#thescrapwitch

[emyn-arnens]

Trick or Treat! 🎃

ask box trick-or-treat | read on AO3

The day that Finrod comes to Nerdanel’s workshop is wintry and windswept, and not even the light of Laurelin can lighten the dark seams of the clouds, laced with rains yet to fall. Finrod sweeps in the door like a leaf caught in the gale, and his hair whirls about him in a brief, golden tempest. 

“I wish to learn to work with stone,” he says without preamble. “And I am told there is no better teacher than you.”

Nerdanel smiles, knowing. “My sons praise me because they do not follow my craft. Were they to, they might speak differently, for I ask much of my students—though no more than I would ask of myself.”

“Still I wish to learn,” Finrod says. “I am not easily dissuaded.”

“So I am told.”

A smile flickers over his face, then wanes. “Your husband—” Finrod begins, as if seizing the words from a storm. “He will not—”

Nerdanel arranges the tools of her craft on the table before her. “His choices are his, and mine are mine. I turn away none of the blood of Indis.”

Relief slips over him like the rain that has at last begun to fall, drumming in the streets outside. 

“To choose a craft,” Nerdanel says, bidding him to sit before her, “is to choose a vessel for one’s fëa. It is both an outpouring and a collecting of that which spills out.” She points to her tools and names them—hammer, chisel, mallet, rasp, riffler, drill, and bow.

He lifts them, feeling the weight and shape of each. Nerdanel adjusts his grip, letting him learn the shapes they form beneath his touch. Then she sets before him a small block of marble and shows him how to use mallet, hammer, and chisel; rasp and riffler; and bow upon drill.

Finrod works slowly, learning what pressure to apply, what strokes to use. He is unhurried, careful. And Nerdanel’s wise heart, watching, sees its equal. But even so, the block splinters as he sets the drill to it and works the bow, and then splits neatly in two. He looks up at her with a rueful smile. “You do not dismiss your students for cleaving their work in two, I hope.”

Nerdanel clears the table. “I only dismiss those who pretend at their zeal for their craft. What I teach cannot be learned in a year, or even in ten years, and I shall not have my time be made a waste, when there are others whose zeal is true.

“But,” she says, “I have had few students blow through the doors of my workshop as if delivered by the winds of a gale, so eager are they to learn.”

Finrod hides his smile.

She sets before him another block of marble, and this one does not break. A small pillar takes shape beneath his hands, rough-hewn, with a coroneted crown of curling leaves.

“From Olwë’s mansion?” she asks.

“No,” he says and his brow furrows, but he says no more.

— — —

From then on, Finrod is a fixture in her workshop—as much a part of it as the slabs of marble waiting to be carved or the stools arranged around them. He is her most dutiful student, and her most apt. Sculptures bloom beneath his hands as if their figures were merely waiting for him to discover them. His sister, aligning her limbs to pierce the surface of the bay below. His brothers, spears poised in the shallows. A school of fish, flashing in a beam of light. A ship, slipping down the shell of a wave.

“Create for me,” Nerdanel says, when his works begin to crowd the walls of her workshop, “a work that displays all you have learned.”

For a time, he does not come to her workshop, but Nerdanel does not doubt; he has proven his desire to learn. And she herself has often roved over the mountain paths of Taniquetil and beneath the sea caves skirting the bay, seeking inspiration in the whirling winds and the tide’s treasures.

When Finrod returns, he settles himself upon his stool and simply looks at the block of marble she has chosen for him, reading the veins etched within as one might read the clouds for signs of a coming storm. And then, setting chisel to stone, he begins to sing.

For many months, Nerdanel’s workshop is filled with the song of chisels and hammers and Finrod’s voice, slipping beneath and between, calling, shaping, revealing. Feathers spill from beneath his fingers, and water pools at his feet. Swans stretch their necks, rising from the marble, from the water, beating their wings upon its glassy surface. Their eyes watch with animal intelligence; their feathers gleam with diamonds of water.

“Well done,” Nerdanel says. “Well done, indeed.”

He stays at her workshop, chiseling and singing and drawing forth life from stone, until Nerdanel can scarcely remember a day when her workshop was not filled with the song of chisels and hammers and stone shaping beneath song, and the ache in her heart—scarcely known before then—for a son who would take up her craft eases.

— — —

When the Darkness falls, it is not the lack of light with which to do her work that grieves Nerdanel most, but the absence of Finrod’s voice. She is used to silence in her home; she has had five years to become accustomed to it. But her workshop has been a place of music for too many years now. For too long, the ringing of hammer and chisel have been accompanied by the low, sonorous murmur of Finrod’s voice, shaping marble with touch and song.

Her workshop is hollow without it.

— — —

She hears from the returned of Nargothrond, of the many-mansioned fortress the Dwarves delved beneath the earth, hewing Finrod’s dreams from stone, and of the halls and walls that Finrod—Felagund—adorned with his touch and voice, singing life and strength and memory into stone—mighty pillars crowned with many coronets of stone leaves and carven tapestries of Alqualondë and Tirion and all that he once loved.

And her wanderer's heart wishes, just once, that she could set foot on the furthest shore and see what her tutelage has wrought.

— — —

When word comes of Finrod's death, she falls to her knees and weeps, just as she did for Amrod. When she is finished, she gathers cloths and rope and prepares the sculpture of the swans—the only piece he left with her, for the rest he gave away as gifts, before the Darkness—for travel. She cannot bring herself to take his first piece—the small, rough-hewn pillar that wrote a furrow in his brow—and leaves it in her workshop, as a memory.

Alqualondë gleams like a dawn pearl beneath the rising, gilding sun as Nerdanel drives her wagon up the winding, gleaming streets to Olwë’s mansion, listening to the wild, forlorn calls of the gulls, and she sees in the rose-stained waters of the harbor and the drifting ships at anchor the love for this city that Finrod sang into his works, crafting memories he could not keep.

Eärwen takes the sculpture from her in wordless grief, eyes brimming with words she cannot speak, and Nerdanel knows that this grief that they both now have tasted has redressed whatever wounds might have remained of the past, binding them up as sweetly and as bitterly as any poultice.

— — —

A knock sounds upon the door of her workshop, and Nerdanel, opening it, finds Finrod, hale and whole and smiling with all the light of Laurelin-that-was in his eyes.

“I saw the swans,” he says without preamble. “Thank you. They were a comfort to my parents.”

Nerdanel catches a bubble of laughter and tears with her hand, too overcome to speak, and draws him into an embrace, feeling in the warmth of him against her all the sons she cannot hold, then releases him. 

He tilts his head in memory and walks as if stepping into a dream. “It is just as I remembered.”

“Though with fewer of your sculptures,” she says, finding words to speak at last, and then, remembering, brings forth the little pillar she has kept on a shelf, a memory of centuries ago, before she came to know the meaning of grief as well she knows the veins beneath her skin. “Perhaps I ought to have given it as well,” she says, “but I could not.”

Finrod turns it over in his hands, smiling. “It was not the best of my works.”

“No, but it was your first,” she says, “and therefore worth remembering.”

“I fear I could craft little better now. My hands have forgotten what they once knew.” A slip of a smile steals over his face. “But I am told there is no better teacher than you.”

[zannolin]

Happy holidays, my friend! I hope you're doing well! I was curious: do you have a favourite Narnia map?

i'm quite fond of the movie vers they made for lww, which is the one you most often see on merch items or in places like the endpapers of the film guides! this one specifically:

(do not ask me why there's a river in narnia called the telmar river, i have yet to puzzle that one out.) i love that it has the corner symbols in the border with different species' standards!! (satyrs upper left, fauns lower left, dwarves lower right, and i'm not 100% certain (yet) what the upper right is, as it doesn't seem to be the centaurs (they have crossed swords as their symbol, but i'd have to rewatch and study the heraldry again to be sure). i digress tho. this map version actually has a fairly correct depiction of lewis' original intent for glasswater creek (an ocean inlet, not a straight up creek) tho some of the placement details are wrong here and there. i tend to mix and match my narnia map canon, but i like how this one looks overall the most. it's my childhood narnia map so i've always been very fond of it :)

[dreamingthroughthenoise]

Author backstory for Scribbles and Squabbles please!

Oh boy. 😆

So Scribbles and Squabbles was kind of a wild ride that was born out of two things.

The first thing was that I was starting Silm Epistolary week since I adore epistolary stories and wanted to encourage more of that type of fic in the Silm fandom. I obviously wanted to write something for my own event, and I have a particular fondness for letter writing in stories so I wanted that to be my main format.

The second thing was that I wanted to let loose and try to write something that was a little more fun and lighthearted than my usual fair, and to not be so rigidly worried about being 100% accurate to canon. As a confession I’m horribly self-conscious about writing humor, it’s not a strength of mine and I think my sense of humor doesn’t always land with others. For some reason it’s easier for me to be funny with this format in a way I don’t quite know how to explain, but it just works.

The biggest confession about S&S is that I was truly writing by the seat of my pants for the most part with this fic, which is NOT something I do normally. And by that I mean I was literally writing the chapter day of and throwing it up on ao3 at the last moment when I felt I had enough to make a good sized chapter. This is TERRIFYING for me and not my normal process at all, but it actually worked well for the format of the story since it forced me to react and respond quickly to how things were unfolding which is kind of what the Feanorians are doing in the story. Maglor being flustered over how quickly Curufin and Caranthir are reacting before he can manage them is honestly how I felt!

I started the fic with the idea of Curufin and Caranthir clashing over something that seemed silly but had roots in other issues and I wanted their fight to escalate to draw in the involvement of the other brothers. Curufin and Caranthir seemed to lend themselves nicely to being the ones to spin this out since they’re kind of sandwiched together in the middle and are pretty dofferent. Curufin struggling with Feanor’s death and legacy in the most obvious ways felt right to his character, as did his tendency to perhaps look over things he considers more mundane. It felt right to have him clash with Caranthir who can feel overlooked and underappreciated because of his less flashy skill set and the work he enjoys, and looping in his feelings for Haleth and those complications, it felt like the perfect storm for a conflict.

I took pains to put Maedhros in the backseat for the first part of the story, mostly because I wanted to give Maglor and Celegorm the chance to be big brothers, and admittedly I think that Curufin turning to Celegorm and Caranthir to Maglor first before Maedhros made sense. Obviously we know C&C have a close relationship since they are often together in canon, and I’ve rather liked the idea of Caranthir having a close bond with Maglor because it fits with the kind of personalities I feel they have and their positions in the family. I think Maglor understands Caranthir feeling overshadowed and that a lot of Caranthir’s moods are due to him feeling so much and not being able to put it into words. On the flip side, Celegorm does advise Curufin and sends warnings to his other brothers about what’s going on, but he’s also preoccupied with his concerns over Aredhel’s silence so he’s perhaps not as quick to act as he probably should have.

Curufin does eventually snap and go to Maedhros which leads to an interesting bit which implies that Curufin is deliberately avoiding Maglor. The reason for this is Maglor is so perceptive he’s going to see all those things that Curufin is trying not to think about and he doesn’t feel comfortable with that kind of vulnerability unless he initiates it. It annoys him that Maglor just kind of knows what’s going on with him without him really needing to say anything, but it really bothers him when it’s something that he’s trying not to look at too closely because it hurts too much and in this case that’s his grief over Feanor’s death. He’s also annoyed that he can’t read Maglor nearly as easily, lol. I really loved this concept of this weird little dynamic between Maglor and Curufin, it’s something I’ve kind of harkened to before in Adamant, Sapphire, and Ruby and I wanted to tug on it a little more here. Curufin is kind of like the cat you want to love and pet but he wants it to be on HIS terms.

I also held Maedhros in reserve until closer to the end because I wanted to delve a little into the dynamic they have in Beleriand with Maglor having his own issues and fears regarding losing Maedhros and wanting to protect him and lift his burdens. Obviously this isn’t so great because Maglor’s clearly got more on his plate than he can comfortably handle on his own and Maedhros has been distracted with their war so he hasn’t noticed this as quickly as he might have otherwise.

Ambarussa surprised me by being the most well behaved of the siblings during this whole story, but I rather liked that since I think people tend to turn twins into mischievous troublemakers ala Fred & George Weasley and it was nice to have something different. Even though they’re not involved in the story a great deal, I found myself growing fond of the idea of Amrod and Amras who are more carefree in a way that their other siblings aren’t because they’re the babies of the family and don’t have the same weight on them.

I also discovered that I really really like the idea of fearless slightly feral Haleth and Caranthir as a couple. Beloved grumpy/sunshine dynamic with a fun twist. Not to mention that I have so much fun writing my take on Haleth, she has this kind of wild streak through her and she’s not intimidated by ANYTHING. Yes, she’s going to find a way to punch Curufin in the face even if he’s a few feet taller than her, because of course she is. Maybe she’ll get a stool, maybe she’ll just kick him in the shins so he bends, or maybe she’ll just tackle him, either way she’ll get it done. The fact that Curufin finds her a little terrifying only makes Caranthir love her more.

This got way longer than I intended, my apologies 😅

[tobermoriansass]

For the Fanfic Writer asks: #7 and 30 please!

thank you!!!

7. Coffee or tea while you write?

At the risk of sounding weird... I don't actually like coffee or tea so I basically never drink them (and this invariably causes a lot of stir any time I tell anyone at any place lol). I love to drink water. Water is my best friend.

30. Have you noticed your style change over time?

Already answered this once here. In addition to this, I think even within my silm fic you can see the transition from stuff where I was clearly winging it and making stuff up as I went / doing it for the lulz (vivat patria and wan little husks and earlier chapters of sisyphus) to having to actually do some serious worldbuilding to maintain story integrity & a world that feels historically grounded. I think the TRSB Maedhros fic is maybe the most effort I've put into maintaining both narrative and worldbuilding consistency right from the start, intsead of just winging it as the story progresses & it shows.

[fic writer ask meme]

[queerofthedagger]

🌹

Thank you!! <3

Fëanor watches from the halls as, one after the other, his sons die; cannot help, as time passes, to think with acrid dread that perhaps, perhaps, it is almost for the best.

[southfarthing]

🌹

Morgana’s eyes echo the flames for a flash – and Merlin is frozen in place, utterly immobile, and hot fear courses through him at the prospect of being grounded here forever among the inferno, trapped under the collapsing beams without his magic to push them away – until she realises that Merlin is trying to help.

for every "🌹" received in my inbox i'll post one random sentence of a random my one long WIP i'm currently writing

[caffeineheroes]

"Do you regret it?”

“No, I don’t. I can’t, because… the making of that life mattered to me more than how it ended.” 

--Amras and Caranthir in Mending by @thescrapwitch

[whovianofmidgard]

I'd really like to know more about "Sightless, Wordless, Soundless" please!

So, do you know the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 4 ep. called Hush? It's about dark fairytale-like monsters named the Gentlemen putting a spell on the entire town so everyone becomes mute. That's the inspiration for this fic.

Similarly going for a dark fairytale vibe here. Years of the Trees, Melkor is sowing dissent among the Noldor and pays extra special attention to Fëanor, and also his sons while he's there. Sauron, impatiently waiting for Melkor's return checks in on the situation in Valinor, sees all this, and gets jealous.

So Sauron places a curse on the Sons of Fëanor, making them lose the sense of sight, hearing or speech, depending on which would hinder them the most. Maedhros and Maglor are mute, Celegorm and the Ambarussar are deaf, and Curufin and Caranthir become blind. He tries to put a curse of losing all three senses combined onto Fëanor himself but it doesn't stick, the Silmarils protect him. Chaos and panic ensue, Sauron's out for blood and to get his man back and Melkor very much wants to get his hands on the Silmarils.