"Fulgurite" and Other Drabbles by Dawn Felagund

Fulgurite

Nerdanel meets Fëanor for the first time.

prompt: hope, glass, special, fascinating

Read Fulgurite

I once, in my wanderings, found a lightning-strike on the beach, the sand twisted into a spiral of glass. I dusted it free with gentle fingers. A special, fascinating thing: from the trauma of fire, beauty comes.

I once, in my wanderings, found a boy by a stream, washing a gem he’d found there. When his eyes lifted to mine

strike

I knew—I knew—that he arose from a crashing chord in the Music, arisen twisting, lovely, and strange. I coaxed him forth with gentle fingers. My wanderings ceased, came home to hope.

Of trauma. Of fire. Beauty comes?

Familiar

Out drinking with his buddies, young Curufin needs a place to pee.

prompt: alcohol, groups, bond, elimination

Read Familiar

Celegorm, Curufin, Angrod, and Aegnor had left a scattering of alcohol bottles across the square when Curufin felt the sudden need for elimination.

“Oh.” He clamped his knees together. “Where--?”

It was an unfamiliar square, you see. Their group usually formalized their brotherly bond through drinking in the royal quarter, but Nolofinwë had lately grown irate with their mess and noise and spoken to his brothers.

Thankfully, helpful Aegnor—still soft with the sweetness of youth—pointed him to an appropriate shrub. As Curufin staggered off, Aegnor turned to his compatriots, doe-eyed with innocence, and added:

“That’s Elenwë’s window.”

Skill

Newlywed Fëanor and Nerdanel at work on a hot afternoon. Adultish.

prompt: old, afternoon, temperature, midnight

Read Skill

The afternoon grew old. Laurelin wilted and, north at Aulë’s halls, the brightest stars emerged as muffled specks.

Inside the forge, the temperature still simmered.

Fëanáro dragged an arm across his sweating forehead. The knife hilt was only half-done, and he was growing bored with the fine filigree work. It was beneath his skill. Opposite him, Nerdanel had a much more interesting project, casting a statue in bronze.

I would like to have her beneath my skill.

The thought startled him as though a spark had landed upon bare skin. As though she felt it too, she mouthed, “Midnight …”

Beacon

Midnight comes, but Fëanor is no longer in the mood. Still adultish.

prompt: need, benefit, depression, happy

Read Beacon

Nerdanel knew Fëanor had been depressed, frustrated that Aulë insisted he master skills without benefit to his work. Their spark in the forge had been doused by an argument with Aulë. Now Fëanor sulked—there was no nice way to say it—in their room.

She pressed her cheek to his back, held him.

Undid his tunic. Lace by lace.

It took a while for him to succumb to his need. But Nerdanel was patient and firm of will.

He melted into her kiss. Was this moment of happiness—a glimmer on a distant shore—enough to guide him home?

Homecoming

There was a discussion the other day on the SWG Discord about Elwing and whether she would have visited Elros in Númenor. This drabble takes on this idea, as Elwing first spies the ships approaching Númenor.

prompt: passing, ospreys, yellow, shadow

Read Homecoming

Elwing did not expect to miss the coast of Beleriand so much: the ospreys’ piping call, the checkboard of yellow sand and shadow upon the dunes, even the rotted-salt smell of the sea that she used to complain about.

Here, the sands were snow-white and slipped, shadowless, into a lapping, cerulean sea.

From her tower she could see far. She couldn’t explain how, but she looked to home often, to the housewives and sailors at their work.

Which is how she saw the ships, passing west, to a new island?

A small face at their helm. Returning home to her?

The Judge

In 5th Age Tirion, Caranthir is called to court to account for himself.

I was challenged to write a drabble in the Republic of Tirion series. This was harder than it seems. I ended up doing two perfect drabbles, side by side, each using one of two prompt sets.

prompts:
court, sentencing, possible, division
given, field, equipment, wife

Quenya Names:
Carnistir = Caranthir
Nelyo = Maedhros

Read The Judge

“Court” meant something different now, Carnistir learned. He expected his uncle and the usual profusion of glitz—he even wore a nicer-than-usual shirt out of a vestigial sense of respect—but he got a chintzy wooden room, a judge, a scribe, and—

His therapist.

“Do you know why you’re here?” He expected yelling but the judge was calm.

“I’ve been sentenced to therapy and. Um. I’ve missed a few.”

“Fourteen,” his therapist elaborated sweetly. “And the word is prescribed.”

The judge lifted an eyebrow. Was it possible--? Yes! He knew her! But on what side of the division had—

She’d been one of Nelyo’s consultants. Wrote the document handing the crown to their uncle. She was the wife of some field commander, a blustery guy whose face and name drew a blank, who built siege equipment—

She’d be on his side, right?

Carnistir pretended to be Nelyo when he needed confidence. “I appreciate the second chance I’ve been given,” he said. “But this—” He gestured at his therapist. “It surely cannot be healthy to dwell upon past failings.”

She regarded him, this woman whom Nelyo trusted, literally, with his kingdom.

Then she said, “Go to your therapy, Carnistir.”

Woodcraft

A newly reembodied Celegorm receives his first lesson in his new life.

prompt: woodcraft, creature, command, garden

Read Woodcraft

Even the light silk tunic hurt his new skin. Celegorm wriggled under it as he followed the stout little Maia out to the garden.

The trees here grew in spirals and sprays like fireworks. One waited for shaping. Celegorm looked around for a knife and wire to begin.

The Maia chuckled. “Oh no, the creatures here do not take commands. When I said ‘woodcraft’ …”

She placed his hands among the leaves. He forced himself not to wince. She pushed his mind, and he saw hands reaching, like fellowship at a feast—

He clasped them. The tree bent toward him.

Rhetoric

On the eve of the Fëanorians' exile to Formenos, Fingon tries to convince Maedhros to stay.

prompt: black, brother, home, evidence

Read Rhetoric

For a moment, I thought he would hit me.

In the liminal space between the territories of our fathers, his home and mine, I laid out all the evidence as he had taught me, stitching pieces together with rhetorical threads until there stretched before us the black truth: His father was no longer right. Sane, if you will. And he should not follow to Formenos.

I softened my case (as he’d taught me) with fraternally connotated words: brother and bond and love. Love.

But he lunged at me, grazed my tunic, before his arms fell limp.

And, wordless, turned away.

One Million Candles

Fëanor and Nerdanel remember their wanderings fondly, but they weren't always pleasant. Until they were.

prompt: always been best for discovering

Read One Million Candles

Fëanor could walk for hours in a dead-straight line, unseeing, over rocks and rivers, so loud were his thoughts. Nerdanel lagged, learned to tell locations by the wildflowers, scanned the landscape for something worthy of catching his sleeve: “My love, look …”

Later, they’d fondly remember their wanderings, but in truth, they weren’t always pleasant. On the fifteenth day of rain, misery punctured even Fëanor’s thoughts. He knelt in the muck that would not hold their tent stakes, cursed and slapped at it.

“My love. Look.” The cave she’d found, quartz-lined. The feeble candle they had managed became one million.