LOTR Drabbles
Fellowship was on cable when I was babysitting last night, so I started to write a couple of drabbles, and then I dug out a short piece I wrote about Gimli a while ago. So here are five drabbles that get progressively longer, and are mainly gen (I concentrated on canon rather than thinking too much about pairings and slash).
---
Aragorn walked away from Arwen that first time because her light was too much. He wanted to hide, he wanted exile, he wanted a life unnoticed, but she was determined to bring him out. The moment she placed the Evenstar in his hands and kissed his lips, he knew his path was set. He saw the light of the jewel glow even through this closed fist and knew that he, too, would shine out now, despite any shroud or desire to hide.
---
For as long as Éomer could remember his sister had shone like pale sunlight in early morning; never brightening, always dim. He watched when Strider came and Éowyn grew ever weaker, save for one brief moment at Pelennor when she unmasked and her grey costume fell away and it seemed as if her almighty battle cry illuminated her body like a flash of lightning. From then she was luminous, and when she stood with the Steward above the city of Gondor before the setting of the sun, she finally seemed golden, like the hall he would rule over.
---
The Grey Havens always felt like dying to Gandalf. Grey sky met a grey sea that stretched to a grey horizon point, and time stood still there. To Cirdan, it was death. He’d waited there so long, with his heart at other shores, waking each day to think that surely this day was the one when they would come, and the ships would sail, and he could escape the world that was even now just a murmur across the land. But each day more rumblings of war came instead, and only smaller boats set off, and he sanded and smoothed an endless line of crafted hulls. Then one day, the procession came, and instead of gladness he felt hollow to board the ship with the wizard and all the others of his kin. Having spent so long caught in between one world and the next, Cirdan now had no place anywhere.
---
When Arwen became a mortal, she knew she’d lived her whole life a dream. As an Elf, never properly sleeping, she had never properly woken. She moved through the world in wonder at beauty and transcendence, and she didn’t realise that her feet hardly touched the ground until her mortal body made her aware of every weight and anchor and blade of grass beneath her feet. Men lived in a disarray of sounds and colours and breaths that overwhelmed her the first time she stood among a crowd and realised she was just like them, and not detached the way the Elves were. And Aragorn she saw like she had never seen him, and felt like never before, every inch of him sweaty and alive and real so as to make her cry out and gasp for more of this anchorage to a world of pleasure and pain. She never wanted to dream again.
---
He had always preferred light.
Dwarves were not meant to follow the light. They were cave-dwellers, eking out a living searching for the artificial light of jewels and metal. But Gimli came to long for fresh air on his face; he began to love wind in his hair and ripples of sunshine. His adventures across terrain, running the length of Middle Earth, became commonplace, a matter of course. Where else would he ever belong, what else could he do now, but roam under the sun? He would never go underground again, but for the one last time, to find the glittering caves.
The light broke out when he first laid eyes on her, Galadriel Morningstar, and knew that until that moment he had gone through life blind. Her radiance danced around his body at first; it sparkled in his mind and, instead of clouding his thoughts, it made them sharper. She smiled at him, she often smiled at him in those long days spent floating among the greenery, as lazy as if he floated underwater. Gimli had never seen the sea, but short dips in lakes had shown him enough to imagine that this was what it must be like under the sea, with the green and yellow dappling of Lorien leaves and an aura of calm that pervaded every corner. Galadriel would smile at him, and he’d feel as if he could stay there forever.
He saw the light she gave Frodo as they began to sail, finally, and he thought that even the light of Eleandil wasn’t as bright as her three hairs. He kept those with him always, and he had only to slip his hand in his pocket when things were dark and feel the warmth of three golden hairs. He carried the warmth of her smile with him, too; the memory of her beauty was a weapon with which he conquered all doubts and difficulties. His memories gave him strength to wager with Éomer even in the midst of war, to bet that the Morningstar’s beauty outshone all others. Her light would survive, and so long as she shone, he would live just to look upon her.
And of course he saw her again, one of many times, this one a celebration for Aragorn, who himself had fought against illumination for many years. She had smiled at him again, her light encircling him as always, and he had looked from her golden halo of hair to the straw-coloured strands of the laughing Éomer, and then the soft yellow hair of Legolas beside him, like early morning sunshine, and he knew he would never go underground again.
---
Aragorn walked away from Arwen that first time because her light was too much. He wanted to hide, he wanted exile, he wanted a life unnoticed, but she was determined to bring him out. The moment she placed the Evenstar in his hands and kissed his lips, he knew his path was set. He saw the light of the jewel glow even through this closed fist and knew that he, too, would shine out now, despite any shroud or desire to hide.
---
For as long as Éomer could remember his sister had shone like pale sunlight in early morning; never brightening, always dim. He watched when Strider came and Éowyn grew ever weaker, save for one brief moment at Pelennor when she unmasked and her grey costume fell away and it seemed as if her almighty battle cry illuminated her body like a flash of lightning. From then she was luminous, and when she stood with the Steward above the city of Gondor before the setting of the sun, she finally seemed golden, like the hall he would rule over.
---
The Grey Havens always felt like dying to Gandalf. Grey sky met a grey sea that stretched to a grey horizon point, and time stood still there. To Cirdan, it was death. He’d waited there so long, with his heart at other shores, waking each day to think that surely this day was the one when they would come, and the ships would sail, and he could escape the world that was even now just a murmur across the land. But each day more rumblings of war came instead, and only smaller boats set off, and he sanded and smoothed an endless line of crafted hulls. Then one day, the procession came, and instead of gladness he felt hollow to board the ship with the wizard and all the others of his kin. Having spent so long caught in between one world and the next, Cirdan now had no place anywhere.
---
When Arwen became a mortal, she knew she’d lived her whole life a dream. As an Elf, never properly sleeping, she had never properly woken. She moved through the world in wonder at beauty and transcendence, and she didn’t realise that her feet hardly touched the ground until her mortal body made her aware of every weight and anchor and blade of grass beneath her feet. Men lived in a disarray of sounds and colours and breaths that overwhelmed her the first time she stood among a crowd and realised she was just like them, and not detached the way the Elves were. And Aragorn she saw like she had never seen him, and felt like never before, every inch of him sweaty and alive and real so as to make her cry out and gasp for more of this anchorage to a world of pleasure and pain. She never wanted to dream again.
---
He had always preferred light.
Dwarves were not meant to follow the light. They were cave-dwellers, eking out a living searching for the artificial light of jewels and metal. But Gimli came to long for fresh air on his face; he began to love wind in his hair and ripples of sunshine. His adventures across terrain, running the length of Middle Earth, became commonplace, a matter of course. Where else would he ever belong, what else could he do now, but roam under the sun? He would never go underground again, but for the one last time, to find the glittering caves.
The light broke out when he first laid eyes on her, Galadriel Morningstar, and knew that until that moment he had gone through life blind. Her radiance danced around his body at first; it sparkled in his mind and, instead of clouding his thoughts, it made them sharper. She smiled at him, she often smiled at him in those long days spent floating among the greenery, as lazy as if he floated underwater. Gimli had never seen the sea, but short dips in lakes had shown him enough to imagine that this was what it must be like under the sea, with the green and yellow dappling of Lorien leaves and an aura of calm that pervaded every corner. Galadriel would smile at him, and he’d feel as if he could stay there forever.
He saw the light she gave Frodo as they began to sail, finally, and he thought that even the light of Eleandil wasn’t as bright as her three hairs. He kept those with him always, and he had only to slip his hand in his pocket when things were dark and feel the warmth of three golden hairs. He carried the warmth of her smile with him, too; the memory of her beauty was a weapon with which he conquered all doubts and difficulties. His memories gave him strength to wager with Éomer even in the midst of war, to bet that the Morningstar’s beauty outshone all others. Her light would survive, and so long as she shone, he would live just to look upon her.
And of course he saw her again, one of many times, this one a celebration for Aragorn, who himself had fought against illumination for many years. She had smiled at him again, her light encircling him as always, and he had looked from her golden halo of hair to the straw-coloured strands of the laughing Éomer, and then the soft yellow hair of Legolas beside him, like early morning sunshine, and he knew he would never go underground again.