#lotr oc

thinking about my elf OC today that I’ve been developing since I was six years old and now I’m taking a college level course and studying elvish language to further validate him

Okay,, does anyone else find it a little weird that I made an LOTR OC to ship with Eomer, almost at the exact same time where we find out that a Rohirrim Movie is getting released?? The stars are aligning, and it looks like a Horse, my friends

@lady-latte,@thewhiteladyofrohan,@moony-artnstuff,@beenovel,@gremlinfaemess

Chapter Nine: A Spark of Hope
Chapter Excerpt

It is not like Éowyn to be late, Théoden mused. Then, taking a deep draw from the goblet in his hand, he reconsidered. Is it? Who am I to know?

She had grown into a woman before his eyes, and yet he had no memory of the change. Not for the first time in the past weeks, he cursed Grima Wormtongue under his breath. His mind and body had been all but stolen, and now his dear niece seemed a stranger to him.

As did her brother.

The king peered at his nephew across the table. The boy—the man, Théoden corrected himself—favored his father so greatly a quick glance found them indistinguishable. But he did not speak with the ease and familiarity that Théoden had shared with Éomund, who had been his brother in heart long before marriage had reunited the branches of the House of Eorl by law. The King had dared to hope for something similar for his son and nephew—one to wisely rule the realm and the other to bravely defend it. Alas, fate was a fickle mistress.

Dark days had hardened his nephew, no longer a foolhardy youth but instead a stern commander of his éored. Upon joining the table, Éomer had greeted the king with manners befitting a Marshal of the Mark, delivered reports on the comings and goings of Rohan’s riders, and then fallen silent as he focused on filling his goblet and savoring its contents.

It had not always been like this. How had they fallen so far?

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I’m super stoked to be sharing some new content for this story!

Tagging a few people who might be particularly interested in this update: (If you want to be added or dropped from any future tagging for Rose of Gondor, please let me know!)

@fairiesanddemons24​,@justhereforalach​,@mystarlighth​,@robin-rokossovsky​,@letthestarssing​,@nostarielstuff​

and OF COURSE my fabulous beta reader @wordspin-shares​, without whom this story would be nothing!!!

Chapter Eight: Common Ground
Chapter Excerpt

Returning to the waking world was like fighting that cursed river all over again. Time and again, Rimiriel would rise to the very edge of consciousness. Time and again, the clawed grasp of heavy slumber would drag her back beneath the surface. She tumbled and twisted in the undercurrent of dark dreams filled with fire, blood and death. When she finally breached the surface of awareness and managed to stay afloat, it was with muddled senses and no small amount of confusion.

Coarse sleep-sand glued her eyelids together. Every feather from the down pillows cradling her head had been stuffed through her ears, overcrowding her skull so that she could not piece together a coherent thought. The surrounding quiet was suffocating after days of thundering hooves and steady rain.

For a moment, Rimiriel imagined she was a child again, having fallen asleep after a night of studying and been carried to bed by one of her brothers. But no, a drowsy voice in her head reminded her. She had wandered far from the libraries of Minas Tirith, and she had done so alone. She had traversed the farmlands of the Anorien, survived the icy waters of the Mering Stream, and crossed the grasslands of Rohan with none but her stallion for company. She had seen the golden roof of Meduseld with her own eyes—a feat few in Gondor could justly claim—and met the lord of the famed hall.

As she opened her eyes to the brightness of the mid-morning sun, Rimiriel remembered Théoden King’s offer of hospitality. Her foreign surroundings stood witness to the truth of his offer. A servant had led her to this room—spartan, though not in an uninviting way. High wooden beams arched overhead, so different from the stone ceilings of Gondor. A rock hearth still glowing on one side and a single window on the other were all that interrupted the walls aside from simple, solidly built furniture. She reclined in the room’s centerpiece: a large bed dressed in blankets made from pelts. Curious fingers marveled at the foreign softness of the warm layers. Aside from the mining villages high in the mountain regions, Gondorian winters were rarely cold enough for furs to be in high demand.

The servant that had brought her to the room had stoked a fire in the hearth and ordered a bath drawn. His retreat had heralded the arrival of a team carrying a wooden tub and a collection of steaming water pots. They had filled the tub quickly and then they, too, all retreated, save a pair of women near Rimiriel’s own age.

The servants did not bother introducing themselves, so the Gondorian resorted to quickly cataloguing the pair. One was taller with hooded eyes while the other was slight in both height and build, a thick spattering of freckles across her nose. What they spoke of the Common Tongue was thickly accented, but their intentions were clear. In no condition to refuse after her series of misadventures, the Gondorian allowed the women to help her disrobe. Deft fingers worked at buckles and clasps, confiscating Rimiriel’s belt and vest while she toed off her own boots. She reached for the bottom hem of her shirt and pulled it overhead, letting out a low hiss as aching muscles protested.

She had not thought about how she might look to an observer until she heard a small gasp and a foreign curse.

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Chapter Seven: The Stranger & the King
Chapter Excerpt

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Éomer remembered his father speaking those words around a blazing fire after he and his riders had returned home from one of the many skirmishes with the enemies of Rohan threatening their borders. As a boy he had never questioned the truth in his father’s words even though he had not understood their meaning. Even now as a man, with his father gone to join his ancestors in the afterlife, he had yet to find a reason to doubt the bitter wisdom of Éomund, former Lord of Aldburg and Marshal of the Mark. For while others had honorably given their lives in defense of their homeland and now enjoyed the endless peace of the afterlife, free from war and strife, Éomer was still facing the threats of Mordor’s long-reaching shadow, his still-beating heart a constant reminder that he was not yet done fighting.

Would the battles ever be finished? Would his people ever know true peace?

As Éomer allowed the heavy doors of Meduseld to close behind him, cutting off the dismissive chatter of his uncle and his fellow Marshals of the Mark as they gathered the maps and reports referenced in their discussion of the next steps in securing their borders, he did not think so. All the talk of war so soon after losing so many men to the battle at Helm’s Deep had him feeling much wearier than his twenty-seven years would suggest. He was grateful for these few stolen moments of solitude as he stood on the porch of Meduseld, even though the solitude itself was a stark reminder of how much could be lost in war, with the terrace unusually empty since Háma the doorward had been slain and Théoden King had yet to appoint a replacement.

The youngest of the Riddermark’s Marshals breathed deeply of the air, fresh with the scent of the early spring rains that had been sweeping across the land over the past few days. He looked out over the town that had mostly fallen silent, with many of the citizens journeying to the western hamlets to aid their relatives and neighbors in restoring that which had been destroyed by Saruman’s marauding armies, rebuilding devastated homes and resowing uprooted crops, and his chest puffed with pride. None could deny that the Rohirrim were a hardy people, capable of weathering any storm. It would take more than the malice of the White Wizard to bring his people to their knees!

While he surveyed the land beyond the walls of Edoras, the Marshal’s sharp eyes noticed movement on the horizon to the east of the capital: a dark figure racing down the Great Road with considerable haste. As it drew closer, the formless smudge shifted and gained definition so that he could discern the separate-but-joined shapes of a horse and rider. Perhaps a messenger was bringing news on the efforts to push the barbaric Dunlending raiders that had chosen to side with Saruman back to their borders, he hoped. Reports of success would be most welcome and would do much to quell the rising tensions between the Marshals who could not seem to agree which move should be Rohan’s next.

Deciding to undertake the duty of greeting the messenger, Éomer descended the steps of Meduseld as the horse and rider barreled through the gates of Edoras, thundering through the town and cresting the hill to approach the Golden Hall without hesitation. He quickly realized that this was something more than a routine report, faltering at the edge of the first steps leading up the summit of the hill to where Meduseld stood tall and proud over its surroundings. Dread sent ice coursing through his veins as he surveyed the travelers coming to a halt only a stride away from where he stood….

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Chapter Six: A Dangerous Road
Excerpt

It was nearly dawn when Rimiriel finally gave up on attempting to rest for even a moment more after a night of tossing fitfully about within her bedroll. The inky blue-black of morning twilight seemed evermore eerie where she camped at the eastern-most edge of the Firien Wood, the canopy of towering oaks casting shadows in thick clusters ideal for hiding enemies or predators, and so she focused on coaxing life back into the dying embers of her campfire. Every muscle remained coiled to spring as she listened for any enemies attempting to sneak up on her campsite, but it seemed her only company aside from Voronwë where he stood dozing nearby was the hooting owls and singing insects composing their nighttime melodies from within the forest’s dense shadows. The lone healer-turned-messenger knew that it was her own exhaustion that had her so on edge, but she also knew that she would be unable to rest peacefully until she had completed her mission.

After leaving Osgiliath at her brother’s command, she and her stallion had ridden hard across the plains of Anorien, pushing themselves until well past the midnight hour. They had finally stopped and made camp at the northwestern edge of the Druadan Forest, well past Cair Andros and any potential threats coming from that region. Just as she had promised her brother. Still, Rimiriel had felt as though she was being watched from the moment they had entered the ancient wood, her skin crawling under the weight of unseen stares even once they had exited the forest and made camp in its shadow. Weary from the long day in the saddle, she had lain down to find what rest she could, hoping that sleep would come quickly. Instead, her tired mind instantly recalled the old legends of the wildmen who called the Druadan home, conjuring sinister images of troll-like creatures waiting in the shadows to drag her away from the warm safety of her brightly crackling campfire the moment her guard fell.

She had hardly slept a moment that first night, but still faithfully rose to greet the day when the sun began to rise and burn away the darkness of night, replacing it with bright hues of red and orange. She and Voronwë set off at a brisk pace, the weathered grey stones of the Great Road cutting a path through the farms and fields of the Sun-land. The morning’s red sky had been offering a warning of things to come, however, with Rimiriel noticing dark storm clouds gathering overhead as the day progressed. The foreboding clouds chased horse and rider across the grasslands until their luck finally ran out.

The downpour began near midday and grew steadily worse over the course of the next two hours. Both messenger and steed were drenched and chilled to the bone by the time Rimiriel managed to find them shelter in an abandoned farm’s old barn. The crumbling building provided refuge from the worst of the gale, but little else as it proved to be both leaky and drafty. After seeing her horse dried off and made as comfortable as possible in one stall of the barn, the healer stripped out of her wet clothes and hung them to dry before bundling herself in her own blanket and bedding down in a pile of old hay, electing to use this obstacle to her advantage and get some rest.

She was primarily unsuccessful.

She knew there had once been a time in her childhood when she had slept soundly to the cadence of raindrops on the stone roofs of Dol Amroth or the Citadel, taking comfort in the new beginnings the spring rains promised after a long winter. That time was gone, however, with a young Rimiriel learning a hard lesson in the uncertainty and danger a storm brought with it, reshaping a childish love into a blatant dread of the darkening skies and strong winds that heralded the arrival of a squall.

She dozed restlessly until she heard the storm begin to die down, and then it was time to move once again. Fear of how much time had been lost due to the storm made her movements hasty as she dressed herself and saddled her horse, and she allowed herself only a quick meal before setting out once more.

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And Melkor made also a fortress and armoury not far from the north-western shores of the sea, to resist any assault that might come from Aman. That stronghold was commanded by Sauron, lieutenant of Melkor; and it was named Angband.

— The Silmarillion

Artwork by toherrys

In seven hours the glory of each tree waxed to full and waned again to naught; and each awoke once more to life an hour before the other ceased to shine. Thus in Valinor twice every day there came a gentle hour of softer light.

— The Silmarillion

Artwork by HelenKei

AU: Mentelossë gone bad

Can’t go too long without drawing Mentelossë, it’s bad for my health

Morianar during the First Age, blissfully unaware of the war against Satan going down in Belariand

Morianar sketch that was too good not to post

its been a while since ive posted. check this guy out at toyhou.se/turochamp!

Some lighting practice doodles with my OC Melimië! I’d love to do more with her