"The Hours," part II
Feb. 6th, 2004 12:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thrihyrneGoing to post this. It's dark. The whole series is going to be very dark, perhaps with a dash of angst thrown in for the mix. But Tolkien set this up, not me; I'm just putting together the potential pieces of the puzzle.
And now I'm all angsty myself, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
palarran is showing up everywhere with a line drawn through it, which makes me anxious. I'm only here thanks to her.
Terce, 7:30 a.m.
She was almost at the bottom of the switch-backing trail before she noticed how much her jaw ached. The creaking of the wheels of the wagon-cart behind her had managed to find reciprocal grinding in her teeth, though once she became aware of it, she made every attempt to loosen her mouth. And yet, the wood would not be silent. Her teeth clenched again.
Horse and rider, a cortege of two, bore their slight burden into the valley below them, toward the still grasses as blanched and bleak as the grey sky above. There were many mounds now; none could be buried up on the Firienfeld, the last eyrie for the Rohirrim unable due to sex or age to fly away South to Gondor. Certain doom though it may have been, the waiting was worse for those used to plain speech, used to certainties which were as tangible as horse’s hair clutched in the hand. Coarse it was, but it was better than fog and shadow, aches of pride wheedling into the corner-post matriarchs and patriarchs of the plains. Thistles and briars clustered menacingly in the spirits of those who remained; leaderless, abandoned.
She reached the waves of earth, stopped her filly with a quiet word, then dismounted and loosed the cart from her horse. Walking to the wagon, she pointedly ignored the cloth-wrapped figure, took out the trowel, and began digging. After the sun had managed yet again to travel somewhat through the dim sky, she decided there was enough depth to bury her cousin, and dropped her implement. Her horse was within eyeshot, grazing on untorched grass. She approached the wooden wagon, leaned over, and with arms throbbing with overuse, gingerly picked up the body of the youth she had brought down from the Firienfeld.
He was laid as softly as possible into the earth, though his caretaker was only a few years older than his fifteen years, and she was exhausted. Her cousin had fought at the battle at Helm’s Deep, and suffered many wounds, which finally claimed him, mere hours before. She used her trowel to cover him up to the shoulders, then sank resignedly to her knees.
May the grasses sigh with your name
The wind throb with your heart which beats no more
Your light in the night sky shine down on us…
She was unable to finish the lament. Instead, she took a knife from her belt, and after sizing up her hand, chose her least-useful digit and made a light slash on her fifth finger, letting a few drops of blood fall onto the freshly-turned earth.
Be carried to our kin, and know us by this.
Head lowered, she sat still, unkempt hair lightly teased by a mocking whisper of breeze. As her eyes focused, she looked at the dark ground, then in a fog of blurred grief, dug her fingers into the upturned earth, and shoved it into her mouth.
Bitterly she chewed for a few moments, trying to rationalize the grit on her tongue before she spat it out, swearing as she did. She took a finger and scraped the tiny pebbles and foul-tasting ground out of her mouth, then stood, wiping her hand on her skirt and spitting after running her tongue around her teeth once more.
As she walked back to her horse to retrieve her waterskin, she was struck that she would never get used to the taste of death.
~~~
How is it that I get inspired to write such morbid things before a Gilbert and Sullivan operatta??
And now I'm all angsty myself, as
palarran is showing up everywhere with a line drawn through it, which makes me anxious. I'm only here thanks to her.Terce, 7:30 a.m.
Firienfeld/Edoras
She was almost at the bottom of the switch-backing trail before she noticed how much her jaw ached. The creaking of the wheels of the wagon-cart behind her had managed to find reciprocal grinding in her teeth, though once she became aware of it, she made every attempt to loosen her mouth. And yet, the wood would not be silent. Her teeth clenched again.
Horse and rider, a cortege of two, bore their slight burden into the valley below them, toward the still grasses as blanched and bleak as the grey sky above. There were many mounds now; none could be buried up on the Firienfeld, the last eyrie for the Rohirrim unable due to sex or age to fly away South to Gondor. Certain doom though it may have been, the waiting was worse for those used to plain speech, used to certainties which were as tangible as horse’s hair clutched in the hand. Coarse it was, but it was better than fog and shadow, aches of pride wheedling into the corner-post matriarchs and patriarchs of the plains. Thistles and briars clustered menacingly in the spirits of those who remained; leaderless, abandoned.
She reached the waves of earth, stopped her filly with a quiet word, then dismounted and loosed the cart from her horse. Walking to the wagon, she pointedly ignored the cloth-wrapped figure, took out the trowel, and began digging. After the sun had managed yet again to travel somewhat through the dim sky, she decided there was enough depth to bury her cousin, and dropped her implement. Her horse was within eyeshot, grazing on untorched grass. She approached the wooden wagon, leaned over, and with arms throbbing with overuse, gingerly picked up the body of the youth she had brought down from the Firienfeld.
He was laid as softly as possible into the earth, though his caretaker was only a few years older than his fifteen years, and she was exhausted. Her cousin had fought at the battle at Helm’s Deep, and suffered many wounds, which finally claimed him, mere hours before. She used her trowel to cover him up to the shoulders, then sank resignedly to her knees.
May the grasses sigh with your name
The wind throb with your heart which beats no more
Your light in the night sky shine down on us…
She was unable to finish the lament. Instead, she took a knife from her belt, and after sizing up her hand, chose her least-useful digit and made a light slash on her fifth finger, letting a few drops of blood fall onto the freshly-turned earth.
Be carried to our kin, and know us by this.
Head lowered, she sat still, unkempt hair lightly teased by a mocking whisper of breeze. As her eyes focused, she looked at the dark ground, then in a fog of blurred grief, dug her fingers into the upturned earth, and shoved it into her mouth.
Bitterly she chewed for a few moments, trying to rationalize the grit on her tongue before she spat it out, swearing as she did. She took a finger and scraped the tiny pebbles and foul-tasting ground out of her mouth, then stood, wiping her hand on her skirt and spitting after running her tongue around her teeth once more.
As she walked back to her horse to retrieve her waterskin, she was struck that she would never get used to the taste of death.
~~~
How is it that I get inspired to write such morbid things before a Gilbert and Sullivan operatta??
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 03:36 pm (UTC)- jen
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-06 10:17 pm (UTC)The soul lays itself out on the slab to be salted and breaded before going into the oven. And Gilbert and Sullivan is one sweet, divine oven, if I do say so myself.
:-)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 05:50 pm (UTC)What an astoundingly profound image.
Thank you.
G&S is great fun.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-08 03:01 am (UTC)The sentiment is so real though. *morbid, but real*
BTW I saw that you had this, along with Denethor's Vigils, posted in beta at HASA. Do you have any of the others written yet?
Re:
Date: 2004-02-08 05:49 pm (UTC)*cough* Because book-canon-anal me didn't know whether or not there were shovels in use. I'm an idiot. I wanted her to use a shovel. A trowel would take forever. Urg. I suspect if Bilbo can have a clock and this being the end of the Third Age and all, surely shovels are in use. It will be changed shortly, and with the author's gratitude.
*morbid, but real*
I had hoped for that. I didn't want it to be purple and over the top, but there would have been a lot of death going on, and you know how I am about giving voice to the voiceless.
Do you have any of the others written yet?
Only in my head. I've been mulling over Haldir, standing sentry in the rain, hours before the battles that will rage in Lothlorien. And the last one, in which Denethor will be contemplating the pyre, and put his signet ring of the Stewards in Faramir's pocket, thereby allowing it to exist into the Fourth Age. The others are stewing in my head, a very dangerous place to be. ;)
Re: shovels and trowels
Date: 2004-02-08 06:27 pm (UTC)Thev, this is why I started compiling so many word lists when I started writing IETWO - I figured any word that had its origins in OE was safe for use in Rohan's culture. The shovel is a perfect example:
Now your trowel on the other hand...
*cough* You have permission to hurl mild obcenities at me. ;-)
I actually worried about the use of the word paddock until I checked its etymology and discovered it has its origins in OE - okay, so they borrowed it from Medieval Latin, but the Rohirrim borrowed some words from the Elven tongues too. :-D
You can see why I love my dictionary. :-D