A Mist upon Hithlum by Lindariel
Fanwork Notes
The postcard image for this challenge can be found at https://the-public-domain-review.imgix.net/shop/nov-2020-prints-new-00044.jpg?w=396&h=396 ; the associated quotation was "it was over, faster than I expected."
As befits a postcard challenge, this is a double drabble.
Fanwork Information
Summary: Findekáno writes his father a military dispatch and mentions the weather. Major Characters: Fingolfin, Fingon Major Relationships: Genre: Fixed-Length Ficlet Challenges: Postcards from Middle-earth Rating: Teens Warnings: Violence (Mild) |
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Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 200 |
Posted on 6 January 2021 | Updated on 6 February 2021 |
This fanwork is complete. |
A Mist upon Hithlum
Read A Mist upon Hithlum
Hisilómë, Year 155 of the Sun.
Ñolofinwë Ñoldóran my father, I greet you.
I have returned safely from the campaign you sent me to lead to the Ered Lómin. It was over faster than I expected.
Your spies were correct that the Enemy sent Glamhoth north and west to come at us from the Sea. We kept his plan from succeeding. We marched across Dor-Lómin, through the Annon-in-Gelydh, and followed the river to the Cirith Ninniach. We came upon them unawares in Lammas, just north of the Firth of Drengist, and after a short skirmish easily drove them into the Sea. Our losses were few.
Our victory over the Glamhoth must have made the Enemy very angry. As we marched back to our homes in Dor-Lómin that accursed reek out of the East returned, thicker, more choking, more far-reaching than since the days before the Dagor Aglareb. It darkened the Moon and stars by night and the Sun by day, it stripped the leaves from the trees and hid our very feet from us. We nearly lost our reckoning a dozen times before we reached home.
But the wind has changed at last, and all is well.
Ever your Findekáno
Chapter End Notes
The only association I had to the standout image on my postcard prompt, the darkened Sun, was this quote.
"A wind came out of the east, and bore them over Hithlum, darkening the new Sun; and they fell, and coiled about the fields and hollows, and lay upon the waters of Mithrim, drear and poisonous." -- Silmarillion, Chapter 13, Of the Return of the Noldor
This story is about the second time it happened.
(1) Comment by Himring for A Mist upon Hithlum
I liked this glimpse of Fingon on that campaign!
This is a particularly effective line:
"it stripped the leaves from the trees and hid our very feet from us"
Re: (1) Comment by Himring for A Mist upon Hithlum
Thanks! I was trying to figure out how to wring every scintilla of significance from the postcard image that I could, and I suddenly realized the trees were bare. I bet all Fingon's people came back home with acid pits in their armor.
(2) Comment by Lferion for A Mist upon Hithlum
Very atmospheric, on several levels.
Re: (2) Comment by Lferion for A Mist upon Hithlum
Thanks! :-)