50 Prompts: AU Silmarillion by Urloth

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Prompt: Grandmother (Draugulin, Original Character)

Warnings: general darkness. Ties into the back-story/mythology established in Prompt:Meat. Read that before this or you will not understand a thing that is going on.

Summary: D’rak’tari is a grandmother. Knowing this is warning enough.

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“Grandmother… didst thou have a dame?”

In the darkness of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, eyes made of starfire pierced the gloom and settled on the speaker, a hunched furred shape that rested on a bed of bones.

“What didst thou ask precious child?” a woman rose from where she mended a cushion, large enough for a grown Man to sleep upon, with a bone needle and thread made from the long hair of the speaker’s last meal. She approached the bed of bones.

She was a sight to see, nine foot tall, naked and a wild mane of black hair to her ankles. But what caught the eyes the most was her gaze, the sharp wildness it carried and how that wildness persisted even when the softness of maternal feelings overtook her.

“A dame, Grandmother, didst thou have one?”

“I did precious child. Long ago when there was naught but stars. She was the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“More beautiful than Luthien?”

“More beautiful than that spoilt little weed.”

“Did she love thee Grandmother?”

“More than anything else the world precious child save mine own father. The last time she saw me, I was only six foot tall and never to grow any taller. But if we could meet once more…”

The woman sighed and her eyes saw the past, not the dark room with its bed of bones, but forests filled with starlight and singing.

“I am sure she would be surprised then laugh and scold me for growing so tall. Then she would make a dress, no matter the expense of clothing me, and embroider it lavishly because no daughter of hers, no matter how unnaturally tall, should go without bearing the embellishments of her love.”

“She was generous of heart and she would not find me monstrous I think, nor mine descendants. It is a thought that keeps me warm in the winter nights,” the woman sighed and reached forwards to cup a mighty face between her hands, “why dost thou ask of my mother precious child?”

“Because I think of my own.”

“Oh precious child,” kisses were laid upon a wide, proud brow, “thou thinks of her and to thine mind once more comes the worry that she hates thee.”

“Yes Grandmother.”

“She could never hate thee precious child. She hates the wolves that raped her. The orcs who held her down. Sauron who watched, and Melkor who ordered it. But she has never hated thee; only child of her womb.”

Draugluin sighed a great, deep sigh and raised up, pressing his muzzle between the bare breasts of the woman before him.

“I miss her Grandmother.”

“I know thou dost precious child, and she misses thee. Blame Sauron precious child, for she cannot linger in any land where he dwells. Nor can she linger where Morgoth reigns. She has been too broken by what she endured to have thee.” A hand smoothed over his ruff and found the nagging spot behind his ear that always annoyed him.

“Eru has dealt thee a foul fate indeed precious child,” she kissed his forehead and the tip of his muzzle unhesitating.

“Dost thou think I will see her again one day?” Draugluin asked, raising up and pushing his head against her chin, seeking warm touches. Her arms embraced him as she would have embraced a furless child of the Eldar she had once been.

Her scent was rich but he had no inclination to bite her, the only one save his sweet golden mother who showed him love and caring.

He thought of his mother and the long pale stretch of her eight foot tall body when she had stood above him, and fought away the orcs who had been sent to torment him into viciousness. The long fall of her hair, gold and heavy like the silk of Ungoliant. He missed witnessing the sharpness and strength of her claws and teeth when she had rent his attackers to pieces.

“Yes. Because Eru is a parent and knows that the ultimate cruelty to is separate a loving parent from their loving child. But thou shall have to wait, precious child, through death and imprisonment in the void until Arda is made anew. Then spring forth and do not tarry, come east and there thou shall find her and I; thine uncle also and perhaps Silmalyon, your grandfather depending on Eru’s own mercy.”

Draugluin had no interest in meeting the maia who had given his own cub over to Morgoth when the Dark One had demanded it.

He did wish to meet the brother of his mother though. His mother had told Draugluin many stories of the star-hooved creature his uncle could become; one who was worshipped by South-Eastern Emperors and brought lightening and misfortune down upon the unrighteous.

And his mother.

She was the one he wished to see most of all.

“Dawn has arrived,” his grandmother said and picked up the cushion she had been fixing. She gently nudged him aside to lay it down over the bones, spreading it down and let him lie upon it again. He found that the bones no longer pricked at his paw pads but he could still smell the scent of the bones beneath.

“Thank you Grandmother.”

“Precious child thou needs not have to ask for someone to mend your pillows.”

She kissed his forehead a final time and ran her hands along his fur, whispering something in old Eldarin; a blessing.

“Go Grandmother,” he bid her, “before Sauron senses thee for he has returned this hour and has begun to make his way here.”

“I go,” she stood straight and then hunched abruptly and her body was no longer naked flesh and the shape of an Eldar but of a beast unique to herself; wolfish in appearance but not a wolf, never a wolf.

Draugluin watched her leap to a high window and disappear out it with barely a ripple in the air.

He pressed his muzzle against the pillow and breathed in her scent, waiting for Sauron’s arrival.

“Come Draugluin,” he was ordered, “for I have taken Finrod Felagund prisoner. Come witness his demise.”