Postcards from Arda by Elleth

Cartography

Thanks to the fantastic GG, Aria, and the Lizard Council for their help.

Write a story or poem or create an artwork in which a character unaccustomed to acting as a leader must make an important decision.

For B2MeM 2011, Day Twenty: As the new High King of the Noldor after the Dagor Bragollach, Fingon receives a reminder that not all is as grey as it seems. A double-drabble according to Open Office.

Ard-galen, burnt. Dorthonion, burnt. Lothlann, burnt.

Fingon wet his brush and coated the lost realms in another layer of drab ash grey from west to east, and a swath that the enemy had cleft nearly to Ossiriand. Hithlum, sheltering behind the Ered Wethrin, lay safe yet. Fingon's face hardened. He stabbed the brush into the grey again, and resolutely drew it around his towns and villages in the colour of impenetrable stone.

"Ready a messenger," he said to his servant. "The new High King of the Noldor wishes to contract the Naugrim to build and fortify the city walls of his realm."

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Returning to his lectern in the evening, Fingon found the map unrolled. In the dim light he examined it closely for changes.

Ossiriand burgeoned in shining green. A minuscule dancer graced a glade in Doriath. Nan-tathren flowered. In Hithlum, lush ivy and roses climbed the walls erected with his brush. And where he knew the gardens of his keep lay, a carpet of tiniest purple harebells spelled out their author's name as clearly as the writing in his wife's hand: Do not make your father's mistake and see only war and loss. Remember that which you seek to protect.

Eventually, Fingon nodded.

Chapter End Notes

The mistake that Fingon's wife is referring to was based on this passage from the Silmarillion:

Then Fingolfin beheld (as it seemed to him) the utter ruin of the Noldor and the defeat beyond redress of all their houses; and filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him. (Of the Ruin of Beleriand)