For a reason I can't tell you yet 🤐, I'm thinking a lot about Bryttalíf and Hálwinë today... Do you want to tell us some headcanons you have for them?
I WILL make my own headcanon public once it's not a spoiler for unpublished pHORSE chapters anymore! (Not that they will appear in pHORSE, only that the HC is related to some of my OCs who haven't had their big reveals yet!)
I am very intrigued that there is any kind of connection between my Háma’s family and a HC of your pHORSE story, and I look forward to hearing more about it (at the appropriate time of course)!
I’m about to unload probably way more than you ever needed/wanted to know, but I’m not sure the fic I was working on that would include a lot of this is gonna work so I might as well spoil it all! So, here’s a bunch about Háma’s family, which also naturally features lots of Háma himself!
Art by @ rinthecap (I’ve got no art of Háma’s family but imagine he’s thinking about them!)
—Bryttalif (Brytta to her friends) was originally from Harrowdale. Growing up in the mountains gave her a hearty constitution — she was outdoorsy and strong and not afraid of hard work or getting dirty.
—Her father was a swordsmith, and they moved to Edoras when she was a teen because there was a bigger market for his work there. But a capital city is a more expensive place to live, and so Brytta trained as a midwife in order to add another income to the family. She was a natural, and by her mid-20’s she was the most popular midwife in Edoras, known for being especially calm and efficient.
—Because she was unmarried, she still lived at home. Her father was *extremely* domineering, and both Brytta and her mother spent a lot of their time trying to avoid upsetting him.
—He pushed her *hard* into a relationship with Grigan, the son of one of the wealthiest merchants in the city. She liked Grigan well enough — he was much nicer than her father, at least — and she wanted to please her parents, who clearly thought the match would be advantageous for all of them, so she tried to make Grigan happy even though she never loved him.
—That resulted in her getting pregnant while they were still courting, and Grigan freaked out. He ran, leaving Edoras to go stay at a family estate in the Westfold, and refused to acknowledge that he’d ever had anything to do with her.
—This obviously made things very hard for her — the gossips and scolds of Edoras had a lot to say about an unwed pregnant woman (fed by damage control from Grigan’s family), and her father, in particular, was furious with her for having “ruined” his plans. But into this chaos and unhappiness walked Háma!
—He met her by chance when he came to commission a sword from her father. (Their meet-cute is here as a WIP snippet.) They started to spend time together, and she fell for him hard, knowing almost immediately that she felt far differently about Háma than she’d ever felt about Grigan or any other man.
—She was (happily) shocked when he seemed to like her just as much. He didn’t care what anyone else thought of her (“a man of worth trusts in his own wisdom”) and wasn’t put off by the idea that she was going to have a baby (“often times the best things in life are those that were unlooked for”).
—There was quite a stir in town when people found out that Háma had taken up with her. It even came up when he was considered for promotion to captain of the king’s guards. One of the king’s advisors asked what it said about him that he was consorting with someone like Brytta; Háma answered that Brytta was clever and kind and brave, and so it said that he was a lucky man. (He got the promotion, obviously, with Théoden reasoning that a man of unshakable loyalty is exactly who he wanted in charge of his safety.)
—The stir quieted down fairly quickly once people realized the whole situation was a lot less interesting and salacious when there was a loving couple at the center of it. And in all the best ways, Háma and Brytta were boring — they got engaged and were happy and lived a quiet life with a small, tight circle of friends and family.
—When Hálwinë was born, Háma loved her like she’d always been in his plans. She was even registered as “Hálwinë, daughter of Háma” (Háma cried when Brytta asked him if he’d like to be Hálwinë’s legal father). When he and Brytta were finally married two months later, he carried Hálwinë through the whole ceremony.
—Hálwinë was an enormous daddy’s girl. She loved to braid his hair (badly), go for rides on his shoulders and listen to him tell stories. He was her first hero.
—It tickled her to see the other guards all treat him with the respect due to a superior — she didn’t totally understand it, but she could clearly see that her dad was Important and she agreed!
—Once he became door warden, she liked to visit him while he sat watch, and Théoden knew her by sight from how often Brytta brought her to Meduseld to see Háma, give him a hug and sit with him for a few minutes.
—(Incidentally, she became a bit fixated during these visits on Gríma, who she saw often. After Gríma scowled at her once, Háma told her that Gríma was a sad man who used his sadness as an excuse to be mean. This made her decide that Gríma just needed a friend, and so she tried repeatedly to befriend him, always waving and saying hi and sometimes bringing him little flowers she’d picked or a treat that Brytta had intended for her. Gríma found this very confusing and eventually told Háma to keep his brat away from him; this is the closest Háma ever came to murder.)
—Hálwinë was barely 6 when Háma died. She had a hard time truly understanding what had happened and would periodically ask Brytta when he was coming home. It wasn’t until the next year, when Brytta was able to take her to Helm’s Deep to see his grave, that it really sank in. She went back to visit him there regularly for the rest of her life.
—Brytta was 5 months pregnant when Háma died. She had a boy and named him Wilspell (“welcome news”). The need to care for Hálwinë and Wilspell carried Brytta through this extraordinarily painful time, along with the love and support of Háma’s sisters and the guards, who looked in on their old captain’s family often.
—Once Hálwinë and Wilspell (“Willie”) were old enough, Brytta went back to work and was the one to deliver Éomer’s kids because she was *still* the best midwife in Edoras and would be until she retired.
—Grigan came back to Edoras to take over his family’s business when Hálwinë was 13, and he and Brytta inevitably crossed paths. He sort of apologized, and she told him it was all for the best because things had worked out much better for her without him. She asked Hálwinë if she wanted to meet him, but Hálwinë had no interest in a father that wasn’t Háma.
—Brytta never remarried, though she had offers. When she died, she was buried at Helm’s Deep beside Háma, the only woman buried there among the war dead.
So…like I said, way more than you probably wanted! Thanks for asking and hope it wasn’t a total overload! (And yes, the Háma of my HC is a dream, he’s a dream based in reality — I borrowed the Háma - Brytta love story from an elderly relative of mine, who was pregnant and unmarried in the 40’s when she met the love of her life!)
men of middle-earth ♞ house of éorl ♞ headcanon disclaimer
Ethelward was the son of Hild, the nephew to Helm Hammerhand, and the tenth King of Rohan, first of the second line. Alongside his mother, he led a surprise raid to retake Edoras from the usurper-king Wulf, and afterward claimed the kingship of Rohan with the support of his cousin Saulwyn, daughter and last remaining family member of Helm. As king, he took the name Fréaláf, “surviving lord,” and worked to free Rohan from its Dunlendish conquerors.
In this he at last had the aid of Gondor, who had been struggling against their own enemies during the Long Winter but were finally free to fulfill the Oath of Círion and Éorl. Fréaláf and his allies drove their enemies back across the rivers Isen and Adorn and laid siege to Isengard until the Dunlendings who had occupied were starved and capitulated, fleeing the fortress.
At Fréaláf’s coronation ceremony, the wizard Saruman suddenly appeared after a long period of absence, offering his support to Rohan, which Fréaláf accepted gladly. At the advice of Fréaláf, Steward Beren of Gondor lent Saruman the keys of Orthanc, giving him leave to dwell in Isengard if he would protect it from another conquest.
Fréaláf was succeeded by his son Brytta, who continued his legacy of sending aid to those in need. This generosity earned him the name Léofa, “beloved,” first coined by his mother Aldwyn, who survived her kingly husband, and later adopted by all the people of Rohan. In addition to rebuilding his kingdom, Brytta defended his borders against the Dunlendings and faced a new threat when orcs invaded the White Mountains after their defeat in the distant War of the Dwarves and Orcs. Brytta fought them off, and when he died it was believed that Rohan was at last free of all intruders.
The wife of Brytta Léofa was Mildgith, a shieldmaiden who fought alongside him to restore Rohan. Mildgith bore her husband a son, Walda, who served in his father’s army fighting off orcs in the White Mountains. When Walda inherited the throne of Rohan, he declared his lands free of enemies, but after only nine years of his reign he discovered this was not true when he was attacked by a last roving band of orcs in the mountains near Dunharrow. Walda and his men were killed, with only Queen Eafled his wife surviving to bear the grievous news back to Edoras.
Walda’s son Folca took the crown and swore to avenge his father. He was renowned as a great hunter, clearing all of Rohan from the scourge of the orcs. This campaign took thirteen years, and when it was over Folca soon grew eager to hunt again. He searched far and wide for a prey worthy of his attentions, discovering it in the form of the monstrous Boar of Everholt. Though his wife Darwise begged him to leave it be, Folca rode out chasing the thrill of another great hunt, but Darwise’s counsel proved true in the end: though he slew the boar in the end, the beast gored him with its tusks, leaving him with mortal wounds. Upon his death, Folca was succeeded by his son Folcwine.
i uSED TO DRAW FAIRIES ALL THE TIME I HAD A FAIRY BIRTHDAY CAKE
OMG same!! and i used to make fairy houses in the garden out of leaves and twigs and stuff and one time i was late to class just because i thought i saw a fairy in the playground and i was ELEVEN
lile a tween movie bffs forever and they're all chillin and there's deaton bein solemn. slowmo walking down the hallway at school and trailing behind them- deaton. eatin froyo and deat drags up a chair (and it's really embarassing and loud) and solemnly eats his froyo with oreos. theyre out clubbin and there's deaton, but at least he's the designated driver, and flower crowns r so in. like in arrested development and gob was getawat LIKE THAT they start 2 use him 2 their advantage
