Valdar and Astralis

It was a strange sky that Odin awoke to. Irradicent pillars of gas dominated the starscape, illuminated from within by a million stars. An Interstellar birthchamber, seven light-years across, from this distance dwarfing any size or dimension envisionable by. . .man.

 

"The pride of men".

 

Memory returned with a quote from his faviroute movie, and a stinging sense of loss. Horus was gone, as was Thanatos, remembering the electromagnetic blast that had knocked out a third of his sensors. Of the twenty one who had set out, how many remained? He only knew that of his own flight of four, Odin was the only probe to arrive at it's destination. Amateras was forced to land on a 23% world. . .how many years ago?

 

1743 was the computed awnser. The log showed no attempted communication from any other probe on the ER-band either.

 

The once-astronaut named Tom Steiner allowed himself a moment of silence, and rotated his external camera to behold his 52.31% world. Red, green and white, with the promise of ice. 72% Nitrogen, 18% Oxygen would do for now. Higher than expected radiation, but with one hell of a view. The probe basked for a moment under the sky that his children's birthright, before vectoring it's conventional thrusters for an entry orbit.

 

 

Burning through the atmosphere like a meteor, Odin noted it's own vapor trail. So far so good. Surface tempreture +14 C, so far so good. Atmospheric pressure was within 40% of earth's own, validating over 70% of his SOUP Database.

 

The probe passed over several arid reigons, and Odin fired it's thrusters again, and released it's atmospheric flight wings, jettisoning spent heat shields in the process. Out of maneuvering fuel, the probe glided towards a nearby patch of vegetation and scanned for any heat signatures. Satisfied, Odin deployed it's shock absorbers, and prepared for touchdown.

 

In life, Tom's career as an Astronaut had been cut short after a stray motar round had left him without wife, children and sight. Forswearing the ever increasing voilence in the world, the quiet, always polite man had taken up practical carpentary before being recruited by the later named, Iehova.

 

Iehova. He had always admired her, strong, intelligant and always positive.

 

 

Such as, he christened this world.

Heh,

 

"The Great Automatic Grammatizator" by Ronald Dahl jumps to mind, for some reason though it's not exactly the same.

*blink*blink*gasp*whew*

 

That's a _very_ big mouthful to get around.

 

It's a very fine vignette, to be sure, especially towards the last bit. Only suggestion for next time, though: Use a few more sentances. The whole thing's over in 2 sentances, 3 if you count Break. It's handy for dramatic writing, but pull it too long, and you, or your audience may lose concentration.

 

I'm guilty of this as well, my sentances tend to ramble on with commas and 'and's-Every now and again, I'll need to stop and force myself to end a sentance.

 

 

Otherwise, evocative piece

 

 

ps: Oh, would you mind please clarifying your use of "poignantly" please? You use it to define clarity? obviousness?

Ripped from guild website. . . (>PG-13)

 

 

Marriage (Part I)

 

Typical macho man married typical good-looking lady

and after the wedding, he laid down the following

rules:

"I'll be home when I want, if I want and at what time

I want-and I don't expect any hassle from you. I

expect a great dinner to be on the table unless I tell

you that I won't be home for dinner. I'll go hunting,

fishing, boozing and card-playing when I want with my

old buddies and don't you give me a hard time about

it. Those are my rules. Any comments?"

 

His new bride said, "No, that's fine with me. Just

understand that there will be sex here at seven

o'clock every night... whether you're here or not."

 

 

 

Marriage (Part II)

 

Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of

their 40th wedding anniversary!

 

The husband yells, "When you die, I'm getting you a

headstone that reads,

'Here Lies My Wife - Cold As Ever.'

 

"Yeah?" she replies. "When you die, I'm getting you a

headstone that reads,

"Here Lies My Husband Stiff At Last.'"

 

 

Marriage (Part III)

 

Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at

the breakfast table. Husband gets up in a rage and

says, "And you are no good in bed either," and storms

out of the house.

 

After sometime he realizes he was nasty and decides to

make amends and rings her up. She comes to the phone

after many rings, and the irritated husband says,

"what took you so long to answer the phone?"

 

She says, "I was in bed."

 

"In bed this early, doing what?"

 

"Getting a second opinion!"

 

 

Marriage (Part IV)

 

A man has six children and is very proud of his

achievement. He is so proud of himself, that he starts

calling his wife," Mother of Six" in spite of her

objections.

 

One night, they go to a party. The man decides that

it's time to go home and wants to find out if his wife

is ready to leave as well. He shouts at the top of his

voice, "Shall we go home 'Mother of six?"

 

His wife, irritated by her husband's lack of

discretion shouts right back, "Anytime you're ready,

Father of Four."

 

 

God may have created man before woman but there is

always a rough draft before the masterpiece

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------

Clear As A Bell

 

Two sisters, one blonde and one brunette, inherit the family ranch. Unfortunately, after just a few years, they are in deep financial trouble. In order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they need to

purchase a bull so that they can breed their! own stock. They decide that the brunette sister should go to the stockyards over in the next county to check out the available stock.

 

Upon leaving, the brunette tells her blonde sister, "When I get there, if I do decide to buy a bull, I'll call you to drive over after me and haul it home."

 

The brunette arrives at the stockyards, inspects several bulls, and finally decides on a fine specimin.

The man tells her that he will sell the bull she has chosen for $599, no less.

 

After paying him, she drives to the nearest town to send her sister a telegram to tell her the news. She walks into the telegraph office, and says, "I want to send a telegram to my sister telling her that I've bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive over here with the trailer so we can haul it home." The telegraph operator explains that he'll be glad to help her, then politely adds, "It will only cost 99 cents per word." The brunette is shocked. After having paid for the bull, she only has $ 1 left. She quickly realizes that she'll only be able to send her sister one word.

 

After a few minutes of thinking, she nods and says, "I want you to send her just the word "comfortable."

 

The operator shakes his head. "How is she ever going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive all the way over here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word

"comfortable?"

 

The brunette explains, "My sister's a blonde. The word "comfortable" is rather long. She'll read it very slowly.....com-for-da-bul."

We have no gnomes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rather, we have several gnomies.

 

And one of them is Minta.

 

 

 

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Astralis kazooms around on his mechadragon setting off forest fires, making large parts of the pen keep vanish and wandering out of the gaping holes only slightly dishevled after going "wowowowowowYAYBOOM!".

 

 

And he's the tame one.

That's a lot of Samurai sheep \X_x/

The door immedetly opened, and death swept into the toilet majesticly. Or would have, if he hadn't been in the direct path of the Nimball going in the opposite direction at waist height.

 

"OHH" (Thump, Bang, Crash, went the coffins, spilling their grisly contents into the night)

 

Floored, Death swung it's scythe wildly at the escaping Nimball, narrowly missing Gwaihir's very white face.

 

The spectre got up slowly, and turned to the swarm of Magi after the ball, then back to Gwaihr.

 

"MY APOLAGIES, YOU WOULDN'T HAPPEN TO HAVE SEEN A LIZARD AROUND HERE, WOULD YOU?"

 

A squeak and twitched finger was all the awnser he needed.

 

"WHY AM I NOT SUPRISED?"

 

Death turned, and stalked back towards the crowd, which was cheerfully demolishing a small town hot on the heels of. . .

ANd the Wizard onna Lizard shalt return!

 

That line definatley got me, lol

I'm sort of two minded on this issue. On one hand, it's irritating when you get 'I like it! it's great!' feedback when what you really wanted was proper, sit down feedback.

On the other hand, it _does_ get painful if your work that you stuck months into dosn't get _any_ feedback. Not even a cricket. It's even more discouraging than getting "I like it" feedback for some people.

Now mind you, I dont think there's _anything_ wrong with either of the schools of thought. But as it stands, there is little, if any way to tell who wants what kind of feedback.

 

To that end, I reccomend that we activate Skynet and give control of our nuclear weapons to. . .er. I mean, we activate the Feedback and Commentarynet and give it control of our feedback levels.

Just exersising the rights of one who is a day ahead of you Americans!

Happy 29'th, Salinye!

1) posting activity. Not just posting your own works, but posting on others.

Reading back on that, I'm suprised I made it this far, given how little I feedback.

Looks good! Even post fast reply works now, for some reason.

OOohhh. Can I write the grisly endings? can I can I can I???!

What he started with fire I responded with filth, strands of burning spirits contending with decaying scarabs in perfect balance. The lines of battle were drawn, and the world grew dim, unnecesary champions faded out of the time anomaly. Beyond the barrier, space and time ground to a screeching halt as our contesting wills strove to dominate the frozen moment. This is where we were most vunerable. Any shift in the time field would give the opponent a relative eternity to strike a killing blow.

 

The balance was set, for now, and I allowed him the first move. He chose defense, and I obliged by pressing the attack, blasting a ragged hole through the outer defenses with a comet of shadow and ice. A gaggle of spectres followed to fill the breach, their life-sucking attacks largeley wasted.

 

Seeing the futility, my opponent released his hold on the ravaged shield before the last shards of shadow had burned away, filling the air with supersonic razor sharp fragments. These, he counterattacked with, severly testing my outermost defenses even after I exploded half with direct fire. Again, he struck, this time with icy lances and heavy core shards. An elementalist? I filed that bit of information away for later, and let go of reality a moment before the direct assult crumpled my defenses.

 

Dodging a few weak psionic blasts, my suspicions were confirmed. New layers of his defense became clear to me, incomplete as it was frail. A deluge of crushing earth rocked the physical realm, hoping to catch me as I materielized. Instead, I discarded worldy magic and launched my next attack from the void, the first wave of planar lightning bareley missing but demolishing most of his Astral defenses.

 

At this point, my opponent made a serious error in Judgement, perhaps a product of an incomplete education. While the attacks from the void were dangerous, and no doubt deadly, he chose to follow me into the great darkness trying to finish me off instead of remaining in his element.

 

Well, he was in MY world now. The next attack of frozen shards withered in a blast of elemental fire, and countered with Starfire. Chaotic shards from unlawful planes cleaned up what fire did not, scourging flesh from bone as he tried to flee back to reality.

 

***

 

When it was over, I looked down at the tormented skeleton in a lake of blood, and saluted my opponent mentally. Even to the last, his grip on the timeflow had remained rock solid.

 

"I'm sorry I had to do this, but this land and people are under my protection. Sorcerer King or no."

 

Releasing the timeflow, I turned to the waiting army.

 

"Who's next?"

You're right--the ending was intentionally left open to the reader's imagination. Besides, who's to say if Elrond _liked_ it or not?

 

 

I mean, several thousand years later, he DID join AoA

Stop. . .playing. . .EQ.

 

Well, I can wish, can't I?

There, done!

Somewhere, a whip cracks

 

Merry Christmas, Peredhil. Sorry it took so long, but I had to pull my act together at the end and finish up. I hope you like it!

 

You may have noticed I took several creative liberties with this work. Just thought I'd clarify a few things.

• I wanted this to be a happy story. -- There should be more to this tale, much much more. But I cannot bring myself to write it, preferring to leave the ending (perhaps a bit cheekily) open
• Peredhil never hated man -- Just a minor creative liberty!
• Celebrian did not officialy grow wings, nor live with Elwing -- AoA influenced, sorry!

Finnaly, thanks for the semi-secret reviewers, assists and feedback, esp:

Merelas

Zadown

Falcon2k1

Salinye

SteelDragon

Peredhil for allowing me to write about him

 

And assorted others in #thepen

Finnaly, Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion are copyrights of JRR Tolkien, and this fanfiction (I think) is based pureley on my and Peredhil's own ideas and is not sanctioned in any way by Mr. Tolkien.

 

*Insert male screaming and more whipcracks here*

In the twilight of autumn it sailed out of Mitholond, until the seas of the Bent World fell away beneath it, and the winds of the round sky troubled it no more, and borne upon the high airs above the mists of the world it passed into the Ancient West, and an end was come for the Eldar of story and song.

 

-The Silmarillion

 

 

Yet the heart of Master Elrond Peredhil did not lighten nor smile touch his face as the white ship passed through the veil. To the aft instead he stood, eyes fixed in the grey mists of the east where the one treasure he held most dear was lost to him for all time.

 

Hidden in the fog of Middle-Earth and bound by bonds stronger than steel, Arwen Undòmiel, Evenstar of his people yet lingered. Bitter was the final hour of reckoning, and heated the words. A tear stained his cheek at the memory of their farewell, when she entwined her fate fully with that of King Elessar on Midsummer's day.

 

It was the seventh day, and his sons worried.

 

On the eleventh day, as the ship rode swiftly under the growing darkness there rose a great thunder in the west. Louder, it grew by the day until on the fifteenth, the sight of the great abyss rose to greet the company of Ringbearers. Clouds of smoke and mist from depths unfathomable rose, and a howling wind issued from within carrying fell voices from the caves of the forgotten where those who dared to challenge the Valar lay trapped until world's end.

 

'What is that, Gandalf? asked the smallest amongst the ringbearers said in fear and wonder.

'In ages past, the east and west were one world. Before I came to middle-earth, one could stand on the peak of mount Meneltarma in the east and behold the shores of Avallòne from afar.'

He sighed. 'And then the Valar sundered the world and removed Aman from the confines of Middle-Earth. Only the elves now know the way now.'

'What happened?' asked the ringbearer.

 

'The pride of men.' The bitter answer came. It was not Gandalf who spoke. Elrohir heard this and spoke it to Elladan, sensing a darkness falling on their father's mind, but to him they spoke not. The white Swan-Ship came at last to the ends of middle-earth, and was borne by the winds of Manawe beyond, and into the gray twilight.

 

Sometime during the timeless fog, the sons of Elrond spoke their concern to Galadriel to which she replied, 'Your father is a kind man, he has no place in his heart for the hate to fester inside. He is confused by his love of the two kindred, and his perceived betrayal of Aragon, whom he regarded as a son, for allowing your sister to choose mortality. I fear for him as well, for wounds like these are slow to heal--if ever. But do not despair! We come now to new lands, and perhaps with it new counsel. Let us see what the dawn brings.'

 

Elrohir and Elladan took scant comfort in these words, but tended to their father's needs as best they could.

 

The silver veil parted, and the sun returned with renewed intensity. It was the twenty sixth day since the parting, according to Cirdan the Shipwright, and the chill winds from the east gave way at last, even as the last tendrils of fog vanished from the sea to be replaced by a warm breeze from the west carrying scents of wild flowers and distant song.

 

Frodo Baggins, until recently bearer of the one ring and generally acclaimed savior of Middle Earth was busy stuffing down his second breakfast of the day when the ship gave an almighty lurch and began to rise from the water. Startled, he headed for the deck, where he found the ocean had risen up into a gigantic wave, with the ship at its crest. Overhead, the star of Earandil lingered no longer to the west, but instead blazed in the midmorning sky like a small sun with Gwahir and his kin by its side.

 

"Ulmo! Ulmo comes!" the crew cried in surprise, reefing in the sails. To the stern, he spied Elrond, face bathed in the light of his father's star. A look of wonder crossed his face, and his eyes lost some of it's darkness as the first smile since summer dawned slowly.

 

And so it was, on shoulders of the Valar and flanked by birds and stars of the sky that the company of ringbearers passed victorious into Avallonë.

 

***

 

The company's first sight of Port Avallonë, home of the once exiled Noldor, was a fair one. A town of slender towers and gardens surrounded a single stone pier, lined with hundreds of elves, and the city filled with a festive air. Standing impressively at the head of the column, unmistakably was Manawe himself, the Valar's impressive wings unfurled in welcome. The fire of Vinglot flared proudly overhead, and sped on ahead to settle over the city.

 

As the ship pulled alongside, other figures became apparent. Standing to his right was Earandil, with the light of the trees bound to his brow and Elwing beside him, her body framed by white wings. But it was not his parents who drew Elrond's eye. Standing next to them in raiment of jet black and wings of the same hue was Celebrian, whose eyes were not on her mother either. Out of the corner of his eye, the half elf saw Galadriel frown thoughtfully.

 

Then the Valar spoke, and bowed deeply as the ship moored. "Hail, Ringbearers, and welcome. Long have we awaited your return. Know that our thoughts were with you though our hand often was not."

 

Disembarking was a leisurely affair, with each member of the company speaking briefly with Manawe before ascending the stone pier to meet their kin or company. Before he could reach the Valar, however, a flutter of wings and a firm grip spun Elrond around into an alarmingly passionate kiss from his wife.

 

"The ceremony will take a few days, and Manawe will have many questions for the ringbearer and wizard. Your turn can wait till tomorrow" she crooned. He could not but nod in mute agreement, and they were gone in a whisper of soft wings.

 

Across Tol Eressea Celebrian bore her husband, to the white tower where she lived with Elwing who had adopted her, and given the gift of wings. Lost deep in her embrace, Elrond noticed naught of the journey nor their arrival. The ominous 'clang' of the door shutting went unnoticed as they tore at each other's clothes. Naked at last, Celebrian dragged her husband down into the dark basement, guiding his warm hands.

 

'click'

 

The cold clasp of steel around his wrists jerked the breathless half elf from his passion.

 

'Celebrian?'

 

A grin was the only answer as his wife pulled a thong from a nearby rack.

Got my scanner working again, just HAD to share this

 

 

Page 1

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This mess eventually became part of The End: A story of Terra

Valdar sticks an ear in tentativeley at the sound of 'ear', scrawls a 'congratulations' on the wall, and withdraws again. . .

That bad? mmm, alright, lets try this. . .

 

*Tweaks the Feedback mecha sensitivity gauge. . .*

 

Feedback level 4 please \-_-/

The bleeding midday sky,

Sun is beating down on me,

Want to lash out at a fly,

But my hands are occupied.

 

The world is shaded pink,

So I see behind my glass,

Move slowly as we speak,

Faint hearts are slow to beat.

 

Watch some telly for a change,

Words falling on deaf ears,

Getting thirsty for a beer,

But it's too hot to get up.

 

The twilight slowly fades,

Yet the summer carries on,

Evening air still sears,

For night brings no respite.

 

God it's hot. . .

 

 

-Inspired by New Order: Slow Jam.

Love that song

Send some wind this way, please windstorm people \>_</

 

It's set to a sweltering 36 degrees today, and no wind makes the air mucky. And FLIES, damm them. The garden's dying, and more importantly, the computer overheats every hour or so.

 

 

I hate summer. . .