Drouble: Sign
They're addictive, double-drabbles. Normally I post these suckers on toilanddrouble, but this one popped out and it didn't quite fit the theme so I'll just stick it here for later.
The imagery is a bit over-the-top, but it was kind of there from the beginning (Tolkien being Catholic and all).
SIGN
Linnet drank and made a face. "And no doubt it tastes better now than when they came through here," she said wryly, and Alberrius laughed. Sour drinking water was an adventure Tooks endured if they explored the Dead Land.
Their travels had given the lie to Mordor's nickname. Eye-flies, stinkweed, white-flowering thorns, sawgrass - none of them handsome, all of them life - filled the bleak countryside and their journals' pages.
The black dome, all that remained of Mount Doom, was the sole exception. Rocks and dirt only; a week the naturalists had circled it, and not a grass-blade nor an ant. "How did they do it?" Berry gasped for the twentieth time.
Linnet sat and rubbed a bruise on her booted feet. "Great-gammer Wenrose remembers seeing Gaffer Gardner's feet when she was a faunt, and how deeply scarred they were. How he must have bled!"
"He did."
Linn looked up at Berry's tone. Then she looked where he looked. She said nothing; tears filled her eyes.
"This is where he walked up, carrying Frodo," Berry said. His wife nodded.
On the lifeless black rock-pile, thorns grew in a long staggering line up the slope. But these bore red blossoms.
The imagery is a bit over-the-top, but it was kind of there from the beginning (Tolkien being Catholic and all).
SIGN
Linnet drank and made a face. "And no doubt it tastes better now than when they came through here," she said wryly, and Alberrius laughed. Sour drinking water was an adventure Tooks endured if they explored the Dead Land.
Their travels had given the lie to Mordor's nickname. Eye-flies, stinkweed, white-flowering thorns, sawgrass - none of them handsome, all of them life - filled the bleak countryside and their journals' pages.
The black dome, all that remained of Mount Doom, was the sole exception. Rocks and dirt only; a week the naturalists had circled it, and not a grass-blade nor an ant. "How did they do it?" Berry gasped for the twentieth time.
Linnet sat and rubbed a bruise on her booted feet. "Great-gammer Wenrose remembers seeing Gaffer Gardner's feet when she was a faunt, and how deeply scarred they were. How he must have bled!"
"He did."
Linn looked up at Berry's tone. Then she looked where he looked. She said nothing; tears filled her eyes.
"This is where he walked up, carrying Frodo," Berry said. His wife nodded.
On the lifeless black rock-pile, thorns grew in a long staggering line up the slope. But these bore red blossoms.