#meg tries

[palms-upturned]

Rot

Disco Elysium, POV Kim Kitsuragi, Missing Scene

INLAND EMPIRE — They opened him up and found nothing but the rot that ate up everything he was. And then they left the empty shell of him behind.

VOLTA DO MAR [Challenging: Success] — Don’t think about that. Think of music shaking your ribcage. Think of a steering wheel under your palms.

HALF LIGHT — Your red, red palms.

Night one. Kim Kitsuragi has a nightmare.

AO3 link

[samwise-gamjeez]

What the River Carries

Merry & Pippin, Merry & Frodo, 5421 words

The quest is over, and Merry is home, standing a whole foot taller than when he left. But with Frodo gone and Pippin coming of age, Merry isn't sure how he fits into anything anymore.

Read here at ao3!

[megwritesfanfiction]

I know I haven’t been active on Tumblr lately, but long story short... This year has been stressful as hell. 

I’ve been trying to carry on with my usual activities, writing being one of them and while I have... I’ve stumbled with using Tumblr. I’ve been fairly active on Twitter cause since “the purge” it’s been easier and in my juggling, I dropped the tumblr ball.

So, I am still here. 

I still write things. 

My goal is to catch up with things in my inbox and start sharing things more here, but please be patient. 

I’m trying my best. <3 

[little-nutmeg]

If a fish and a half costs a cent a half, what does a boatload come to?

Wait why are you selling fishes by the halves? :0

Okay, so this is a riddle and I’m gonna try to guess without googling.. wait a boat would go to the dock, right? Is that it??

[palms-upturned]

Poem 53

AO3 link || Disco Elysium || Harry Du Bois & Harry Du Bois || Poetry, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide

From the collection “Poems For My Head’s Country.” Annotations by Harry Du Bois.

(For/Inspired by @laughingpinecone <3)

[palms-upturned]

Imaginary Living Bodies

Anthy & Mikage, Anthy & Mamiya, Anthy/Utena, Mikage/Mamiya

Chida Mamiya is worse than dead. He is an imaginary living body. (The Black Rose Saga from Anthy’s POV.)

AO3 link

[samwise-gamjeez]

Reach

Frodo/Sam, 875 words (ao3)

Frodo’s hands are small, but they carry such a heavy burden.

Sam loves Frodo’s hands.

They’re just a little smaller than his own, and fit perfectly in the hollows of his palms on those dark nights when the bitter cold blows and the distant sounds of life are distorted and made grotesque by the winds that carry them. In the darkness, Frodo will seek Sam’s hands. He’ll find them right beside him, open to him. He’ll let Sam cradle his hands with the same care he would a seedling, and fall asleep under his Sam’s faithful watch. The little gardener will not sleep until he hears Frodo’s breaths slow to an even pace, until he feels Frodo’s hands in his own relax and turn warm. When he does fall asleep, it will be holding Frodo’s hands close to his heart.

I’m with you, Sam wants to say. He tries to dream the words as if somehow it will help Frodo feel less alone through the night.

They will wake hand in hand, and Sam’s heart will grow heavy when Frodo gently slips out of his grasp to go meet the day and its burdens.

Frodo’s hands are small, but they carry such a heavy burden. Though he rarely complains, he cannot hide the slow hollowing of his once round and ruddy cheeks, the way his aching feet drag behind him, the bruises on his neck where the Ring’s chain weighs heavily upon it. He rarely speaks at all, now. He just stares at the road ahead of him with such dim, empty eyes as Sam has never seen before. It makes his heart feel like it could crush him under its own weight.

And yet, when Sam feels all the sadness and anger for his poor master choke him, when words fail and his eyes well up with tears, Frodo will slip his little hand in Sam’s. In spite of everything, he will try to comfort his Sam. And Sam will kiss that scarred and bony hand and weep that Frodo should still have the strength to forgive Sam his weakness.

You’re with me, Sam thinks, as if it’s nothing short of a miracle. When Frodo gives his hand a squeeze, brief and fragile, Sam thinks that he has never known anyone as strong as his Frodo and never will.

So many would try to part them. So many times, they almost succeed. Sam will never forget the sight of Frodo embalmed in gossamer, the coldness of his skin when Sam kisses him goodbye. When he holds Frodo in the tower of Cirith Ungol and feels the warmth of him, it’s enough to crack Sam’s heart wide open.

I’ll never let you go, he thinks. He plants another kiss on Frodo’s forehead, this time a promise rather than a goodbye. Never.

Sam carries Frodo up the mountain on his back, knowing in his heart that this will be the end of them both. He is not afraid to die. The only thing he fears is his own weakness. To let Frodo slip through his hands when they’re this close to the end would be a fate worse than death.

And after it all, how could Sam judge Frodo on the mountaintop? How could he ever be angry? Frodo’s hands are so small, and his burden is so heavy. Frodo puts on the ring and vanishes, goes somewhere Sam cannot follow. In his heart, Sam feels this is truly the death of him. He screams and reaches out his hands, begging, praying. Frodo does not reach back.

It’s a miracle the stone doesn’t kill Sam as Gollum smashes it into his head. Sam collapses, dazed, watching helplessly as Gollum attacks Frodo and bites the finger right off his hand. One moment they’re there, fighting bloody tooth and bloody nail, and the next they’re gone, and Sam grows cold and sick at the thought of losing Frodo to the fire.

He gets up, and it’s yet another miracle that he can even stand. He runs to the cliff’s edge, and there is Frodo, hanging on by the tips of his little fingers.

“Give me your hand!” Sam cries, reaching as far as he can. It’s not enough. Frodo must reach back.

“Take my hand!” Sam begs him, roaring over the fire. Frodo tries, but his hand is slick with blood and he slips through Sam’s grasp. For one horrible, stomach dropping moment, Sam thinks he’s lost him. But Frodo holds on.

The look in his eyes makes Sam feel sick. He looks so tired, so empty, as he dangles there above the flames. His strength is utterly spent, and who could blame him? If Sam could just reach him, he would lift him out of that horrible pit all on his own. But he can’t.

“Don’t you let go,” Sam says through gritted teeth. Tears slide down his grimy cheeks as he asks one last unreasonable thing of Frodo. Begs him to be strong, even though it’s selfish.

“Don’t let go… REACH!”

And Frodo Baggins, the strongest creature in all the world, reaches out a little hand. And Samwise Gamgee, the truest friend there ever was, pulls him out of the depths and back onto his feet.

They face the end of the world together, hand in hand.

[samwise-gamjeez]

A Story Worth Telling

Frodo/Sam, 971 words (ao3)

Some thoughts on love, survival, and the stories we tell.

Samwise the Brave, Frodo thinks. The name fits Sam as if the word “brave” was conceived just for him. Samwise, who charges at enemies with nothing but a frying pan and righteous anger. Samwise, who smiles and jokes and talks of green grass and gardens and freshly picked strawberries even when there’s nothing but wasteland as far as Frodo’s eyes can see. Samwise, the little hobbit with a heart that stands ten feet taller than the rest of him. Taller than anyone else in the whole world.

They joke at times about ways they might embellish their tales for the children when they get back home, as Bilbo has most certainly done since they were even smaller than they are now. Frodo’s uncle would change up his stories every time he told them, and even so, he and little Sam would listen. Hold every different version of Bilbo’s tales close and wonder if the truth was even more magnificent.

Now, as Frodo nurses his aching wound, he knows differently. He remembers the way that Bilbo seemed to grow restless when trying to find words to describe the horrible excess of Smaug and his hoard. He remembers the way Bilbo would be caught off guard by his own sadness at the mere thought of old friends he had buried. He remembers sleepless nights when Bilbo would set off on long walks and only look older and more tired when he returned.

He remembers one night when Bilbo passed on the last words of Thorin Oakenshield to him: If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. And Frodo tried, then, to understand what Bilbo meant by this, what Thorin had meant by this, but he couldn’t. And so Bilbo clutched his head and sobbed such a sob as Frodo had never heard before and would never hear again until he saw his uncle once more at Rivendell, and Bilbo clung to Frodo’s hand and begged for his forgiveness. I’m sorry that you must carry this burden. I’m sorry for everything.

Frodo thinks now that he understands that the truth is impossible to tell. One cannot understand it unless they were there. And by the time one understands it, it will be too late for the story to mean anything.

And so no one will quite understand the sting of a Morgul blade, or the weight of the Ring, or what it's like to entirely lose oneself to some shapeless and senseless darkness that feels like it must have been at one’s heels their whole life. Frodo jokes about telling the children that Sam fought off the Nazgûl with nothing but an old skillet, and does not say aloud that he wonders if any of this will mean anything to the children at all. Perhaps he should hope that it doesn’t, and that they’ll never have to know how to face such things because there will be no more evil to face. Perhaps then, Frodo can think that there’s something worthy about the pain that strikes deep at the heart of him and makes him feel like something even less than a little hobbit.

Frodo the Small, they might call him. A weak little fool who was simply in the wrong place at the right time. Utterly insignificant in the scheme of things, and completely impossible to make sense of. His neighbors will write him off as a crackpot and a troublemaker, just as they did Bilbo. That’s what comes of thinking yourself too big for your britches and going on adventures, they’ll say. Best to keep your nose out of where it don’t belong. And they will act like they understand and know better, and Frodo will be too tired to try to change their minds. He’ll pray that they never truly understand.

Even Sam will never truly know. He’ll never know the weight of this thing around Frodo’s neck, how it feels to be beholden to it. He’ll never hear the terrible things it promises to Frodo in the dark and lonely night when anger threatens to overtake him and he wishes that the whole of Middle Earth would just burn up and die for what it’s put him through. He’ll never know the shame when Frodo wakes and remembers what little is left of himself, finds some shred of kindness in his heart, battered and abused and dying.

And yet, Sam is kind enough for them both. He nurses Frodo’s body and heart without complaint. Sam does not need to understand in order to love. He does not need to be big in order to have courage. He simply is what he is. Samwise the Brave. A humble gardener. The most important person in all of Middle Earth.

Sam sings songs and makes up poems to make the journey pass more cheerfully. When Frodo’s strength fails him, Sam offers him a sturdy arm. When Frodo’s wound stings, Sam rubs his shoulder and holds his hand until the pain passes. He normally saves his crying for the night when he thinks Frodo cannot hear him, so that he can be brave when morning breaks. But when Frodo cannot cry, Sam takes Frodo's sadness as his own and weeps such tenderhearted tears. Understanding tears.

On sleepless nights, he runs his fingers through Frodo’s hair and soothes him with hands that are rough from all his years of raising the gentlest and most fragile of lives from the dirt.

“It’s going to be all right, Mr. Frodo,” Sam says, and miraculously, Frodo believes him.

These are the truths worth saying even when no one understands them, Frodo thinks, lying in Sam’s arms in the dark. These are the stories worth telling. The tales of Samwise the Brave, whose hands were made to uplift.