Fic: The Homophones Challenge: The Element of Valar
For the holiday season, I took on the Tolkien Weekly Homophone challenge, because the ambiguity of a homophone associates nicely in my head with divine ambiguity, which fits the seasonal bill for me.
Some of these work better than others in terms of illustrating the ambiguity of the Valar, and the locus of ambiguity shifts a good deal, but there's a Vala involved somewhere and in some fashion. Think of it as a conceptual 'where's Waldo/Astaldo".
Enjoy!
Title: The Element of Valor
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: through/threw
Rating: T
Summary: Doubt is the element of the divine - as every good captain must know.
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
Summer’s the harrowing time: for farmers and for warriors. West of Anduin, wheat falls to scythe and drought; east of Anduin, men fall to the sword. It has been a doubtful season for Gondor, east and west.
But now, they’ve the bridge behind them - they can retreat no farther. From Ithilien, Shadow spreads, and Boromir looks to his men, standing grim-faced against the onslaught.
They need a little doubt today, he judges. So he laughs, valor of Valar, and levels his sword at darkness descending, crying: “Astaldo threw Melkor, and so we shall see this day through - forth for Gondor!”
Title: Grief’s Gifts
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: bear/bare
Rating: T
Summary: What the water gives us…
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
Upon the battlefield she walks, wailing lamentation. Nienna bears wounds and bares them: in the face of death, in the face of fear, she gives her gift, strange and wondrous.
For men’s tears differ: some, in their sorrow shatter; and some, in their grief cease; some fling contempt back; others rage.
What will the warrior, grieving the fallen king, make of mourning?
Eowyn’s tears run hot with outrage and cold with hate. In her face and hands, Nienna’s gift is defiance:
‘Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him!'
‘Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him!' - Eowyn, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”, ROTK
Title: The Bones of Beleriand
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: beech/beach
Rating: K+
Warnings: I did my best with Nandorin wordlists and conjecture.
Summary: Go tell it on the mountains…
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
The rivers o’erran their banks - presentiment of death to those wakeful. So the Lindi fled to the mountains, and when the Balar-land broke, they wept, for Tear-giver must have died of mourning.
Then Enelwing, Danitharo’s daughter, descended, and in great grief gathered driftwood in her arms - poor bones of Beleriand, lying unhonored!
But wondrous sight: upon the beach, a beech, tall and straight, kelp-hung branches spread low, sheltering shattered trunks.
In reverence Enelwing laid Beleriand’s dead-wood beneath it, bowed low, and went forth in joy to tell her people on the heights: Ivann Galad-tharo lives, and I have met her!
Note: Ivann Galad-tharo is an attempt to give Yavanna a Nandorin name and title, but it's mostly conjecture and Sindarin.
Title: Impartial offering
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: reign/rain/rein
Rating: T
Summary: Rain falls where it will; water flows even to the lowest point.
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
In the dry-dust lands, they walk: two hobbits, with the fate of the west in their hands. Swords rein in the Dark Lord’s onslaughts, but cannot unmake Sauron. Only fire can finish a spirit of fire.
But fire needs water: Water, clean water! Parched sinews burn with thirst and raise their cry.
Ulmo reigns in the deeps, runs in the veins of the world: living in puddles, in cistern-cups of rains long since fallen, bitter as the struggle to bore into this land - life for whomever he finds.
He finds hobbits.
In joy they drink, and in hope, pass eastward.
'If only the Lady could see us or hear us, I'd say to her: Your Ladyship, all we want is light and water: just clean water and plain daylight, better than any jewels, begging your pardon.' - Sam, "The Land of Shadow", ROTK
Title: Dark Places
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: ale/ail
Rating: T
Summary: In the wild, you take what grace you get.
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
Beyond the Bree Hill is wasteland, ‘til Forsaken Inn. There, men walk at their peril.
“Cursed wolves!” Halbarad swears as he and Aragorn collapse with a wounded Eledhril, who groans. Halbarad gauges waning light. “How far to Forsaken Inn?”
“Ten miles, I judge.”
Their ailing companion, eyes fever bright, pants, “Go! Leave me - the wolves...”
“Nay,” Aragorn refuses, “they’re too swift - separation gains us naught.”
“Would we’d even plain ale to ease him,” Halbarad frets later, as Eledhril dreams uneasily.
“Add that to claims against the Enemy,” Aragorn replies, and sighs. “As for ease - Irmo keep him, delirium must do!”
Dark Places: ‘They will come on you in the wild, in some dark place where there is no help’ - Aragorn, ‘At the Sign of the Prancing Pony’, FOTR
Title: On the Hunt
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: rowed/road/rode
Rating: T
Summary: Oromë taught her to hunt…
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
Ere the Sun he rode the world. And when he found the Quendi, he saw their need and showed them the hunter’s arts.
Írissë remembers those stories. She remembers hunting in Oromë’s wake in Valinor, and his first lesson: Against the Dark Horseman, you must be ruthless.
She has rowed on every road since: fought brother, cousins, the twisted orcs, Valaraukar - where she finds the Dark Horseman’s trace, or compromise with it, she’s pitiless.
Ondolindë looms before her and her son: the world without lies under darkness, so she prays:
Oromë, make me your hound - bring the Hunter’s wrath home!
Some of these work better than others in terms of illustrating the ambiguity of the Valar, and the locus of ambiguity shifts a good deal, but there's a Vala involved somewhere and in some fashion. Think of it as a conceptual 'where's Waldo/Astaldo".
Enjoy!
Title: The Element of Valor
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: through/threw
Rating: T
Summary: Doubt is the element of the divine - as every good captain must know.
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
Summer’s the harrowing time: for farmers and for warriors. West of Anduin, wheat falls to scythe and drought; east of Anduin, men fall to the sword. It has been a doubtful season for Gondor, east and west.
But now, they’ve the bridge behind them - they can retreat no farther. From Ithilien, Shadow spreads, and Boromir looks to his men, standing grim-faced against the onslaught.
They need a little doubt today, he judges. So he laughs, valor of Valar, and levels his sword at darkness descending, crying: “Astaldo threw Melkor, and so we shall see this day through - forth for Gondor!”
Title: Grief’s Gifts
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: bear/bare
Rating: T
Summary: What the water gives us…
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
Upon the battlefield she walks, wailing lamentation. Nienna bears wounds and bares them: in the face of death, in the face of fear, she gives her gift, strange and wondrous.
For men’s tears differ: some, in their sorrow shatter; and some, in their grief cease; some fling contempt back; others rage.
What will the warrior, grieving the fallen king, make of mourning?
Eowyn’s tears run hot with outrage and cold with hate. In her face and hands, Nienna’s gift is defiance:
‘Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him!'
‘Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him!' - Eowyn, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”, ROTK
Title: The Bones of Beleriand
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: beech/beach
Rating: K+
Warnings: I did my best with Nandorin wordlists and conjecture.
Summary: Go tell it on the mountains…
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
The rivers o’erran their banks - presentiment of death to those wakeful. So the Lindi fled to the mountains, and when the Balar-land broke, they wept, for Tear-giver must have died of mourning.
Then Enelwing, Danitharo’s daughter, descended, and in great grief gathered driftwood in her arms - poor bones of Beleriand, lying unhonored!
But wondrous sight: upon the beach, a beech, tall and straight, kelp-hung branches spread low, sheltering shattered trunks.
In reverence Enelwing laid Beleriand’s dead-wood beneath it, bowed low, and went forth in joy to tell her people on the heights: Ivann Galad-tharo lives, and I have met her!
Note: Ivann Galad-tharo is an attempt to give Yavanna a Nandorin name and title, but it's mostly conjecture and Sindarin.
Title: Impartial offering
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: reign/rain/rein
Rating: T
Summary: Rain falls where it will; water flows even to the lowest point.
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
In the dry-dust lands, they walk: two hobbits, with the fate of the west in their hands. Swords rein in the Dark Lord’s onslaughts, but cannot unmake Sauron. Only fire can finish a spirit of fire.
But fire needs water: Water, clean water! Parched sinews burn with thirst and raise their cry.
Ulmo reigns in the deeps, runs in the veins of the world: living in puddles, in cistern-cups of rains long since fallen, bitter as the struggle to bore into this land - life for whomever he finds.
He finds hobbits.
In joy they drink, and in hope, pass eastward.
'If only the Lady could see us or hear us, I'd say to her: Your Ladyship, all we want is light and water: just clean water and plain daylight, better than any jewels, begging your pardon.' - Sam, "The Land of Shadow", ROTK
Title: Dark Places
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: ale/ail
Rating: T
Summary: In the wild, you take what grace you get.
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
Beyond the Bree Hill is wasteland, ‘til Forsaken Inn. There, men walk at their peril.
“Cursed wolves!” Halbarad swears as he and Aragorn collapse with a wounded Eledhril, who groans. Halbarad gauges waning light. “How far to Forsaken Inn?”
“Ten miles, I judge.”
Their ailing companion, eyes fever bright, pants, “Go! Leave me - the wolves...”
“Nay,” Aragorn refuses, “they’re too swift - separation gains us naught.”
“Would we’d even plain ale to ease him,” Halbarad frets later, as Eledhril dreams uneasily.
“Add that to claims against the Enemy,” Aragorn replies, and sighs. “As for ease - Irmo keep him, delirium must do!”
Dark Places: ‘They will come on you in the wild, in some dark place where there is no help’ - Aragorn, ‘At the Sign of the Prancing Pony’, FOTR
Title: On the Hunt
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Homophones: rowed/road/rode
Rating: T
Summary: Oromë taught her to hunt…
Disclaimers: Not Tolkien, not related, broke, not making money. Don't sue please.
Ere the Sun he rode the world. And when he found the Quendi, he saw their need and showed them the hunter’s arts.
Írissë remembers those stories. She remembers hunting in Oromë’s wake in Valinor, and his first lesson: Against the Dark Horseman, you must be ruthless.
She has rowed on every road since: fought brother, cousins, the twisted orcs, Valaraukar - where she finds the Dark Horseman’s trace, or compromise with it, she’s pitiless.
Ondolindë looms before her and her son: the world without lies under darkness, so she prays:
Oromë, make me your hound - bring the Hunter’s wrath home!