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elvenpiratelady...By which I mean that I've finished all my work except for one thing, and they swarmed on me again last night. I wrote just over 1100 words, some of it silly and some not. This was the first, call it a dark answer to swashbucklathon.
Three is the charm
‘Pirates! Pirates, Mama!’ Adin had reached the age where voices cracked and broke, but he reverted to a child’s high pitch in his fright.
‘Where? How many?’ But she already knew it didn’t matter what answer he gave. There were always too many, and they always came here.
‘Two ships in the bay, and they’re on the beach now.’
Always the same place.
‘Do they know where we are? Will they find us?’
‘Hush, child, or they will find us with your yapping. Have you told the reeve?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then take the children up the mountain path, and pray to the forest god that they don’t follow.’
‘But–’
‘Now, Adin!’ Her voice cracked like a whip and he left, scowling. She could hear the reeve calling men from the houses. Pirates. West-men. Scum.
Three times was the charm.
The first when she had barely begun to walk, a sword slicing across her calf to leave a wound that healed slow and awry.
The second when she’d been married not a year, running from a man who caught her because of her cursed lame leg and pushed her into the mud while she clawed at his face and screamed herself hoarse. Her husband died with half his guts hanging out and she was left with Adin, whom she wanted to believe was a trueborn village son but who had eyes like grey clouds and was, at twelve, taller than half the village men.
And now the third.
She put out the fire – what a laugh that would be, to have the house burn down and it be her fault and not the pirates’ – and limped outside. Her father’s old axe leant against the wall, and her fingers curled around the wood, solid and heavy.
Three times was the charm.
This time, when the pirates came, she would be ready for them.
--------------
And they sailed now with power and armoury to Middle-earth, and they came no longer as bringers of gifts, not even as rulers, but as fierce men of war…
swashbucklathon.Three is the charm
‘Pirates! Pirates, Mama!’ Adin had reached the age where voices cracked and broke, but he reverted to a child’s high pitch in his fright.
‘Where? How many?’ But she already knew it didn’t matter what answer he gave. There were always too many, and they always came here.
‘Two ships in the bay, and they’re on the beach now.’
Always the same place.
‘Do they know where we are? Will they find us?’
‘Hush, child, or they will find us with your yapping. Have you told the reeve?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then take the children up the mountain path, and pray to the forest god that they don’t follow.’
‘But–’
‘Now, Adin!’ Her voice cracked like a whip and he left, scowling. She could hear the reeve calling men from the houses. Pirates. West-men. Scum.
Three times was the charm.
The first when she had barely begun to walk, a sword slicing across her calf to leave a wound that healed slow and awry.
The second when she’d been married not a year, running from a man who caught her because of her cursed lame leg and pushed her into the mud while she clawed at his face and screamed herself hoarse. Her husband died with half his guts hanging out and she was left with Adin, whom she wanted to believe was a trueborn village son but who had eyes like grey clouds and was, at twelve, taller than half the village men.
And now the third.
She put out the fire – what a laugh that would be, to have the house burn down and it be her fault and not the pirates’ – and limped outside. Her father’s old axe leant against the wall, and her fingers curled around the wood, solid and heavy.
Three times was the charm.
This time, when the pirates came, she would be ready for them.
--------------
And they sailed now with power and armoury to Middle-earth, and they came no longer as bringers of gifts, not even as rulers, but as fierce men of war…
- Akallabêth
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Date: 2008-04-13 05:44 am (UTC)Nice job!
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Date: 2008-04-14 05:42 am (UTC)I tend to think of the Dunedain as good guys - but as you point out... not always the case. Well, I was thinking of the time when they started expanding the empire, being heretics and etc, so these would be the King's Men and technically not our Dunedain. Still nasty to see them fall so low, anyway (although now that I think about it, I have no idea what this random indigenous-Gondorian village would have that they would want...)