EREWYN'S LOTRECS
What you will find here are my personal favorites and I think they're
all great, but they do include a fair few fics featuring original
female characters. If you have a problem with OFC's or further
explorations of the many two dimensional women Tolkien gave us, or if
you're looking for lots of hobbit-centric fic you may want to click right on by
this page. This list is in no way complete and will be updated just as soon
as I have time to re-read the many stories I've saved. I have spent many
a lovely hour perusing these fine stories and hope you find them as enjoyable.
Have a rec? Tell me all about it.
7/29/05:
It's been entirely too long since my last update. Mea culpa maxima. It seems some of my favorite writers below have moved on to other fandoms but if you've run across anything interesting of late, new authors or old, please, please drop me a line. Thanks.
Gimli tugged on a sleeping robe and padded barefoot
over to the plant. He stood beside it for a while,
his hands behind his back, and then reached out gently
with one finger to touch a leaf. Not much happened, he felt
neither Vana nor Yavanna, which on reflection was something
of a relief. But his troubled spirit was soothed, and with
no more ado he quenched his lights and climbed into bed.
More than one brave man of Rohan had quailed in the face
of his ugliness, or cast a sign of warding toward him
when he scowled. She was brave, this little one.
Perhaps she would make a shieldmaiden one day.
The bloodstained bandage wrapped around his head couldn’t account
for all the changes, could it? His skin was pale, his limbs stiff.
His breathing was harsh and slow. Dahlia helped me wash him and lay
him in our bed. His lips were a strange dark color, as if he’d been
eating blueberries. I asked Dahlia about it, and she wouldn’t meet
my eyes. Then I asked her about the healer, and she started crying
and turned away. And I knew. Merry had sent him home to die.
"You have a heart of fire, sister," he said, shaking his head
as he smiled, and leaned down to place a kiss first on her
palm and then on her forehead. "Had they but set you loose
as you wished, perhaps the army of Isengard
would have fled ere an arrow flew."
She was still crouched over him, her hand warm in his
and the nearness of him did not twist her gut in pained pleasure -
it was soothing, much as in the past she and Eomer had lain
together after tumbling down grassy hills for the simple joy of it.
Much in the past, joy had been simple.
I have forgotten when we did not fear.
I have forgotten when we did not have such skill
at building mounds for our dead and pyres for the enemy.
I have forgotten when my King was bold and I was a free man,
and the Rohirrim knew no master.
It was not merely the knife at her throat that made her devotion fail...
It was unflattering that he found it so easy, true,
but she could not resent something she had begged him to do.
No, it was this: Nenya had failed.
She was left alone, helpless, powerless,
in a dying land, under a mortal sun.
She had now lost everything it was possible to lose,
and she could not quite forgive him his joy.
We will both share it one day; when Gondor is restored,
I shall be there, soaring upon the ringing trumpet notes
which will sing you to your throne. "-my King."
And we will both be home at last
She was curled up next to a stone bench, asleep. Merry lay
above her up on the bench, slightly snoring, his body
mirroring hers. On the ground before her was another of her
grass-projects. Faramir kneeled down quietly and picked it up.
It was a braided heart.
I would never stand at the Steep Cliff in sorrow or reflection
or anticipation again. Through the tear in my chain mail I could
retrieve the Silmaril quickly; fortunate, as I had no time, no time
for anything. I knew people watched me, pursued me, defended me.
I thought I heard music and begging. Then there was rushing air
and a coolness through my hair and I could breathe at last –
and then I did not need to.
I listened, and I struggled to comprehend,
but between his archaic tongue and his halting,
whispering voice I fear I lost more than I kept.
I do know that he spoke of many brothers --
all lost -- and of a great treasure he'd lost forever
because his hands were too drenched with blood
to hold it close...
The green-elf made a slight movement with his shoulders and Glamien
caught a glint off the handle of a long knife tucked beneath his quiver.
She was sure that he had revealed it on purpose.
Celebrian pulled down heavily on the cord, almost hanging on it.
Glamien had been summarily ordered to not chance anything untoward
concerning Celebrian. Her parents had assured her that they would
uphold any precaution she took. So she turned to Fanuiaur, the
senior guard, and causally said, "Have him arrested."
So Thorongil amuses her? I hope that is all.
The man wins hearts all too easily –
the men of his company, the other officers,
even the Steward himself. May he not find the
heart of Finduilas so quickly swayed.
Seven springs in the Blessed Land. The world was filled with beauty;
at times he could imagine being at peace here, at times he could almost
imagine happiness. If only Celebrían...If only. If only. Those thoughts
were nothing but disjointed and fragile whispers in his mind,
and he kept--as always--to his silence.
When Aragorn spoke again there was sadness in his
voice, as that of one who delights to give gifts, but
perceives that those he has offered give no delight.
"Will you not be happy, Eowyn?"
She replied, "I would, my lord. But I think I shall not."
Though it seemed the hardest thing he had ever asked of her, she slowly
pulled the ring off of her finger and set it on the table between them. He
watched her actions, unmoving save his eyes, and did not stir to touch it.
In the night sky, one solitary point of light broke through
the clouds of Mordor. Earendil’s star, Gil-Estel,
burnished the sword which Elrond held aloft,
while his defiant cry rang in the fetid air.
It is recognized that the Elder, or "Elves," were one of the
first species to exhibit superior levels of intelligence and
the gift of speech. These tall, bipedal organisms once roamed
the entire range of Middle-earth. In spite of their longevity
and previous success, the population has been declining at
alarming rates. If action is not soon taken to protect them, it
is believed this marvelous creature shall be lost forever.
"You may come with me. I want to play with your hair."
Legolas' eyebrows climbed far up his forehead, nearly into
the hair she wished to braid. Not exactly what he'd been
expecting, but probably less complicated than, say, slaying
a dragon, as there were none to be found any more.
...her hair, falling over her salt-white dress,
her hair was living gold, soft and bright.
Gimli longed to take it in his hands,
to work it into something yet more beautiful
‘He believed you would return,’ Elrond told her. ‘For a long time,
he thought that you would come back for us and bring the Silmaril
within his reach again – but you never did.’
‘No,’ she echoed softly, her voice filled with the mourning
of two long ages, ‘I never did.’
Do you know what it is like to watch the world
build and fall, not once, not twice, but thrice?
To withstand waves of evil and darkness, ever present
and strengthening under the murky cloud of shadow –
and to know that you will only have to face it again,
even if the land has changed and the course of the rivers bent?
“There will always be hope,” Unferth countered with another
gasping laugh. “And when the last flower of Telperion
rises over this tower anew, it will not be a bleak scar
rising from the earth, but a seat of men as it once was.
When all is right in the world, perhaps we shall meet again.”
"Please," she breathed. "This will surely kill me."
A slow smile spread across his face while his hands continued
to explore her. One hand moved in slow, soothing circles
on her back, while the other traced her bare shoulder.
"I know of no one who has died this way."
Holding the topmost blanket against his stomach, slipping his
legs over the side of the bed to stand, Glorfindel took a single
step to bring him close enough to hear the catch of her breath.
Upping the ante, watching her eyes widen slightly as he leaned for-
ward, he purred, "Do you truly think Erestor captures my attention?"
A warm tear fell from his cheek onto her bare arm.
Celebrian attempted to make some form of eye contact.
To offer some form of comfort. She had not seen
Elladan cry, not for centuries. Not since he had
been so small that she had been able to pick him
up for a cuddle. But now she could not even
lift her hand to touch his face.
The starlight played on her face and in the hair that
floated in the breeze. But there was blood at the tips
of her hair, dried into hard points. He caught one of
the locks and gently separated the strands.
"The fair should not be touched by such ugliness."
“Have you asked her to be your wife yet?”
Gil-galad coughed. “Well, seeing as only three hours have
passed since you and your brother advised me to take such action…”
“Hmmm.” The child frowned. “Why is it taking you so long?”
I would like to see you act quicker in such matters, little Elrond.
"What did you say to her?" he asked aloud, hesitantly.
Of course, he really meant was What should I say to her?
He was not expecting an answer, but he received one nonetheless.
Eowyn shifted in his arms to pop her thumb out of her mouth.
"I said goodbye," she told him. "That's all I needed to say."
The heat of her reflecting light, or else the heat of trees,
came to his face even though he stood far above amid stone and
statue. He was on this terrace when he had first seen her dancing
in the lower great garden, and there he yet stood, and would stand,
he was sure, until her dance ceased and she passed from the garden.
He would stand for hours, or days, or years, or until the end of Arda,
if she danced there with the trees.
Elrond bowed his head over his sons as they lay sleeping
in his lap. He spoke again, his voice hoarse with emotion,
"I did not want them to die alone, and I would not want to
live if they had not. After I had thought that through, I
tried to sense Celebrían's presence, to tell her I would
go with them and that I would miss her. . ."
His father was offering him no hope and no advice and though
there was no rebuke in his words, there was no happiness
in them either. His father was warning him, perhaps,
and even that was cloaked in shades of gray.
Like the gray of her eyes.
Gimli watched enthralled by Legolas’ selfless efforts,
the singular vocal masterpiece he wrought,
knowing he would never hear the like again.
And the moment was thus made all the more precious
for its brevity, for soon it would fade and be forgotten
even as would be the whole of the elven race,
remembered only by the son of Glóin who had
alone been privileged enough to witness it: the Elf
and the Caverns then in full and glorious communion.
Take this burden as a gift from me, he said,
for the promise held more meaning than the possibility.
But the promise was meaningless without the possibility-
yet she vowed to go, to follow Earendil’s star
even if she rode into darkness.
“You have called me your king,” he stated softly,
retaining his grip when she tried to jerk free,
“why does it surprise you when I wish to have a queen?”
There is perhaps no love as sweet and as bitter
as love remembered during long winter dusks,
where light is soft but not faded, and memory
is as warm and as palpable as the last coals of a fire.
Sitting in a chair before a writing table, Elrond examines me
steadily with eyes I cannot read. Indeed, I believe I have never
been able to read the Lord of Imladris from his face alone.
It will be all the more difficult to please him that way,
but with any fortune he will inform me of...
precisely what he wishes.
Tárion sat up awkwardly, his muscles aching;
He wondered if this was how aging mortals felt.
The last thing he wanted was to attend this meeting,
but it would be cowardly to stay away. So he began to
braid his hair, singing a sad song his mother had taught him -
she who had loved in vain and lived on a single night
shared with her beloved one, though all he had shared was
the grief of a husband whose wife was in the Houses of the Dead,
and who took her with his eyes shut.
The song summoned her to his room, a living image
smiling a loving smile to chase away his memories
of her gnawed corpse in the street.
"The screams of men, can you not also hear them, Aragorn?
They are near. Screams drawn from men whose souls have died here,
nothing lights their eyes. They scream in pain and can no longer
stop, there is no longer a reason for them to do so."
Mahal gave us skill in words as well as in bright stones
and shining metal, and Mahal it was who instructed us that
true naming and true making are bound together --
and that the language he gave us would tie us always
one to another, kin forever.
Daeron may have grown up loving Luthien - knowing her
every thought and expression, all the steps of every dance,
all the places she would go and the things that would amuse her.
There had never been a time before Daeron loved Luthien.
But he thought his case was not so different. Nerwen was here now.
Galadriel was here now, and there had never
been a time when he had not been waiting for her.
The White has turned, arraying himself with false rainbows.
The battle rages, and the Children seek counsel.
There must be a light to guide their paths,
lest they stumble and fall into darkness."
Legolas could see her palm covered with blood
as though she had dipped it in red paint.
Below her arm, a perfect handprint was left on the
floor next to where she lay. Pain seemed to cross
Legolas's face as a new revelation came to him.
"She knew she was going to die," he whispered
solemnly, bending his head.
And how to tell someone so far apart from me, so distant from
my world, who did not even know me and had never seen me as I
truly am that she was my everything. That she was as dear to me
as the trees were to Yavanna."He exhaled wearily and considered
the glowing embers in his pipe.
"I have always been a fool," he muttered beneath his breath. "Always."
"Do you fear death?" I turned her question back on her.
"Death or the end of exile," she said. "You are beloved of Aule
and I think he must be most pleased with you." She reached out
to touch my work-roughened hand. "Master Rockwright." She sighed,
looking off into a distance only she could see.
"My gods are not so pleased with me."
“My wound has naught to do with this, Aragorn!”
Then it hit him, as brutal as the chain cracking
into his flesh, as unwanted and chilling as the
touches upon his hapless body. His eyes widened
and cold waves of betrayal lanced his spirit.
“You do not believe me,” he whispered weakly.
Vivid in the light of the fire, was an Elven rune on her wrist.
It was a pinker shade and thicker than the rest of her skin.
Burned into her otherwise flawless skin was a mark of her kind.
If you are overborne by numbers, they will kill
the most dangerous among you quickly. A brave, clean death." He eyed her closely.
"I think they will find you very dangerous."
“When an Elf bears a scar, he carries it to the rest
of his days.” He opened his eyes and looked from person
to person before him. His gaze lingered on Samwise.
“And there are certainly many days in the life of an Elf.
'I have lost count,' she said, 'of the years I spent praying
that this day would bring his ship; the nights of disappointment
and the stubborn hope for the morrow. But at length my patience wore out,
and my grief became anger, and my loneliness solace.
He has made it clear that he wants no further part in my life,
and I am now resigned to that. I will not go to him.
Nor will I receive him now, even were he
to lower himself to come to me.'
The tree bent its branches down towards Thranduil as if urging
for the king to touch its leaves and ease its sorrow, for its
favorite prince no longer would slumber in its eaves.
Boromir could hear water dripping: probably the familiar
sound of the water clock their mother had brought from her
home in Dol Amroth, but it might have been the water he
spilled, dripping and running and ruining the rugs.
He should go look, clean it up, but he could not look away
from his mother's face.
“We Dwarves are not the most forthcoming about our talents to others.”
Celebrimbor laughed. Narvi was again surprised that such a hearty,
amused noise came from such a seemingly refined being.
“Yet you have honed the art of understatement, master mason.”
He, in turn, patted Narvi on the thigh. “We shall get along like
moon and star, my good Narvi. I am sure of that.”
Narvi nodded her head. “Yes, Lord Silver-fist,” she agreed. “We shall.”
She stood by a window and pulled back the covering, briefly
staring out at the battle raging over the Pelennor Fields,
hearing the wild horns braying a death knell
rather than salvation. He will not return, then,
she thought without bitterness. So be it.
I know what I must do.
‘It seems our way to seek those whom we love beyond all else,
every so often using desperate measures, Elrond…
Some we find, others we loose…
And some return to us after many years.’
You know what they say of the Elves,
that they'll tumble you soon as look at you;
seducers, coquettes, you'll wake with only a
handful of leaves and a sweet taste in your mouth.
“She will not forgive me,” Elrond heard his
own voice whispering, broken and raw with grief.
“Ai, Mithrandir, I have failed to bring her children
to her side, and she will not forgive me that…”
"We are too strong yet to admit our defeat," he said imperiously.
"We might be barely breathing, but I daresay we are far from dead.
The world will hear our names again before the end." .
I am no less a warrior; my courage is yet untested,
but it shall not fail me. And yet...they had denied her.
And now she would deny them their peace of mind,
dying in battle amidst innumerable, nameless soldiers.
Even his eyes, that could see an eagle wheel above the
distant mountains, could not follow her fluid outline;
he imagined her slipping down the face of the rock and melding
with the river, and he reached out to stay her,
covering the hand that was unoccupied.
"You say that it is ridiculous to believe that dwarves
spring from the ground," she spoke, her voice very soft.
"What if I would learn from you where they spring?"
He faced the girl once more as she slid slowly down the wall, her
trembling and bloody hand pressed to her mouth in disbelieving
devastation at the boy’s corpse sprawled across the wooden floor.
“What have you done?” she whispered faintly, tears slipping down
her face. And she lifted her gaze to Legolas. “What have you done?”
One thousand thank you's to the lovely and talented Lady Aranel for gifting me this little corner of her webspace.
Information:
Quotations are used without permission, they remain the property of each author. =Work In Progress
Note: Works in Progress are not idly recommended, read them anyway.
Save me:
Good god, won't someone please send me links to the rarer than mithril well-written smut. Is there any in this fandom? Help!!!
Also anyone have email addy's for Citrine or Erin Lasgalen?
Mail me with either.
Your Recs:
I've trudged through the poor, the tired, the un-beta'd masses
and I'll happily read anything you think worthy, but
have a care with the following:
use of any elven tongue without
translation - they've got better
things to do with those tongues
anyway
summary with the phrase "a certain elf
prince"
modern slang/curses, unless set in
modern day
over-quotation of source text
spoilage in authors notes
author note insertions mid-story or
even worse mid-sentence
authors who mistake shown/shone
new children of Elrond and Celebrían
or Arathorn and Gilraen
any red haired/green-eyed, possesing
special powers, representing a
new species and besting Legolas/
Haldir/Celeborn/etc. in archery,
OFCs
