all_inclusive | Entries tagged with tolkien (lit): fili

Any entries earlier than this were pre-reboot.

She had found a door, finally, which made her heart sing, her blood stir in her veins. However high the ceilings may be in her room, however expansive the hotel grounds, they were still too contained, small. She was used to endless horizons and unknown territory, and the hotel was somewhat suffocating in that regard.

But this, here. A small door that she had seemed to just notice (or had it appeared once her longing became strong enough?) down the hall from her quarters, which she had to duck slightly in order to walk through. It had been carved from apple wood, with designs of flowers and fruit curling around the door handle. Once through, aware of the fickle nature of the Nexus, she had propped the door open with a large rock.

She had appeared out of the side of a rocky hillside, a natural formation which in her own land would have been used as some sort of watchtower or signal top. All around Tauriel was spring. Flowers were beginning to grow through the damp grass, and the air smelt fresh and warm. After a few trips through the door Tauriel felt comfortable enough to visit it often, with only her daggers and no other weapon.

This time, it was night. She found a spot on the boulders she could comfortably half sit, half lay upon, and she looked up at a glowing profusion of stars she did not recognize. She ached at their familiarity all the same, though; them and the heavy moon hanging low in the sky. There was more than enough starlight and moonlight to see by and, humming a soft melody to herself, she began to slowly braid her hair.

afeastofstarlight

Tauriel was getting used to this place. It was so unlike what she was accustomed to – nothing bad, but simply more obstacles to overcome, new things to learn. It was not that difficult, once she got used to it, though showers were certainly a rather interesting invention to experiment with.

She had been trying to find some way to divert herself. She was a warrior, but there was nothing here to really allow her to utilize her skills, not without stepping through one of those other doors – which, for the moment, she refrained from. There were many beautiful rooms in the hotel, though, which did not require travelling to another world, and she had explored them as she searched for a useful diversion.

It came to her, suddenly, when she was in the Smoking Room. There was a stage for performances which, while empty of performers, still had a multitude of instruments. There was more in storage, as well, from what she could gather. Asking around, one of the employees let her take a look.

That was how she ended up with the harp. She had no intention in performing for anyone, not when she wasn't all that good, but they'd allowed her to borrow it to practice. She settled in a sunny part of the garden near the rotunda, untouched by frost but with a kiss of chill in the air, placing the harp in her lap. It was true she was more used to plucking the string of a bow than an instrument, but elves – even the elves of Mirkwood – were an artistic and musical race, and she certainly knew how to play from when she was a child and had not yet found her calling as a hunter. She was adequate, but simply not a born musician. Still, after a pause in which she considered, she began to carefully pluck the strings. It was a slightly different instrument than what she was used to, but the sound was similar.

Finally, getting the hang of it, she began pulling out the opening notes of a slow, soft ballad. Not sad, just calming. It was nice. She felt a small ball of tension between her shoulders loosen. While her playing was somewhat stilted for an elf as she stirred awake those memories, they were perhaps pleasing to the ear of the younger races.

line_of_durin

1 JAN 2015 | NEXUS

He is young. He is an heir of Durin. He is vital and alive and in love.

It isn't until he sees Tauriel's face that he knows.

IN PROGRESS | SPOILERS for BotFA

concierge

The annual Nexus New Year's Eve gala began at 8 in the evening. Too grand to be contained by the lobby or dining hall, the gardens at the front of the hotel were employed, with long strings of white lights forming a twinkling canopy from the front doors all the way to the hedge maze. The weather was temperate and calm, and the night perfectly clear.

Drinks were served at various bars set up throughout the gardens and lobby, with champagne cocktails being the specialty of the night. Wheeling through the crowd was a bartender with golden cart providing warm drinks on the go: Tom and Jerrys, rum punch, negus, and Irish coffee.

Crisply-dressed wait staff wove through the collected guests with an abundance of hors d'oeuvres for all different tastes. The Bistro remained open with a limited selection of items for those who were wanting something more substantial.

Above the front doors was hung a large, gold-rimmed clock counting down the last hours, minutes, and seconds of the current year.

of_mirkwood

Legolas had explored many of the doors leading from the Nexus into other worlds but this was one that was new to him. When he pushed it open, he could tell the forest it led into was very, very old and the fox that met him along the path seemed more than a normal creature. It seemed sentient, in many ways, and it reminded him of the way trees and animals and the world felt back in his own Middle-Earth.

Except, he did not know these paths and the songs the rivers sang here were different. The world was younger than his own and did not have near as much history to tell but it was vibrant and full of life. The fox led him up a winding mountain path, through gates and archways and finally through a beautiful canopy of trees covered in snow-white blossoms. Legolas paused just before the mountain's summit and tipped his face upward, letting the petals brush against his cheeks and simply listening to the wind.

At the very top of the mountain was a beautiful shrine and after communing with the goddess who presided over it, Legolas begged his leave to be one with the earth again. It was not his home, no, but an Elf needs the trees and the rivers and the lakes to thrive and he had missed this connection dearly during his time in the Nexus.

This was the closest he'd felt to home in a long, long while.

of_mirkwood

It was difficult to determine his date of birth with the shift in calendar from Middle Earth to the Nexus and, furthermore, Legolas had been alive for so long that the years had all become something of a blur. Still, this was the time of year that he usually celebrated his birthday and it felt wrong to let the occasion go without even a passing mention.

Birthdays among elves were normally quiet affairs. Unlike the hobbits who loved to give lavish parties and bestow gifts upon their friends and families and unlike humans who lavished the celebrant with their own gifts, elves used their days of birth to reflect upon the world and how much had changed in it over the long years they had been alive. The older an elf was, the harder it was for he or she to remember what it was like when the world was young and the forced contemplation on a birthday was a good reminder.

When Legolas had left Middle-Earth, it was in the autumn of the world. The world was changing, swiftly, and the age of elves was ending to make way for the age of men. He had left the relative isolation of Mirkwood and embarked on a grand journey with the company of nine, only to get separated at Amon Hen and cast his lot with Gimli and Aragorn. They fought for Gondor and for all men, seeking to end Sauron's reign of terror, and Legolas did not know if they were yet successful - all hinged on the will and heart of a hobbit and his ability to bear the ring.

Not knowing the outcome of the war was something that disturbed him but Legolas had, as of yet, been unable to return to the battlefield. The few times he had made it into Middle-Earth, it was a younger Middle-Earth and the world seemed less troubled. The leaves shone with spring green and not the autumn he knew was the harbinger of war.

So today, he had decided to set up a target in the gardens and loose his arrows into it, wanting to hone his skills even if he could no longer go home and fight for his people and all the peoples of Middle Earth. When he heard the soft footsteps of someone behind him, he did not turn and, instead, merely spoke softly and evenly.

"It is impossible to startle an elf, even one who is far from home. Careful that you do not wander into the path of the arrow, please?"

heir_of_durin

It was an odd thing, this land.

Fili had learned not to trust all doorways, cautious though he must be. Now that they had settled in Erebor, with Smaug's corpse lying on the field of battle outside, Fili believed himself to have bigger things to concern himself with. It had led him to being lazy in his checks, which in turn had led him to that cursed inn, but when he tried to get back, he found himself not in the mountain, but in another land all-together and with a steady companion at his side.

He had never seen her before, this elegant lioness, and yet he felt as though he knew her. She stared at him as though she understood each and every one of his secrets, as though she had always been a part of him. "I am a part of you," she replied, padding along his side as they wandered through this strange landscape of buildings and people, all with an animal at their side, though different from the rest.

They had begun their quest to return to the hotel hours ago, her constant presence with him. "Ushlun," he spoke, finally, when her name came to him. He had not discovered her only now, but found that he had known her forever. "Where is the door?"

"I think it's this way," she replied, never straying too far from Fili's reach. They were tethered together and he began to realise that when he had set foot into this odd world, it had split him into two, but he was as whole as ever. Unfortunately, the both of them were entirely lost and he wasn't sure whether she and he could find their way back.

[Fili is in the Oxford section of the Golden Compass 'verse, having earned himself a daemon]

heir_of_durin

In the time that he had roamed the strange halls of the inn, Fili could still see no sense in it. It was luxurious and nothing like a dwarf had ever constructed. It did not even match the tale of elves, which made it the halls of men. This was even more evidenced by the number of them walking through the halls, but none of them seemed to understand the sheer magic lying in their doors.

He had been through many of them into strange and wonderful worlds, but most importantly was that he had found a door leading to the garden that brought him back to Middle Earth. The only strange thing, Fili believed, was that he lingered upon the edge of it.

He stayed one foot into Middle Earth and one foot in the inn, unsure that he wished to step forward and continue back on the journey yet. Thorin was likely to have his head and he hated to abandon Kili, but there was a strange pull about the odd land behind him that he had not been able to relinquish, just yet. After all, how could he ignore that the inn had more magic in it than even Gandalf!

Surely, if such a place could be so powerful, there might be something or someone within its' halls to lend him the strength to overpower a dragon.

And so, Fili sat between two worlds in an open doorway, lighting his pipe as he peered out as the fog began to swim over Esgaroth in the distance, where his kin had gone on their journey. And in the distance, above that fog, Fili kept his gaze affixed on the Lonely Mountain's peak. Even here, from so far, it was the most beautiful thing he had ever set his eyes upon and nothing could convince him otherwise.

heir_of_durin

The smell of apples on Fili's thick coat was long past making him sick. Now, as he tugged his sodden, soaked, creaking, cracked barrel behind him, the apple-infused water turned his stomach the likes of which he had never experienced before and thought he might never experience again. "Apples," he muttered, reaching up to touch his moustache before remembering that half of it had been shorn away after the spiders (with good luck, he had not lost his braids and beads, but a good bit of beard). "I hate apples."

He also detested pushing through the boat's entrance to find himself stumbling upon a large expanse of land with a large manour in the distance. It was a home he had never seen before, not in Ered Luin, nor in the stories of Dale and certainly not of Esgaroth. It was a manner that men or elves would build, soaring upwards.

And that was where Fili trudged towards, the barrel behind him as if he could not bear to leave it. He would not abandon it to allow someone else to tidy after his mess. Thorin and his mother had raised him far better than that.

Besides that, maybe he could burn it and exorcise the lingering scent of fruit from its insides.

Fili only began to doubt his plan to move forward when the shadow of the great house loomed over him and caught him off-guard with its strangeness. Perhaps this was a home of elves and, after having only barely escaped such a palace, his wariness had begun to creep back in. He couldn't manage another barrel escape.

He took in a sharp breath, wincing when the smell flooded his nose. "Never, not ever will I hate anything less," he growled out the words with distaste.

All Inclusive

Reboot Marker

the moon was bright

feet as light as linden-leaves, or music welling underground in hidden hollows quavering

And to our health we drank a thousand times;

Gathering: New Year's Eve Gala

Tsuki Ni Murakumo Hana Ni Kaze

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every opportunity will come again

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