#open thread starter

[in-here-the-musics-flowing]

"My throat hurts.. I'd sang for nearly all of last night to keep a dying patient asleep and out of pain. Ow.."

[scorching-lights]

*toruris is laying in the grass near the osha building. it is also covered in various reptiles that are snuggling against them. the light it gives off is considerably warmer than average, although there is less of it so functionally they are acting as a warming lamp for the lizards and snakes*

[salmaganto]

The Mirror Cliche.

[[From the Thirty Day Character Study. I think it makes a poor starter, but I can’t think where else to put it, so: you have it.]]

Salgant inspected himself in the mirror with a critical eye. He liked to dress well - was expected to dress well, as a Lord of Gondolin - and certainly the tailors of the Heavenly Arch were masters of their craft, but there was no disguising the fact that he was just not handsome by the standards of Sinda and Noldo alike. Height, of course, was prized among the Noldor, and Salgant was not just noticeably short, he was notably short. (The children of his tiny hometown were never tall.) The Sinda prized a lissome figure, if not a tall one, and there too Salgant tended toward the stout. (It kept the cold off, everyone back home said.) And no one thought a leg brace and a cane were comely, no matter how well-wrought the Hammer could make them. (It had been a stupid mistake on the Ice, but Noldor healing had saved his life and even his foot.) Aside from that, he had the ash-blond hair, light golden skin, and almond-shaped eyes common to the Teleri; it wasn't an unpleasant combination, but neither was it remarkable, being similar to the typical Sinda coloration.

Well, there was no need for a Lord of Gondolin to be as handsome as Glorfindel or Ecthelion! Indeed, Salgant wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he had fair young maidens throwing themselves in his path, as the more handsome unwed Lords did. He’d probably trip over them. He had never been inclined to marriage or even dalliances, though from time to time he thought he’d might like children of his own. He’d have to settle for spoiling Idril’s child and Galdor’s brood. In fact, Galdor had shorted the Harp’s lumber quota again; perhaps Salgant would teach his children how to drum.

Cheered by the thought, he twitched a golden tassel into place and then abandoned the mirror for more productive things.

[arradil]

Conversations.

“Does it count as Kinslaying if you’re not sure the person actually died? It was very confusing at Sirion. I mean, I tried? But I didn’t - make sure, you know. So I don’t know if it actually counts.”

[salmaganto]

Matter-of-factly.

“Yes, I did forbid my House from singing the Noldolante. Mostly because I hate it, partly because it’s garbage. I’m allowed a few foibles!”

[salmaganto]

Conversational.

“There was a time, when I was young, that I would have cracked a Silmaril under my heel and spilled its light into the dust.”

[arradil]

"Yes, of course I know all the Sons of Feanor! There's Maedhros, of course, and Maglor, and Curufin and Celegorm, and... and the set that are twins, and... um..."

[salmaganto]

Indignantly.

"Yes, I was 'fain to do battle from an impregnable fortress.' Of course I was! That's literally - that's why fortresses are built in the first place!

"I still cannot believe everyone else wanted to flee before Gondolin's walls were even tested. Leave our stronghold, all our supplies, and do what? Be encircled and overtaken without them? Ugh!" Salgant throws up his hands in frustration. “We were well-prepared for a siege, and I should know, for I had the tallying of those matters.

“Knowing then what we know now, of course we should have done differently, but I will maintain ‘til the end of Arda that we ought not have abandoned the city and fled openly. On foot, with women and children, outpacing Angband’s cavalry? Impossible.”