Writing

Stories within Stories: Arwen’s Search

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Author’s Note: This is from a collection of stories that I wrote years ago, based on and to fill in some of the gaps in Tolkien’s masterpiece The Lord of the Rings.

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Arwen’s Search

Lord Elrond Half-elven seemed disturbed and worried; his daughter Arwen Evenstar perceived his mood and came to his side.

“Father, what ails you? Is all well?” she questioned him quietly.

Elrond shook his head gravely. “Nay, daughter. Something bodes ill in the forests beyond Bruinen. Aragorn should have arrived with the hobbits by now. I fear the Black Riders have waylaid him somehow.”

Arwen sensed the urgency of the situation. Her heart feared for Aragorn’s safety and for those whom he protected. “I will go and search for them, Father.”

“No. I have already sent Glorfindel upon Asfaloth; he will find them speedily. We must make ready in case someone of their party is wounded.” With these words, Lord Elrond left the room but Arwen remained, struggling with her heart and her desire to obey her father. Finally, her heart won out.

Going to her chamber, she clothed herself in gray, drawing a dark hood over her fair head. Taking up her sword, she slipped out to the stables and, mounting the horse Delathena, rode out of Rivendell and into the forests of Middle-earth.

~

For two days, she searched and searched tirelessly, catching sight of five Ringwraiths upon their black steeds. But there was no sign of Aragorn and his Halfling companions. Soon, heartsick, she turned towards Rivendell again.

“I hope Glorfindel found them,” was her heart’s prayer.

No sooner had she crested the hill beyond the river Bruinen than the thunder of hooves reached her sharp ears. Suddenly, Asfaloth burst from the trees and galloped across the river, a smallish figure upon his back! He paused on the opposite shore and Arwen’s spirit cringed as the terrible voices of the Nine cried out to Asfaloth’s rider.

“Come back with us, Frodo! Come back with us to Mordor!” they shrieked.

Arwen then realized that Asfaloth’s rider was a Halfling! In fact, he was the very Halfling that she had been seeking.

She saw the brave little creature draw his sword, warding the Wraiths back fiercely and desperately.

“Go back!” he cried. “Go back to the Land of Mordor, and follow me no more!”[1] But his strength waned. He was injured! Seeing his weakness, the Riders began to advance upon him!

Suddenly, words flowed from Arwen’s lips, stirring the air with Rivendell’s power.

Nîn o Chithaeglir

lasto beth daer.

Rimmo nîn Bruinen

dan in Ulaer.

Suddenly, the currents of Bruinen began to swell as a wall of water rushed over the Black Riders, sweeping them away! Arwen watched them for a moment but then quickly dismounted Delathena and ran to Frodo, who had finally succumbed to his weakness and fallen from Asfaloth’s saddle!

She cradled the hobbit in her arms, seeing that he was slipping from this world. Gathering him up, she mounted Asfaloth this time, for he was the swifter horse, and raced to her father’s house.

“Noro lim, Asfaloth!”

The Elvish horses ran rapidly and soon arrived at Elrond’s house in the valley where Arwen sprang from the saddle and rushed into the bright hall with Frodo.

“Father! Father!”

Lord Elrond appeared with none other than Gandalf the Grey at his side. Elrond took the hobbit and they retreated to the east wing to care for him.

Arwen watched them disappear down the hall and then turned at the nearby voice of her brother Elorhir. “You may have saved the Halfling’s life, sister. You may have saved us all.”

She glanced at him with a worried look in her bright eyes. “I only hope so, my brother. I only hope so.” With that, she pulled the dark hood from her head and moved towards her chambers.

 

Two days later, Arwen heard that Frodo was awake and progressing well. This relieved her heart’s ache of fear for the brave hobbit. She gathered bouquets of elanor for his room every morning whilst he remained abed and even paid him a visit or two herself, when he was well enough to receive visitors. It seemed to brighten both their spirits, for he enjoyed her company very much and his regaining health pleased her.

One eve, all gathered for a merry supper. Arwen sat beside Frodo with Sam ever vigilant at his other hand and Gandalf across from them, Aragorn—known to his Halfling friends as Strider—at his side. Throughout supper, there was much lively chatter, songs, and stories. Frodo spoke quite a bit with Lady Arwen, Sam, and Gandalf but, after a while, the Lady dropped from conversation with the hobbits and wizard and exchanged a few words with Aragorn. Frodo’s alertness was fast returning and he noticed certain looks and manners with which Arwen and Aragorn regarded each other, even a secretive smile gracing either of their commanded countenances for a fleeting moment.

Leaning towards Sam, he whispered, “Are Strider and the Lady Arwen in love?”

Sam snuck a peek around his friend. “Aye, Mr. Frodo, I believe they are. Though they don’t fully act it in public.”

Frodo just smiled and enjoyed the peace of the moment, for—though unbidden and undesired—the next day was to bring a most tumultuous year into his life. A year that would change the world as they all knew it.

[1] The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, page 241.

 

Windows to the Soul

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Writer’s Write Prompt: Describe your love interest’s eyes without using a color.

They shimmer with thoughts and ideas innumerable, ringed with the desire to explore them. The pulse of emotion is there, tempered by sensitivity and patience. His eyes can be shuttered, unreadable, but still invite you to talk even as he chooses simply to listen. They can flash with rage but are then banked with resolution. When they glisten with heartbreak, one wants to decry the world for wringing tears from them. They are strong and softly veiled, open and deep as cave rivers. They may be windows, yes, or just the beginning of Alice’s rabbit hole.

To Break an Angel’s Heart

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Once upon a time, an angel told a devil how to break her heart.

It was a strange event, the devil arriving at the edge of Heaven, and an even stranger question that he lobbed at her through the pearly gates.

“How could one break your heart?”

The angel’s wings waved pensively, the feathers brushing the golden bars of the gate. She was reminded of her erstwhile thoughts of whether the gate was to keep the devils out or the angels in.

How could one break your heart?

The question rang in her perfect ears, thrummed against her colorless skin, and pierced her inner light. Indeed, a touch of it seemed to spill from her chest, which she covered with her perfect hand.

“To break my heart, you must first find it.”

“Find it?” the devil echoed, “It is with you, is it not?”

The angel shook her perfect head, light and music spilling from the very rustle of her tresses. “It is not. It is there,” and she pointed beyond the gates, beyond Heaven, in a direction that most supernal beings agreed the earth laid. “It is in uncountable pieces, bits innumerable, hidden in lives lived, living, and to be lived from now through the end of time. In order to break it, you must gather it together, piece upon piece, bit upon bit, and then you must blacken it, every piece. Blacken it with greed, selfishness, unkindness, hate. Every portion must be touched, must be corrupted. In order for my heart to be brittle enough to break, every part of it must be burned and blackened with these flames. For, if even one is untouched, it will continue to beat and glow and that one piece will pour its light into others and those into others and so on. The light will never be diminished.” She blinked perfect, colorless eyes.

“We were all made this way, with our hearts split asunder. That is why we sing and praise and smile and glow. For our hearts are always alight in some corner, spreading to others.”

The angel’s voice was like bells of silver in the devil’s ears as he listened to her explain. When she was done, he slunk away from where he had stood, an inch from Paradise, and walked slowly back down to the Kingdom Below. What he desired was impossible and would always be impossible, for, as long as there are virtues such as goodness, kindness, love, patience, and generosity in but one human heart, that good will pour itself into another and another and another. Good abounding in people uncountable, lives and souls innumerable and alight.

A Passion for Letters

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In the drawer of my nightstand, there are stacks of letters, cards, and emails, either tied together with ribbons or held together with paperclips stretched to their limit (which will soon breathe their last and be replaced with the aforementioned ribbons). These stacks are representative of people who are important in my life, those who have taken the time to put pen to paper and write to me: their thoughts, their feelings, the happenings in their lives – the good and the bad – their joys, and their struggles. I cannot throw these letters out; there’s too much in them. These are heart strands plainly writ. I could no more be rid of them than I could my own journals.

There are letters that I have lost over the years that I wish I still had, particularly from my first pen pal. We were teenagers and Leah and I became very close, writing to each other almost weekly, as well as checking in and chatting online. I wish I still had her brightly-inked letters but they are surely long gone, unfortunately. So, now, I endeavor to hang on to those notes from friends and family, people I love, those proofs of their effort and heart for me. Most who know me know that I am an epistophile – a person in love with the written tradition. I love the nuances of a person’s handwriting, the time it took for them to create that particular piece of writing. Even when words are crossed or inked out, I enjoy it. It is evidence of thought, of the writer working through their thoughts as they write, either thinking better or more of what they say before they say it, a virtue that has been largely lost these days, I feel.

In my purse, I carry a handwritten “Dear Beautiful Stranger” letter, inspired by the same action taken by For the Wild and the Free. I used to have four of them but three of them found their way into books and onto shelves in several stores around Muncie. I have this one left and am just waiting to find the perfect space in which to leave it for someone to find, someone whom I will never meet but that I hope will pass on the positive message to someone else somewhere else.

Letter writing is a joy. It is an art. It a heart-craft. These letters – like my journals – are the tangible proof of my life, of our lives, of the existence of friendships and relationships. They are proof (some of it) that I am and those whom I love are.

Article Commentary: How Technology Affects the Way We Write

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Two years ago, I discovered my favorite sound. I was sitting at my desk in my eighth-grade Language Arts classroom, my students writing away at a timed assignment that I had given them. It had to be written BY HAND in class, and, in that moment, I discovered my favorite sound: the tap-tap-tap of a pencil or pen against a desk as it writes on a sheet of paper (or the scratch of a pencil against a notebook/notepad). The audible action of writing. I marveled at how beautiful it was to me and I just basked in it for the two more minutes that my students wrote.

In his article “How Technology Affects the Way We Write“, Dean Fetzer describes some of the huge changes in technological hardware over the centuries and millennia and how these have affected the writing process. One of the largest effects is the change in not only the way we write but in the way that we think about our writing. Handwriting and editing necessitate thought and contemplation, not only of the words that we write but the shape our writing is taking. This consideration is not something that spell/grammar-checker can do for you. Much like Fetzer, the irony that I am writing this post in WordPress on my laptop is not lost on me. No, not at all. But I simply cannot like this article enough. Fetzer is not calling for the destruction of all technology but is grateful for it. At the same time, however, he is honest about the shortcomings that result from being able to take what I would sometimes probably call “the short way” – in being able to pour whatever words we wish out into an electronic medium and then send it out into the world with nary another thought.

It is so true that technology has resulted in a proliferation of writing that…might not be all that good. I try to put thought into what I write, blog, etc., but I think that this huge surge in writing/publishing has intimidated me a bit. If I do ever write a book or a novel, I want it to be something of quality and substance, not just something I put out there because I can (that’s what my blog is for; it’s my Pensieve). I have known some authors, whose work I greatly respect and admire, who have self-published or even started their own publishing companies and I marvel at that all the time. It is an accomplishment beyond measure but one that takes a bravery that I do not ascribe to myself. I don’t know if I ever dreamt of being a world-famous author or of being able to make a living from my writing. I just…wanted to write stories. Ever since I was old enough to draw and speak-story as I did. I learned to read and write early on, so I could filter those stories in my brain out onto paper, some of which I still have.

I, for one, still very much believe in by-hand writing. I keep journals by hand, pen to paper, and have done so ever since I left for college fourteen years ago. I stock up on journals for the future, as a matter of fact. There are times when it only feels right to put pen to paper and write, before I ever even open my laptop. I still type up and then print out drafts of my work (academic, fictional, and even blog draft sometimes) to edit by hand; I enjoy making the paper “bleed”. The process just doesn’t feel complete to me if I don’t. I do not want to lose the ability to or the practice of thinking about what I write, considering the shape and size and form of what I am writing and the audience that will be consuming it, not just the words that flow from my pen or my fingers. I want what I write to not just be there; I want it to be good. 

It All Started With a Shoe

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They are the sexiest pair of shoes I have ever owned, and when I say sexy, I mean it in the classiest way possible. The softest burgundy suede, criss-crossing over the tops of my feet, my black polished toes peeping out the front, which reveals a touch of the leopard print on the inside of the shoe. The heels make me four inches taller, lengthen my legs, and give me the stride of a starlet. Encouraging short skirts and form-fitting dresses, these pumps are the bold stroke on the canvas that is my fashion.

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It is the shoe you spy first upon entering the small, ambient-lit martini bar, her small foot shod in the burgundy confection, peeking around the corner of the soft leather couch. The shoe is classic and cunning, trapping you even before you know you are so. It leads you up from a dainty foot to a well-turned ankle, which flexes and points in rhythm with the soft jazz that plays. Your gaze is drawn up an elegant pillar of a leg, over tender, toned calf, grazing over her knee like a touch in and of itself. Her thigh disappears under the hem of her dress, which hugs shapely hips and waist, creating a lovely S-curve silhouette as she leans against the arm of the couch. Her eyes are downcast into her glass, the gold and red of her amaretto sour and pomegranate simultaneously mingling and sitting suspended in her hand. Her expression is serene, drawing you to wonder just what is on her mind. And it all started with a shoe.

Fiction: A Made-For Voice

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Her voice was made for lullabies. For those soft, murmured sounds that come in the darkness of goodnight. Her voice was not made for opera halls or concert stages, to ring in peals of rapturous sound. It was fashioned from warm honey, comforting cream, and candlelight, designed for the dark spaces, to make the soft shadows sweet and the scary ones safe. It hummed in her chest and whispered on her lips. It kissed childish eyes and chased away all-too-grown-up fears. Her voice was made for lullabies, to be the heart’s guardian in the dark.

The Woman in the Red Shoes

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She walks with stars in her eyes.

The heartbeat of the earth in her hips.

Her smile is painted in sweet red, dipped and soaked to shod her feet.

Her steps are cunning, her labors secret.

She will ply and think and speak and scheme.

Be wary and aware!

The woman in the red shoes has her claws in you.

Lyric Lines

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These are some of my old poems that I found the other day as my husband was tidying his den. I honestly don’t remember writing the second one but I like it. Poetry is not my strong suit; it stems from emotion and not from skill for me, but sometimes it’s all that will do to express, I’ve found.

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Empty Holes

I wish there was a hole where my heart is.

A hole, big and empty.

Empty holes don’t hurt.

They don’t grow sad and despair.

Empty holes don’t make mistakes.

They don’t hurt others.

They just sit there, open to receive.

Whether someone stumbles in

Or jumps in.

Either way, it’s there.

Empty holes can’t feel the exquisiteness of joy.

Only to have it infringed upon and destroyed.

Empty holes can’t have strings broken, torn away.

Empty holes can’t lash out,

Even without meaning to.

In short,

Empty holes don’t feel.

But I do.

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A Child’s World

My world is one

Of dreams and wonders;

A world of fairy-tale games

And endless summers.

In my world, there is no voice

To say something isn’t real.

Whatever you imagine lives;

Reality has no seal.

My world is one where horses fly,

Girls can fight and win.

Where creatures talk, trees can dance,

And childhood needs never end.

Fantastic though my world can be,

It indeed has its limits few.

Things like true love, friendship, and trust

Can only come from me or you.

(Hoof)Beats of a Heart

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She had missed this. The warm scent filled her nostrils as she entered the stables, the soft whickering of its inhabitants ruffling over her skin. The early morning white-light left the stables still partially dark but there was enough light at the far end where the crossties were hitched. She stepped over to his stall, praying that he remembered her. As she approached, she clucked her tongue in the old familiar way and, within, she could hear a rustling in the straw.

The handsome Kiger mustang lifted his head over the door of his stall, ears pricked forward and alert to the sound. His nostrils flared as his brown eye found his visitor, and he turned his face to her, tossing that majestic head in welcome.

He remembered; and it made her want to cry for joy.

“Hey, there, handsome,” she crooned, reaching out a hand for him to wuff over before sliding it up his nose.

The horse whickered gently as he nosed her hand, arching his head and neck under her touch. She could feel his strength, the roll of his muscles under her touch, the flicker of his skin. She had missed this. Leading the gelding out of the stall, she reveled in the clip-clop of his shod hooves on the stable floor as she hitched him into the cross-ties. Whispering to him, she worked gently and efficiently, picking each hoof and testing him for lameness. That done, she then fetched the curry comb and dandy brush and began on his coat. First she combed through it with the curry comb to rid it of loose hairs before then moving on the to dandy brush. Patting the horse’s neck and murmuring softly to him, she then proceeded to brush his coat, first with quick strokes to rid it of dirt and dust and then longer strokes to silken and shine it. Setting down the dandy brush, she stepped into the curve of the horse’s neck, leaning her cheek against it as she ran her hands over his neck and over his whithers. Many a day they had stood just like this, only the sound of his huffing and breathing breaking the silence of understanding between them.

After a long moment, he turned his head in her direction, nuzzling his nose along her shoulder and giving her his own kind of hug. He remembered and was glad she did, too.