Ribbon-Cutting Instadrabbling by Anne Wolfe

Spring Elanor

Written during instadrabbling for the Silmarillion Writers' Guild Site Reopening Party, for the prompt of three photographs of plants in the woods.

Read Spring Elanor

There had been elanor in Valinor, but Galadriel had never paid them any mind. They were the heralds of the change from mild winter to sweet spring, yes— but that did not mean anything, so they were only ever children’s flowers, torn up by the dozen to make transient little crowns.

Arda’s winters were not mild, even in Laurelindórenan. So the first elanor had something to stand against, and all the last year’s dead leaves to overcome. And when Galadriel saw the flower, rising bravely out of the gray ground, she dared to think that she might do the same.

The Ants

Written during instadrabbling for the Silmarillion Writers' Guild's Site-Reopening Party. The prompt was William Blake's A Dream.

A great deal of my inspiration for this came from learning that William Blake, the author of the prompt, was the third of seven children.

(Tyelko is here meant as a Quenya nickname for Celegorm.)

Read The Ants

Nobody else could hear the ants. But Tyelko could— he could hear cats and horses, too, but today he wanted to listen to the ants.

searching, murmured the ants; searching searching searching.

And then, from a distant grain of corn: food! food food food.

But another shouted from an unheard corner, lost! lost!

It made his stomach hurt. Carefully he scooped her up with the end of his fingernail, and returned her to her sisters. hello! they said, and not lost now! she said.

So they all gathered around the grain of corn, and together began to carry it home.