Snippet Someday
Thank you for tagging me @balrogballs and @ffigwit I honestly love these. (Even if I never get to them on the day mentioned)
I've got one fic right now that has taken over. (Apart from the exchanges I'm involved in)
This is another snippet for The Thralls Trauma.
It's a multi-chapter fic about a slave who escapes Angband. He swears loyality to Maedhros, who helped him when captured. I don't even have the first chapter up yet. (Soon I promise) The part that has taken over all my personal writing will actually be a few chapters in. However it is the most fleshed out. So here is another snippet involving the Easterlings:
Lord Maedhros had called him in. “I require you to go to Lothlann and invite the Easterlings to the Union I am establishing.”
“My Lord, surely you have someone of more noble birth to send?”
“I require you to go as you speak their language. No other is as fluent as you are.”
Nilmodur did not point out, he only spoke two of the languages. Fortunately, one of them was what the Easterlings currently living in Lothlann spoke.
“Perhaps I can serve as interpreter to a greater lord?”
Maedhros handed him a missive. “We are stretched thin in this. You speak Easterling. You are my best choice.”
Nilmodur bowed his retreat. He hoped that getting this message from someone they knew to be just a guard would not be a perceived insult.
The first thing he heard, upon arrival, was a derogatory slur directed at him. The slur was so insulting that it froze him to the spot. Last time he heard it, he was scrubbing some horrific mess he did not want to think about.
The older chieftain came over and greeted him in Quenya, soothing his fear and returning him to the present. The younger chieftain had laughed, but Nilmodur was unsure if that was directed at the slur, or something else.
He handed the older man the letter. The chieftain thanked him and then turned to say something to one of his clan. His language was a different dialect to which Nilmodur knew. He suddenly felt self-conscious. He knew a slight mispronunciation could be seen as an insult. He defaulted to Quenya, knowing he would not be upset by their attempts. The chieftain offered to show him around the camp that had been created since his last visit.
Nilmodur was amazed at the inverted canvas structures that had sprung up. Rain collectors, it was explained to him.
“The air provides what the land does not.”
He was horrified to learn they still had no water. After taking their promise to attend the Union, well some of them, he rode to Caranthir’s halls.
The lord received him and he quickly explained the issue of the waterless plain.
Caranthir frowned. “They'll be fine. There's a stream that goes across that plain.”
Nilmodur held his face neutral. “My lord, there was no stream, nor evidence of one, when I crossed that plain.”
“Streams come back,” Caranthir snipped.
He really did have his father’s temper. How did Nilmodur know that?
“My lord.”
“No. They are desert people. They'll find water I'm sure.”
He blinked at that. Desert yes, but Nilmodur had met Easterlings who spoke of hills and mountains; who offered giant, sweet fruit from their trees. Hot maybe. But all desert?
The glare kept his mouth shut. It was easier to agree and be spared the punishment. Even if the lash was of the tongue.
When Nilmodur returned to Himring, he worried about the treatment of the second born. Lord Maedhros was busy with his Union, so he did not bother him. However, these men came to help them and they were treated less. When he next signed the provisions list for them, he tripled their water. Rationing was better than dying by thirst.










