I participated briefly in the SWG's instadrabbling event today and it was really fun! It was the first time I have done one. I didn't stick to the technicalities of drabble length, but it was a nice break from working on this damn overdue project for my advisor. Of course, the Mirkwood fam is the easiest for me to write, so it is entirely unsurprising that is what the two "drabbles" I managed were about! They're not technically in the Silmarillion, but they're Silm adjacent ;)Prompt: Miss, mountain, bay, nineteen
That the sun rose the morning after the second longest night of his life was almost more of a surprise than the shattering of their world the day before. When the sun had set, there were nineteen missing, but at first dawn light his father went out with a few others, following the rivers that emptied now into a bay—a bay where once their camps had been.
Thranduil stood beside his mother at the foot of the mountains that were suddenly almost seaside; they plummeted into foothills before dipping and rolling, before flattening into cropped flood plains and then straight into the sea—no silt, no deltas, just canyons of water that ended in waves.
As the sun continued to rise and his father returned, cresting the hill, the missing elves—one by one—emerged from the gloam behind him. Thranduil stood stiff and watched, counting.
They were dusted with silt and sand, and as the sun crept higher and they continued to crest, those missing elves shone—the dust on their cheeks was cut through, in places, with long-dried tears.
Eighteen elves, he counted, faces painted with the maps of their newly stolen rivers. Their future stretched out—unknown—before them.
Thranduil’s mother stirred beside him, and he slipped his hand in hers.
208 words
Prompt: Symmetrical, bread, ribbon, fall
Legolas adjusted the delicate ribbon he had tied in a bow on the top of the well-wrapped loaf of bread he had baked that morning. He had not slept that night. The summer was worst for longing for, dry as it was, the scent of the sea swept in daily on the winds, and when it whipped up into a storm it caught them between the mountains and the waves and beat at the forest until he dissolved.
But keeping his hands busy helped. Closing the windows to the kitchens and hunkering down alone was better than staring into storms and losing all senses among kith and kin. He pushed the loaf away and turned to open the heavy iron door of the smallest oven in the place. The fall would arrive soon enough, and he would have a break. But for now…
The loaves inside were perfectly braided and symmetrical; he cut another length of ribbon and waited for them to cool.
163 words
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