Home in the Highlands by heget

Gone Fishing

Angrod and Bregolas in Dorthonion before the Dagor Bragollach.

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When Bregolas asks his liege lord if he wants to join in on a brief fishing expedition, leading with “Dagnir says they’ve been biting this week”, Angrod almost refuses. Reports need to be filed, a younger brother needs to be watched over for if he hears of orcs Aegnor will rush after them headless of personal safety, and once-sweet memories of uncles, aunts, and grandfathers fishing on the quays and boats of Alqualondë are now dark and stained. But Bregolas is insistent, and the long thin poles he carry sway beckoningly, and Angrod wavers. Bregolas promises that fly fishing on the mountain streams is quite different from sitting on the lakeside and silently waiting for the fish. True skill and dexterity is needed to cast such a line. To lure a fish to the surface with the imitation of a fleetingly landing insect takes cunning and timing. To not entangle the line around oneself or in the branches of the pine behind one - that is the warning Angrod thinks Bregolas should have made.

Yet the outing is fun, a welcome distraction from his troubles. The constant flicking of the lures, swishing of the poles, to reel in a trout every once and a while. Bregolas chatters away in his pleasant rough twang, talking about his sons, of his many siblings and their children, of the people back in Ladros. Of how pleasant the beer they brought tastes on the tongue. That part especially Angrod appreciates, though he thinks back two hundred years to when he first tasted the brew and winces. Finrod still disbelieves he can drink the concoction willingly, but Angrod boasts in a falsely mild voice that as an acquired taste, one must truly live shoulder-to-shoulder with the mortals and attend at least four weddings, three funerals, eight barn raisings, and one “Thank Eru they called off the engagement because I refuse to have them as in-laws” party before the exposure overwhelms good judgment and beer tastes now as refreshing as miruvor. It ends up as the most relaxing and refreshing afternoon Angrod has spend in years, and he thanks Bregolas for the invitation. The Bëorian smiles and reminds the elf that the fish will return tomorrow.

A box of brightly-colored and finely crafted lures, made to mimic the jewel-like bugs of a distantly remembered Aman, bits of feather and thread around each sharp hook, make their way into a new year’s gift to Ladros that year. A matching set of lures and a custom pole with bands of green and gold and white thread carefully wrapped around the cane make their way from Ladros to the fortress at Foen in return. A note accompanies it. In roughly-crafted letters it reads, “For next time the fish are biting.”

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Chapter End Notes

In memory of my grandfather, who even with Parkinson’s would handcraft custom decorated fly-fishing poles for everyone at his workbench in his garage, and took us fly-fishing one year at the family cabin in Montana.

That Summer When Aegnor And Angrod Had To Intervene In The Inception Of A Clan Feud

A 5 sentence tangent to explain one line from the previous drabble.

Read That Summer When Aegnor And Angrod Had To Intervene In The Inception Of A Clan Feud

Aegnor hands his brother the drinking horn of Edain beer with a hidden grimace, wiping his hand on the tartan wrap across his shoulders, then frowns at the stain on the green and yellow fabric.  He goes to ask the matron of the house about adding the garment to the laundry, as it was a gift from Boron’s wife and thus one of the first gifts Aegnor received from a member of Bëor’s family, holding particular sentimental value.  

Angrod hides his own smile and turns to Belegor to inquire after the reason behind this impromptu and boisterous party.  The brother of the Lord of Ladros replies in a more than mildly inebriated voice that the engagement between his oldest son and a woman with very annoying and parsimonious parents has been annulled, to which Angrod replies he did not know that was a cause for a celebration. Belegor laughs, jostling the drinking horn in Angrod’s grip, and says, ‘It would be if you knew these potential in-laws!“  

At this point Aegnor returns to interrupt the conversation with an even more pained expression on his face to ask if Belegor knows about the men outside trying to steal his cattle.

Boromir and the Swamps

The decision to relocate to Dorthonion, and a little rebuttal to the issues of Bereg.

Yet another written for last year's Edain Summer event on tumblr.

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“Do you think we have not courage?” Boron asks Lord Finrod, when the elven king warns of the dangers of Dorthonion, of its proximity to Thangorodium. “Do you think we chose not to fight against Morgoth, that he is not the avowed enemy of our race? That the harms he has done to us and our families is somehow less than those he did to the Noldor, and we have less cause or motivation to bring war to him, to stand against him?”

“Well, you certainly have more conviction than many of my cousins,” interjects Lord Finrod’s brother with a sardonic smile. “If Lord Boron and any of his people that wish to join him want to move up to our lands, Dorthonion has land for their choosing. It is not as if we have many men or homes on the land as it is, or warriors to patrol it. I will not gainsay anyone willing to fight, not when our efforts to encourage anyone beside Uncle Fingolfin have fallen on defective ears.”

King Finrod makes a strange little expression that starts as a glare but transforms into a huff, as if he cannot decide which part of his brother’s statement to rebut first and if any are worth the effort to deign a response.

Boromir has a odd moment of empathy, seeing the elven lords not as mighty figures but as a pair of bickering brothers, and wonders if his father was ever embarrassed by Belegor and him sniping to each other over family. Then again, his arguments with Bereg have shamed the family enough. He glances to his father, who is nodding vigorously at Lord Angrod with a particularly stubborn set to his jaws and remembers that this is how the situation started, that Boromir’s cousin was foolish enough to play into the enemy’s hands. The Dark Lord up in Thangorodrim did not desire Bëor’s people allied with the elves or anywhere in this new land, and Boromir cannot think of a better reason to do anything than defying the Master of Lies. And, staring at his father, Boromir knows the surest way to prod anyone in his family to avow a task is to impinge upon their courage or imply they are forbidden.

“The Master of Lies will hunt us anywhere we live, and his emissaries in disguise have already tried to come among us in Estolad. This is an old trick of which my father and the Wisewomen of our tribe long recognize. But the servants of the Dark Lord fear the power of you elven lords and your ability to perceive their seemings of deceit.”

“Imperfectly,” interrupts the Lord Finrod.

“Yet you have the power of the mind we do not,” counters Boromir’s father.

“And it would be harder for a disguised sorcerer of the enemy to sneak into Dorthonion, if there are so few people that live there to begin with, and few visitors,” Boromir adds, hoping he sounds intelligent and adds value to this weighty conversation. Often he feels as if he is but a callous seventeen instead of twenty seven, but he knows he has a point, so crowded has Estolad become with new arrivals from the East trickling in each month. Amlach’s doppelganger could pretend to be him because no one knew that Imlach’s son had not joined the pressing crowd. Few there knew Amlach intimately to know if his words were those of his mind or true manner. Bereg had derided Boromir for being too trusting of the elves, but Boromir holds that it is his younger cousin that was naive. The elves can do what the People of Bëor cannot and are willing to give what they need. Land, as much and more than can be had in the overrun settlement of Estolad, and the chance to fight against the true enemy of his people are not gifts to be tossed aside. Boromir can not fathom what Bereg hopes to find by returning to where Grandfather Baran fled from, but he knows Bereg will not find it. There are three tribes of men, whom the elves are now calling Edain, who have entered Beleriand because the unknown on the western side of the Blue Mountains was a better prospect than what they had.

Boromir thinks he has much in common with the spirit of his forefather Bëor, for the appeal of a new land to explore and the hope it offers fills him with a desire to sing. Boromir desires a life of greatness, in the manner that truly matters, of leaving the world better than he found it, and standing firm against the Master of Lies is the greatest calling he sees.

The elven king clears his throat in the manner of over-corrective older brothers everywhere -which makes Boromir feel even more strangely elative to know he shares a trait with Nóm himself - and smirks as only an older brother to an younger sibling facing their comeuppance can. “What about the swamp?”

Lord Angrod grimaces, and Boromir’s father shifts his eyes between the faces of the two elven lords.

“Are those the fens I’ve heard of?”

“And the only way to enter Dorthonion from Tol Sirion, unless you take the long way around from the Pass of Aglon,” states Lord Finrod. “I’m sure you remember Lady Haleth’s stories of leading large groups of Edain through unwelcoming terrain, and you are very familiar with those fens, aren’t you, Brother?”

Angrod scowls and folds his hands in front of him, but before he can retort, Boron laughs.

“I fear no swamp. We shall take that route, for I wish to see your city of Nargothrond again and the white tower you have built on the river.”

All the elves gathered around observing this conversation make appalled faces, and Boromir blushes, praying his father has not made an over-bold and foolish promise. This conversation was to prove they had more sense than Bereg.

“We’ll go through the swamp,” Boron states firmly, the declaration tied to the decision to move to Dorthonion itself, and he will budge on neither. Finrod and Angrod look as if they wish to argue, and both pairs of bright eyes land on Boromir.

The young man swallows and rubs at his beard under their scrutiny. “As my father says,” he says and prays he does not sound foolish.

King Finrod mutters something under his breath that sounds like ice, but Lord Angrod smiles brightly. Perhaps too brightly, for his cheer seems false, but he clasps Boromir’s arm with a warm hand. “Do not fret; my brother and I will help your people through the Fen of Serech, carry you all if we must.”

Boromir has a bad feeling about this. 

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Chapter End Notes

Originally the prologue to a short ficlet about Boromir’s family in the Fen of Serech moving to Dorthonion, accompanied by Angrod, Aegnor, and some of the elves that will later be saved by Boromir’s grandson during the Bragollach, who get confused by foresight visions about that rescue.

Ways to Say I Love You

Anon request - I wish you would write a fic where... "Emeldir fights alongside Barahir."

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Barahir falls in love with her when they are both ten, and she shows up for beginning lessons on how to hold a shield in a tunic that is too small over a pair of too-big trousers stuffed into the tops of her boots and rolled thrice at the waist as to not fall off her skinny hips. She brings her own shield, painted bright green. Lessons on holding sticks are saved until next month’s instruction, and they must train for at least one full planting season before sticks are exchanged for dull pieces of metal. Barahir doesn’t realize what he feels for Emeldir is love until years later as she holds a green shield above his body to protect him from arrows, his own shield shattered at their feet. “We were taught to use our shield to protect our heart,” she tells him later. “That is exactly what I was doing.”

Barahir sulks off into the woods to find a moss-covered stone to sit on and attempt to compose heartfelt love songs to match the suave poetry of how Emeldir declared her feelings. Eventually he gives up and trudges back to her house, feeling as if he had returned to the awkward days when his beard first grew in. She meets his eyes with the same cool aplomb he envies and admires, and for a second Barahir worries he misunderstood her declaration. “Dagnir is leading a party down into the plains to hunt for enemy spies. You are the first warrior I want by my side,” he tells her. Emeldir nods. Then, before his courage deserts him, Barahir blurts out. “I want to fight by your side.”

Emeldir blinks slowly. “You said that.”

“I mean it! I mean, what I also meant was I want to be by your side. Always. I love you. I think I always have.”

Emeldir thinks he is ridiculous, and stubborn, and oblivious, and beloved.

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Chapter End Notes

Beren is a bad-ass one-man fighting rebellion but also a romantic dork. He gets that from both sides of his family.

The Ring

Andreth reunites with Aegnor.

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Andreth steps outside the door of her nephew’s house, the grand building that had once been home of her brother and her father and their father before them, so lovingly crafted and worn smooth by time and care. Her fingers wish to linger on the door-latch for a moment, but she does not hesitate to walk further into the light. She does not hear the door close behind her, or any sounds from inside the house. It is dawn, and the reddish orange of the sky looks so warm and comforting. She does not understand how it can, because the fiery glow engulfs the entire skyline and casts its hue over everything she sees, and she should be frightened, should be thinking of the flames that destroyed her world only a few days ago, but she doesn’t. She has forgotten the northern fires.

Andreth walks out from the shadow of the eaves, hugging her green cloak around her shoulders, staring out at the field stretched out before the house. From this angle she cannot see the other houses of the village nor the smithy, mill, or any of the barns, not even the fence-lines. Only a field of green grain, waist-high with summer promise, and a figure standing in the field with his back to her. The dawn silhouettes him, and Andreth knows the lines of his shoulders. He is leaning over to run a hand over the barley, and as a breeze lifts at her unbound hair, Andreth begins to smile in recognition and joy. He is not wearing armor, only a soft woven tunic of the very sort of plaid woolen cloth that has come from her looms, and there is no sword or quiver belted at his waist. He is free of tension, at peace, and that alone would make Andreth weep. Sunlight turns the curls of his hair into pure gold. It is still silent. Andreth walks out into the field, the dew soaking through the thin leather of her shoes and collecting on the hem of her green cloak. The man in the field straightens and turns to face her over his shoulder, smiling.

Aegnor speaks to her, and at first Andreth doesn’t understand. Something about a ring, and she looks down at her hand, where a silver band wraps around her finger. An elven proposal of marriage custom, she remembers it being explained to her, silver for intention to wed, but does not recall if it was Finrod or Aegnor himself who had told her, and it does not make sense. He had never proposed to her, no matter how she had dreamed he had. But he is looking at her with such certainty and love, framed by the orange dawn. Andreth stares at the cold circle of silver, and suddenly the light has cooled and she feels cold. She remembers the texture of ash and dirt in her hands, digging through the aftermath of a battlefield. She remembers burials, and wakes. 

Andreth is in her ancestral home, but her bed is cold. The fire in the hearth is gone, and as she stretches out her hand, she can feel the piece of metal from her dream. It is a piece of chain-mail from a shattered and burnt suit of elven mail, one of the larger rings that she had dug out from the pile of charred bones. She runs a finger over the metal and wishes she was back in her dream.

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Chapter End Notes

Inspired directly by the first fifty seconds of the latest Justice League trailer, because the scene with Lois and Clark made me cry.