madmanwithahorn

[madmanwithahorn]

‘The Men of Gondor are valiant, and they will never submit; but they may be beaten down. Valour needs first strength, and then a weapon. Let the Ring be your weapon, if it has such power as you say. Take it and go forth to victory!’

Rana Daggubati as Boromir of Gondor

[madmanwithahorn]

Oia’s, Santorini, Greece

[madmanwithahorn]

Fucking THANK YOU my friend! That - along with all the Haha Denethor is So Evil and Crazy (Because Mental Illness Makes you Evil) - frustrates me to no end.

So, coincidentally, do most iterations of the "one does not simply walk into Mordor" meme. Hahaha, Boromir has PTSD from the millennia-long war of attrition his people have been fighting against Mordor's people. Haha, how funny.

random things which always annoy me: when people make jokes about faramir’s name because a possible translation is “sufficient jewel” and they’re like hahaha denethor sucks he named his son “enh he’s ok i guess” but ok consider!! the fact that denethor’s wife was ailing and weak and likely would not have survived a third pregnancy and he named faramir thusly because he loved his wife so much that he was telling her this is enough this is sufficient i have two sons now please don’t die i have everything i need as long as i have you too please live. and then she dies anyway haha i hate everything

[madmanwithahorn]

She grinned easily in response to the other's laughter, allowing the rigid lines of back and shoulders to ease as she peered at Beruthiel's search in the black bag - ah, a notebook!

"Book of idioms, huh? That's a good idea - hell, I could probably use one." She rubbed the side of her face sheepishly, stealing a glance at Beruthiel's handwriting. "Even the ones I grew up with get turned around, since half don't make sense to begin with."

Pleased that she'd been correct, but touched by the other woman's wistfulness, she rested her hand on Beruthiel's arm for a heartbeat. "And speaking of which... that's the truth behind the idiom. I wonder what she'll try not to dwell on, when she's our age - and I hope she likes who she is by then, too. Hello!"

The last was directed to the cat, as she flowed onto the table to make Romi's acquaintance. Entirely diverted from idioms, philosophy, and flirtation alike, she laughed delightedly, spreading her hands for investigation by pink nose and tickling whiskers, and gently gathered the creature in as Tiriel settled on her lap. Her fingers quickly found the sweet spots behind ear and under chin; when the cat's eyes met hers, she blinked, slowly, in a feline kiss, then looked up into Beruthiel's watchful gaze.

"I like her!" She beamed a goofy beam, half drunk on velvety purring approval. "If she's not careful, she's gonna give me a swelled head."

A spread palm, briefly lifted from Tiriel, caught the deflected subject - a relief, not to have to delve into that unpleasantness. Not that she would mind a good rant; but another time, another place, where bitterness would not taint something strangely like peace. Head bowed to let Tiriel investigate her face, she slanted a thoughtful look at Béruthiel through her lashes. Yes, that might explain the something-else in her accent...

"Is that...home? Or at least in part?" Why else spend the summer somewhere so hot?

The swish of kitchen doors heralded the server's reappearance, with Romi's lunch. She leaned back to give the tattooed woman space, and murmured a thank-you to her, and a "not for you! I'll *share*," to the cat on her lap, whom she nonetheless allowed a thorough sniff of rosemary chicken, roast veg and rice.

Turning back to Béruthiel, she offered, shyly, "Would you like some? I hadn't thought I'd have company."

madmanwithahorn:

The sound of her name in the other’s mouth gave her a delicious frisson which she suppressed as well as…whatever had started to express itself, in the touch of flesh to flesh. Not for nothing, and not for no reason, had she lived abroad as long as in the country she was born to - her hand curled around Beruthiel’s without hesitation for an awkward attempt to shake, and as she squeezed the hand gently she met its owner’s eyes with an expression that sublimated from the smile of stranger for new aquaintance to the warmth of affection.

Perhaps it was for that, or for the shiver of delight that Beruthiel’s voice returned to a name whose thrill had broken in since Romi chose it for herself, or the simple reassurance that Béruthiel no more perfected Romi’s name than Romi had hers, that bypassed any thought of correction. She just laughed low and soft, shaking a few springy black curls out of her eyes and feeling the blush make a halfhearted comeback.

“That’s where the idiom comes from, as far as I can tell - shove your foot up your mouth and,” she snickered, “roll ass over teakettle into the sunset. Metaphorically, at least. It just means saying something inappropriate.”

Her hand felt cool in the pattern of slender fingers as Beruthiel’s hand slipped away, and her fingers, having been curled around the woman’s hand, curled a little around her absence. Romi too watched the pretty, tattooed waitress - too young for her, but she could appreciate her - and looked away just in time to see Béruthiel watching. Her pulse quickened.

Interesting…

“Youth - wasted on the young, but appreciated by the middle-aged, maybe?” she voiced for Béruthiel’s ears alone, and with every bit of wistful wryness that had tightened the maybe-French woman’s eyes and curved her mouth. She didn’t think Béruthiel would have appreciated meaningless flattery any more than she herself.

“This holiday is…kind of fraught, for military folks.” She twisted her mouth in a scowl of something invisible amongst the bottles, not looking at the red white and blue. “I try to avoid it.”

Well, and that was a conversation killer, wasn’t it? She drew a deep breath and tore her attention away from ugliness to her far more welcome companion. “Is this your first summer in the US?”

“Ass…over teakettle?” Béruthiel repeated, shaking her head. “It is a most colorful idiom, but I think I do comprehend your meaning. And here I had believed myself quite fluent in English!” 

She laughed a little, sipping at her drink. The idiom, the metaphor, the regionalisms… they were always the last level of learning a new tongue. She had fought hard to learn as well as she had, to reduce her accent to the mildest flavoring; but still there was more to learn. Far from daunting her, the prospect was exciting. Digging into the leather bag slung over the back of the high bar chair, she pulled forth a little notebook and a pen and jotted both “ass over teakettle” and “foot in mouth” upon a page. For reference, later on.

Tucking both away again, she turned to Romi and laughed, making a small but eloquent gesture of acceptance with one hand. She liked that the other woman did not flatter; neither of them were quite so young as perhaps they had once been, and there was no shame in it. “Too young,” she said, still wistful. “But when I myself was that age… well, there is no need to dwell upon lost years. I am not sad to be who I am now. Even if I do still enjoy the sight of fresh youth… as a reminder, perhaps.”

Romi’s implications seemed clear enough, but Béruthiel, mindful that her fluency was not entirely deep enough to be certain of grasping nuance, did not press hard. Perhaps the other woman was a lover of women; and perhaps this was why she had spoken to Béruthiel initially. But perhaps not. It might well be only friendliness. Béruthiel had too little of either to risk wasting it.

With a tiny mew, Tiriel, perhaps indignant that she was receiving so little attention, unwound herself from Béruthiel’s nape and leapt lightly to the bar, delicately traversing the space between their drinks before leaping in turn to Romi’s lap where she made herself entirely comfortable, purring quite shamelessly. Béruthiel smiled. “She likes you, it seems. She does not like many, my friend.” And anyone Tiriel did like, Béruthiel was inclined to like also. Cats were quite good judges of character, she had found. A pleasant thing; she had already been inclined to like this Romi, and her cat’s behavior was confirmation enough.

She made a delicate little moue, a turn of her wrist deflecting the question of the holiday, of the military. She should not have asked; she had not thought. “My first summer, yes,” she answered. “I travel, much of the time. Summers, I have been accustomed to spend in al-Jazā'ir. You would say, I think, Algeria?”

[madmanwithahorn]

The sound of her name in the other's mouth gave her a delicious frisson which she suppressed as well as...whatever had started to express itself, in the touch of flesh to flesh. Not for nothing, and not for no reason, had she lived abroad as long as in the country she was born to - her hand curled around Beruthiel's without hesitation for an awkward attempt to shake, and as she squeezed the hand gently she met its owner's eyes with an expression that sublimated from the smile of stranger for new aquaintance to the warmth of affection.

Perhaps it was for that, or for the shiver of delight that Beruthiel's voice returned to a name whose thrill had broken in since Romi chose it for herself, or the simple reassurance that Béruthiel no more perfected Romi's name than Romi had hers, that bypassed any thought of correction. She just laughed low and soft, shaking a few springy black curls out of her eyes and feeling the blush make a halfhearted comeback.

"That's where the idiom comes from, as far as I can tell - shove your foot up your mouth and," she snickered, "roll ass over teakettle into the sunset. Metaphorically, at least. It just means saying something inappropriate."

Her hand felt cool in the pattern of slender fingers as Beruthiel's hand slipped away, and her fingers, having been curled around the woman's hand, curled a little around her absence. Romi too watched the pretty, tattooed waitress - too young for her, but she could appreciate her - and looked away just in time to see Béruthiel watching. Her pulse quickened.

Interesting...

"Youth - wasted on the young, but appreciated by the middle-aged, maybe?" she voiced for Béruthiel's ears alone, and with every bit of wistful wryness that had tightened the maybe-French woman's eyes and curved her mouth. She didn't think Béruthiel would have appreciated meaningless flattery any more than she herself.

"This holiday is...kind of fraught, for military folks." She twisted her mouth in a scowl of something invisible amongst the bottles, not looking at the red white and blue. "I try to avoid it."

Well, and that was a conversation killer, wasn't it? She drew a deep breath and tore her attention away from ugliness to her far more welcome companion. "Is this your first summer in the US?"

madmanwithahorn:

Béruthiel - it sounded like beryl, like a deep red stone, wine-red, burgundy, translucent and worn round and satin-sheened in water, to turn snugly in the callused hand, moved by long brown fingers hard as horn -

- she stopped that thought short. A sensual name, maybe, sensual like the way the woman’s own fingers (long and brown too, but she doubted they were as armoured as her own) stroked the white cat; but like stroking a cat, sensual did not mean sexual, and Romi wasn’t an adolescent or a man to stand at point, drooling, at every pretty woman to look her way.

After all, she had been the one to speak first.

Despite the rush of blood heating her cheeks, mercifully somewhat concealed by her complexion, she found herself beaming in response to the other woman’s dry humour.

“Only by way of sticking my foot in my mouth��Béruthiel,” she repeated, grey eyes seeking confirmation of a pronunciation she herself found, not abysmal, but lacking still - the wine-red stone not quite smooth, and chipped a little, ready to snag on rough skin. Conscious of that very roughness, she offered her hand, not yet to the cat, but to the woman. “And Tiriel. I’m Romi.”

Usually, she would have had a hard time ignoring the creature for a mere human companion, no matter the latter’s physical attractiveness. But Béruthiel’s forthrightness, her assurance that Romi’s grandfather would have grinned and labelled “not conceited, but convinced,” the reserved eloquence of her expression and the faint accent that Romi thought might be French but might also be something else - these intrigued her. The cat was a cat, and beautiful, and dialled up her missing her big grey Scarf to a full ten, but Béruthiel, to horribly understate, seemed *interesting*.

“Romi,” she repeated carefully after the woman, her accent placing the emphasis slightly differently than had the woman herself. Well, and Romi’s pronunciation of Berúthiel's own name had not been precise, so perhaps they were even in this. She minded but little; the care with which the muscled woman had attempted her name spoke well of her respect for such things. It was a tiny courtesy, but still an unusual one in this country, sometimes. 

She accepted Romi’s offered hand and did not shake, but merely held it in a gentle grasp; the other woman’s fingers were warm and dry in hers, firm and roughened with work and a life spent greatly in the out of doors. It was a sensuous pleasure, such a hand on her softer flesh; and Berúthiel quite carefully repressed a feline shiver of appreciation for it. Not all women would react well to such a thing, the clear interest the shiver would convey. Berúthiel had few friends in this country; she did not need new enemies to begin to outnumber them.

“Your foot…in your mouth?” she asked then, amused. “This must be some idiom, perhaps; I would think you very flexible indeed to accomplish such a feat in fact.” She flashed a little grin. “Though the image which this raises is an amusing one.”

Just then, the young bartender arrived with Berúthiel’s drink; she smiled and thanked the girl and, at last, relinquished Romi’s fingers in favor of lifting the tumbler of amber liquid. Berúthiel’s eyes clung a moment longer to the retreating figure of the young woman. She smiled a wistful sort of smile. “Youth,” she murmured. “They say that it is wasted upon the young, but it is still a lovely thing to look upon.”

Turning back to Romi, Berúthiel lifted her drink and sipped appreciatively, eyeing the other woman over the rim of her glass. “It is a holiday,” she observed, a gesture taking in the red and white and blue which festooned the tavern. “You do not celebrate?”

[madmanwithahorn]

Béruthiel - it sounded like beryl, like a deep red stone, wine-red, burgundy, translucent and worn round and satin-sheened in water, to turn snugly in the callused hand, moved by long brown fingers hard as horn -

- she stopped that thought short. A sensual name, maybe, sensual like the way the woman’s own fingers (long and brown too, but she doubted they were as armoured as her own) stroked the white cat; but like stroking a cat, sensual did not mean sexual, and Romi wasn’t an adolescent or a man to stand at point, drooling, at every pretty woman to look her way.

After all, she had been the one to speak first.

Despite the rush of blood heating her cheeks, mercifully somewhat concealed by her complexion, she found herself beaming in response to the other woman’s dry humour.

“Only by way of sticking my foot in my mouth…Béruthiel,” she repeated, grey eyes seeking confirmation of a pronunciation she herself found, not abysmal, but lacking still - the wine-red stone not quite smooth, and chipped a little, ready to snag on rough skin. Conscious of that very roughness, she offered her hand, not yet to the cat, but to the woman. “And Tiriel. I’m Romi.”

Usually, she would have had a hard time ignoring the creature for a mere human companion, no matter the latter's physical attractiveness. But Béruthiel's forthrightness, her assurance that Romi's grandfather would have grinned and labelled "not conceited, but convinced," the reserved eloquence of her expression and the faint accent that Romi thought might be French but might also be something else - these intrigued her. The cat was a cat, and beautiful, and dialled up her missing her big grey Scarf to a full ten, but Béruthiel, to horribly understate, seemed *interesting*.

@madmanwithahorn / @lonelymountainson

Romi hated the fourth of July with a depth and breadth of conviction far beyond the cold sickness of adrenaline that shot her in the gut with every percussive blast in the warm indigo air of summer evenings for way the hell too long before and after the day itself.

She ought instead to loathe it. It didn’t deserve a place in her mind; it didn’t deserve to curdle the malt of good beer on her palate or make her hands shake with queasy fury til it slopped over to leave sticky trails of clear dark brown across her dusty skin.

Oh well. She needed to wash her hands anyway. Instinct made her knock back the last half of her pint - it wasn’t likely anyone would drug someone of her size and build and at this time of day, but leaving the drink unguarded was about as unthinkable as going outside in nothing but underpants. On your head.

The soap in the unisex bathroom smelled like rosemary, and Romi told herself it was appetizing. She’d ordered chicken baked in rosemary, after all. Hell of a thing to serve in a pub, that, and a hell of a thing to order for someone who’d lived off MRE’s for months at a time and, more recently, whatever she could forage in the mountains - quite a bit, really, thanks to her training.

Maybe she should move to Portland and get a fucking swallow tattooed on her wrist. Maybe the food would smell good, then, and she’d like IPA or wine better than stout, and she’d only hate the 4th because it played hell with battle-born PTSD.

She puffed a short sharp laugh as she paused (instinctively, again) at the edge of the line-of-sight from the lobby of the pub to the entrance of the hallway from which the restrooms (windowless) and the kitchen (site of the un-alarmed employee door) branched off. She sounded like a bitter old fart, like her father, whom she would never say aloud was a bitter old fart, who sat in a plastic chair in the stale living room back on the reservation and drank weak beer and groused about everything except his daughter the warrior.

Gods, and self-centred, too, as well as bitter. Someone had settled on the barstool next to hers, she heard them moving, smelled some tastefully spicy scent and, stepping out, saw a slender dark woman, in a light jacket with a fuzzy white trim about the top, to whom, she decided wryly, she would do her damndest to be pleasant and reasonable and not in the least Standard Grumpy War Vet, Youngish Female Edition.

She slid the other woman a crooked smile as she settled back into the bench, opened her mouth in greeting, and, to her horror and amusement, heard her own voice say:

“Cat.”

That wasn’t a faux fur trim at all.

“Berúthiel, actually,” Berúthiel said, amused. 

She reached up a hand and scratched behind the ears of the small white cat who was, in fact, draped around her neck like a purring collar, and looked at the woman sitting beside her. Big, broad through the shoulders in a way which spoke of hard-earned muscle, upright posture which just about screamed military, features and skin which said First Nations, maybe. And something haunted in the eyes. That was all right; Berúthiel didn’t mind haunted.

She had more than a few ghosts of her own, after all. 

It was some patriotic holiday or the other; it meant little to her. She was not, after all, American, as her accent – mild, hard to place – would tell. But they had called it variously the Fourth of July (which sounded to her merely a date!) and Independence Day, which perhaps had its appeal to her soul. Independence. It was better than freedom. One who was free might still be… lost, perhaps weak. One who was independent had confidence, strength. To celebrate independence seemed to her a fine thing indeed.

And so she had thought to treat herself a drink and a meal. The tavern was not so very far from her apartment, and boasted of a wide window which opened to look out upon the summer streets, letting in the hot air. She enjoyed both the view and the taste of the outside which came with it, even if she did not much enjoy American beers.

The approach of the young woman behind the bar – pretty, tattooed, wearing a tanktop with some obscure logo – distracted Berúthiel briefly. “I would like, please, an old fashioned. You will use the Four Roses bourbon. And also the house hamburger to eat, cooked to medium. I would like it still just pink inside.”

The young woman nodded and moved off with fair alacrity to see to the order; Berúthiel turned back to the woman beside her.

“But of course, you were not asking my name, but referring to my friend.” A shift of the weight upon her neck and Tiriel mewed quietly. “She is called Tiriel. You may pet her, if she allows it.”

[madmanwithahorn]

D...dad?

wanders in

blows the dust off everything

oh yeah, this place…..

[madmanwithahorn]

[madmanwithahorn]

Thomas W Schaller  -  http://thomasschaller.com  -  https://plus.google.com/+thomaswschaller/posts  -  https://www.facebook.com/twschaller?_rdr=p  -  https://www.facebook.com/pages/thomas-w-schaller-watercolor-artist/67382306960  -  https://twitter.com/twschaller  -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/twschaller  -  https://instagram.com/thomaswschaller  -  https://www.youtube.com/user/twschaller  -  http://twschaller.com

[madmanwithahorn]

allroundlostcause:

To all the partners and verses I miss…

I want you to know that in my head, our muses are off somewhere being blissfully happy. If we stopped writing together in the middle of a fight, they made up without us muddling muns in the way, and they’re happy. They shared a bubble bath last night and one of them cooked for the other. It wasn’t perfect but they had a great night.

If they were only friends, they’re closer than ever. If they were enemies, they’re still staking each other out and plotting their revenge, and they’re enjoying it thoroughly.

If they were in love, they still are. If we took a look into their futures, they’d still be smiling at each other, maybe with a little bit of gray in their hair.

I had a great time with you and we’ll always be friends, even if we do’t talk as much as we used to. And if you ever want to get back to it, you know where to find me. xo

[madmanwithahorn]

Farewell son of Gondor…

[madmanwithahorn]

Illustrations for “The Son of Gondor” fanfiction by Catherine Chmiel

[madmanwithahorn]

||FOLLOW BACK||

[madmanwithahorn]

If you love deeply, you’re going to get hurt badly. But it’s still worth it.

C.S. Lewis (via wordsnquotes)

[madmanwithahorn]

I’ve been meaning to write this for awhile, but a) work has kept me too busy and b) in all honesty more relevantly, I’ve been in too much of a shame/guilt spiral to get that far. I’m so sorry for disappearing, and I have no idea when or if I’ll return.

Currently, I work 32 - 60 hours a week, and...

[madmanwithahorn]

I’ve been meaning to write this for awhile, but a) work has kept me too busy and b) in all honesty more relevantly, I’ve been in too much of a shame/guilt spiral to get that far. I’m so sorry for disappearing, and I have no idea when or if I’ll return.

Currently, I work 32 - 60 hours a week, and...

[madmanwithahorn]

Captain of Gondor by Nordheimer