Gwenneth of Dunland

Gwenneth of Dunland; Independent Tolkien OC

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this blog is on indefinite hiatus/i’ll be here when i have drafts and feel like it

i’ve lost about 90% of my partners ( bc i had like, five to begin with ) and i’m not currently in the mood to try to fix that --- i’ve tried before and it’s difficult so i leave that for another time. gwenneth is my baby and i’m not planning on abandoning her, but i feel like both she and my partners deserve better than me being active here twice a month and complete silence between that. it’s better for everyone this way i think. thank you for staying with me this far!

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hello dears! i will be updating pages today ( especially the about page, as that has been seriously lacking ) so there’s a lot more information on gwenneth to come and her backstory will be moved from the verses page to a bio page. hopefully that will make things a lot clearer about her. also i’ll be updating my verses a bit, adding a first age verse but removing some that i don’t think will be used right now so there isn’t just an overload of them

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[forodhathel-deactivated20151201]

       ❝ An elven company roaming the lands of Rohan? But these are news QUITE NEW even to me. Do tell more. ❞ her eyes turn from the woman to the twin sons of Elrond who stood by her side, who also seemed to be ENTRANCED by the information. 

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                      “This is not Rohan.” She’d thought a woman so fair and so tall, all clad in grey, and the men behind her as alike as the two sides of a sword blade must be those elves she had heard about. She had never seen anyone like them. But if they weren’t elves, then her interest in them was strange indeed. “This is Dunland. And you are not from here, so it is not for you to ask questions before I’ve asked mine.”

[ofblindsight]

        Fate let you do me. Was it true? Did fate guide each step mortals took, lead them together, pull them apart, playing the entire world like a complicated game of strategy, tugging on a puppet’s string? Aline was not sure she believed. He was much more concrete, the god whose worship she had unwillingly served for long years. In whom she had not believed, until little by little she became convinced he must exist, or surely… Surely none of that pain would have occurred. 

        But Aline had not the heart, the strength, nor the breath to argue. Doubts she kept quiet, silent though they pressed and screamed fervently against her mind. But of one thing Gwenneth was undoubtedly correct. Aline had no where else to go. Why not, then, trust a stranger, who without being bidden offered to her the aid she doubtless needed? Aline could not flee forever. She would run out of land, would find herself in the company of those less than kind… Better to stop now. 

                ‘ Regardless… I thank you, Gwenneth, for not turning from me, though it might                     endanger you to slow your steps to guide me. ‘ 

        A relief to have a name to place to the voice, by which she might address her. Daunting, though, to know a lord’s heritage lay upon her new-found guide. In the north, at home, there were no such titles of nobility or status… One eked out the living they could for self and for family. Vast expanses of land left little contact between communities… Aline pushed all that aside. If matters of rank came to the surface… they might tend to the matter then. No need to dwell now upon potential worries. 

        Her free hand steadied her among the trees, for she felt the shift in the air about her. The smell of foliage pressing about her, the bark, the dappled light… 

                ‘ May I ask why they follow you? ‘ 

        An innocent question, born of curiosity and a desire to understand the woman who had guided her this far. To share in her own struggles, as Aline’s were so far removed and so unspeakable.  

                ‘ And if you are willing, and no trouble it would cause with kin and family, or                      with your father, for I am nothing but a stranger of as humble birth as can                      be imagined, far to the North… then I will accompany you home. But I would                      not cause trouble, nor be more of a hindrance than I must… ‘

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   The relative safety offered by trees and valleysides, the calming whisper of water nearby and of branches moved by the soft hands of wind, gave her a moment to worry about something else than herself or her companion. Somewhere out in the hills were her other companions, those who had joined in the raid. Somewhere they too hid or fled for their lives, hunted as she had been by the riders of Rohan. They had been forced to spread out, all running heedlessly through the woodland on their side of the Isen river, and all she could hope for was that they yet lived and could make their way home on their own. Looking for them would be dangerous, and futile. There was not enough daylight left to search for them one by one among the hills.

   Curse the strawheads, and curse her ill fortune! Her father would be displeased. He’d been in such a good mood when she left, but if one of the raiders didn’t come back --- and she thought she’d seen Bedwyr struck by an arrow in the leg, so how far could he run? --- he would be furious, and he would be furious at her. Curse him too, then, she thought. She didn’t want to think of it.

   When Aline spoke again, she hesitated. She could lie again, make herself seem innocent and harmless, because telling the truth would put her in no good light. Yet, she shrugged, not in the mood for more lies. The truth would be revelaed sooner or later, if Aline was to come with her.

                   “They’re riders of Rohan. They follow me because I attacked them.                      I attacked them because I’m a dunlending and that is what we do.                      And they, no doubt, are seeking to take back what was stolen from                      them ---- a necklace, among other things.”

   She admitted to the last with a dry laugh, half ashamed. She was no thief. She had no need for the rohirrims valuables, not really. But though she had indeed taken that necklace, it was from the body of one whom she had killed --- so it was plundering, not mere theft. All warriors plundered their kills.

                   “But they will soon give up; I’ve done this many times before. Don’t                      worry about being a hindrance. We don’t often welcome strangers                      among ourselves, true, but no one could be afraid of you. As for my                      father he’ll doubtless have other things to complain about than your                      presence.”

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[flowergarlanded-archive]

     When at first the openness of Rohan’s plains, the dryness, the waving grass       leading only to river and not to seashore, had made her lonely and sad and       fearful, almost (what had she done, coming here? what good could it be?)        it had been the sea that calmed her. Its memory, the voices of it which lived       inside of her, pounded in her blood as in her memory. 

          “I was, in the city of Dol Amroth by the Bay of Belfalas. When my father             and my brothers rode to war, it was my mother and I who kept it.” 

      Let her squash any whisper of fragility now, she thought. If she was glass,       she was sea glass. Sturdier than the baubles of it that bubbled       from the breath of the glass merchants at home. And she cannot be seen        now as weak, as fragile. She cannot be the princess of Dol Amroth, always       sheltered by father and brothers, always safe. She must be Rohan’s        Queen, a woman who can lead cities and not break, who can face what         might come with steely eyes and a heart with the strength of the sea. 

           If she reminds herself of that often enough, eventually she shall not             have to remind herself at all. 

       She begins toward the chairs, the low table, rests her hand on a chair’s         back and stops to turn back at the next question. 

          “Rohan fares well,” she replied. “My husband the King worked long and            hard to repair what was damaged before we were wed. It is slow            healing, to be sure - war is not soon erased. But I am told it now            resembles the Rohan that was, before darkness stole in.” 

       She does sit, then, smoothing her skirts and tilting her head toward the         other chair. 

          “Come, sit and be comfortable. Let us speak more of terms of peace.”

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   Defeat, of course, has done nothing to hurry the restoration of Gwenneth’s fragile kingdom. Much more than lives were lost at Helm’s Deep: hope and pride and unity were shattered there as well, and in their place desperation spread like rot in an unclean wound, driving some to thievery and murder of their own kin, and others to follow the White Wizard again into second defeat in a faraway land. But there was never much to restore. Always her people has been poor and scattered. What riches they have is not in castles or jewels but in songs and prayers, in understanding of land and fate. That is their strength. Through it all they have kept their knowledge, such knowledge that others scorn or fear.

   Her smile is tight-lipped. No joy does she feel that her neighbours are recovering, but in the presence of their queen she cannot be bitter, either.

             "We all know the damage done by war. But perhaps it has strenghtened                us, given us the means to build something good and lasting upon old                foundations. Peace shall bring healing, and it is time for us to find it.”

   And though her smile is no softer than before, her posture straight as the other woman takes a seat, she does mean those words, and she does feel in her heart that there is truth in them. She has watched for signs long before this meeting was appointed, listened to the gods and the spirits of the land, and they all speak of the same thing. Peace, not more battle. Revival, not ruin. Unity.

   She sits down at last, as smoothly as she can, and pulls off her leather gloves.

             “So, do let us speak. But before we turn to matters of peace, let me ask               you something about the war that is --- or so we hope --- behind us. Do               you know what caused the resentment that the hill-people harboured so               many years against the rohirrim?”

[strxwhead-blog]

i still have a few drafts left, but i’ll head over to legolas for the rest of the evening to try get some things done over there. i’ll be back here again tomorrow! and just so i don’t forget it myself but also because i intend to make this blog reasonably active and not neglect it:

- rules page will be updated - about page will be updated & backstory more elaborated - navigation page will be added

[thebowwoman]

it is with this oath that bard realizes the full weight of her name of her station, vague and shapeless.

her beloveds       of at least what precious few had not been burned                        what had not been drowned they were naked babes in the tundra

their skin weakened by the entropy of a stilted home an impermanence that was stretched thin to weather generations.

too long had they been refugees in a false city too long had they clung to the debris of dale.

rising from the lake side, the archer squares her aching shoulders and steadies her smoke jilted gaze.

‘come then, steel. we have a home to find.’ 

and with that, brisk steps turn towards the camp  if so firm a word can be applied to the wailing to the fragments to the disaster.

it was not until she had spoken, not until she had gathered and rallied a course set a direction decided that bard once more turned her gaze to this, her ally.

‘you and i, we will scout ahead.  i no more trust those ruins than i do these hills. evil lurks in dead places, and what is dale but a tomb?’

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   She rises with soaring heart and aching chest, the trails of dried tears cold on her cheeks. In that moment everything is clear to her: she would give anything, do anything to be by Bard’s side and see her prevail, because Bard asked her to and trusted her and took her hand and no one has done that, anything like that for so long. She is weak and broken but stronger than ever, a rusted blade reforged.

                    “Lead me, then.”

   For the town, Gwenneth hardly cares. Its people, its memories --- they mean nothing to her. All that means something is that there is a way up, up from the stench of the alleys and the cold of the docks and the hunger and the gutting knife, and it is Bard lightening that way like a beacon. Naively, perhaps, she doesn’t tell them apart, the way up and the woman leading her to it. In her heart they are one and the same. Bard is her salvation.

                    “Yet you hope to find a home there? In the ruins?”

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forodhathel liked this for a starter

                  “I’ve heard rumours. Elves wandering the outskirts of this land, crossing                     the border, even. And they’re true, aren’t they, stranger? You are one                     of them.”

[fruitfruit]

Snow White and the Huntsman

                                    I will become your weapon

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enethestel liked this for a starter

           “You are no rohirrim. Why have you come? To gloat at our defeat, or see              that we don’t break oath and attack you again? We’ve more honour than              that. We wish to be left alone to tend our dead.”

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i’m off to bed, but i’ll be here tomorrow to finish my two starters and my two drafts. should anyone else want a starter, feel absolutely free to like the post while i’m away! or message me if you’d rather plot a bit beforehand. goodnight dears!

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