Trees - leaves, twig, crown: The Messengers of Celegorm (6-8) by Zdenka
Title:The Messengers of Celegorm
Author: Zdenka
Characters/Pairing: OCs (Feredwen and others)
Rating: T
Warnings: just general Doom
Book/Source: Silmarillion
Disclaimer: Middle-earth is not mine and I make no profit therefrom.
6. The Northward Road (Leaves)
Feredwen watches fallen leaves drift southward in the currents of the Esgalduin as they consider which way they should go.
“Should we aim for Nargothrond?” Daradir asks. “Lord Celegorm sent us, and he expects our return.”
“How long would it take to circle around Doriath?” Feredwen objects. “We don’t know what’s been happening. If we go north through Himlad-”
They look at Magor to settle the matter. “We need news and supplies,” he says. “We go north.” And when they reach the fortress of Himring, Celegorm and Curufin are there, so it must have been the right decision after all.
7. Walls of Stone (Twig)
Feredwen prefers to keep her hands occupied. She sits with a pile of straight twigs and a knife, stripping off the bark and turning them into arrow-shafts.
“What happened in Nargothrond?” one of Maedhros’s people asks curiously.
Feredwen hunches her shoulders. “I don’t know.”
“Weren’t you there?”
“I don’t know!” She stabs the twig too fiercely with her knife and ruins the half-formed arrow.
“The Oath,” Daradir says resignedly. “We were reminded that we are cursed.”
Feredwen thinks of leaves spinning in the Esgalduin, and that moment when perhaps they could have broken free from the current and did not.
8. Fair They Wrought Us (Crown)
There was holly in Doriath, Feredwen remembers suddenly. They attacked in winter when the trees were bare, but here and there the holly upraised its stiff green leaves, and the berries were red like blood against the snow.
Here, holly is only holly. The jewel-smiths’ children laugh and crown themselves with living green. The flowers of Yavanna have faded, but inside the forge, flower, twig, and leaf blossom in silver and gold beneath Celebrimbor’s skilled hands.
Feredwen looks upward, to where the brightest of stars burns in the West. She cannot reach it, and that is a very great relief.
Notes:
The part of Doriath south and east of the river Esgalduin was called the Forest of Region (from ereg, meaning holly), so I assume that holly grew there.
Title of the last drabble from something Legolas says in Hollin: “[T]he trees and the grass do not now remember them. Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone.” (FOTR, “The Ring Goes South”)
Author: Zdenka
Characters/Pairing: OCs (Feredwen and others)
Rating: T
Warnings: just general Doom
Book/Source: Silmarillion
Disclaimer: Middle-earth is not mine and I make no profit therefrom.
6. The Northward Road (Leaves)
Feredwen watches fallen leaves drift southward in the currents of the Esgalduin as they consider which way they should go.
“Should we aim for Nargothrond?” Daradir asks. “Lord Celegorm sent us, and he expects our return.”
“How long would it take to circle around Doriath?” Feredwen objects. “We don’t know what’s been happening. If we go north through Himlad-”
They look at Magor to settle the matter. “We need news and supplies,” he says. “We go north.” And when they reach the fortress of Himring, Celegorm and Curufin are there, so it must have been the right decision after all.
7. Walls of Stone (Twig)
Feredwen prefers to keep her hands occupied. She sits with a pile of straight twigs and a knife, stripping off the bark and turning them into arrow-shafts.
“What happened in Nargothrond?” one of Maedhros’s people asks curiously.
Feredwen hunches her shoulders. “I don’t know.”
“Weren’t you there?”
“I don’t know!” She stabs the twig too fiercely with her knife and ruins the half-formed arrow.
“The Oath,” Daradir says resignedly. “We were reminded that we are cursed.”
Feredwen thinks of leaves spinning in the Esgalduin, and that moment when perhaps they could have broken free from the current and did not.
8. Fair They Wrought Us (Crown)
There was holly in Doriath, Feredwen remembers suddenly. They attacked in winter when the trees were bare, but here and there the holly upraised its stiff green leaves, and the berries were red like blood against the snow.
Here, holly is only holly. The jewel-smiths’ children laugh and crown themselves with living green. The flowers of Yavanna have faded, but inside the forge, flower, twig, and leaf blossom in silver and gold beneath Celebrimbor’s skilled hands.
Feredwen looks upward, to where the brightest of stars burns in the West. She cannot reach it, and that is a very great relief.
Notes:
The part of Doriath south and east of the river Esgalduin was called the Forest of Region (from ereg, meaning holly), so I assume that holly grew there.
Title of the last drabble from something Legolas says in Hollin: “[T]he trees and the grass do not now remember them. Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone.” (FOTR, “The Ring Goes South”)