What Might Gnaw by Lferion

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Fanwork Notes

Written for the SWG May 2023 Bestiary of Arda challenge, using this image as a prompt, (also certain aspects of this image.)

Posted here on AO3.

Many thanks to Zhie and Runa for encouragement and sanity-checking.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

A riddle-sonnet contemplating the nature of that which, desperate, devours.

Major Characters:

Major Relationships:

Genre: General, Poetry

Challenges: Bestiary of Arda

Rating: General

Warnings:

Chapters: 1 Word Count: 145
Posted on 15 May 2023 Updated on 15 May 2023

This fanwork is complete.

What Might Gnaw

Read What Might Gnaw

What gnaws the very bones of earth, succulent and dry
The sinews grey & brown, muscled hills humped, hunched & round
What teeth are these, what leathern tongue, or creaking jaw to pry
Hard stones apart, and molten marrow suck from out the ground?

What maw contain the might to so crush obdurate parts
Or gullet own the fortitude to oceans swallow down
And turn to earthen, muddled, muddy dust bereft of hearts,
An arid, empty desert make of what was mountain crown?

What creatures these, that roots of stone with striving would destroy
Make grit of granite, seeming strong, yet shattered at the core
Turn proud array to tatters, distill loathlyness from joy
Leech light and air and meaning, leave the empty, grinding roar?

Worms indeed will sup on earth, be they simple, foe, or Were
The true worm of destruction souls doth riddle with despair.

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