Tiny Powers-verse update

[azalaisdep]

Because it's far too long since I've written anything at all, and the urge to write Legolas-and-Rowanna has suddenly returned with a vengeance, I thought I'd break myself in with a drabble, set in the autumn of 3021. Here at HASA and here at TFF, but for once short enough that I'll post it here in its entirety too - this is Rowanna's reaction to

Comments

[altariel]

Poor Bilbo. Touching and sad.

[azalaisdep]

I do always find his sudden deterioration after the Ring's destruction shocking (though it's entirely logical), and if it's shocking to mortals, how much more so must it have been to the Elves, for whom even the normal pace of mortal aging must seem indecent?

For Rowanna, I suspect, there's also guilt that she didn't go back North to see Bilbo, who was such a friend and mentor to her in Rivendell when she needed one; and now it's too late. To say nothing of all it means about the passing of the Elves from Middle-earth.

[wormwood_7]

Lovely and wistful.
My daughter sees the journey into the West as a kind of passing away, not as an actual physical journey to a real place and I see where she is coming from.

[azalaisdep]

My daughter sees the journey into the West as a kind of passing away

I absolutely think after the Change of the World it's both - after all, it is the 'country from which no traveller returns' (barring the odd special exemption!). Look at how reluctant Galadriel, for example, seems to be about it: "I shall diminish, and go into the West..." In JRRT's mind I think it is very much both a real place, and a kind of analogy for Paradise, and taking ship a kind of death...

[engarian]

I'm so delighted to see anything at all in your "Amid" universe. It is entirely reasonable that since Bilbo's life was prolonged by the Ring, that when it was destroyed his age would catch up with him quite quickly. The fact that she couldn't get back to Rivendell to say good-bye must have been difficult for her.

- Erulisse (one L)

[azalaisdep]

I'm so delighted to see anything at all in your "Amid" universe.

Thank you - so am I! I've had a writing drought for a few months (mostly RL-related), but suddenly in the last few days I've really wanted to get back into the Powers-verse. Fortunately I have several half-completed or barely-started ideas marinading either on the hard drive or in the back of my brain, so with any luck I can ease myself back in...

[curiouswombat]

How good to see you, unlike poor Bilbo, with pen in hand so to speak. And, yes, I can see it upsetting Rowanna badly - both the loss of Bilbo without a chance to say farewell, and the loss of Elrond et al as well.

[azalaisdep]

Thank you! It's good to feel the writing juices kicking in again - though of course now the perpetual battle for time between writing and the life domestic will recommence...

I think adding to Rowanna's sense of loss over Bilbo is a bit of guilt - because in that year after Aragorn and Arwen's wedding, when she was roaming to and fro not sure what to do with herself, she could in theory have gone north to see him, and didn't. It would have been a huge journey, of course, and Rivendell might have brought back all sorts of memories she couldn't deal with - as well as being much closer to Thranduil's kingdom.

(In fact, at one stage I did contemplate having her do just that, and R&L's reunion happening in the woods of Rivendell. But in the end, it seemed important for the two of them to find their new lives in Ithilien, and each other, at the same time.)

[curiouswombat]

I think you are absolutely right about it needing to be in Ithilien.

[azalaisdep]

I'm glad you think so too - I did try both scenarios out quite extensively in my head before committing to writing, and the Ithilien one always felt right, even though it took a bit more logistical juggling to plausibly get both of them there without being aware that there was any possibility of the other one turning up!