Entries tagged with character: melian

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Silmarillion Sigil Set 06

Disclaimer: Here is a blend of Original Tolkien creations (aka my best efforts at recreating the author’s drawing), modifications on the original, and designs completely from cloth. Previous Entries can be found under the sigil tag. Please credit if use.

In order:

Elu Thingol, Melian

Notes:

Yes, I'm reposting these once more. Because if people in the Silmarillion/Tolkien fandom continue to use them, I want nice official links to them. And so another crosspost from tumblr project is born.

Here’s why the disclaimer has that part about ‘modifications’ of originals. Thingol’s sigil is not exactly a match. I added more visual interest in the center and a second tone throughout the aqua because it was looking too plain compared to everyone else once I started redoing the early sigils. You can also see extra dark gray points in the background not in the original. I was severely irritated due to elven rules of heraldry indicating rank by the number of points touching the edges that Finwë had 16 on his 'winged sun’ but Elu only had the regular kingly 8 for a 'winged moon’ - both were High Kings of their people, ambassadors to Valinor, and frankly in every way -including mistakes in parenting- I hold Thingol superior. Not that I really liked Thingol’s character at the point that I made his sigil (how things change), but Finwë himself is that unimpressive. So I subtly restored Elu Thingol to his rightful rank.

(Downloaders of the Sims set already knew my ranting and raging over bright aqua as a royal color of Renaissance-level-tech Doriath. A toss-up between dagged chief orange on bright blue or quartered aqua and logenzy black/dark gray for unusual royal banner color schemes…)

Melian is one of the oldest sigils made, and it shows. It’s a busy design, but for once I can’t be mostly blamed. That’s Tolkien’s fault. Luckily there’s enough white and black and gray to offset the blue, so her sigil still coordinates with Sindar gray flags and Lúthien 01.

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Meet the Parents in Many-Halls Palace

On today's episode of My Little Quendi: Friendship is Magic, the lesson everyone learns is that it’s best to just give Princess Enchantress Nightingale what she wants.

Yeah, at this point I don’t even care.

And to show how far I developed this -and to highlight how much my backgrounds improved, here's this scene more or less in animated form made over a year later:

Aside from gifs I removed the speech bubbles and went with translated/silly names instead of canon.

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Wall the Heart

After the first battle of Beleriand, more unexpected tragedy strikes in the heart of Menegroth, and a Girdle must be raised.

It is the scream that draws Elu’s attention, a scream that sounds like it should come from the throat of an injured animal rather than that of an elf. The sound has echoed down from the serpentine corridors of the subterranean palace system, warped and uncanny. Elu Thingol grabs the heaviest of the rolled map scrolls from the desk in front of him, privately lamenting that he left his sword and armor back in his private chambers. The scroll will make a poor weapon, but the uncanny scream triggers a fear and a reflexive impulsive to defend his home.

After months of wearing the heavy steel of sword and armor, Thingol had relished the absence of the weight, the respite from the fighting. Only a week and a half after returning to Menegroth from the killing fields in the East, Elu is tired of war and death. His muscles are exhausted from the strain of desperate marches across the rough terrain of his realm, back and forth from the stronghold, of heaping the corpses of orcs in stinking hills trying to expend the rage of helplessness from Amon Ereb. The guilt of coming too late save his friend and fellow king Denethor, of being unable to save any of the Laegrim, has destroyed his sleep, and at first Thingol thinks the scream is just a walking dream, another hallucination. Images paint across the back of his eyelids: finding the cooling bodies of Denethor and his two sons that played with Lúthien as children, bright and dear lads who Thingol had taught to use a sword, nephews in all but direct blood, their bronze swords bent and broken by Angband’s steel. Denethor’s wife, as dead as he, found on the hill, who constantly teased Thingol for being too tall and ugly, and who he had retaliated by insulting her cooking. Elu thirsts for at least one sip of her awful bitter beet stew, an irrational craving ever since he returned from the battlefield, and knows the only reason he feels nostalgic for that nasty stew is that he will never have it again. Galathon, last child of his brother Elmo, the only one of Thingol’s nephews and nieces left to him on these shores, is last no more. Thingol hates how he found the dead body, a grisly wound on Galadhon’s head that made all features of that smiling face unrecognizable, only knowing it was his nephew by the dark silver of the hair and the familiar leaf embroidery on the padded silk jerkin. Denethor’s kinswoman and Galathon’s wife, Danaril, stretched out at his side almost as if she was sleeping peacefully, the illusion broke at the ragged bite marks on her arms and the gaping wound that nearly severed her torso in two.

Elu’s first task upon returning the Menegroth and reassuring his wife and daughter of his personal safety had been to approach Galadhon’s two young sons. They had been under the care of their grandmother, Elmo’s wife Linkwînen. That painful walk to their wing of the palace made Elu feel like he was wearing a pair of those ridiculously ugly Naugrim boots, steps weighed down by heavy cast iron. A long walk, in the end unavoidable, for Linkwînen knew. His sister-in-law grew up on the shores of Cuiviénen, had lost friends and relatives to the dark riders. She has comforted Elmo when he and Elu’s parents had been taken by the hunters, stood strong during the long years Elu had been missing, separated by choice from her oldest child when the tribe was split, and lost her second child to the evil spirits during that long and dangerous period when the Eglath wandered the wild of Beleriand. Strong unbroken Linkwînen. Then came the year Thingol had to approach her when the fell false wolves hunted and tell her that Elmo, her beloved husband and Thingol’s precious brother, was among the missing and presumed dead. Tell that the reed girl who grew up with the youngest of the silver-haired boys that she would no longer have her companion, no longer tease a man curious as a squirrel and have his voice answer back, that her walks through forest and wading in the shallows of the rivers and lakes would be lonesome where it once was always with treasured company. That grief had bent Linkwînen harder than the day the Lindar tribe split, or the day young Eöl returned unexpectedly to them with dark eyes haunted by unspeakable events and told a sinister tale to sicken the joy of reuniting with the knowledge this reunion came only to her grandson, that her daughter and son-in-law would never return as well. Thingol had feared the grief would break his sister that day only her grandson returned, but she was well-named, for like a reed bowed by the wind Linkwînen had rebounded. She had poured her energy into helping her people, into building friendship and knowledge with the dwarves that had returned her only grandchild, and then when the Laegrim came to befriend and assist them. She had encouraged her last child, Galadhon, to find happiness with Denethor’s sister, to start a family.

And once more, because of Elu’s failings to protect his friends and kin, he had to approach Linkwînen in the aftermath of Amon Ereb. He had to inform her of more family that would no longer walk at her side.

She had known, for news of the grievous price victory had cost them flew ahead of Thingol’s returning army like bands of crows, and the tales of the Laegrim refugees deciding to shelter in the many halls of Menegroth instead of retreating home spoke loudly. The young boys, Galadhon’s two sons, were old enough to understand what had happened, though the elder, Galathil, had put on a brave face and did not cry, nor did he say that he wished he had been allowed to fight at his parents’ sides, and die with them. Not that he needed to; Thingol read it in the grief and guilt across his face. The younger, Celeborn, had been the one to place his hands around his grandmother’s shoulders. Taller than his bare fifty years would seem, the youngest scion of Elu’s kin had only asked if his parents had been in much pain before they died. Celeborn was wise; he knew his great-uncle had lied when Thingol answered it had been swift.

In the echoes of the unnatural scream, as Thingol kicks the maps outlining the armies of orcs that have overrun his kingdom, the lists of refugees that have poured in from all over Beleriand to crowd the halls of Menegroth, Elu connects the straying thoughts. The scream is coming from Linkwînen’s chambers, deep in the heart of palace. And it is not a wail of heartbreak.

( Read more... )

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The Smell of Raindrops and Lightning

A quiet moment between the King and Queen of Beleriand long before the rise of the Sun and Moon, the building of Menegroth, or the birth of Lúthien Tinúviel. Plus Science!

Something light and romantic for a pairing that I love but rarely saw focus solely on them, especially this period before Menegroth and the arrival of the Nandor when the Sindar are still nomadic groups wandering Beleriand.

All terms for the Valar and geography of Beleriand are in Sindarin.

Basic primary school meteorology and earth science.

Elu stretched out on the damp soil, his back resting on the folded gray cloak he had been wearing earlier, looking up at the trees. Melian, his wife, rested on the ground next to him, her shining eyes closed as she hummed a counterpoint to the rain. A storm was passing through the pine woods, and they had found shelter under the largest tree with the densest branches, waiting for the falling rain to end. Most had fallen, and now there was only in comparison a few drops to shake the pine needles and shimmer to the ground, making a soft yet constant melody. When the storm would finally end, the birds would return and burst into song, but for now the only voices against the rain were of Elu Thingol and Melian.

There was a profound sense of peacefulness, Thingol thought, to listen to the voices of the rain, unbothered by anyone else but his wife.

Gently he clasped one of her hands and kissed it, which made her eyes open and her lips bow into a gentle smile.

They returned to listening and watching the rain, the damp air making their garments cling to their skin.

"The winds of the Aran Einior carrying the moisture from Ulu’s seas," Melian explained, watching the rain fall through the canopy of the trees.

She had given the same lecture to the children of Mithrim earlier that day, while Elu was conferring with the lord of that land, the son of Eredhon who was the brother of Elu's brother Elmo’s wife. A nephew by marriage only, but Elu trusted the man and counted him among dear kin. He was a good steward for the people that chose to make the northern plains their home, herding great numbers of deer and horses across the rich plains. The people of Mithrim and Lothlann traveled year-round, moving the herds from pasture to pasture, but at this time of year they were always near the pine forests near the white peak of Foen, and that is where Elu and Melian would meet them. Elu would listen to any cases or concerns the lord needed his king to hear, and Melian would gather all the women and children to a circle around her in the center of the tents, holding her own court. There, kneeling down to accept flower crowns and hugs from the youngest children, Melian would laugh and bless each child, ask after the mothers and young women, and dispense her wisdom. She would give lessons to those that gathered near on how to grow the necessary herbs, mix poultices and remedies for any ailments, bake a bread that would sustain them on their long journeys, and sing the greater knowledge of the workings of the world she learned from the One. Melian delighted in sharing her knowledge with their people, of finding new ways to bring not just needed advice but ways to add beauty. There was not a gray cloak among the people of the northern plains that Melian had not eventually stitched at least one border of tiny flowers or galloping horses, and she would mend button holes as well as gift tapestries and blankets to grace their homes. The size of the task had no bearing on the brightness of her smile, and Thingol thought it typical that for each journey they made, Melian would instruct her maidens to fill her packs with clothes and bolts of fabric and needles - and that by the end of their visits, only the king’s travel bags were even halfway full.

Melian continued her recitation of this morning’s lecture, but Thingol tuned out the words, listening only to the song-like cadence of her voice. His eyes lingered on a droplet, following its path as it slid down a pine needle, falling and then rolling off another, until finally the drop of water escaped down to the earth and sunk into the rich loam of the forest floor.

The soil was damp and smelled strongly of dirt and growth. Elu found he loved the smells of each region of his home, from the marsh reeds and salt of Nevrast to the heather carpeting the northern hills to the various forests of the land of rivers: willow, beech, and pine. Each was enticing, but more so with Melian as his companion.

His wife murmured of the rain shadows of the mountains to the east, of heavy clouds laden with tiny droplets of water too burdensome to carry over tall peaks. Of water falling down the western side of the slopes, running together into seven rivers that fed and nourished a great forest.

"It is a gentle rainstorm," Elu observed, listening to the slow patter, the splashes as the raindrops found the puddles forming between the ground sheltered by the pine boughs. "No lightning," he said, thinking back to how the sky had raged with blinding networks of burning light back in Cuiviénen, before he had gone with the Balan Araw, back when the Belain had waged war to imprison their fallen brother. Then it had looked as if a hammer was being taken to the sky, and the lightning was the great spidering cracks as the star-knit heavens were about to crumble into great jagged pieces. Fear, Elu remembered, holding his younger brothers to his body tightly as they tried to shelter in their roundhouse near the lake.

"Energy," Melian said with a faint smile, a soothing hand running across her husband’s forehead, "built up in the clouds, the friction rubbing against another like when you rub your palms together swiftly. Elbereth releases the energy across the clouds or into the earth safely, drawing down to the ground from into the sky like two points meeting, and the lightning is the outline of her path. But not today’s storm; there is no lightning."

"Is that why it goes after the tallest trees and peaks," Elu asked, "because the Kindler does not wish to waste too much light drawing the pathways?"

Melian laughed quietly at this and rolled over to hug him. “Exactly,” she whispered, staring into his gray eyes, the loose dark tresses hanging down from either side of her face to curtain his. The feeling that the world was only the two of them once more, that an eternity could pass while staring into each other’s eyes, came over them, and Melian leaned down to touch his lips.

Before they kissed, a stray thought came to him, and Elu, smiling in amusement, said, “It is good there is no lightning, for as the tallest of us all, the lightning would hit me first before anyone else.”

Melian leaned back, her face suddenly dark and stern. “No lightning would ever hit you, my love. I will never allow the Lady of the Stars to make that mistake.” The glittering light of her eyes has sharpened into a fierceness Thingol rarely saw in her. “No lightning will strike anyone,” she proclaimed, and he could see into her thoughts, that vast current of a Maia who sang her spirit along pathways an elven one could not journey. Of how the purely academic knowledge of lightning, static electricity discharging during storms suddenly became reevaluated, reclassified as dangerous, as a threat to her people. Visions of lightning striking the tent poles of the Mithrim camps, of flash fires that burned across the plains and threatened their herds, trees stuck and crashing and falling on her people, all came to Melian. She locked her elbows as she pushed up from the ground, any calmness of her expression gone as she stared up at the sky with a deeply furrowed brow. “I must find ways to keep the lightning from striking where we wish it not. The next storms may carry some, and nothing must be hurt.”

"We cannot protect everyone from everything," Thingol told her, but he could still see the yearning of her eyes, the calculations and vows to do just that. Melian believed it was her sacred duty to safeguard all his people, and he did not know how much of that drive came from being one of the Servants of the One who entered the world to shape and protect it, and how much came from his desires.

He gathered her in his arms and kissed soothingly at her brow, smelling the faint perfume of flowers that clung to her skin and hair. “Be at peace, Beloved. We shall address that problem for another time, but for now let us watch the rain. When it ends, we will have to go back to the camp. For now, stay with me, and don’t be troubled.”

Aran Einior : "King of the Ainur" Manwë

Ulu : Ulmo

Balan : Vala

Belain ; the Valar (plural)

Araw : Oromë

Elbereth : Varda

Melian comes from Melyanna "dear gift" and is also close to the words for love, lover, and beloved.

Foen is the peak of Dorthonion; Thingol and Melian had to have visited the region at least once, for it is noted that the lake Aeluin, famous as the camp of Barahir and his outlaws as well as where Aegnor saw a star reflected in Andreth's hair, was hallowed by Melian.

Elmo is the younger brother of Elu and Olwë, grandfather of Celeborn. Eredhon is an OC, brother of Elmo's (unnamed in canon) wife, and grandfather in my head-canon to the mothers of both Finduilas and Gil-galad.