Addendum: the hallways in this tiny room
As I see the Mordorian Death March more or less wrapping up tomorrow evening, then so too should the tag-team Tolkien fic between me and setsuled wrap up...at least for now. Truthfully, I've had more actual fun writing this piece than I've had writing anything since...I don't know. At least since I finished Daughter of Hounds, I think. I hope that some of you have, in turn, enjoyed it, and that you've been following setsuled's part as well as mine. At the very least, I hope I have not bored you. I have no doubt it has kept me sane through two weeks of unwriting. I have a feeling that we will both be returning to this story, Setsuled and I, in the future. For one thing, I've come to understand that the story of the shieldmaiden Sindeseldaonna's ill-fated journey into Mordor may only be the prologue of a much larger tale, that of the elf Inwë Isilrá and her quest to find and redeem her lost lover. Also, it should be obvious that this last part owes something of a debt (oddly enough) to the work of Mark Z. Danielewski, as well.
And this is as good a time as any to thank Cory Doctorow for his essay in the May 2007 issue of Locus magazine, "In Praise of Fanfic." I am especially taken with his view of fanfic as "active reading." I quote:
Writers can't ask readers not to interpret their work. You can't enjoy a novel that you haven't interpreted - unless you model the author's characters in your head, you can't care about what they do and why they do it. And once readers model a character, it's only natural that readers will take pleasure in imagining what a character might do offstage, to noodle around with it. This isn't disrespect: it's active reading.
At any rate, here's what is probably my last bit of it for now (behind the cut); one more section by Setsuled will follow shortly:
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I am alone now, Inwë. Suregait is gone from me. I removed her saddle and bridle and bade her try and find her way out and return to the green fields of the Mark. I will not say I set her free, for the Maeras are ever free. She is in my thoughts and will be as long as I breathe, but I could not lead her deeper into this...I do not know what this place is. I followed the sound of running water, for my throat burned so with thirst, and my head ached from the heat. I have found no water, but there is cool air down here. I still hear water, as though it were some happy brook flowing beneath the sun and across the plains and down to join the Gladden, which the elves name Sîr Ninglor, and on to the broad Anduin. But I know now I will not find it. Not if I walk these tunnels for a hundred years, I will not discover its banks.
The candle will be gone soon. Even now, it is only a sliver of wick guttering in a pool of molten wax where I set it among the stones. Then there will only be the darkness, which I think shall not ever end.
I would not dare to guess how long I have been wandering...the darkness seems to have no end to it. And I know my mind is broken. I know that, Inwë. He is in my mind, just as the darkness fills my eyes. The dark is filled with eyes, and they are all his eyes, all his spies...the eyes of a captured child bound hand and foot and looking to me for her salvation. They are all his eyes. Every one of them.
O môr henion i dhu. Ely siriar, el síla. Tiro! El eria e mor. I 'lir en el luitha 'uren. Ai! Aniron...
Aniron, Inwë Órenya, Inwë iirima.
It is almost done, however it will end. I must believe it is almost done. I will fall, and he will leave my mind. He will know neither my secrets nor my purpose here. He shall be cheated, at the last. And once again I shall only be a daughter of Rohan, only the one who was brought back down from a wolves den and so called hund-déhter, græga-meówle-diór, or Sindeseldaonna by the elves of Eryn Lasgalen. My mother, Théodwyn, named me Leóhtwen before I was lost, lost daughter taken in the night and by the night, déhter ge-drifen...
O môr henion i dhu.
The candle is almost done now. I hear footsteps in the dark, and I shall rise to meet them.
---
And this is as good a time as any to thank Cory Doctorow for his essay in the May 2007 issue of Locus magazine, "In Praise of Fanfic." I am especially taken with his view of fanfic as "active reading." I quote:
Writers can't ask readers not to interpret their work. You can't enjoy a novel that you haven't interpreted - unless you model the author's characters in your head, you can't care about what they do and why they do it. And once readers model a character, it's only natural that readers will take pleasure in imagining what a character might do offstage, to noodle around with it. This isn't disrespect: it's active reading.
At any rate, here's what is probably my last bit of it for now (behind the cut); one more section by Setsuled will follow shortly:
---
I am alone now, Inwë. Suregait is gone from me. I removed her saddle and bridle and bade her try and find her way out and return to the green fields of the Mark. I will not say I set her free, for the Maeras are ever free. She is in my thoughts and will be as long as I breathe, but I could not lead her deeper into this...I do not know what this place is. I followed the sound of running water, for my throat burned so with thirst, and my head ached from the heat. I have found no water, but there is cool air down here. I still hear water, as though it were some happy brook flowing beneath the sun and across the plains and down to join the Gladden, which the elves name Sîr Ninglor, and on to the broad Anduin. But I know now I will not find it. Not if I walk these tunnels for a hundred years, I will not discover its banks.
The candle will be gone soon. Even now, it is only a sliver of wick guttering in a pool of molten wax where I set it among the stones. Then there will only be the darkness, which I think shall not ever end.
I would not dare to guess how long I have been wandering...the darkness seems to have no end to it. And I know my mind is broken. I know that, Inwë. He is in my mind, just as the darkness fills my eyes. The dark is filled with eyes, and they are all his eyes, all his spies...the eyes of a captured child bound hand and foot and looking to me for her salvation. They are all his eyes. Every one of them.
O môr henion i dhu. Ely siriar, el síla. Tiro! El eria e mor. I 'lir en el luitha 'uren. Ai! Aniron...
Aniron, Inwë Órenya, Inwë iirima.
It is almost done, however it will end. I must believe it is almost done. I will fall, and he will leave my mind. He will know neither my secrets nor my purpose here. He shall be cheated, at the last. And once again I shall only be a daughter of Rohan, only the one who was brought back down from a wolves den and so called hund-déhter, græga-meówle-diór, or Sindeseldaonna by the elves of Eryn Lasgalen. My mother, Théodwyn, named me Leóhtwen before I was lost, lost daughter taken in the night and by the night, déhter ge-drifen...
O môr henion i dhu.
The candle is almost done now. I hear footsteps in the dark, and I shall rise to meet them.
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