A Foolish Figure

Entrance
Folco
Long Night's Journey Into Day
Not a Second Time
Once Bitten...
Samwise the...Star? (essay)
Two Poems
Untitled Essay (f-locked)

'Alas! I Fear we cannot stay here longer,' said Aragorn. He looked towards the mountains and held up his sword. `Farewell, Gandalf! ' he cried. 'Did I not say to you: _if you pass the doors of Moria, beware_? Alas that I spoke true! What hope have we without you? '
He turned to the Company. `We must do without hope,' he said. `At least we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We have a long road, and much to do.'
They rose and looked about them. Northward the dale ran up into a glen of shadows between two great arms of the mountains, above which three white peaks were shining: Celebdil, Fanuidhol, Caradhras. the Mountains of Moria. At the head of the glen a torrent flowed like a white lace over an endless ladder of short falls, and a mist of foam hung in the air about the mountains' feet.
`Yonder is the Dimrill Stair,' said Aragorn, pointing to the falls. 'Down the deep-cloven way that climbs beside the torrent we should have come, if fortune had been kinder.'
`Or Caradhras less cruel,' said Gimli. `There he stands smiling in the sun! ' He shook his fist at the furthest of the snow-capped peaks and turned away.
To the east the outflung arm of the mountains marched to a sudden end, and far lands could be descried beyond them, wide and vague. To the south the Misty Mountains receded endlessly as far as sight could reach. Less than a mile away, and a little below them, for they still stood high up on the west side of the dale, there lay a mere. It was long and oval, shaped like a great spear-head thrust deep into the northern glen; but its southern end was beyond the shadows under the sunlit sky. Yet its waters were dark: a deep blue like clear evening sky seen from a lamp-lit room. Its face was still and unruffled. About it lay a smooth sward, shelving down on all sides to its bare unbroken rim.
`There lies the Mirrormere, deep Kheled-z‚ram! ' said Gimli sadly. `I remember that he said: "May you have joy of the sight! But we cannot linger there." Now long shall I journey ere I have joy again. It is I that must hasten away, and he that must remain.'
The Company now went down the road from the Gates. It was rough and broken, fading to a winding track between heather and whin that thrust amid the cracking stones. But still it could be seen that once long ago a great paved way had wound upwards from the lowlands of the Dwarf-kingdom. In places there were ruined works of stone beside the path, and mounds of green topped with slender birches, or fir-trees sighing in the wind. An eastward bend led them hard by the sward of Mirrormere, and there not far from the roadside stood a single column broken at the top.

A drabble requested by litlover12  for this drabble requesting meme.  There is ONE spot open!  COME BY AND REQUEST.  :-)  (thanks to labourslamp for discussing the drabble, and suggesting the awesome title!)

Long Night’s Journey Into Day

“You said you loved the chirping of the birds, yesterday!”

“Frodo, they start shrieking at three in the morning!”

“At least you got to enjoy them. Meanwhile, I was having a nightmare where all my feather mattresses turned into rock piles and…”

“Enjoyed?! Don’t complain about your nightmares. At least you slept. You didn’t have to lie awake on a bloody great root, and listen to yourself snoring for three and a half hours.”

“Fatty, you have no right to talk about snoring, and your blanket…”

“…Is no substitute for my beautiful goose-down mattress! I am never sleeping outside again.”

Sam's Song

Sam's Song in the Tower of Cirith Ungol
from The Return of the King

In western lands beneath the Sun
the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey's end I lie
in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars forever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.

"Tower of Cirith Ungol" excerpt

This includes accent!fail.  Oh well...

Also note--this is a ten minute excerpt, so the file is a bit large.  It's in a zipped folder  (the kind you can unzip easily, since it was zipped in Windoes...not a .rar or anything) at 20 MB.

I'm not including the words, but it's from the last few pages of "The Tower of Cirith Ungol" beginning when Sam and Frodo take "their last meal before the go into Mordor."

My phone isn't very good, so it's very hard to understand my lj voice post. I made a recording with a recorder I have using box.net, but I left the lj voice post, just in case there is a problem

http://www.box.net/shared/d721dyodj8



They stumbled wildly up the great stairs beyond the door, Aragorn leading, Boromir at the rear. At the top was a wide echoing passage. Along this they fled. Frodo heard Sam at his side weeping, and then he found that he himself was weeping as he ran. Doom, doom, doom the drum-beats rolled behind, mournful now and slow; doom!

They ran on. The light grew before them; great shafts pierced the roof. They ran swifter. They passed into a hall, bright with daylight from its high windows in the east. They fled across it. Through its huge broken doors they passed, and suddenly before them the Great Gates opened, an arch of blazing light.

There was a guard of orcs crouching in the shadows behind the great door posts towering on either side, but the gates were shattered and cast down. Aragorn smote to the ground the captain that stood in his path, and the rest fled in terror of his wrath. The Company swept past them and took no heed of them. Out of the Gates they ran and sprang down the huge and age-worn steps, the threshold of Moria.

Thus, at last, they came beyond hope under the sky and felt the wind on their faces.

They did not halt until they were out of bowshot from the walls. Dimrill Dale lay about them. The shadow of the Misty Mountains lay upon it, but eastwards there was a golden light on the land. It was but one hour after noon. The sun was shining; the clouds were white and high.

They looked back. Dark yawned the archway of the Gates under the mountain-shadow. Faint and far beneath the earth rolled the slow drum-beats: doom. A thin black smoke trailed out. Nothing else was to be seen; the dale all around was empty. Doom. Grief at last wholly overcame them, and they wept long: some standing and silent, some cast upon the ground. Doom, doom. The drum-beats faded.

A true drabble for labourslamp  for this drabble-requesting meme. (WHERE YOU CAN REQUEST A DRABBLE, TOO!  FOUR SPOTS LEFT!!! )



Folco

He’d read Frodo’s part of the Red Book before Frodo left. 

But he’d never befriended the hobbit who followed Frodo there and back again when he, Frodo’s friend and relation, had done nothing.

So when Sam sent him a copy of the Red Book, he read Sam’s account of Frodo’s departure for the first time. 

Now he stared at one phrase:

“…so that others may keep them.”

He heard  two faunts—his grandchildren—giggling.

And a weight he’d carried for nearly seventy years was gone.

He had done something. He’d remained in the Shire to honor his promise to Pansy.

A 55 word fic written for Challenge 001  at great_tales 

"If you even breathe a word of what you've heard here, then I hope Gandalf will turn you into a spotted toad and fill the garden full of grass snakes."



Once Bitten...

“Die, you filthy thing! DIE!”

The Gaffer hobbled over to discover the cause of such bloodthirsty violence in his usually gentle son.  

“Sam, my lad, it’s just a grass snake.”

“Oh, I know, dad. I know!”

Gaffer Gamgee shook his head.   Not even left for Buckland yet, and his Sam already showed signs of cracking.

An essay I wrote eight years ago, now.  It is very very flawed, but it is the reason I eventually decided that I wanted to go into literary criticism.  :-)

( Samwise the...Star? )

My third LotR fanwork--for the Nov 2010 challenge at lotr_community 

Entrance 

He stood in Sauron’s smithy. He had carried himself there on his own two feet. He drew out that … Lover? Master? Self? ... that Golden Ring. And he remembered no more.

Until he found himself standing beside his … Servant? Gardener? Brother? ... his Friend of Friends. Sam had carried him out….

But to Mordor, the land of despair. 

To be out, Frodo knew now, was not to be whole — was not to be happy.

Until…

“Come in, Mr. Frodo. You’ll catch your death of cold out here!”

And Sam led him through the green door of Bag End.

My first fan fic ever. Also from high school.
( Not a Second Time )