[LotR crossover] Of Ents and Orcs (PG)

[firerose]

A triple LotR crossover drabble.

He walked in the woods and talked with his friends of the way the wind moved their needles, of the mist that clung to the mountains, of the owls that hunted the mice who lived amidst their roots. He dipped his toes in the lake among the crabapples and mays and thought his long slow thoughts through their quick chatter. And when he tired of them, he planted himself on the rock overlooking the waterfall for a season and watched the meltwater from the two peaks turn white. Swift-water-white-water-falling-falling he calls it, and a great many names besides. It was his favourite place. He had not been there for a decade or three. Five, at the most.

The roar and crackle of a forest fire was his cry when he crested the pass, the crash of a thousand trees felled by a single stroke! Smoke rose from the sawmill in the valley and curled around his branches. Foul orc stuff choked the mossy clearing where drifts of anemones once marked the passing of winter. And atop the waterfall, what was left of it – the very water had been stolen! – squatted a great building fashioned from the limbs of his friends.

The wrath of his kind is slow to build but slow, too, to quench. He sang all the many names of his lost friends before he listened to the news brought by the wind in his branches, news of an orc-child straying in the forest. It never finds its way home, and it’s just the first. Some feed the saplings, others leave only their wits behind them. Soon the two legs speak of a curse, of an ancient evil awakened in the woods. Ancient he is, yes, but he tastes the sawmill soot on his bark and calls it justice.

The Lord of the Rings/Twin Peaks crossover. For those unfamiliar with the latter, before & after shots of the falls
11 February 2014

Comments

[luzula]

I don't know Twin Peaks, but if you hadn't said so I would've just read it as LotR, so I didn't mind. Yum, this is some lovely writing.

[espresso_addict]

Thanks for commenting; I'm glad it works just as a LotR piece! I don't think you need to know any Twin Peaks canon -- but if you've never encountered it, you've a treat awaiting. It's my favourite American television series by a long way.

[kalypso]

Ooh! Suddenly, the Log Lady's log takes on new significance!

[espresso_addict]

Nice icon! The two canons seemed to be begging for a crossover.

[kalypso]

It's not strictly relevant to this story, but I'm fond of it as an icon and it doesn't get many outings!

I'm intrigued by where you hoped it might be going. Is there any chance of a follow-up?

One Twin Peaks crossover I have always longed to read is the one at the top of this page. I fear it cannot live up to the title, but the concept inspires me.

[espresso_addict]

The first draft branched at the end of the 2nd paragraph (following 'fashioned from the limbs of his friends') but I couldn't work out what happened next. I didn't want to my ent to end up as the log, which seemed to be the way it was heading.

His cry was a shaft of sunshine slicing through the forest canopy: it pierced the barrier between worlds. As he howled his mourning on the winds, the crack grew wider, wider, till things could slither through it into the woods, things that had not been part of the song and to which Eru had given no name. And names they took from the two-legged orcs that had despoiled the place, short sharp names for their sly spiteful natures.

It was long before he noticed. He had sung all the many names of his lost friends when the wind in his branches carried whispers, whispers that the owls no longer hunted mice alone.

Albert/Soolin is a fascinating notion; if they could be made to meet they might have a lot in common. TP fandom always seems to assume Albert's gay; I don't think I've seen a single female partner for him before.

[kalypso]

I like that too: the cry creating a rift - one chants out between two worlds? - and the picking up of the mention of the owls. The unnamed things slithering through are probably a better match for what we see in Twin Peaks, but the idea that the Ent himself becomes the "ancient evil", rather than being an unwitting conduit for it, is aesthetically satisfying in a standalone piece.

I don't think that was what Albert meant by "I love you, Sheriff Truman", but I can see that he's easy to read as gay. I love him, whatever he is.

[espresso_addict]

Truman's early explanation to Cooper reads to me like Tolkien; I find it quite hard to wrap the inhabiting spirits into that universe, which is probably why the earlier version failed.

I'd love to see someone write Albert as asexual; Albert/Sherlock, with them both ace, perhaps?

[kalypso]

I have written a story in which someone says to John "Oh my god! You're living with Albert." But it didn't address their sex lives, or lack of.

[espresso_addict]

Link? They are probably too similar to be functional partners, but I'd love to read the bickering resulting from attempted cohabitation. (And I do often wonder why nearly all asexual stories deal with the asexual person having sex.)

[kalypso]

Blink and you'll miss the bus. It was a birthday story for legionseagle so full of in-jokes which may not make a lot of sense.

Talking of asexuality and of legionseagle, do you know Breakfast at 221b, written about the same time?

[espresso_addict]

Oh, now I remember that one -- it's got strong voices but you lost me on most of the in jokes, I'm afraid. And indeed, 'Breakfast at 221b' is the honourable exception; it's one of the handful of Sherlock stories I recommended in the brief window before my growing dislike of canon put me off reading them.

[kathyh]

Lovely writing and fascinating crossover.

[espresso_addict]

Thank you! The two canons seemed to be begging for a crossover, though I'm sure there's much more to explore.