A Light That Endures, by The Moonlily [@themoonlily] (432k)
Of old days of the Mark the tale of Lion of Rohan and his Lady fierce and brave is remembered and beloved by Eorlingas beyond any other... This is a story of being lost and found, and discovering your redemption. Here is a Light that Endures.
Behold the result of an hour of photoshop editing. This is what happens when I’m left unsupervised, I get sucked into the éothiriel vortex and make shitty fanart for want of writing my own fanfictions for this pairing.
I’m currently in the process of reading this fanfiction - I’m only 1/5 into the story but it already holds the promise of long sleepless nights spent reading it until the wee hours. What do you mean I can’t make a fic rec if I haven’t finished said fic? Nonsense.
Listen, I don’t need to read any more of it to assure you that it’s a jewel, alright? A diamond, the huge kind everybody wants to see on their ring finger at some point in their life. Although you better believe I will read it until the very last word, all 432 264 of ‘em. Because, like my gal pal Jane Austen once said “When a book is well written, I always find it too short.” And if you think I’m going to bully all of my friends into reading it too, you are absolutely right, and while we’re at it you should give it a go too.
UPDATE: I have finished it. My life is a pile of fuming ashes on the desolated ground, I have nothing left to live for, and am forever bound to wander aimlessly on this doomed earth without a purpose. What am I supposed to do after reading this? Can life live up to what I just experienced through these words? Is it even worth finishing college or should I sit on a window sill and simply melancholy stare out the window until my body ceases to function and turns to dust?
Am I being dramatic? Certainly, that’s just who I am as a person. But the fact remains that my world has been turned upside down. Granted my sleeping schedule has significantly improved since I finished this fanfiction, but what is a bit of sleep if my waking hours aren’t filled with quality Eothiriel stories? Gotta say it: the bar has been set rather high, and I’ve been struggling to find a work that rouses similar enthusiasm in me as this one. Life has been generally a bit more dull now that I cannot look forward to reading a new chapter of ALTE anymore.
So, to all of you who stuck around until this point:
UPDATE (2): You know how I’ve been throwing my very own little pity party because this fanfiction was over and my life has basically become aimless? Well, I was in the wrong, because there IS MORE.
It’s a series of 48 oneshots, little snippets of Eomer and Lothiriel’s everyday life, a bit fluffier than what the author used us to in ALTE. I’m in the process of reading them all but I honestly don’t know what more to say if you’re not convinced that you should read this story at this point.
I wish I knew about this while I was reading ALTE because reading 54k worth of oneshots in one go sure is tedious when you have to try and replace each of them in the chapter of ALTE they belong to. So it’s best to read them as you go and switch between ALTE and Flickers of Light because of the chronology.
Ghosts that we knew will flicker from view and we will live a long life.
I’m thrilled about finding this one, seriously people, I once again have a goal in life. I’m so excited! ALTE is perfect one its own, so I was a bit scared before staring to read this one, because what if it ruined a perfetly good story, right? Well, I sure was wrong, because it’s fantastic. The mood is quite different from ALTE, that’s true, but it’s a natural evolution and not an abrupt change of tone. The characters follow their arc, and life goes on (a lot more time goes by in K&L than in ALTE even if this one is shorter) following its natural course. It’s quieter, cosier, it a story you can read without wanting to rip your hair out because of the STRESS and SUSPENS which nearly made me go bald during ALTE.
Then again I’m only halfway through so maybe the stressful/suspensful parts are yet to come.
UPDATE: I have finished it. Last night I pushed through the last handful of chapters because I stubbornly refused to go to bed before reaching the end. It took me forever the read the last chapters because I was too busy bawling my eyes out - and consequently having the clean my glasses and blow my nose regularly - because of how sad I was.
And it’s not even a sad ending, it’s a happy ending. But it made me sad, and I honestly don’t know how I even managed to ugly cry for over two hours without alarming my roommates or drowning in my own snot. (Classy, I know.)
I knew how it was going to end for Eomer and Lothiriel, I knew it from A Light That Endures, but I didn’t expect it to be so heartwrenching, and I especially did not expect it to be written all the way to the end. I thought the author was going to stop at the peak of happiness in the story. But no, she didn’t. And while you see the end coming, it doesn’t make it easier to read it, or accept that it’s how things are.
@themoonlily You made me cry so hard I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep at all after finishing it. From the moment Eomer freed Silfren tears starting blurring my vision and after that the flow didn’t stop until I reached the very end. It really broke my heart to read about Eomer’s death even though it was peaceful. Of course I personally love Eomer, but having to read about Lothiriel’s mourning and aching made the loss ten times worse. I was already there, a weeping mess, and then I thought about how much pain she must be in if it’s that bad for me, and it only made me cry harder.
I have loved your story and the characters in it from the very first chapter of ALTE to the last of K&L, and it cost me so much to read about their end. I love your writing to pieces, and I know I will read ALTE again at some point in my life, but I don’t think I can go through the emotional turmoil of K&L again, I genuinely don’t have the strength to do that to myself again. It was so cathartic, I was exhausted by the time I finished (at an ungodly hour of the night) like I’d run a marathon, I was drained of my energy as though I was the one who’d lived their lives, and done what Eomer and Lothiriel had done -instead of reading a book while snivelling and crying-
I will cherish your story forever, thank you for writing it (and nearly killing me with Feels)
