But Not Always Sweet by Grundy

Over The Years

4 true drabbles for the Literature prompts N1: Parody, N2: Whodunnit, N4: Sketch Comedy, and N5: Dream within a dream

No warnings on this chapter.

Read Over The Years

Elrond found his children laughing. Little Arwen’s infectious mirth had spread to her brothers and he suspected all three would be hard put to settle.

“What is so amusing?” he asked curiously. After hours trying to keep Celeborn and Erestor from glaring holes in each other, he could do with a chuckle!

“Elladan has made up the best song, Ada,” Arwen burbled. “It is after the Noldolantë but funny instead of sad. He calls it Am In Gelydh!”

The expression on his son’s face suggested he was unaware Maglor had also been skilled at humor and parody, not just tragedy.

---

Fëanáro gave all seven sons and assorted nephews his sternest look.

“You might save yourselves considerable trouble and confess now,” he suggested.

He was unsurprised that no one stepped forward. He wouldn’t have in their places. Nevertheless…

“I will find out who was responsible for this,” he warned them silkily. “And there will be consequences.”

Not even Curufinwë was willing to meet his eyes.

Any mirth the young ones had expected to feel had been outweighed by him discovering so quickly just why everyone was giving him such looks.

“I will restore my hair to its proper color first, however.”

---

Gil-galad blinked in bemusement.

“What under the stars are you children doing?” he asked.

Elros had many talents. Though drawing wasn’t one that stood out particularly, he was surely capable of producing something better than… whatever the thing that looked like someone had crossed a rabbit with a dragon was meant to be.

“It’s a mannish game,” the boy explained blithely. “You have to illustrate words or phrases well enough for your teammates to guess them. And osanwë is unfair, so we’re practicing.”

“And your phrase is…?”

“Likely as a fire-breathing bunny,” Elrond filled in. “It’s something the Haladin say.”

---

“It doesn’t seem real,” Amarië whispered.

Finrod knew what she meant. Being alive – again – and back home after so many years of wishing for that very thing (without the detour through the Halls) occasionally led him to question if he were still alive, somewhere in Beleriand, and merely dreaming.

That tomorrow was to be their wedding day felt like even more fanciful, to the point he almost feared he might wake up. It was too much.

“But it is,” Amarië added softly. “One more sleep and then…”

He laughed quietly, but privately he wondered.

Could one dream within a dream?

A Million Candles Burning

WARNINGS: Character death (on screen), implied rape (off screen), and in-world sexism/misogyny.

Lyrics are the work of Leonard Cohen.

Written for the Fanworks prompt N5: Songfic

Read A Million Candles Burning

If you are the dealer I'm out of the game

Pride had been their downfall in the end – pride and a refusal to see daughters as valuable compared to sons. She should have been the Ruling Queen, not usurped by her cousin. Cousin, because she refuses to acknowledge him as anything else. It matters not what words he said or what he did to her body, he is her cousin and a usurper, nothing more. She refuses to play the game on his terms.

If you are the healer it means I'm broken and lame

There is nothing wrong with her. And she has ensured that Pharazôn will have no child, son or daughter. She has denied him that much, no matter what the cost to her own flesh. He may mock her as barren and broken, but had no comeback when she demanded who was at fault if she was indeed broken as he claimed? She had not been the one that began the violence, after all. (The more fool her. Sinful as it might have been, it would have been better for all Elenna had she had her cousin quietly killed before her father’s death.)

If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame

It wasn’t just her cousin who opposed her, though. The Zigûr – Sauron, she can speak openly now, what more can he do? – had delighted in her debasement. The higher he rose, the more humiliation they had heaped on her, confident that she had no way to fight back. Before this nonsense of invading the holy West, the foul creature had even had the nerve to suggest that with him she might bear. For that, she had thrown caution to the wind and encouraged their mad fleet. A Man she can thwart, but an ainu is beyond her and she is not so foolish not to see it. If nothing else will stir the Lords of the West, perhaps the insult will.

You want it darker

She could feel what was coming in the wind, and in the spray of the sea, carried even this far inland. It pains her that so many of her people will die, of course – a true queen cares for her people. But even so, she also recognized that too many of them have been complicit. It was not only her dear departed cousin who deserved the coming judgement.

But the Faithful will be saved. It was no secret in her house that the true line of Tar-Minyatur ran not through Tar-Meneldur but through Silmariën. Let them take their chance and perhaps forge a better kingdom after the Sea washed the island clean.

“You think this is victory?” Sauron purred in her ear, a cruel parody of a lover’s intimacy. “You will die.”

She laughed.

“I will see the blasphemy you instigated destroyed first,” she replied. “Water quenches fire, or had you forgotten?”

“You will see nothing, for you will drown along with the rest,” he snarled. “It matters not where you think to run. I will see to it.”

“Where I am going,” she informed him, “you cannot follow.”

Evil or not, he was still an ainu and his foretelling was true. But the view from the Meneltarma –still sacred enough that he dared not tread it, not even when he realized too late what she intended – was splendid.

His scream as the water took him along with all the rest was enough for her to release her soul with laughter on her lips and praise for the High Ones in her heart.

We kill the flame.

A Change In the Water

For the Art prompt I5: Mosaic

Read A Change In the Water

Eärwen gave the order briskly, mentally braced for questions.

But Duimiel was professional enough not to ask. At least, not to ask the question she was dreading. The craftmaster did still deem other questions were needful.

“Do you wish it taken apart entirely, Princess?” Duimiel enquired. “The tiles could easily be reused, even if not all of them prove suitable for this commission. Or would you prefer it be taken up whole to be displayed elsewhere, perhaps at a later time?”

“Taken up, if you please, good master,” she replied. “It is fine work, and I would not have it destroyed. I’m sure I will find somewhere suitable to display it.”

She did not repeat ‘at a later time’, but then she did not need to. All Aman knew her sons and daughter had followed their uncle over the Ice.

She might stand to see it again when her children returned. When, not if.

The sea had until now been her friend – a source of strength and comfort, test and blessing in one, and so much part of her life she had needed it to be part of her home even in the city of the Noldor. The mosaic had been the closest she could come, similar to the one that graced her father’s hall but smaller, with a more modest fountain at its center. Anything more would have been out of proportion in the house her beloved had built for them.

But now the sea separated her from her children and would not even carry news of them to ease her heart. She could no longer look on it day in and day out.

So she had summoned the woman who made it, and requested it be replaced – Varda’s stars rather than Ulmo’s sea, something that bridged that too wide space between them.

It was only after Duimiel had left to begin her sketches and select colors and materials to present to her that Eärwen remembered she too had a child on the far side of a suddenly vast ocean.

---

Chapter End Notes

Duimiel is Ecthelion's mother.

Perchance to Scheme

For the Poetry prompt O4: Sonnet

Read Perchance to Scheme

Nerdanel managed to intervene before anything (or anyone) was broken, but it was a near thing.

Atarinkë was glaring fiercely at Makalaurë, and it was only her older son’s excellent reflexes that were to thank for the marble sphere his younger brother had hurled not doing him an injury. The grin on his face only served to inflame Atarinkë all the more.

“Boys, what is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “You’re both of you old enough to be setting Ambarussa a better example!”

At only ten, the twins found trouble enough without their older brothers giving them the impression physical altercations were acceptable. Particularly when their parents were trying so hard to train them to use their words, whether verbal or mental, rather than their hands or feet when upset…

“Just because he can churn out soppy love songs at the drop of a hat,” Atarinkë growled, “he thinks he can mock other people’s efforts!”

“I wasn’t mocking, I was suggesting improvements,” Makalaurë chuckled. “Though I doubt fair Tyelpesilmë will be bothered even if you do stick with that beastly wording. It is the thought that counts after all, is it not?”

Nerdanel’s glare made her younger son reconsider his impulse to reach for what the babies had recently dubbed the “tired frog” sculpture.

“You ought to know better than to needle your brother about courting,” she told Makalaurë firmly. “As I recall, you didn’t take kindly to any fraternal commentary when you returned from Alqualondë smitten.”

Atarinkë punctuated her mild reproof with an absolutely filthy glare, and opened his mouth to no doubt add something sharper, but she turned to him.

“All the same, my Atarinkë,” she continued. “You oughtn’t respond to provocation with physical violence. Your younger brothers look up to you. How will you feel if they throw something heavy at Artë or Irissë the next time they quarrel, having learned from you?”

“Curious to see what Artanis does to even the score,” her son snorted. “And worried for the little brats, because she’s cleverer than they are by far. She’d likely construct a device to hurl things with more force than her arms or legs alone would manage.”

Nerdanel pursed her lips.

The problem with having so many highly intelligent sons was that when they said such things, they were oftener than not right. And it didn’t help at all that she had an unholy urge to laugh at the thought of what her youngest niece so far would come up with.

“In that case, for the sake of the twins’ continued good health, stop throwing things at your brother! And Makalaurë, take yourself elsewhere if your brother didn’t ask for constructive criticism.”

“Yes, Ammë,” they chorused before doing as asked. (Though not without one more foul look from Atarinkë.)

“He didn’t say it very tactfully, darling, but he is right that your Silmë will care far more for the effort you put into your verse than how polished it is. She knows you aren’t a wordsmith, and loves you as you are.”

Her son sighed.

“Yes, but it would be easier to remember that if I wasn’t going to be compared to him.”

“Silmë hasn’t the least interest in your brother, silly. As well, for I suspect Lindë would object rather strongly.”

That at least got a small smile.

“She would,” Atarinkë nodded, considering his soon to be law sister’s likely reaction. “Though I think she’d object to some of what he said about my sonnet even more…”

Nerdanel sighed. It would do no good to ask that he let it go entirely. Thankfully, Lindelotë was too sensible to egg her intended and his younger brother on. Perhaps she might be able to broker a peace.

At least Atarinkë was using his words now…