Many Journeys by Elleth

Solstice, Sunrise

Two drabbles according to Open Office. For the Blizzard Challenge at the tolkien_weekly LJ community, a response to clodia_metelli's Dawn & Dusk, with her kind permission: The prelude to and aftermath of the attack on Doriath as seen from a Fëanorian point of view. Implicit character deaths in the second drabble.

Solstice

It is solstice. The wind whets his myriad knives against every tree and casts needles in their eyes. Behind them wolves slink, slavering starveling creatures that will attack any being in this fell winter. Stories will call them wolves, no doubt, Makalaurë thinks, and much of it will be true, if he reads the glints of strange light in his brothers' faces. These wolves hope so much it aches and makes worth every deep trudge through snowdrifts on this dawnless day.

If only, if only, run the whispers on the shortest day of the year. If only it will end.

Sunrise

The sunrise sees the end of fighting. The survivors claim the forest rose against them, that Melian's magic whipped the winds into a screaming dance and made escape impossible. Now large, gentle flakes fall to hide away the traces of battle. The wolves howl at the edge of camp. Makalaurë goes around and wipes the shrouding snow from the faces of three of his brothers, clears it from frozen blood with his bare hands. The forest has no right to be pristine.

If only, he whispers and blows on red fingers to which snow clings, if only it had ended.