The Life and Times of El

...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.





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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…

Title: Dunedenith: The Third Age
Summary: Drabbles about women of the Third Age of Middle-earth.
Characters: Béruthiel, Fíriel, Morwen Steelsheen, Gilraen, Finduilas, Ioreth.
AN: None of the characters are mine, everything belongs to Tolkien. For more information about these women, most of whom are mentioned in Appendix A, I recommend Thain's Book.

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Gah, I can't find a prompt at the lyrics table to put this on, so it'll have to be a stand-alone. At this rate, I could have claimed Morwen/Hurin almost as easily.


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Zokutou is acting strangely, so my Fic 5000 word count has no pretty pictures or anything: 4224/5000 = 84%

Yes, yours truly is nineteen today. I can still legally drink, and still cannot drive a car, but I got hugs and a mango for breakfast and money and Making Money, so everything's shiny. And a cake made with chocolate and coffee that will eventually be filled with cream and icing and strawberries. My family has left me alone in the house with, which is A Bad Thing. Good thing it's too hot to eat. :D

And I've been getting hit with Firefly/Serenity muses, and I wrote a little fic in the early hours of the morning. Technically, it's not my first venture into a new fandom, but it's the first I did without prompting. Please to be reviewing, all Jossverse fans?

( 'Ambrosia', in which Simon gets a taste - literally - of life on board Serenity. )

And this brings my Fic 5000 word count up to 2460.

2,460 / 5,000 (49.2%)

Title: It’s A Kind Of Magic
Summary: ‘They followed my song…’ Maglor reflects on his part in the rebellion of the Noldor. (Slight AU.)
Rating: PG-13, for some angst and references to the Kinslayings.
Word count: 499
AN: ‘One dream, one soul. One prize, one goal. One golden glance of what should be – it’s a kind of magic.’ Yes, I was inspired by Queen, so sue me, but it fits the idea of music as magic, doesn’t it? Because Eru and the Ainur created (a vision of) the world through song, magic and music are very closely intertwined in Middle-earth. Melian would have used song, Finrod disguised his soldiers by magic and later fought with Sauron through song, and Galadriel (who learned a few things from Melian) would probably have used it with her Ring of Power.

All this got me wondering – if magic is performed by singing, then couldn’t Maglor, whose musical skill is bested only by Daeron, be a magician as well? And knowing the Fëanorian tendency for dark secrets, this was the result...

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Lyric Table

Title: Blood and Snow
Fandom: The Silmarillion – Of Túrin Turambar
Characters: Beleg, Túrin
Prompt: 016. welcome to the jungle, we take it day by day; if you want it you’re gonna bleed, but it’s the price you pay
Word Count: 365
Rating: PG-13
Summary: While tending a wound, Beleg gives Túrin some advice about tactics.
Author's Notes: Tolkien owns everything, and no, it’s not a hurt/comfort fic. Not ostensibly so, anyway.
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Thus while yet scarcely out of his boyhood his strength and courage were proved; and remembering the wrongs of his kin her was ever forward in deeds of daring, and he received many wounds by spear or arrow or the crooked blades of the Orcs…

Only one was mightier in arms among the march-wardens of Thingol at that time than Túrin, and that was Beleg Cúthalion; and Beleg and Túrin were companions in every peril, and walked far and wide in the wild woods together.

– Unfinished Tales
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