Immigrants. Chapter 2.
23 Jan 2012 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curiouswombatThis is the second chapter of the story I began before Christmas, of the first few months of life 'In the West' for Legolas, Tindómë et al.
In the first chapter a few of the 'immigrants' were wondering about celebrating the solstice. They haven't quite got to it in this chapter - instead we find out a little more about how Legolas feels now that he has succumbed to the sea-longing.
This is the chapter I posted a little from for the WIP meme last week.
Immigrants, Chapter Two.
Rated; G
The usual cast of Returnverse stories - plus a couple of hobbits...
Word count for this chapter; 2,620.
Disclaimer; The characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only, and all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkien. And Joss Whedon if he ever recognises his Key...
Chapter One is here.
Legolas really wasn’t sure whether he was happy or not. There was no longer that gnawing ache, that twisting of the gut, that had haunted him throughout the years since he first heard the cry of the gulls. Now their calls rang out many times a day but the raucous voices were already simply a part of the background sounds.
Somehow he had never really thought much past arriving and being rid of the sea-longing. When he had, fleetingly, thought of it he had expected that there would be some sort of formal welcome; although quite what sort he had not considered. Or maybe he would find that his grandfather had been returned from Mandos’ Halls and already set up a thriving kingdom, of their own people, where he would return to being a prince – something. Instead Mithrandir had been there, Lady Galadriel with some of the Galadhrim, Master Elrond and his wife – probably because they had expected the twins to arrive with him following Aragorn and Arwen’s deaths – and the two hobbits. No formal welcome; no grandfather or mother either.
It was wonderful, of course, to be reunited with Frodo and Sam. He had seen Sam a number of times, before news had reached Ithilien that the elderly hobbit had quietly left Middle Earth to sail West, but he had not seen Frodo since the journey homeward at the end of the Quest. It was clear to Legolas that they were both nearing the end of their lives – but both were content, their fëar shone brightly, and there seemed no longer any signs of the shadow that had touched them both those years before.
Somehow he had also expected to feel immediately as if he had reached the end of his journey – found his real home. But this was not home. All the years of his life Legolas had known where home was. There had been no question during all the years before the Quest; he was a prince of the Great Greenwood – even when it was Mirkwood, it was home. Not just the stronghold, but every leaf of grass, every rock, every tree, was ‘home’. After he had decided to spend time restoring Ithilien, and being closer to the man he thought of as a brother, he had thought of Eryn Ithil as ‘home’; the Greenwood remained, as do parents’ houses everywhere, ‘home’ as well.
But this place – this was simply somewhere that he was visiting – he could never see this becoming a home of the heart, no matter that the tales and songs referred to everywhere in the West as Elvenhome. And he did not mean just the suite of rooms he occupied inside Master Elrond’s home; at least presumably Master Elrond thought of it as ‘home’. Or perhaps he still thought of Imladris as his home…
It was sensible for Legolas to have been given the wing of the house that was ready for the arrival of the twins, as the hobbits were so very close, and Gimli was lodging with them. But it was not just the actual rooms that did not feel like home – even had he moved down the hill, to where his people were now living, it still would not be home.
The hobbits – Legolas wondered if they thought of this as home? Surely they were too deeply rooted in the soil of The Shire? He did not want to upset them by asking. But then, of course, Gimli brought up the subject in his forthright way.
“Bit different from home, eh, Sam?” the dwarf commented, as the four remaining members of the Fellowship watched the gulls, wheeling around a fishing boat, from a vantage point in Master Elrond’s gardens.
“No,” Sam answered straight away. “No, it’s not a bit different from home. Seeing as it is home.”
Gimli looked a bit taken aback; Legolas felt the same. No-one, surely, was more attached to their own home than a hobbit. Sam looked at Gimli, then at Frodo, who was nodding gently.
“’Tis a good bit different to The Shire, right enough,” Sam went on, “but that were only home until my Rosie had gone. The youngsters were all settled, and any one would have made me welcome, but it seemed to me that, once I were given the offer, it would be good to come home to Master Frodo to see out my days.”
“And,” Frodo took up the conversation, “I’ve actually lived here for the longest part of my life. This may not be the home of my childhood, but it is more my home than that was; it is where I brought up my son.”
The elderly hobbit looked to where two elves were approaching, heads close together, with a gentle smile. Haldirin, Legolas realised, deep in conversation with Tharhîwon; the Winter Elfling who had become the son of Frodo’s heart.
“It is good that he has renewed his friendship with Haldirin,” Frodo continued, “although it might mean he has more decisions to make when I am gone.”
Legolas waited. And, sure enough, Frodo explained further. “Tharhîwon sees Master Elrond and Lady Celebrían as aunt and uncle, or grandparents. But by blood he is a wood elf, and the first mother figure he remembers is Tindómë. When you move from here, to be amongst the trees, he will feel torn between staying here and going with you.”
The young ellyn joined them and the conversation moved on. But Legolas was not part of it for some time as he thought over what had just been said. He felt guilty that he, an elf, could not think of this place as ‘home’ when the hobbits could, and he wondered whether he would find a new ‘home’ amongst trees here in time – and how long that time might be.
………………
He mulled these things over for a few days more, and thought he was keeping them to himself, until Gimli asked what worried him. He did not want to upset this brave friend, who had willingly sailed into the unknown with him, and so he denied that he was anything other than happy. But Gimli looked at him steadily, eyes still piercing under his thick eyebrows, and then harrumphed disbelievingly.
“Well, whatever it is,” Gimli said, “it would be better shared…”
So, now, Legolas approached someone who he knew would listen without judging and then give him a stern talking to if it was deemed necessary.
“Nethig, are you busy, or would you come and walk with me?”
“Not busy,” Tindómë answered, “and glad of an excuse, to be honest.”
“Excuse for what?” Legolas asked, interested at her choice of words.
“To not talk to my husband’s mother.”
He waited.
“Half the time she treats me as if I am younger than Ithilienne, that Rumil is too, and he and I are just good friends – or less! A bit like Buffy did when she dragged me back to Sunnydale… And then the rest of the time she treats me as if I am the person who is making all the decisions for our family – and I’m making the wrong ones. And she will probably arrive at sunset when she knows we will be together to eat.”
‘Oh dear,’ thought Legolas. What was it Sam had said on more than one occasion? A trouble shared is a trouble halved? It looked as both he and his ‘small sister’ had troubles to share.
“Come, then, nethig,” he said out loud, “we will escape together.”
Friends from Eryn Ithil greeted them as they walked down the paved roadway, reminiscent of the streets of Minas Tirith, towards the shore. Legolas already had a favourite comfortable rock, a little way below the road that ran along the shore line, and once they were seated there together he admitted he had wanted to share his own worries, but was also very willing to share hers – he repeated Sam’s adage.
“Hmm,” Tindómë said, with a smile, “doesn’t that leave us with two halves each? That’s still one whole one!”
“Ah,” Legolas answered, “but we can carry the two half worries separately, one in either hand, and we should each be better balanced…”
They sat and each outlined their problems. Legolas produced an apple each from a pocket and they munched companionably before he began the conversation again.
“And how do you get on with your husband-father?”
“Adar Thorontor is fine… he seems really proud of how his elflings grew up, of how they have turned out. I think he really likes Lithôniel and me, not to mention Haldirin and Ithilienne.”
“And does your husband-mother treat both you and Lithôniel identically?”
Tindómë thought for a little while.
“Yes… Yes, as if we have somehow seduced her poor innocent sons and corrupted them. And as if we must be the ones who don’t want to move to be near Her Ladyship, and are forcing Rumil and Orophin to abandon their heritage – this being because we are big grown-up temptresses who can bully her poor boys…”
Legolas’ snort of laughter was, to say the least, inelegant.
“I cannot imagine anyone bullying Orophin or Rumil! But, if she is no better inclined to Lithôniel, then at least you do not have to see it as a personal slight, nethig. Unless…” a sudden thought occurred to him, “she thinks that our relationship is to blame; that I would not allow my sister to live under someone else’s lordship? That, without that factor, Orophin would not also have bound to one of my people?”
“She might – but not if she’d listened to what we have told them. After all, you were quite happy to pack me off to Lothlorien to finish growing up. And it was both Orophin and Rumil, as much as me, who chose to come to Eryn Ithil – it was certainly not that you insisted.”
Tindómë sat silently for a minute or two, gazing at the sea, but not really looking at it. “I guess,” she said eventually, “she’s only known Lithôniel and I as adults, and only known Rumil and Orophin as elflings… perhaps we should suggest another coming of age party for them? Or maybe binding parties for the four of us? After all, we should use any excuse for a good party. Or maybe we should just wait for the next forty or fifty years until she feels as if her elflings have had time to grow?”
“Should I have a word with Her Ladyship before she leaves to return to her own home?” Legolas asked, realising as he did so that perhaps Her Ladyship did not really think of anywhere here as ‘home’ either. She had, after all, been in Middle Earth a lot longer than she had lived in Valinor before she crossed the ice.
“No… Actually I can do it myself if things don’t improve; Lady Galadriel was happy to think of Rumil and I binding, and she seems more than happy that Orophin has also found Lithôniel. Or Orophin or Rumil will end up complaining to their adar – neither of them quite know what to say to their naneth when she is not-quite-polite to Lithôniel and me. It’ll work out in time, I guess – if only because, with any luck, we’ll end up living hundreds of miles apart!”
Legolas, as always, could not help but admire the way that Tindómë seemed able to think through things that worried her and, somehow, conclude that things would get better, one way or another, and look resolutely forward to tomorrow. He told her this, quite seriously.
She cocked her head on one side for a minute or two whilst she thought about it before answering him equally seriously. “Hmm… I guess maybe it’s because I’ve kinda learnt that there’s not a lot of point in looking back. As long as Rumil loves me then his mother not being overly keen on me is not such a big deal. Not compared with some of the things that I’ve survived, really.”
He thought of some of the things she had told him about her childhood in the other place. She had said that she was not really sure when the memories stopped being of things that had not happened because she had not really existed, and began to be things that really had occurred. For an Elf, with perfect recall, to not know which memories were real was horrifying in itself.
But that her childhood had included the death of her mother and her sister, and rejection by her father was even worse. He remembered her describing discovering that she was not who, or what, she thought she was; and trying to deal with it by cutting herself to see if she bled real blood, describing feeling as if no-one really noticed she existed any more and stealing things to help her feel better, hoping that someone might notice…. No wonder, really, that she chose to think things through carefully for herself.
Then there was the little matter of almost dying after the fall through the Hellmouth, of finding herself in Middle Earth where she knew nobody and was a total stranger. And then being snatched back by Buffy and the others and beginning to fade… No, he could see that Rumil’s mother’s attitude was ‘no big’ when compared to those things. And that his own feelings about life here not being what he had expected were not really that big an issue either.
Before he could say that perhaps his own problems were not all that important Tindómë had begun to talk about them.
“So, yeah, the feeling at home thing…” she began. “Maybe we should make wagers about how long it will take?” She grinned. “Probably take longer for an elf to feel at home somewhere totally alien than it did me, as I was thinking in mortal time.”
“I… I should feel at home straight away. This is meant to be where Elves belong,” he said.
“Yeah – but it’s a home you’ve never been to before. I guess I should have felt at home straight away when I woke up in Minas Tirith; after all I was meant to be in this dimension and was only in the other one by accident.”
“But, Minas Tirith was really not the part of Middle Earth you belonged in…” Legolas paused, as she slowly smiled. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing for a minute.
“You could say that when I was in Minas Tirith I was just in transit… When I said we were living in transit houses here in Aqualondë I meant all of us – you and Gimli too. Why be surprised that you don’t feel at home on the coast? I mean yeah – the gulls, yada, yada… but walking on beaches, living in streets of stone houses, it’s pretty foreign to all of us. Why would you feel more at home than the rest of us, atheg?”
And before he thought about ‘the rest of us’ she was a step ahead.
“And don’t you begin to feel guilty about everyone else! ‘Cos, you know? It’s kind of cool to be able to have a good long seaside holiday, swim, go fishing, whatever, without the fear of the gulls luring anyone to take sail! Then, when it feels right, I guess we’ll go and look for a forest somewhere – I’m pretty sure there’s got to be spare forest as the Teleri and the Noldor aren’t big with the forest dwelling. I have a theory… but it’ll wait.”
She got to her feet and pulled him up with her. “In the meantime, let’s go skip stones; name your wager, big brother!”
..........................
Useful stuff; - the Teleri are the coastal Elves - they are more closely related to the Sindar/silvan peoples of both the Galadhrim, Mirkwood/The Greenwood, and Eryn Ithil. The Noldor are the 'clan' of the High King and renowned as metal workers and stonemasons etc.
As usual - please point out errors my inestimable beta may have missed, or anything I should have explained, but haven't.
In the first chapter a few of the 'immigrants' were wondering about celebrating the solstice. They haven't quite got to it in this chapter - instead we find out a little more about how Legolas feels now that he has succumbed to the sea-longing.
This is the chapter I posted a little from for the WIP meme last week.
Immigrants, Chapter Two.
Rated; G
The usual cast of Returnverse stories - plus a couple of hobbits...
Word count for this chapter; 2,620.
Disclaimer; The characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only, and all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkien. And Joss Whedon if he ever recognises his Key...
Chapter One is here.
Legolas really wasn’t sure whether he was happy or not. There was no longer that gnawing ache, that twisting of the gut, that had haunted him throughout the years since he first heard the cry of the gulls. Now their calls rang out many times a day but the raucous voices were already simply a part of the background sounds.
Somehow he had never really thought much past arriving and being rid of the sea-longing. When he had, fleetingly, thought of it he had expected that there would be some sort of formal welcome; although quite what sort he had not considered. Or maybe he would find that his grandfather had been returned from Mandos’ Halls and already set up a thriving kingdom, of their own people, where he would return to being a prince – something. Instead Mithrandir had been there, Lady Galadriel with some of the Galadhrim, Master Elrond and his wife – probably because they had expected the twins to arrive with him following Aragorn and Arwen’s deaths – and the two hobbits. No formal welcome; no grandfather or mother either.
It was wonderful, of course, to be reunited with Frodo and Sam. He had seen Sam a number of times, before news had reached Ithilien that the elderly hobbit had quietly left Middle Earth to sail West, but he had not seen Frodo since the journey homeward at the end of the Quest. It was clear to Legolas that they were both nearing the end of their lives – but both were content, their fëar shone brightly, and there seemed no longer any signs of the shadow that had touched them both those years before.
Somehow he had also expected to feel immediately as if he had reached the end of his journey – found his real home. But this was not home. All the years of his life Legolas had known where home was. There had been no question during all the years before the Quest; he was a prince of the Great Greenwood – even when it was Mirkwood, it was home. Not just the stronghold, but every leaf of grass, every rock, every tree, was ‘home’. After he had decided to spend time restoring Ithilien, and being closer to the man he thought of as a brother, he had thought of Eryn Ithil as ‘home’; the Greenwood remained, as do parents’ houses everywhere, ‘home’ as well.
But this place – this was simply somewhere that he was visiting – he could never see this becoming a home of the heart, no matter that the tales and songs referred to everywhere in the West as Elvenhome. And he did not mean just the suite of rooms he occupied inside Master Elrond’s home; at least presumably Master Elrond thought of it as ‘home’. Or perhaps he still thought of Imladris as his home…
It was sensible for Legolas to have been given the wing of the house that was ready for the arrival of the twins, as the hobbits were so very close, and Gimli was lodging with them. But it was not just the actual rooms that did not feel like home – even had he moved down the hill, to where his people were now living, it still would not be home.
The hobbits – Legolas wondered if they thought of this as home? Surely they were too deeply rooted in the soil of The Shire? He did not want to upset them by asking. But then, of course, Gimli brought up the subject in his forthright way.
“Bit different from home, eh, Sam?” the dwarf commented, as the four remaining members of the Fellowship watched the gulls, wheeling around a fishing boat, from a vantage point in Master Elrond’s gardens.
“No,” Sam answered straight away. “No, it’s not a bit different from home. Seeing as it is home.”
Gimli looked a bit taken aback; Legolas felt the same. No-one, surely, was more attached to their own home than a hobbit. Sam looked at Gimli, then at Frodo, who was nodding gently.
“’Tis a good bit different to The Shire, right enough,” Sam went on, “but that were only home until my Rosie had gone. The youngsters were all settled, and any one would have made me welcome, but it seemed to me that, once I were given the offer, it would be good to come home to Master Frodo to see out my days.”
“And,” Frodo took up the conversation, “I’ve actually lived here for the longest part of my life. This may not be the home of my childhood, but it is more my home than that was; it is where I brought up my son.”
The elderly hobbit looked to where two elves were approaching, heads close together, with a gentle smile. Haldirin, Legolas realised, deep in conversation with Tharhîwon; the Winter Elfling who had become the son of Frodo’s heart.
“It is good that he has renewed his friendship with Haldirin,” Frodo continued, “although it might mean he has more decisions to make when I am gone.”
Legolas waited. And, sure enough, Frodo explained further. “Tharhîwon sees Master Elrond and Lady Celebrían as aunt and uncle, or grandparents. But by blood he is a wood elf, and the first mother figure he remembers is Tindómë. When you move from here, to be amongst the trees, he will feel torn between staying here and going with you.”
The young ellyn joined them and the conversation moved on. But Legolas was not part of it for some time as he thought over what had just been said. He felt guilty that he, an elf, could not think of this place as ‘home’ when the hobbits could, and he wondered whether he would find a new ‘home’ amongst trees here in time – and how long that time might be.
………………
He mulled these things over for a few days more, and thought he was keeping them to himself, until Gimli asked what worried him. He did not want to upset this brave friend, who had willingly sailed into the unknown with him, and so he denied that he was anything other than happy. But Gimli looked at him steadily, eyes still piercing under his thick eyebrows, and then harrumphed disbelievingly.
“Well, whatever it is,” Gimli said, “it would be better shared…”
So, now, Legolas approached someone who he knew would listen without judging and then give him a stern talking to if it was deemed necessary.
“Nethig, are you busy, or would you come and walk with me?”
“Not busy,” Tindómë answered, “and glad of an excuse, to be honest.”
“Excuse for what?” Legolas asked, interested at her choice of words.
“To not talk to my husband’s mother.”
He waited.
“Half the time she treats me as if I am younger than Ithilienne, that Rumil is too, and he and I are just good friends – or less! A bit like Buffy did when she dragged me back to Sunnydale… And then the rest of the time she treats me as if I am the person who is making all the decisions for our family – and I’m making the wrong ones. And she will probably arrive at sunset when she knows we will be together to eat.”
‘Oh dear,’ thought Legolas. What was it Sam had said on more than one occasion? A trouble shared is a trouble halved? It looked as both he and his ‘small sister’ had troubles to share.
“Come, then, nethig,” he said out loud, “we will escape together.”
Friends from Eryn Ithil greeted them as they walked down the paved roadway, reminiscent of the streets of Minas Tirith, towards the shore. Legolas already had a favourite comfortable rock, a little way below the road that ran along the shore line, and once they were seated there together he admitted he had wanted to share his own worries, but was also very willing to share hers – he repeated Sam’s adage.
“Hmm,” Tindómë said, with a smile, “doesn’t that leave us with two halves each? That’s still one whole one!”
“Ah,” Legolas answered, “but we can carry the two half worries separately, one in either hand, and we should each be better balanced…”
They sat and each outlined their problems. Legolas produced an apple each from a pocket and they munched companionably before he began the conversation again.
“And how do you get on with your husband-father?”
“Adar Thorontor is fine… he seems really proud of how his elflings grew up, of how they have turned out. I think he really likes Lithôniel and me, not to mention Haldirin and Ithilienne.”
“And does your husband-mother treat both you and Lithôniel identically?”
Tindómë thought for a little while.
“Yes… Yes, as if we have somehow seduced her poor innocent sons and corrupted them. And as if we must be the ones who don’t want to move to be near Her Ladyship, and are forcing Rumil and Orophin to abandon their heritage – this being because we are big grown-up temptresses who can bully her poor boys…”
Legolas’ snort of laughter was, to say the least, inelegant.
“I cannot imagine anyone bullying Orophin or Rumil! But, if she is no better inclined to Lithôniel, then at least you do not have to see it as a personal slight, nethig. Unless…” a sudden thought occurred to him, “she thinks that our relationship is to blame; that I would not allow my sister to live under someone else’s lordship? That, without that factor, Orophin would not also have bound to one of my people?”
“She might – but not if she’d listened to what we have told them. After all, you were quite happy to pack me off to Lothlorien to finish growing up. And it was both Orophin and Rumil, as much as me, who chose to come to Eryn Ithil – it was certainly not that you insisted.”
Tindómë sat silently for a minute or two, gazing at the sea, but not really looking at it. “I guess,” she said eventually, “she’s only known Lithôniel and I as adults, and only known Rumil and Orophin as elflings… perhaps we should suggest another coming of age party for them? Or maybe binding parties for the four of us? After all, we should use any excuse for a good party. Or maybe we should just wait for the next forty or fifty years until she feels as if her elflings have had time to grow?”
“Should I have a word with Her Ladyship before she leaves to return to her own home?” Legolas asked, realising as he did so that perhaps Her Ladyship did not really think of anywhere here as ‘home’ either. She had, after all, been in Middle Earth a lot longer than she had lived in Valinor before she crossed the ice.
“No… Actually I can do it myself if things don’t improve; Lady Galadriel was happy to think of Rumil and I binding, and she seems more than happy that Orophin has also found Lithôniel. Or Orophin or Rumil will end up complaining to their adar – neither of them quite know what to say to their naneth when she is not-quite-polite to Lithôniel and me. It’ll work out in time, I guess – if only because, with any luck, we’ll end up living hundreds of miles apart!”
Legolas, as always, could not help but admire the way that Tindómë seemed able to think through things that worried her and, somehow, conclude that things would get better, one way or another, and look resolutely forward to tomorrow. He told her this, quite seriously.
She cocked her head on one side for a minute or two whilst she thought about it before answering him equally seriously. “Hmm… I guess maybe it’s because I’ve kinda learnt that there’s not a lot of point in looking back. As long as Rumil loves me then his mother not being overly keen on me is not such a big deal. Not compared with some of the things that I’ve survived, really.”
He thought of some of the things she had told him about her childhood in the other place. She had said that she was not really sure when the memories stopped being of things that had not happened because she had not really existed, and began to be things that really had occurred. For an Elf, with perfect recall, to not know which memories were real was horrifying in itself.
But that her childhood had included the death of her mother and her sister, and rejection by her father was even worse. He remembered her describing discovering that she was not who, or what, she thought she was; and trying to deal with it by cutting herself to see if she bled real blood, describing feeling as if no-one really noticed she existed any more and stealing things to help her feel better, hoping that someone might notice…. No wonder, really, that she chose to think things through carefully for herself.
Then there was the little matter of almost dying after the fall through the Hellmouth, of finding herself in Middle Earth where she knew nobody and was a total stranger. And then being snatched back by Buffy and the others and beginning to fade… No, he could see that Rumil’s mother’s attitude was ‘no big’ when compared to those things. And that his own feelings about life here not being what he had expected were not really that big an issue either.
Before he could say that perhaps his own problems were not all that important Tindómë had begun to talk about them.
“So, yeah, the feeling at home thing…” she began. “Maybe we should make wagers about how long it will take?” She grinned. “Probably take longer for an elf to feel at home somewhere totally alien than it did me, as I was thinking in mortal time.”
“I… I should feel at home straight away. This is meant to be where Elves belong,” he said.
“Yeah – but it’s a home you’ve never been to before. I guess I should have felt at home straight away when I woke up in Minas Tirith; after all I was meant to be in this dimension and was only in the other one by accident.”
“But, Minas Tirith was really not the part of Middle Earth you belonged in…” Legolas paused, as she slowly smiled. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing for a minute.
“You could say that when I was in Minas Tirith I was just in transit… When I said we were living in transit houses here in Aqualondë I meant all of us – you and Gimli too. Why be surprised that you don’t feel at home on the coast? I mean yeah – the gulls, yada, yada… but walking on beaches, living in streets of stone houses, it’s pretty foreign to all of us. Why would you feel more at home than the rest of us, atheg?”
And before he thought about ‘the rest of us’ she was a step ahead.
“And don’t you begin to feel guilty about everyone else! ‘Cos, you know? It’s kind of cool to be able to have a good long seaside holiday, swim, go fishing, whatever, without the fear of the gulls luring anyone to take sail! Then, when it feels right, I guess we’ll go and look for a forest somewhere – I’m pretty sure there’s got to be spare forest as the Teleri and the Noldor aren’t big with the forest dwelling. I have a theory… but it’ll wait.”
She got to her feet and pulled him up with her. “In the meantime, let’s go skip stones; name your wager, big brother!”
..........................
Useful stuff; - the Teleri are the coastal Elves - they are more closely related to the Sindar/silvan peoples of both the Galadhrim, Mirkwood/The Greenwood, and Eryn Ithil. The Noldor are the 'clan' of the High King and renowned as metal workers and stonemasons etc.
As usual - please point out errors my inestimable beta may have missed, or anything I should have explained, but haven't.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 23/01/2012 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24/01/2012 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 23/01/2012 11:16 pm (UTC)I must make time to re-read LoR - I read it when I had glandular fever in the summer of 1974. So no wonder I can't remember much detail.
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Date: 24/01/2012 12:14 am (UTC)But I have definitely gone beyond the book by now - Tolkien just says Legolas built a ship and sailed, and legend has it that Gimli went too. But if there had only been the two of them it wouldn't have needed to be a ship - a rowing boat would have done - so I have sent a good few others with him!
I think it would have been very like the highlanders or islanders sailing to the New World...
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Date: 24/01/2012 12:22 am (UTC)Must go to bed. Another Early Night that didn't happen......
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Date: 24/01/2012 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 24/01/2012 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 24/01/2012 08:27 am (UTC)This particular one is certainly going to have some resolution.
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Date: 24/01/2012 03:16 am (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
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Date: 24/01/2012 08:36 am (UTC)This is, more, the Legolas of this drabble (http://tolkien-weekly.livejournal.com/688015.html#cutid1) - or it will be eventually.
But he is certainly not a sea-elf - he will need to find his trees before he reaches that stage.
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Date: 24/01/2012 09:53 am (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
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Date: 24/01/2012 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24/01/2012 08:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 24/01/2012 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 24/01/2012 12:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24/01/2012 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 09/01/2013 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 09/01/2013 01:19 pm (UTC)Somehow she always seemed to be able to rationalise things even in her days in Buffy - and when I looked at what might make her tick, it made sense to me that she would either have learnt to decide what couldn't be changed, and must be lived with, or she would have gone mad.
I'm glad you agree that Legolas probably hadn't much idea of life 'in the West' - and it probably isn't like any ideas he did have!