step somewhere on Douglas around two in the morning. I was still a virgin at this point, and I really had no idea how sex and everything related to it “worked.” I suppose, in my gormlessness, I had given him the message I was attracted to him, because he started sucking on my ear, which was just more weird than anything. We ended up taking a long walk to Beacon Hill Park where my friends Mike and Mary Eve were sleeping, and I remember as we were walking along in the darkness thinking, Wow, he could totally rape me right now, and there’s nothing I could do about it, and no one to hear me scream. Luckily he didn’t, and we made it to our sleeping spot, where I promptly laid out my sleeping bag and he sat there staring at me for half an hour, talking about some weird spiritual stuff and being generally creepy, which I tried to ignore and pretended to fall asleep. In the morning he was gone, and once again, I was lucky. . .not smart. Lucky.

There was this other guy that I remember thinking was this really cool person, and it turned out later he was a pimp. And yet another guy who I also thought was awesome, and he turned out to be a cokehead. What can I say?

Something interesting that has stuck with me, however, is the way that the group of street kids interacted. As I mentioned before, the majority of them sold weed and what-have-you, which is what you would expect. What you might not expect, though, is the fact that, among themselves, with no “higher authority” present, these “street punks” were actually extremely ethical, caring and honest (for the most part).

For example, most of the people who sold weed worked in pairs, and what really surprised me when I first got there is that they would actually take shifts that were agreed upon prior to their start. That way, everybody made some money each day.

I remember this one night that I met up with this girl named Lucy (in the sky with diamonds). She was all leather army boots, metal studs, piercings and black. . .and I was all decked out in my hippie gear. She was actually a really funny person. I had had a bad day and hadn’t eaten, and I sat down beside her on the street well after dark to bitch about how horrible my life was. Yeah. Anyway, when I told her I hadn’t eaten, she reached into her hat, which she had been panhandling with, and handed me enough money to get a burger at McDicks. This was a girl who did drugs and probably could have used that money for a number of other things. . .but she gave it to me because I was hungry.

Kind of makes you think about some of the well-off people you might know. Would they do the same for you?

So this part of the story has been mostly shitty to write. A lot of sad, scary and ugly things happened while I was there. I had always believed that most people were good and decent and trustworthy; living there proved me wrong. There are a lot of really messed up people in the world, and they’re not always where you expect them to be (more on that later.)

I think I’ve really compartmentalized this time in my life in my head, because it was so dark and hopeless. And I can’t say that writing this all out has been healthy. But I hope it has been.

I need to go kiss my cats now.

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #10: Favorite Goblin/Orc

1.      Uruks

I wanna’ tell you a story, folks. It might sound a little familiar, but stick with me. Once upon a time, there was a farm-boy. A simple lad, who had high hopes for a life of adventure beyond the town. He wasn’t the brightest, but what he lacked in brains he made up for in bravery. One day, as you do, farm-boy was working out in the field with his family when a monster attacked. The local guard piled on to the monster, but they just couldn’t bring it down. It tore through soldier after soldier after soldier, just for the fun of it. Our farm-boy knew he would probably die, but he didn’t care. He had his chance and took it; he picked up a stick, ran at the monster, and brought it down. Our farm-boy became a hero.

That farm-boy’s name was Kravitz the Marked One. He was an orc slave working in the fields the first time he killed me. The warchief promoted him on the spot and gave him a set of armor. The second time he killed me they gave him a caragor to ride. The third time he was given command over a company of hunters. I got him on the fourth time, though, and recruited him to the Bright Lord’s army. I was going to make him Overlord of Nurn, and raise him up to sit at my right hand, a real rags-to-riches story. He helped me take the Overlord’s fortress, riding with me at the siege. But poor little Kravitz took a mortal wound there, one I couldn’t save him from. And as he lay there, dying in my arms, he looked and me and he said, “Remember this moment, Tark. Remember it for as long as you live.” And I always did.

There’s a lot of other stories I could tell you. About Ugakuga the Maddest One, who saved my life, or Kellec the Tree Killer who communicated only in screams, or Flug the Ghul Lover who would track a matron across Mordor just to protect her. Uruks are rambunctious, and violent. They fight with each other even if you get them on the same team. They’ll betray you at the drop of a hat for the smallest slight. They pick fights with warriors and monsters that can kill them in one hit just to make a point.

But when they’re your own, you love them.

2.      Greenskins

The greenskins are the puncline to the grimdark joke that is Warhammer. While they’re in both the fantasy and 40k settings, they really stand out in 40k. Warhammer fantasy still has halflings, dwarves, and typical fantasy shenanigans to pick up the slack; 40k NEEDS some comic relief. The Orks aren’t concerned about empires or Chaos or the greater good. The Orks, pure and simple, are in it for the fun. They’re work is at its finest when its fast, loud, and in flames. Put together, they can generate a kind of psychic field that makes their beliefs a reality. This power is not used to reshape the fabric of the cosmos, but to enforce much more important principles like ‘things go faster when they have flames painted on. In the grim darkness, the orks are a pie to the face filled with C4.

3.      Order of the Stick

The goblins in Order of the Stick are kind of different from how they’re commonly depicted, but not too unrecognizable. They’re a monster race, living in the wilderness, trying to eke out a living, though they’re a bit taller and smarter than standard goblins, about on par with humans. But the thing that makes them stand out is Redcloak, and Redcloak is pretty great, both as an antagonist and a character in his own right. Redcloak has made decisions, bad decisions, decisions that he could have not made but he did because he felt he had to. And it’s interesting to watch him now, filled with regret, committed to this course, and wondering what will happen next.

4.      Nyambe

Nyambe-Tanda was an African campaign setting for 3rd. Edition D&D that not a lot of people remember. They should, because it was pretty great, both at representing an underexplored area of fantasy and also for its own setting features. Somehow, it blended West African mythology and post-modern tabletop fantasy masterfully. One of the best examples is its orcs.

You’ve got your standard narrative; at the beginning of time, there were the various races, and each of the gods favored one race over the others. Originally, the gods only divulged so much to the races because they wanted to keep things fair. But the orcs were having a hard time of it, living in badlands and scrounging for food. So their god, Ogun, the god of war, decided to give them a little boost. He made them stronger, faster, tougher than other races. But Ogun wasn’t just the god of battle; he was the god of blacksmithing. So the orcs of Nyambe learned how to mine and forge metal while the other races were still wearing leaves and furs. And by the time the other races figured out bronze, the orcs had iron.

From there, things went about as well as you would expect. The orcs swarmed out, conquering the continent one region at a time. The other races barely had metal, much less iron; any resistance was like bring a stick to a gun fight. Even after Ogun withdrew his patronage from the orcs, they turned to worshipping dark gods and demons, adding sorcery to their arsenal. The orcs set up a dark empire across Nyambe-Tanda, and it took nothing less than an alliance between all the races, the dragons, and God to stop them. The dumb orcs of Nyambe today are the cursed remnants of that empire, and their demon-haunted ruins still litter the continent.

Just think about all that. Look at how much the orcs did in this setting. And they did it for themselves; not for any god or Dark Lord, but because they wanted to. The Evil Empire that the plucky last-ditch rebellion had to stop didn’t use orcs; it was MADE by them. They fundamentally shaped the setting. In Nyambe, orcs are legendary and feared. Even the few remaining half-orcs are watched closely and with fear, looking out for any sign that the old powers might return. And that’s just such a massive departure from the norms of fantasy while still staying true to certain elements; I love it.

5.      Pathfinder

Pathfinder’s goblins are clearly descended from Warhammer’s; cheerful, incorrigible pyromaniacs who enjoy arson, butchery, and singing adorable little songs about how much they hate horses. Even their designs are cute; oversized head, constant grins, beady little eyes, big flappy ears, and a shark-like nose make them look more like gangrene bats than monsters. When Pathfinder was first released, it was decided by the Paizo team that they wanted their monsters to stand apart from the standard D&D variants of monsters, remaining true to certain aspects while inventing new ones. Goblins were the first example, and are still the most beloved. They became mascots of the system, and even a playable race. So much malevolent charm has been poured into Pathfinder’s goblins that you feel almost bad for killing them. You’ll have to though, because they really don’t feel bad about killing you and then burning your house down.

6.      Eberron

Eberron orcs are another attempt to experiment with the standard formula, seeing what can be retained and what can be changed. An orc on Eberron can still be a wild berserker, but they’re more likely to stick to one of the villages they live in as a farmer. Orcs in Eberron are the oldest species on the planet, predating humans and all the other races. It gives them this kind of grouchy veteran persona that pervades the whole race, and they tend to look down on the younger peoples. Eberron orcs are also a lot more spiritual, trying to live in tune with the land and spirits. It was the orcs’ druids that saved the world from extradimensional horrors long ago, and most of them stick to that tradition. They don’t want any praise or to be raised up as heroes, though. They mostly just want the young races to listen to them when they say important things like, “Don’t poke the fabric of reality” and “Don’t trust elves” and “No, ma’am, I would not care to do that with you.”

7.      Warcraft

It was inevitable that Warcraft orcs would be on here. There’s no escaping them; by now they’re probably more popular than Tolkien orcs. They actually have a fairly complex history and lore; addicted to demon juice, tricked by an evil shaman, warring with the goat-people. Thrall is still the coolest shaman in anything ever, even if it is kind of hard not to just call him ‘orc Moses’. Even their explanation for the green skin is cool; an eternal curse for drinking demon blood in wars past. Honestly, though, I loved the orcs best in Warlords of Draenor. The Iron Horde is what elevated the orcs from ‘kind of cool’ to full-on ‘Metal’. It was a shame to see them go, but that’s just how it is.

8.      Rankin Bass

My first orcs. I watched the Rankin Bass Hobbit films when I was a kid, so these were the first time I met goblins who didn’t come out of a fairy tale. They were scary more than cool, but they also had a kind of dorky charm to them. The original Hobbit goblins with their gaping mouths and giant fangs are still a classic. They seem like perfect fairy tale monsters to me, and fit right in to the Hobbit’s original tone. Also got to love those classic goblin hits like ‘Funny Little Things’. The orcs in Return of the King had way more variety in shape, and there was even some blurring between them and the trolls, but no particular design stuck with me. You know what did stick with me? The best damn song in the entire world, that’s what.

9.      The Wolverines

Stan Nicholls’ Orcs series is more in the vein of the Black Company or the Golden Age of Berserk than it is any other kind of orc story. It follows the exploits of a mercenary band of orcs while they traipse around first one fantasy world, then more. By the second trilogy, they’re freedom fighters for orc supremacy on whatever world they can find them. All the while, they never stop being just unapologetically bastards. You get a feel for the commanders and the soldiers, while taking in that whole mercenary life pastiche. Not anything groundbreaking yet, but still a good band.

10.   Goblin Slayer

Credit where credit is due, Goblin Slayer tries its damnedest to take goblins and make them horrific, intimidating monsters. Does it succeed? Ehhhhh... I don’t want to keep saying ‘Berserk did it better’, but it really is hard not to compare the goblins to the trolls from Berserk. Still, there’s stuff to applaud here. These are some nasty goblins, even in terms of design, with jagged shark teeth and dead frog eyes. If nothing else, it’s interesting to see the kind of hierarchy usually reserved for higher-powered monsters like dragons and demons given to the ‘cannon-fodder’.

[tanoraqui]

This is the last you’ll get of this AU for a while, I think. Until then...bonus points to whoever accurately guesses where/when Whitestone comes in!

[Prologue / 1 / 2 ]

Flashback to several hundred years ago:

Vex did not fall back onto her bed so much as fling herself delightedly, with the express purpose of bouncing. The famed elven bards of Rivendell had, this night, utterly failed to induce restfulness in their listeners.

“I shall be just like Luthien when I am older,” she announced. “Wham! Ha! Aaaa!” She punched the air, and sang a ringing note.

“And marry a human?” Vax, sitting calmly on his own bed, gasped in faux-horror. “Father would be furious.”

Vex rolled onto her elbows and grinned at him. “That is another benefit. You're growing so wise, brother.”

He stuck his tongue out at her. She propped one hand under her chin and continued.

“I do wonder if Men are more...energetic, than Elves. You'd think so, wouldn't you, with how little time they have? It's not just here - even back home, everyone is so dull. Slow. Not at all fun to-”

“Stop!” Vax put his hands over his ears. “I do NOT want to hear about you and...anybody, ever. Not in Mirkwood, not in this shitty house-”

Now it was Vex’s turn to stick out her tongue. But she abated her musing.

“Anyway,” said Vax, once it was safe to uncover his ears, “Tinuviel wasn't as badass as her father.”

“Thingol?” Vex’s voice could not have been fuller of scorn. “What did he do?”

Vax wobbled one hand in the air, palm up. “Banged a Man?” He lifted the other and shook it up and down firmly. “Banged a Maia.”

Vex replied, with that tone of almost genuine sympathy that only a sibling can truly achieve, “I really don't think Gilmore thinks of you the way you-”

A lesser being might not have caught the pillow, so quickly did Vax fling it at her face. But Vex’ahlia, daughter of Syldor, had come of age hunting beasts beneath the dangerous eaves of Mirkwood. Her reflexes were second to none.

“Shut up!” her brother shouted, already reaching for another pillow. “That's not what I- and anyway, no one knows whence- we were just talking, Vex’ahlia, it's not like-”

The rest of the scene was lost in quite a lot of torn cloth and flying feathers.

Even the great translator Professor Tolkien of Oxford University did not dwell, in his similar tale, on every detail discussed at the great council we now come upon. So nor shall I, overly much.

For some context, I should say first that Pike wakes after three days, and when she does, Gilmore has arrived at last, and they are delighted to see one another well. It had been a couple close calls: Gilmore had been attacked on Weathertop just a few days before Pike and her companions, by four of the Nine. As well as had some previous troubles of his own. And Pike, of course, had nearly passed away into wraithhood herself, the sliver of the Witch-Queen’s blade working its way steadily toward her heart for days. But Syldor Half-Elven* is a mighty healer, well-practiced in battling evil wounds of such type, though perhaps never so severe. But hobbits, as Gilmore has been saying for years, are surprisingly hardy folk.

The even dearer reunion is with Wilhand, who has been in Imladris for many years now. He earned his retirement in the Last Homely House with his own great deeds and adventures, if you will recall previous tales. There were several dwarves, and one dragon. He has gone a little deaf, now, and partakes a tad much of wine and sweetmeat—just think what the neighbors would say, he japes to Pike, once they are done hugging. After so many years of adventurous reputation, he’s acting like a respectable hobbit at last!

(This tale that I am telling now has fewer dwarves, and…well. We shall have to see about the matter of dragons.)

It is another couple days before Pike is well enough to see Grog, for he is camped out on the opposite shore of the now-quieted river. There is a limit to how far people will go to make good with unlikely allies, and that limit is an orc in Rivendell. Grog, frankly, agreed. The valley is too bright everywhere for his tastes. He has not been too alone: when Scanlan was not fretting at Pike’s bedside, he was across the ford, teaching Grog drinking songs from the Shire. With accompanying drink, of course. Minxie visited a time or two, and Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan more often. They brought much of the best drink.

First, however, the Council of Syldor. Dark times are come to Middle Earth, and so it is not just for Pike’s burden that people have assembled from near and far, seeking advice in trade for ill but urgent tidings.

From Uriel’s elven court of Mirkwood comes Allura, a lady and a scholar, to say that dark things are stirring once more in Dol Guldur. Not long did the fortress lay silent, after the cleansing dealt by the Wise back when Wilhand was out adventuring. Once more, spiders spin their webs, and orcs move and Black Riders have been sighted.

Lowbearer Vord, a dwarf of the Lonely Mountain, comes with his ward to bring similar news, and darker yet. War is brewing to the east, for the Lonely Mountain and Dale as well. Messengers have come in Vecna’s name to treat. They also ask after a hobbit, and a ring - “a trifle”, they say. Twice they have been rebuffed, but a third and final choice approaches…

Maryanne Darington of Minas Tirith arrived just this morning, with tale of a city beset and a dream most strange. For the latter, she seeks council; of the former, she speaks only with weariness and pride. Long has Gondor stood against the Enemy, and long shall it - she hopes. Osgiliath has fallen, and her brother’s dream spoke of Isildur’s Bane.

And what if that ring, that trifle, that doom of Elendil’s eldest son? That tale falls to Syldor, who was there for much of it - for times lost save in song and story, and the living memory of a very a few still on this earth.

I will not bore you with a retelling of those great events. The forging of the great rings, the betrayal of Sauron, the Last Alliance of Men and Elves… I’m sure you are likewise familiar with the parts of the tale that Gilmore fills in, of the finding of the One Ring by first one small person, and then another.

There, of course, the tale does a hop, skip, and a jump, as Wilhand tells his part - how he lost his party beneath the Misty Mountains and came across a small golden ring instead, as well as a young orc being strangled in the dark by a pale, slippery sort of being. This was the selfsame orc who had earlier tried to defend Wilhand against his own monstrous kin, so Wilhand sought to return the favor. Together, though it was not quite the tender-hearted hobbit’s plan, he and the orc killed the strange, frog-like beast, and tended each other’s wounds and escaped into the sunlight before parting ways.

That young orc, of course, was Grog, because orcs live as long as I, the storyteller, want them to live. He is very much not at this council - but while Pike was recovering, Gilmore and Minxie together got a story out of him, of wandering south and east, as countless of his kind were summoned over these last many years, and saw many terrible things and endured far, far worse, until the Great Eye knew the name “Trickfoot” and the race “hobbits”, and the land “Shire.”

(This, GIlmore tells with sympathy in his voice, and Wilhand takes and squeezes Pike’s hand as she shudders for their friend, remembering too well the Nine’s deathly cruelty. Because fuck you, Tolkien; even orcs don’t deserve that.)

Gilmore also speaks of his own recent captivity at the tower of Orthanc, at the hands of the wizard Curunir. (“Sauruman” in other tales, but in this world of Exandria, so enamoured was she of the name the elves gave her that she entreated its use by all, and they weren’t assholes so it stuck.)

So...the quest.

In the books, the moment is still, as they all stare at the Ring on the table in the center of the circle. This small, golden ring, which holds all their fates. In the films, there is shouting, discord already being sown by the power of the Ring. To guard it with the wisdom of Elves, or the strength of Men, or the strange, untouchable nature of Matthew Mercer, back in the Old Forest t the edge of the Shire, who would be First and Last? Or to take it, to use it, to overthrow the Enemy and win peace at last for Middle Earth? No, no--it must be destroyed, that is known. But how? And, moreover, who? Who could bear such a perilous quest, unspeakable temptation and greater peril, to the Fires of Mount Doom itself?

“I’ll do it.”

Pike’s voice rings clear, through silence or hubbub. She does not stand tall but she does stand forth, with her head high and her eyes alight. Her shaking hands curled into steady fists.

“I will take the Ring to Mordor. Though I do not know the way.”

[and now, for dramatic effect, I think I will follow the films]

“I have some knowledge of it,” says Gilmore, and comes to stand beside her, a tall and steady presence. “I will help you bear this burden, Pike Trickfoot, as long as I may.”

“And I.” Minxie - or Keyleth, perhaps, we ought call her - kneels to hobbit height. “Broken or not, my sword is yours.”

“And my axe!” Kima of the Iron Hills, the Lowbearer’s ward, jumps to her feet. She has been fidgeting since the council convened.

Allura shoots the dwarf a skeptical look, and steps forth as well. “Whatever aid the Kingdom of Mirkwood can give, or even just I myself, is yours, little one.”

“I think that’s our line, darling.”

Syldor scowls as Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan step from the shadows by the door. His children by a Silvan elf, now deceased, they are estranged, and had not been invited to this meeting. They came anyway, and now take matching places at Pike’s back.

“We’ve got you, Pickle,” says Vax, with a comforting hand on her shoulder. She smiles up at him.

“And me!”

Scanlan’s appearance from hiding is much less graceful. He falls out of a tree. But he picks himself up and scrambles to stand by Pike. “No way is Pike going to go destroy all evil without me.”

Syldor casts his eyes to the heavens, as if seeking salvation. Maryanne snickers for just a moment as she stands, before her sobriety returns. “If this is truly the will of the Council…” she says slowly, and puts a hand on the hilt of her sword. “Then Gondor will see it done.”

“Fine,” Syldor says with perhaps more force than necessary. But he, too, sobers as he surveys the group assembled before him. “The Enemy fields Nine Riders - so we shall send forth Nine Walkers. The Fellowship-”

“Actually,” Scanlan interrupts. “Mr. Elf Sir Guy. Sorry, but we’re ten.”

“What? No, you are-”

Scanlan Shorthalf, who knows his way around a story, crosses his arms and stares down Syldor Peredhil, son of Eärendil, of the line of Beren and Luthien. He says, confidently: “There’s no way Grog is gonna want to miss this.”

*A/N: This is the character swap-in I’m least comfortable with, because tbh Elrond deserves better, but I am assuaged by how much canon!Syldor would hate this title.