#mithrendan

[find-the-path]

Month-long fic challenge using these LOTRO Rangers + Situations prompts collected by a-lonely-dunedain. Minimum of 100 words, no particular adherence to timelines or canon.

2: Mithrendan & self sacrifice

“You are going to run back to Tornhad and knock on Prestadír’s door. Not Angwedh’s, you hear me? His panicking won’t help. Tell Prestadír—”

“I’m not going!” Faeron had had enough, the statement bursting out of him.

“Quiet, please, child. That’s not helping either. The best way to resolve this situation is—”

Faeron knew quite well what the best way to resolve this situation was, at least in Mithrendan’s mind. Since the moment the pack had caught their scent the older Ranger had kept on saying it in a terribly calm and even voice.

Go back to Tornhad. (Get out of danger.)

Get an adult. (Don’t come back.)

I will wait here. (Leave me to die.)

“Come up with something else!”

[poetry-draws]

"Do not be fooled... It was Radanir's idea."

"Quiet."

if nothing else i think we can all agree Radanir is the most dramatic

[find-the-path]

Month-long fic challenge using these LOTRO Rangers + Situations prompts collected by a-lonely-dunedain. Minimum of 100 words, no particular adherence to timelines or canon.

11: Mithrendan & holding out for rescue

Down the hall Rohirrim soldiers alternatively bust open locks and shove stolen keys into them, while already-freed Rangers help their brethren into the open.

Faeron doesn’t bother with either. In the dim torchlight he makes straight for Mithrendan’s cell and inserts a lock-pick his captors had missed. In less than thirty seconds— sloppy, his record was twelve as a child— the lock rattles open and the door is thrown wide.

“Amlan, stay off that ankle, I know it’s broken,” Faeron orders. “Mithrendan, are you well enough to help him?”

“You know that I am.” Mithrendan says. It’s true. Faeron and Helchon’s cell was just across the corridor and one down from Mithrendan and Amlan’s. In the guard’s torchlight during rounds Mithrendan would see Faeron’s eyes glinting hard and meeting his. In the thick darkness, equally, he would be kept awake by the strange certainty that somewhere in the blackness Faeron’s night owl-eyes were fixed on him.

He’s not sure why Faeron feels the need to ask. Those same eyes are looking at him now, gleaming with more than triumph.

“Good. Head for the surface and keep that dagger ready.”

Of course he saw the stolen dagger.

“Don’t be far behind.” Mithrendan says, helping Amlan to his feet.

“I won’t. Don’t worry.”

At long last, free and armed, Mithrendan thinks he can manage that.

[hallothere]

30 for a ranger of your choosing 👀

30. Nightmare

It didn't take very much.

A steady drip. Footsteps echoing, somewhere. A scream, two.

Rangers were supposed to be able to catch a little rest under any condition. He had. Somehow he'd managed it, and in the boughs of his dreams he had fallen down deep. There was no way to say what the worst part was- the rapid fall, the depth, the place he'd found himself in, the terror, the horror so complete he didn't even make the choice to leave, the sudden rise, or the pounding of his heart in the dark.

He'd been ordered to lie still, so he did. There was very little change in him externally, from sleeping to awake. Alternating between holding his eyes open against the memory and squeezing them shut to try and dispel it, he didn't voluntarily move anything else. Taking control of his breathing was something different, something harder, but a task that took up more mental energy than remembering wanted to.

He could feel and hear his heart pounding. The horror of it all sustained the process. So his breathing changed, even if none of the rest of it did. When he finally had the wherewithal to take stock of his surroundings, to differentiate reality from the nightmare, he wasn't sure he could. Not so much in place or time, but in condition.

The same moment he put together the cot wasn't a cold stone floor, the sounds of men in pain weren't being provoked, and the door before him was wooden and unbarred, he tried to stifle a sob.

"Langlas"

Mithrendan.

"I thought you might have woken."

He thought he was alone.

"You're safe in the Houses of Healing. They let us bring you up."

He was the only one.

"Idhrien needed another set of hands and we--"

They had no more.

"...We..."

They were too few.

"...You will not stay here alone, brother."

Mithrendan had moved closer, taken his chair or stool and pulled it up to the side of the cot. Awareness had finally filtered in, and Langlas knew he was not the only soul brought here. One of many. One of too few.

"I'm awake" he said, tears still in his eyes, heart pounding, "though I do not feel it."

There was a pressure on his shoulder. A hand trying to staunch the hammering in his chest.

"Neither do I."

[poetry-draws]

had to pause the comic to draw dinner outfit refs...... and bring them to you

Radanir and Mithrendan are ✨flourishing✨

[find-the-path]

Trying out the LOTRO prompts challenge again, this time for October! I'll continue to use a-lonely-dunedain's Wheel of Ranger Doom as inspiration, though not as strictly.

1: Mithrendan & Helchon

“You left me there!” Helchon bursts with indignation from his tone to his crossed arms, fists clenched.

Mithrendan blinks at him.

“Sorry,” Helchon relaxes. With a bit of the thunder released his face brightens back into innocent eleven-year-old. “I thought Faeron would open the door.”

Faeron does not, as a general rule, open doors, unless they are locked from the other side. The rule first came in evidence when Faeron was thirteen and left senior forge-master Angwedh knocking on the front step for a half-hour. Faeron, now twenty-seven, has shown no inclination to change.

“Where is he?” Helchon’s eyes, dark eyes wide with innocence, promise dire revenge for whatever new offense Faeron committed. Mithrendan shifts his grip on the door, takes a sip of cooling coffee. Weighs his options.

“He went out toward the blackberry patches,” he says.

Helchon does not pause to thank him but dashes off immediately, thunder gathering again.

Faeron has grown into a very competent Ranger during his years away. He can handle one outraged preteen. Probably.

[find-the-path]

Month-long fic challenge using these LOTRO Rangers + Situations prompts collected by a-lonely-dunedain. Minimum of 100 words, no particular adherence to timelines or canon.

19: Mithrendan & hypothermia

Mithrendan had told him to wait thirty minutes before going after him.

Faeron waited exactly twenty.

Mithrendan had know him for nearly three years now, Faeron reasoned to himself; if the older Ranger had truly meant thirty minutes he would have said forty. He was already bundled in every coat and cloak he owned, but not a foot from the doorway he started shivering anyway. It was freezing, colder even than when Faeron had fallen in the river last winter and nearly died of shock. The wind ripped through wool like linen and hard little shards of snow stung his eyes.

“Mithrendan!” He tried to shout. The wind ripped that away too. Squinting hard against the snow, Faeron staggered off in (he thought) the direction of the stable, where Mithrendan had been going.