Post by breguilas on Dec 18, 2009 10:25:10 GMT -5
((Just a little something floating in my head since yesterday. It isn't especially long, but brevity is the soul of wit. Read, enjoy, and feel free to comment ))
Breguilas took little comfort in the screech of the goblin at her feet as it slid smoothly off the end of her weapon, impacting the ground with a dull thud and raising a puff of dusty Misty Mountains snow, the dark ichor which passed for vital fluids steaming as it ran into the frozen soil. Normally, such things would give her at least a hint of joy, for every soldier of the Enemy that fell was one step closer to resolution, and more importantly, absolution. Yet today, she felt none.
Carefully, she flicked her wrist, and sent a spray of goblin blood across the snow from the tip of her blades, before lifting the slender Third Age blade that was the cause of her consternation to eye level, and let them go over its length once again.
It was a fine weapon, made in the style typical of Men of the Westernesse: functional, with a beauty that laid in the simplicity of its design, bearing a single rune enscribed amethyst in a setting of burnished copper at the crossguard. It was truly a treasure, one any lesser Champion would have fawned over with the care such a blade truly deserved, and rightfully so.
Breguilas was unhappy. Keen elvish eyes, long trained in forges gone cold before even the dawn of the Second Age, could see the faintest imperfections, though her own skills had grown dulled in the intervening years. This would have been a suitable work for an apprentice in those days, such was the skill of the craftsmen of long dead Gondolin, and it was this that put her heart and mind ill at ease.
This weapon had given her hope.
It would, she realized with no small sense of irony, seem like a joke to others. That hope, perhaps the strongest of armors against the foes she knew she would one day face down, could chafe her so; this was perhaps the greatest of her own weaknesses, or perhaps the great Enemy's greatest work.
Carefully, she sheathed the sword, and checked the Goblin for useful bits, taking from it a handful of coins that were added to her own collection, and made double time to the landing where Nogmeldir awaited her report, mulling over possibilities in her mind.
Were her ancient blades, long lost in Gondolin's final days, still whole? Had they, much like this one, become weak and dormant, their power hidden from the eyes of all but the wisest? Had she, in her folly, not recognized them, and let them slip through her grasp? So many unanswerable questions, even for the eldest and wisest of Elves, and Breguilas was far from either, though at least in age she was close.
The winds of the Misty Mountains seemed to howl in reply, carrying the calls of Wargs and the crude speech of Goblins to her ears, as if taunting her. It blew from the East, a thing which made Breguilas all but certain the Enemy himself felt the need to taunt her in her self doubt. And so, Breguilas did the one thing she could think of, in the face of such a taunt: She sang, her voice rising clear and pure above the wind, recounting an ancient song of Forge-Craft long thought lost to the mists of time, when the last of the Bar-en-Damba were believed slain.
Hammer is falling
Steel is ringing
Forge is filled with sounds of singing
Blade and pommel
Head and haft
This is how we share our craft
Tools of war
Tools of home
Tools for tilling earthen loam
Embers glow
Bellows roar
Bring me ores to turn out more
Song is sung
Forge is cold
Work is cast in steel and gold
Arm now weary
Head now clear
Hammer drives out all my fear
Breguilas took little comfort in the screech of the goblin at her feet as it slid smoothly off the end of her weapon, impacting the ground with a dull thud and raising a puff of dusty Misty Mountains snow, the dark ichor which passed for vital fluids steaming as it ran into the frozen soil. Normally, such things would give her at least a hint of joy, for every soldier of the Enemy that fell was one step closer to resolution, and more importantly, absolution. Yet today, she felt none.
Carefully, she flicked her wrist, and sent a spray of goblin blood across the snow from the tip of her blades, before lifting the slender Third Age blade that was the cause of her consternation to eye level, and let them go over its length once again.
It was a fine weapon, made in the style typical of Men of the Westernesse: functional, with a beauty that laid in the simplicity of its design, bearing a single rune enscribed amethyst in a setting of burnished copper at the crossguard. It was truly a treasure, one any lesser Champion would have fawned over with the care such a blade truly deserved, and rightfully so.
Breguilas was unhappy. Keen elvish eyes, long trained in forges gone cold before even the dawn of the Second Age, could see the faintest imperfections, though her own skills had grown dulled in the intervening years. This would have been a suitable work for an apprentice in those days, such was the skill of the craftsmen of long dead Gondolin, and it was this that put her heart and mind ill at ease.
This weapon had given her hope.
It would, she realized with no small sense of irony, seem like a joke to others. That hope, perhaps the strongest of armors against the foes she knew she would one day face down, could chafe her so; this was perhaps the greatest of her own weaknesses, or perhaps the great Enemy's greatest work.
Carefully, she sheathed the sword, and checked the Goblin for useful bits, taking from it a handful of coins that were added to her own collection, and made double time to the landing where Nogmeldir awaited her report, mulling over possibilities in her mind.
Were her ancient blades, long lost in Gondolin's final days, still whole? Had they, much like this one, become weak and dormant, their power hidden from the eyes of all but the wisest? Had she, in her folly, not recognized them, and let them slip through her grasp? So many unanswerable questions, even for the eldest and wisest of Elves, and Breguilas was far from either, though at least in age she was close.
The winds of the Misty Mountains seemed to howl in reply, carrying the calls of Wargs and the crude speech of Goblins to her ears, as if taunting her. It blew from the East, a thing which made Breguilas all but certain the Enemy himself felt the need to taunt her in her self doubt. And so, Breguilas did the one thing she could think of, in the face of such a taunt: She sang, her voice rising clear and pure above the wind, recounting an ancient song of Forge-Craft long thought lost to the mists of time, when the last of the Bar-en-Damba were believed slain.
Hammer is falling
Steel is ringing
Forge is filled with sounds of singing
Blade and pommel
Head and haft
This is how we share our craft
Tools of war
Tools of home
Tools for tilling earthen loam
Embers glow
Bellows roar
Bring me ores to turn out more
Song is sung
Forge is cold
Work is cast in steel and gold
Arm now weary
Head now clear
Hammer drives out all my fear