Drabbles: The Third Age by Zdenka

“To the anvil!” said Thorin when he returned from Azanulbizar.

“To the anvil!” Dís echoed him, her voice still touched by the higher tones of childhood, and their father Thráin smiled grimly. She already knew enough to assist her father and brother in the forge, but now she learned to make nails and horseshoes, lanterns and farm tools for the folk of Eriador. It was long, tedious work with little room for craft or beauty, but it kept her family and her people from starving or beggary. And with each hammer blow, she sang the death-song for her brother Frerin.

It is not easy to grow a garden by the seaside. Ever hopeful, Lothíriel coaxes forth daisies, bright sea-roses, and climbing vines to adorn the stone of Dol Amroth. It is not only stubbornness; she loves her small garden devotedly, without limit.

Lying on her back among the flowers, watching the clouds like puffs of cotton, she drowses and dreams of a woman tall and golden-haired. “Because you have loved growing things, you will have my love,” she says, and her body presses pleasantly against Lothíriel’s.

Lothíriel blushes when she awakes, and the grass touches her cheek like a caress.

Chapter End Notes

Written for the Silmarillion Writers' Guild/Silmladylove Tolkien Femslash Week Bingo, for the prompts:

Crack Pairings: Lothíriel/Yavanna (O43)
Four Words: limit, daisies, cotton, hopeful (O43)

The drabble title is from the poem "The Garden" by Andrew Marvell.

Arien looks down upon Imladris and is enraptured. The maiden’s grace of movement, her long dark hair, the starry light in her eyes that shows her a descendant of Lúthien--

Arien is not like foolish Tilion; she will not forsake her duty for love. She guides the vessel of the Sun faithfully and does not linger on the horizon even a moment past her appointed time, much though she wishes to. But every tree and flower that Arwen loves is lavished with the Sun’s rays until it flourishes, and the sunlight will only ever touch her gently and not burn.

Chapter End Notes

Written for Tolkien Femslash Week Bingo, for the prompt:

Crack Pairings: Arien/Arwen (I15)

“A Elbereth Gilthoniel!” Gildor sings, and the shadows draw back--for a little while.

He has called no land his home since Nargothrond fell. Wherever he wanders, he sings protection and healing as his lord once taught him, striving always against Sauron.

Either there will be total defeat, sweeping like a black wave over the land, and his end will come as he fights in some dark place--

Or a grey ship will bear him westward, to that Light he remembers reflected in Finrod’s eyes. And Gildor will kneel there before him and say, “My lord, your Enemy is fallen.”

Chapter End Notes

Written for amyfortuna in the Imzy Multifandom Drabble Exchange.