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| Drabbles by Lindelea | 235 Review(s) |
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| Reviewed Chapter: 53 on 6/2/2025 | |
| Where did Elladan learn of this tradition? Can you do one where they either witness or hear of it from someone and then witness it? It would be interesting to see how the viewer would react to see hundreds of candle boats floating down the river. Or any candle-boats at all. And can you add Wood Elves and Glorfindel? Maybe even Thranduil. Elladan seems to have a lot of contact with hobbits. In Shire: Beginnings it's him who the premonition is sent to so he could bring the Fallohides to Rivendell. And then he seems to know of the Remembering Day tradition. Why's he making the boat before Bilbo's passing? The tradition is that the boat is made after one passes, right? So why'd he make it years before Bilbo actually passed? I'm sorry for rambling on. I seem to have gotten rather carried away with them. Oh! I also just remembered. In Shire: Beginnings, you mentioned a possibility of another story following it in the same time period. Will there be one, or is it done? I like the way you wrote the history. Will there also be one about the hobbit archers who marched to Fornost to fight against the Witch King of Angmar and never returned? I can't remember if the book said they didn't return or no one knew what became of them. Sorry! I'm rambling on again. Author Reply: I imagine Bilbo told his Elvish and half-Elven friends about the practice at some point after he retired to Rivendell. He might have fretted at having no one to carve a boat for him since he'd outlived all his contemporaries, for one thing; for another, he had left the Shire behind and had no contact with Shire-folk until Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin arrived. Elladan might have misunderstood the tradition in gleaning the details from Bilbo's descriptions (and therefore carved the boat while Bilbo was still very much alive), or he might have carved the boat deliberately ahead of time to reassure the old hobbit that he would not be forgotten. In one of my older stories, I have a body of Elessar's Guardsmen learn about the tradition and join the Shire-folk in observing the day. In addition, other Outlanders arrive at the Brandywine Bridge as the candle-boats are floating down the River. Here is a link to that chapter, if you might be interested: http://www.storiesofarda.com/chapterview.asp?sid=309&cid=1503 Right now, I'm feeling too drained to write something related to Remembering Day. It's a melancholy topic. Chalk it up to a combination of factors, including our current heat wave and the need to minimize stress at the moment. Oddly enough, angst offers a decent distraction, so I'm still able to write angsty scenes, but sorrow and loss are distressingly stressful somehow. No need to apologize for rambling, at least to me... I seem to do it a lot myself. The hobbit archers who marched to Fornost appear in one of the WIPs I'm currently updating: Thain. The first group (the ones who never return), led by the brother of Bucca of the Marish (an OC; not one of JRRT's characters), are described in the battle when Fornost falls. In my story, Bucca leads a second group of archers to look for his brother and support the Army of the West that marches to throw the Witch King out of the Northlands. In fact, that battle is described in the next few chapters waiting to be posted, which are currently undergoing beta-reading. The Shire: Beginnings series was intended to be a trilogy. The second story is set about 150 years after the Fallohides reach Cardolan (if I'm correctly remembering the name of the place they settled, off the top of my head?). In that story, which is outlined and partly written in draft form, the Fallohides and Harfoots pull up roots and relocate in the region of Breeland. I haven't looked at that story in a long time; one possibility was that the Stoors came to warn them and all three tribes travelled together, but I don't remember if that's the one I ended up choosing. (A glance at the "Tale of Years" makes me think I abandoned that thread and revised the story to fit JRRT's timeline better.) The third story, also consisting of an outline with about half the chapters written out in draft form, is about the brothers Marcho and Blanco gaining the land grant from the King and leading a body of hobbits to establish the Shire. I couldn't figure out a satisfying ending, so I put it away until something good comes to mind. (I won't post a story if I don't know the ending ahead of time because I learned my lesson with Runaway. JoDancingTree liked the story enough that she offered to help me rewrite it and arrive at a good ending. What a wonderful job she did! And she helped me to get past the wall I'd hit and to keep on writing. However, that was the last time I posted chapters of a story as I was writing it and without having a definite conclusion in mind.) On my timeline, Marcho dies in the Great Plague 36 years after the founding of the Shire, and Blanco follows him a day later. Knowing that threw up a roadblock of sorts. I may have to ignore that knowledge and set the ending after T.A. 1600 but before T.A. 1636, and then maybe I'll be able to bring myself to finish writing that story. There I go, rambling again... Thanks so much for reading and taking the time to share so much good food for thought. I appreciate hearing from you. Author Reply: p.s. Maybe the hobbits settled in Arthedain rather than Cardolan? I'm too tired today to go back and refresh myself on the details. | |
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 53 on 4/7/2025 |
| Lovely! In my-verse Bilbo remains but a few years on Tol Eressea, but it's wonderful to think he might have lingered to see Sam come to be reunited with Frodo. Author Reply: Someone told me in a long-ago discussion of Frodo's sailing to the West that in the land where the Ring-bearers lived for a time before going on, they were given the grace of laying down their lives at will. Sort of like Elessar's ability to choose his time? I think they were quoting from a letter Tolkien wrote, but it is just a dim memory to me now. (And so I took the liberty of Frodo being able to interact with his cousins in dreams during times of great distress, perhaps with a little Istari or FirstBorn help... I tried not to do it too often, of course. It had to be a very special occasion, like helping Merry solve the famine problem when the leaders of the Shire were all at a loss, or guiding Faramir back to his body when he'd "wandered too soon".) Sort of like the idea that tweens are always eating, and they eat so much, they put a strain on their family's larder, and so families encourage their tweens to walk about the Shire and visit relatives. But I haven't been able to find that information anywhere since returning to fanfic. I was sure it came from Tolkien himself, maybe one of his letters (because I haven't been able to find any mention of it in LOTR), but then, again, I could be remembering wrong and it was actually something I read in a fanfic. Thanks! Looking forward to seeing you! Author Reply: Anyhow, in that discussion of when Bilbo died, I think part of the discussion was whether Bilbo would choose to hang around until Sam sailed so that Frodo wouldn't be the only hobbit there. In Small and Passing Thing, I think I envisioned Bilbo having left only a short time before Sam arrived. (Since I don't think he appears in the final chapter of that story, that's probably what I was thinking.) Sadly, I've lost many of the notes I had from writing those early stories – everything before 2010, sadly, although I managed to recover some notes, including beta-readers' comments, from WIPs like Thain and Jewels. But at least the Muse is still speaking to me these days and deigning to keep track of plot threads. For the most part. She's grown very rambling with the passing of the years. Rather like me, actually. I seem to ramble a little more every day. I can think of worse things, though. | |
| Reviewed Chapter: 53 on 3/20/2025 | |
| Thank you Author Reply: You're welcome! Thank you for the suggestion! | |
| Periantari | Reviewed Chapter: 13 on 3/19/2025 |
| I love your description in here- indeed Rosie is glad her love has returned. Author Reply: Thank you! It amazed me when I realized that Rosie knew Sam was coming home months before he actually arrived! She told him she'd been expecting him since the spring! (I chose to believe that somehow she was aware of the destruction of the Ring, even so many leagues away.) | |
| Periantari | Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 3/19/2025 |
| These are so sweet. I especially love how Rosie thought of Sam. :*) Author Reply: Thank you! The Professor showed us such a tiny glimpse of Rosie, and yet she was such a strong character, she almost jumped off the page and into my heart. | |
| Periantari | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 3/19/2025 |
| Poor Eowyn. Author Reply: She was so hopeless at this point. I am so glad that the Professor didn't give her the glorious death in battle she craved but something much better – Faramir and his love! | |
| Periantari | Reviewed Chapter: 6 on 3/19/2025 |
| When i first read that in the books, it was such a climatic moment. Love your take on it. Author Reply: Thank you! It's a little muddled, but then so was Frodo's head when the Ring finally compelled him to claim It for his own. | |
| Periantari | Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 3/19/2025 |
| Such a terrible moment for Beregond- but it was for the loyalty for Faramir! Author Reply: Exactly! He knew when he left his post, that he'd traded his life for Faramir's. (As my hobbits like to say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing thoroughly.") But it's not just that. Beregond is the character who dragged me into fanfic-writing in the first place. I wish the Professor had written more about him! (Not only his fierce, desperate loyalty to Faramir here, but his warm welcome and animated conversation with Pippin also won my heart.) | |
| Periantari | Reviewed Chapter: 4 on 3/19/2025 |
| wow nice contrast to the last drabble where now Merry holds vigil for Pippin. Nicely done. Author Reply: Thank you! This drabble and the one before were actually a matched set (the titles are taken from a lullaby my mom used to sing), but I hadn't figured out about publishing sets of drabbles at the point these were posted. | |
| Periantari | Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 3/19/2025 |
| aww that last line really hit my heart. <3 How terrible it was for Pippin to see Merry suffer from the Black Breath. Author Reply: My heart is in my throat whenever I read scenes where one cousin is watching over the other, like here, in the Houses of Healing. How awful it must have been for Pippin before Aragorn entered the City. | |