#black appendix horse

[roananddappleranch]

You can follow me on all my socials right here: https://linktr.ee/roananddappleranch

R&DR Bullet to the Moon is starting off the July show season with an amazing western dressage routine. It's so ironic how I found her to be the most underrated horse out of all my performance horses but then she decided to pull the uno reverse card on us and just show out as well as she did. Last time I'll ever talk down on her like that again. I'm so proud of her, being home bred and everything too.

[laurellerual]

how do you think the curse of harrenhal would play out with arya if she becomes lady during the long night?

Anon is referencing this post. I began by questioning whether a curse really exists. It's a widespread legend, but Martin never confirms it, just as he never confirms that behind the magic there are gods who care about the fate of humanity.

Many of the families that held Harrenhal have died out for contingent reasons. They often had in common that they were relatively small families, who ended up there overnight thanks to connections to the crown; a lot of ambition and little experience in managing such a big castle. But the doubt that a curse exists remains.

House Hoar and the curse

Those who believe, in world, that the curse exists explain it as a punishment for Harren the Black's hubris and maybe that's true, but I think we can't ignore how much it looks related to the Old Gods.

House Hoare went to great lengths to be cursed by the Gods far before Harrenhal was built. When the Andals invaded Westeros they allied with the invaders, married Andal women, brought the Faith of the Seven to the Iron Islands, conquered the Riverlands from the Storm King of Storm's End, a Durrandon king with blood of the First men.

Harren chose the site to erect his castle on the banks of the Gods Eye, he enslaved half the population (probably people still mostly loyal to the Old gods) and above all he cut down Weirwoods which had existed for three thousand years.

Perhaps all that is needed to break the curse is one person who does not abuse her power and does not offend the Gods with her mere presence. Arya's Gods seem to love her enough to give us that beautiful scene where she hears her father's voice whispering to her from the trees.

The Ladies of Harrenhal

It's not difficult to think of a lord of Harrenhal who has come to a bad end, but what about the ladies?

It is rather rare in Westeros for a lady to hold the power of a holdfast on her own right rather than in the name of her husband or son, yet Harrenhal has four cases of this. Still there are so many lords in the castle's history that the only four ladies look like white flies.

They have common characteristics, but the most obvious is the way their fate seems different from that of the lords, or at least more mysterious.

Shella Whent is the Lady of Harrenhal at the beginning of AGOT. She first appears in a Cat's chapter: Lady Whent, last of her line, who dwelt with her ghosts in the cavernous vaults of Harrenhal. (I love it, very poetic, it reminds a bit of the Jenny's song)

We then discover that Lady Whent surrendered Harrenhal for lack of men to defend it. But Arya doesn't know and she thinks: Arya could reveal herself to Lady Whent, and the knights would escort her home and keep her safe. This was what knights did; they kept you safe, especially the women. Perhaps Lady Whent would even help the crying girl. (She refers to weasel, but the crying girl also represents a side of Arya, the one she's trying to suppress in order to survive. Perhaps the Lady of Harrenhal also represents a part of Arya).

When Arya arrives at the castle Lady Whent has escaped. At the Red Wedding Sandon Clagane introduces himself as Lady Whent's servant and is asked if the lady intends to buy back Harrenhal with a horse. Petyr Baelish tells Sansa that Shella died, but her whereabouts and how she died are unknown.

She is listed in the ADWD appendix as the dispossessed lady of Harrenhal. Every time we get close to discovering her fate, she keeps eluding us. Is she really dead? Why is it not marked in the appendix?

Danelle Lothston was the last member of House Lothston to hold the castle. Of her we know that: When Lord Brynden Rivers, Hand of Aerys I Targaryen, marched on Whitewalls to put down the Second Blackfyre Rebellion, Lady Danelle was among the Riverlords who flocked to her support, marching in great force.

Lady Danelle took to the dark arts during the reign of Maekar I Targaryen, causing madness and chaos and the downfall of Lothston's kindred.

But what happened to her? When did she die? How did she die?

Even more interesting are the unofficial ladies of Harrenhal. These two women are the only ones who have not been granted the title from the crown, but have in fact held this office (And I think Arya situation might be similar):

Rhaena Targaryen lived a tragic life, she was lady of the castle in an unofficial way. The wiki says of her: Her hair turned white as she aged, and the people of the Riverlands came to fear her as a witch. Nonetheless, she Rhaena would bestow hospitality on any traveler who came to Harrenhal.

She reigned there until her death presumably of old age

Alys Rivers began her journey at Harrenhal as little more than a servant. She lived a tragic life and was unofficially lady of the castle.

It was said of her that: A number of broken men and marauding outlaws began to gather in Harrenhal under the rule of a witch queen witch. But how long did she reign? We only know that: Aegon's regents concluded that they would need to gather a larger force to recapture Harrenhal, but their plans were interrupted by Winter Fever in 133 AC.

This happens when Alys was already a middle-aged woman. Then we have no more news of her fate. We only know that the Lothstons became lords of Harrenhal nearly thirty years later. How did Alys die? Did she reign at Harrenhal all that time?

Why are the Ladies of Harrenhal subject to so many exceptions to their counterparts? 2/4 unofficial, 3/4 accused of witchcraft, 3/4 with unknown fates.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, or maybe I've found a pattern.

[fractured-legacies]

Imprudent, Chapter 11: Lost

Prologue | Chapter 10 | Chapter 12

Chapter 11: Lost

What else remains of exo-atmospheric infrastructure and installations is abandoned, inert, or incommunicado. We have found the remains of several lunar cities and bases in a state of partial preservation due to exposure to vacuum, although temperature swings from the day-night cycle have caused significant damage. We have marked several sites in this report’s appendix as worthy of dedicated followup expeditions by specialist archaeological teams.

~o0O0o~

Zoy

The snow crunched under Zoy’s feet as they walked through the mostly-empty streets back to the canal. Watching Fia through the corner of her eye, she saw the older woman shooting glances back the way they’d come.

“Worried about being followed?” she prompted, pitching her voice so that the overwinterers they were passing wouldn’t be able to overhear.

Fia turned to her. “Sure. That’s it.”

Yufemya cleared her throat softly. “If I said that I’m sure he’ll be all right, would you believe me?”

“I… don’t know. His father…”

Zoy frowned. “If you want, we could go back, wait for his father to take a nap, and make your man there the Duke.”

Fia laughed bitterly. “Oh, yes, sure, that would work! If stabbing the old monster was the solution, I would have done that already, but it isn’t. If there was any hint of foul play, the King is required to launch an inquiry and then Faalk would be jailed and possibly executed, while his younger brother would inherit, and he’s cast in his father’s mold.”

“Married the black sheep in the family?” Yufemya asked.

“Yeah.”

“I can imagine what that’s like. So, what is your plan for dealing with the old goat? You’re hoping to get the King’s backing when we’re done with this mission. What does that get you?”

Zoy cocked her head. That was a good question.

“Protection, for starters. I was able to hire a few guards specifically for the three of us, but being able to, say, join the King’s court and be under his protection instead, would be helpful. Also, official recognition that I’m still alive. And I could lay attempted murder charges on the Duke. There are enough witnesses that I might be able to win. Sure, my… abilities would get outed, but that would be worth it, especially if he’s forced to step down that way.”

“All of that is assuming that the King honors his word, though,” Yufemya pointed out. They turned a corner onto a nearly-empty street, with only a horse-drawn cart laden with crates visible.

“Yeah. I know. And it’s also political. I know that the Duke has a lot of allies. But if we manage to stop these attacks, the King will owe me, and I can use that.” Fia sighed. “Thankfully this Dormelion princess Faalk was supposed to marry is missing. Wonder what happened to her?”

Zoy blinked and then scoffed. “A Dormelion princess? All the way out here? To a duke? What did she do to get that kind of exile?” In the back of her mind, she considered for a moment trying to figure out which one of the Imperial family was the unlucky bride, but discarded it after a moment. Even when she’d still been living in the Empire, she hadn’t paid much—or really any—attention to their goings-on beyond what it had affected her. She vaguely remembered that there were about twenty or thirty princes and princesses of the blood at the moment. Which, after reflection, might explain why one of them had been offered up for marriage so far from home.

“Beats me,” Fia said. “But if she’s gone missing, then she’s bought me time, so for that I’m grateful and hope she’s all right and hasn’t run afoul of Dormelion politics.”

“Usually they just say that the ‘princess is retiring to an estate’ or something like that,” Zoy commented with a scoff. “If she’s missing, then that’s a whole other thing.”

“You’d know better than I,” Fia commented. “The only times I had to deal with the Empire was boarding their ships and sneaking through the Straits.” She turned to Yufemya as they turned another corner; there wasn’t anyone visible, but cheery light and laughter issued from within a tavern halfway down the block. “You have anything to add?”

She shook her head. “Nothing of any substance that’s believable, sorry.”

“You’re Dormelion too, though.”

“Ah yes, and in an Empire of, what, fifty million souls two thousand miles across, certainly everyone is personally acquainted with the goings-on of the high imperial family? Is that the thought?” She turned to Zoy. “So do you know any of the Imperial Family?”

Zoy smirked. “Once I was in the same room as the Emperor. All the way at the back.” She’d stolen a fair number of purses that day.

Fia scoffed. “Fair enough. And I guess it doesn’t matter. I just want my husband to be safe.”

Glancing at Fia’s sad smile, Zoy couldn’t help herself. “You really love him, don’t you? What’s that like?”

“I… torn gods, how do I even say it? He’s my other half. He makes me smile, he makes me laugh. He reads me terrible romances and sings love songs off-key. He’s my co-conspirator, my partner… he was terrified of the water and trusted me to take him sailing, he… he trusts me, and I trust him.” She smiled. “He’s clever, he’s well-read, well-spoken, a man of integrity…” Her expression grew distant, and Zoy wondered what memory she was reliving. “I would be happy to hang up my pirate hat and sword and just grow old with him.”

Yufemya spoke up. “That sounds wonderful. I hope you can have that.”

Zoy nodded in agreement. Personally, she thought that Fia was a big sap, but it seemed real. Once she would have thought that such a relationship of mutual trust and understanding would have had to be fake, that they would have been a con or something, that anyone who gave a damn about someone else was just setting themselves up to be exploited.

But she’d learned that there was more to existing—to living—that watching for everyone to betray you. That not everyone looked at everyone else to see how they could be used.

“So, where did you meet a necromancer before?” she asked Fia, to change the subject. They were most of the way back to the lock-port inn where the others should be, if she had her bearings down right.

“He was the bonded court necro for the Republic of Ossadu. The First Minister had a scandal that he needed help with—some thieves had absconded with the Jewel of State—and hired me and my crew to help get it back quietly, and sent the necro along both to help and as insurance that we’d return it.” Fia shrugged. “He was a nice enough guy. Kind of fatherly, really, once you got past those robes and the skull on his staff and the rest of it, but let me tell you, I read the terms of that contract with a magnifying glass before I let him bond us to it. And when we were out at sea, I managed to get some details out of him on how necromancy works. Most of it went over my head, though.”

Zoy nodded. “So you trust Oksyna?”

“I do, at least to the point that she wants to find out why these oathwalkers are crossing the border and raising all of this chaos. More than that, we’ll see.”

They continued on, their boots crunching on the ice and snow; as was usual for a wintering city, most of the buildings they passed were dark and silent, but there were still a fair number that were lit, with the sounds of people, or labor, or other activities coming from inside. They passed one where the sound of half-familiar chanting came from inside, making Zoy give it a more thorough look. To her surprise, she saw what she recognized as Daibueri lettering on the sign.

“Now there’s an unfamiliar sight,” she commented, just as they turned the final corner and she stiffened. “Uh oh.” There was a crowd of people—at least thirty, probably more—clustered near where they’d tied up the Lynx. “What do you think? Trap?”

Fia pulled up her scarf to cover her face more thoroughly. “Possibly. Let’s just saunter on over and see. It could be people coming to see the ice-boat that sailed in out of the cold winter and nothing official at all.”

“Do you think so?”

“I’d give it even odds. But let’s be cautious.”

Zoy nodded and palmed a knife, just in case, as the three of them made their way over. It definitely looked like a random crowd of people curious to see the strange new sight that had arrived in the middle of winter—there were people at the edge of the crowd craning their necks to get a look and others eagerly talking to their neighbors. Mostly they were standing on the sideway, although there were at least two men that she could see down in the canal itself looking over the Lynx with interest. It didn’t look like people were looting anything, thankfully…

Uh oh.

Now that they were closer, she could see a man dressed in the same livery as the guard she had stabbed standing guard over the Lynx. There was a bubble of people around him.

“By Stylio’s seat, on the walk,” she muttered.

“I see him.”

“Any idea where Stylio and the others are?”

“Either in the inn or in custody.”

“I think that if they tried taking Oksyna into custody, there would be more damage.”

“Unless she’s lying low.”

“Possibly, but—”

The sound of Stylio’s voice made Zoy relax a hair, and she had to fight a smile as her guardian’s words—in the clipped polite tones of ‘I Am Dealing With Aggravating Officials’—came through the chill air.

“I do not see what the problem is, sir.”

“Where did you say the rest of your party was?” another voice came through the crowd, making Fia tense.

Zoy gave her a sidelong look as Stylio responded. “They are out in the city, but again, I do not see what concern that is of yours. Have we been charged with a crime?”

Fia mouthed a profanity, and Zoy nodded in agreement as Joorgen, the captain of the guard, replied to Stylio. “You have not—yet—been charged, but you have to admit that it is highly suspicious that you and your party arrived in the middle of winter and did not identify yourselves or present yourselves to the proper authorities!”

“I was unaware that traveling in winter was suspicious,” Stylio replied as Zoy followed Fia around the crowd towards where Stylio’s voice was coming from.

“You don’t? Truly? Especially when traveling in such an unprecedented manner?”

Zoy could picture her guardian putting her hands on her hips, and was gratified that her imagination was right when Stylio, with Raavi and Oksyna standing behind her in their winter cloaks, came into view, some guardmen’s lamps casting a yellow glow over their group. The guardsman dressed in the fancy cloak with the big shiny pin was probably Joorgen.

“It’s not unprecedented!” Raavi spoke up, and Zoy had to hide a smile at his energy. “I built it based on descriptions of similar craft from the southern tribes who sail across the equatorial pack ice!”

Zoy bit back a laugh as she watched Joorgen blink and cock his head at Raavi. Even from behind his scarf, the captain's bafflement was clear. Then he shook his head as if to clear it. “You have not paid tolls, nor passage fees, nor docking fees, nor presented authorization! By all rights, I should impound your ‘boat’ in the name of the Duke!”

“You can’t—!” Raavi started to protest, and then he saw Zoy standing there.

Joorgen followed his gaze—and then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

Fia sighed and pulled out her sword. “What’s wrong, Joorgen? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

He staggered back, shakily pulling out his own weapon.

Then Raavi shouted, “Oksyna, the lamps!”

Zoy grimaced and covered her eyes as the guardsmen’s lamps essentially exploded into gouts of flame—but then Raavi sang something, and the light vanished.

She squinted to see something delightful—Joorgen and his flanking men were standing embedded in ice that came up to their ankles, with little clouds of fog billowing around their legs. The crowd was pulling back, shouting, leaving the men standing there, unable to move.

Wondering what Fia was going to do, Zoy watched with interest as she stalked towards the men, her sword drawn.

“Well done, Raavi,” she said, not looking away from Joorgen, who was straining, trying to pull his feet from the ice. The guardsman who had been standing by the Lynx drew his weapon but didn’t move.

“We were talking about ideas—”

“Tell me later. First… hello Joorgen. Surprised to see me?”

He stared at her. “Impossible. You’re dead.”

“And how would you know that? Are you admitting to trying to murder the wife of your ducal heir?” she asked sweetly. The crowd was watching, Zoy noticed—albeit at a bit of a further distance—while the guardsman who had been standing over the Lynx was staring at his own weapon as it disintegrated into red flakes of rust in front of his eyes. Fia shook her head. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

“Aren’t you going to kill him?” Zoy asked, surprised. If someone had chopped off her head, she’d return the favor. Well… assuming she could survive getting her head chopped off. It was the principle of the thing.

“That would be murder. He’s not a threat.” She leaned in. “But Joorgen. When I come back, if my daughter has been hurt in any way, I will see to it that you experience the same.” She punched him in the gut, making him gasp and double-over, and then smashed his face with her knee before hauling him upright. “Understood?”

His head wobbled in a vague nod, and she let him go. With his feet frozen to the ground, he couldn’t fall over properly, and he dangled from the waist, half-insensate.

Fia turned. “Come on. Time to go.”

#

Raavi ava Laargan

We were about ten or twenty minutes out from the city when Lady Fia said, “That was a well done Fire Siphon, Raavi.”

I smiled behind my scarf. “Thank you. But without Oksyna breaking the lamps and igniting all of the oil, I wouldn’t have had the heat needed to melt the ice.” My shoulders were twinging from doing the Fire Siphon, but it wasn’t too bad. On the scale of things, it had only been a pint or so of oilsap, and I’d been trained to help put out a fire large enough to melt the contents of an entire crucible. “And she was the one who made the water freeze again.”

“I was only able to do that because of Raavi,” Oksyna said with a… well, I couldn’t call it anything other than a cackle if I was being honest.

“Oh? How so?”

“We were discussing how ice and water and steam work in relation to entropy,” I could hear the smile as she said her new favorite word, “and I can’t make ice melt with my powers because while water has higher disorder to it, you need to add heat to get it to melt.”

“Hence the Fire Siphon,” Stylio said, “which uses Breath and Will to draw heat away from the fire as it breathes and into something else.”

“Exactly. And making water freeze is reducing entropy, so I couldn’t do that either. But…” she drawled, sounding inordinately pleased with herself, “steam is water with high entropy. So after Raavi did the Fire Siphon, I moved all of the heat he’d pushed into the water into steam.”

“Ah! So that’s where that fog came from?” Stylio asked.

I grinned as I steered us around a snow drift that had inched into the canal. “Yep!”

“Great teamwork, you two,” Lady Fia said with a chuckle. “I’m glad you didn’t break Raavi’s brain, Oksyna.”

“It’s a very good brain, I have to say,” she commented, and I felt my cheeks heat behind my scarf.

Scrambling for something to change the topic, I asked, “So… did you see your husband?”

There was a pause, and I glanced back, about to repeat myself, not sure if she’d heard me, just as she replied, “I did. And my daughter. Hopefully dealing with Joorgen won’t cause him problems. But given that Zoy and Yufemya left two dead bodies in the hall, I think he might get suspicious.”

I looked back to the rear of the Lynx and saw Zoy shrug. “It was either stab or let them find Fia in bed with him.”

“Zoy…” Stylio said admonishingly.

“Besides, they were two of the ones who helped chop up Fia in the first place,” Yufemya said.

I cringed and saw Oksyna cock her head, but before I could say anything, Lady Fia barked, “Raavi, eyes forward!”

Whirling back around, I saw a raised fissure in the ice coming up and pulled the tiller to the side; the Lynx tilted alarmingly as our left runner lifted up over the crack, but we didn’t break anything.

We continued on for a while; the canal was filled with drifts and ice cracks along this stretch, and a part of my mind was pondering why. Was it the surrounding topography? That we were getting deeper into the winter and the ice was freezing solid? Maybe the water depth? I wondered if anyone had studied it before. The canals dated back to the Dormelion Empire, so they were several centuries old, there had been plenty of opportunity… but on the other hand, who would have been out here in the middle of winter to study them?

Time seemed to just… drift after a while and my world seemed to shrink, down to the walls and ice of the canal, glowing white under the Night-Light, and the surrounding hills and fields. Trees came and went as darker blobs along the sides of my view. When the first lock appeared, some time later, it was almost a shock. However, we’d gotten practiced by now, and Zoy and Yufemya engaged the brakes as Lady Fia furled the sails.

We came to a smooth halt twenty feet from the canal lock, and looked up.

“How bad is this one?” Stylio asked.

“Pretty bad,” Yufemya said. “According to the map, there are six locks here over the next mile, rising almost three hundred feet.”

I cringed.

“But. If we go cross-country again from here, we can get to another canal in about fifty miles to the north-west, and then it’s less than two hundred miles to the closest canal head by the mountain passes.”

“How far have we come from Rechneesse?”

“About ninety miles.”

“They won’t catch up even if they sent pursuit after us immediately.” Lady Fia hopped out of the Lynx. “Let’s make camp, rest, and tackle this hill afterwards. And then we make for the pass.”

#

Lord Faalk ava Geroold of House Rechneesse

Stoor sleeping in his arms, Faalk pushed his way into his father’s office, flanked by one of his own guards. “Father, this is outrageous!”

His father looked up from his paperwork and frowned. “What is?”

“Two of the guards stabbed each other outside of my suite!” Faalk blustered with as much theatricality as he could manage. “I know that you prefer to keep a full complement of staff awake during the winter, but they are so on edge!”

Duke Rechneesse blinked and then his frown deepened before he set his pen aside and interlaced his fingers, his elbows on his ironwood desk, the pointed dagger of his neatly groomed gray beard nearly brushing his fingers. “We could simply dismiss your guards, if you are so worried. They’re an unnecessary expense, after all.”

“Ah yes, after two of your men murdered each other outside of my rooms from cabin-fever? No thank you, I’ll keep my men,” Faalk said, grateful that Fia had found guards for them. They were a bit… unconventional, but they knew their stuff.

“I see. And why is my granddaughter out of her creche? You’re risking waking her,” the Duke said.

Faalk gently stroked Stoor’s cheek and the reddish hairs on her head. “She’s fine. And after losing Fia… I feel it is best that she remain with me. I’m afraid. I know it’s not rational, but what harm can it do?”

His father’s eyes narrowed, the old man’s craggy skin shifting, but before he could say anything else, another guard came pounding at the door. “Sir! Sir!”

“What is it, man?”

The guardsman—half-melted snow on his shoulders and hat, and a large rust-red stain on one sleeve—came in and saw Faalk standing there. He paused and swallowed. “Uh… Lord Faalk, can I ask you to leave, please? I wouldn’t want to repeat this around your daughter.”

“She’s asleep. Whatever it is that you have to tell my father, you can tell me as well,” Faalk said, trying not to let his worry show too much. Fia had been spotted, he knew it. Of course, the primary question in his mind was the body count…

The fellow looked trapped, and Faalk watched his father’s posture out of the corner of his eye. The Duke was irritated but not angry… so he likely didn’t know that Fia was alive. If he had, he would have been much more agitated.

“Um, uh, all right then, sir.” The guardsman bowed towards the Duke and said, “With your leave sir, of—”

“Just make your report. Now,” the Duke said with a scowl.

“Ah, yes, sir,” the guardsman said, and Faalk took a moment to enjoy the man’s squirming. “Captain Joorgen and his men were assaulted down in the canal-front district by a group of vagabonds who were apparently proficient in Breath. He’s badly injured and we’ve called for the healers.”

Faalk did his best to give an expression of concern for Captain Joorgen’s wellbeing as the Duke scowled. “Is this something to do with this sled that came in earlier?”

“Uh, yes sir. The occupants of it were the ones that assaulted him when he ordered the craft impounded.”

“Then send some of our men after them and arrest them. Their draught animals won’t be able to get too far.”

Faalk considered for a moment volunteering to join the party of pursuers, just to see how the guardsman would react, but the man said, “That… will be difficult, sir. It… had a sail. And it’s quite fast.”

“Huh. Sounds like they won’t be our concern anymore,” Faalk said. “Is the Captain going to be all right?”

“Uh… with the attentions of the healers, I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t make a full recovery.”

“Good.” Faalk turned back to his father. “Now, as for these two guards that killed each other in the hall…”

He kept arguing with his father over the disposition of the guards, and floated the idea of taking up residence in one of the townhouses away from the manor, with Stoor coming with him and his and Fia’s men securing the place. According to the clock on the wall, it was a full hour later when he finally conceded to his father that he wasn’t going to move out before spring and the arrival of the Dormelion delegation.

Figuring he’d bought Fia and her people enough time, Faalk bowed his head to the Duke. “By your leave, Father, I’ll return to my suite. Thank you for entertaining my concerns.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Dismissed.”

Faalk stepped out of the door and paused before craning his neck, holding Stoor as if he had to adjust his hold on her.

Sure enough, the guardsman didn’t bother to check to see if he was gone before saying, “Sire, there’s a problem. The people who attacked the Captain? The pirate was leading them, and she’s the one who beat him.”

“What? How is that possible?”

Faalk hid a grin and listened as the guardsman described Fia beating Joorgen to a pulp; apparently the man’s knees would need repair after his feet had been frozen to the ground and then he’d been knocked over, and the rust-red stain on the guard’s cloak, which Faalk had taken as blood, was in fact rust… from his weapon having literally dissolved in his hands.

He didn’t know how Fia had managed that, and he was going to have to ask her when he next saw her.

And he was going to see her again.

<<<<>>>>

Prologue | Chapter 10  | Chapter 12

[kaaras-adaar]

𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑬𝑻.

repost, don’t reblog

basics !

FULL NAME. Kaaras Tashaath Adaar

PRONUNCIATION. Kaer-rass, tash-hath, uh-duh

NICKNAME. Adaar, Inquisitor, Captain, Herald of Andraste, Worship.

GENDER. Male

HEIGHT. 6′7

AGE. 29

ZODIAC. Sagittarius 

SPOKEN LANGUAGES. Common/Trade tongue, intermediate Qunlat. 

physical characteristics !

HAIR COLOUR. Butterscotch blonde. .

EYE COLOUR. Red with orange flecks and a black ring around the iris.

SKIN TONE. Pale grey.

BODY TYPE. Thick, stocky, muscular, overweight. 

ACCENT. Fereldan, with a hint of Starkhaven from living there the last few years. 

VOICE. Harry Hadden-Paton. 

DOMINANT HAND. Right (thankfully lol)

POSTURE. Straight back, shoulders back, very formal and military-like. 

SCARS. Multiple. Across his nose/under his eye, down his lip/chin, over his shoulder/back, over his ribs, an appendix removal scar. 

TATTOOS. Nil.

BIRTHMARKS. A tiny little freckle-like dark mark near his belly button and a freckle that looks like a heart on his butt cheek.

MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). Horns, longer than average ears, height, body mass.

childhood !

PLACE OF BIRTH. Starkhaven (in the back of a Chantry).

HOMETOWN. Ferelden, Southron Hills. 

BIRTH WEIGHT. Smaller than average 

BIRTH HEIGHT. Smaller than average. 

FIRST WORDS. Most likely mumma or papa 

SIBLINGS. Talan-ash (older half brother from his father’s side), Aith (adopted elven younger sister), multiple unnamed siblings from his father under the Qun. 

PARENTS. Aban Adaar (mother--alive and well), Anaan Adaar (father--deceased) 

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. Loving parents who encouraged Kaaras from a young age. His relationship was extremely close as a young boy. When his father passed away, Kaaras blamed himself and pushed his mother and sister away, becoming distant with them. However, he cares deeply for his family and they mean the world to him. He is still close to his mother, despite still feeling guilt for the loss of his father and his mother’s husband. 

adult life !

OCCUPATION. Farmer, mercenary, mercenary captain, Inquisitor. 

CURRENT RESIDENCE. Skyhold, but Ferelden will always be home. He also has a place in Starkhaven where his mercenary company operate from. 

CLOSE FRIENDS. Dorian Pavus, Iron Bull, Aith, his merc band. 

RELATIONSHIP STATUS.  Verse dependent

FINANCIAL STATUS. Commoner, however, as Inquisitor, his status increased significantly. 

CRIMINAL RECORD. He has been wrongfully arrested twice. 

VICES. Gluttony, pride. 

sex and romance !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. Pansexual. 

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION. Panromantic. 

PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE. submissive  |  dominant  |  switch  

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. Submissive  |  dominant  |  switch

LIBIDO. High. 

TURN ONS. Lingerie, BDSM, emotional encouragement and support, kind hearted people who help others, butts, the scent of his lover, biting.

TURN OFFS. Blindfolds, lack of true control, people who are selfish and manipulative as well as rude, anything to do with lack of hygiene.

LOVE LANGUAGE. Quality time. 

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. Kaaras is in it for the long haul. He is a slow burn romantic partner, but it is well worth it. He is selfless and caring, and loving. Someone who wishes to give a romantic relationship his all. He wants to help his lover feel their self worth. 

miscellaneous !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG. Inquisitor by Raney Shockne 

HOBBIES TO PASS TIME. Reading, poetry, sparring, horse riding, quiet walks.

MENTAL ILLNESSES. OCD (informally diagnosed), PTSD (informally diagnosed). mottephobic. 

PHYSICAL ILLNESSES. PGAD, lactose intolerance, heart murmur, the anchor being a parasite... 

LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. Left brained 

FEARS. Losing control, failing his loved ones, hurting the people he loves, not being good enough to save Thedas. 

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL. Kaaras is very aware of his gifts and what he lacks in. I’d say he’s a pretty confident individual, but he’s also extremely humble about it. He’s very well balanced in that regard. 

VULNERABILITIES. His heart. His heart is so fucking big. Both physically and mentally. Kaaras has a heart murmur, although you wouldn’t know unless he’s exceptionally stressed or fatigued. It caused a bit of discomfort at times. The anchor will also make him weak over time and hurt him until it is removed. Mentally, Kaaras is a very giving and self sacrificing person with a martyr complex. He also gives the benefit of the doubt to most people, which can bite him on the arse. His family is his biggest weakness, though. He will do anything to protect them and keep them from harm.  

Tagged by: Stolen

Tagging: Y'all <3

[manwalksintobar]

White Shroud (pt. II) // Allen Ginsberg

I realized I could find a place to sleep in the neighborhood, what relief, the family together again, first time in decades!- Now vigorous Middle aged I climbed hillside streets in Yonkers looking for my own hot-water furnished flat to settle in, close to visit my grandmother, read Sunday newspapers in vast glassy Cafeterias, smoke over pencils & paper, poetry desk, happy with boots father'd left in the attic, peaceful encyclopedia and a radio in the kitchen. An old black janitor swept the gutter, street dogs sniffed red hydrants, nurses pushed quiet baby carriages past silent house fronts. Anxious I be settled with money in my own place before nightfall, I wandered tenement embankments overlooking the pillared subway trestles by the bridge crossing Bronx River. How like Paris or Budapest suburbs, far from Centrum Left Bank junky doorstep tragedy intellectual fights in restaurant bars, where a spry old lady carried her Century Universal View camera to record Newspaper Metropolis tramcars in September sun, skyscraper canyons upreared one hundred thousand windows shining electric-lit above mid-town Avenues at midnite Herald Square crowds thronged noonday under traffic lights to lunch in giant department stores, shop at Gimbels for dry goods, pause with Satchels at hot dog stands wearing stylish straw hats of the decade, mankind thriving in their solitudes in shoes. But I'd strayed too long amused in the picture cavalcade, Where was I living? I remembered looking for a house & eating in apartment kitchens, bookshelf decades ago, Aunt's tragedies, an appendix operation, teeth braces, one afternoon fitting eyeglasses first time, combing wet hair back on my skull, young awkward looking in the high school mirror photograph. The Dead look for a home, but here I was still alive. I walked past a niche between buildings with tin canopy shelter from cold rain warmed by hot exhaust from subway gratings, beneath which engines throbbed with pleasant quiet drone. A shopping-bag lady lived in the side alley on a mattress, her wooden bed above the pavement, many blankets and sheets, pots, pans, and plates beside her, fan, electric stove by the wall. She looked desolate, white haired, but strong enough to survive. Passersby ignored her buildingside hovel many years, a few businessmen stopped to speak, or give her bread or yogurt. Sometimes she disappeared into state hospital back wards, but now'd returned in her homely alleyway, sharp eyed, old Cranky hair, half paralysed, complaining angry as I passed. I was horrified a little, who'd take care of such a woman, familiar, half-neglected on her street except she'd weathered many snows stubborn alone in a motheaten rabbit fur hat. She had tooth troubles, teeth too old, ground down like horse molars - she opened her mouth to display her gorge - how can she live with that, how eat I thought, mushroom-like grey-white horseshoe of incisors she chomped with, hard flat flowers ranged around her gums. Then I recognized she was my mother, Naomi, habiting this old city-edge corner, older than I knew her before her life disappeared. What are you doing here? I asked, amazed she even recognized me still, astounded to see her sitting up on her own, survived to greet me mocking ''I'm living alone, you all abandoned me, I'm a great woman, I came here by myself, I wanted to live, now I'm too old to take care of myself, I don't care, what are you doing here?'' I was looking for a house, I thought, she has one, in poor Bronx, needs someone to help her shop and cook, needs her children now, I'm her younger son, walked past her alley by accident, but here she is survived, sleeping awake on that wooden platform. Has she an extra room? I noticed her cave adjoined a one room apartment door, unpainted basement storeroom, facing her shelter in the building side. I could live here, worst comes to worst, best place I'll find, near my mother in our mortal life.

[deathlessathanasia]

“Although the race of Giants is alluded to in Homer (Odyssey 7.58–60, 206), neither the battle nor Heracles’ role is mentioned by him. There are strong indications that epic treatments of the theme have been lost, but Heracles’ participation is alluded to in other surviving archaic literature. In the post-Hesiodic appendix to the Theogony (950–954), Heracles receives Hebe as his wife and lives painlessly and agelessly after completing a “great deed among the immortals” (ὅς μέγα ἔργον ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἀνύσσας, 954), thus linking his aid to the Olympians with his apotheosis, a connection that will be emphasized in art and literature for the next 900 years. In Hesiod’s Ehoiai, the so-called Catalog of Women, Heracles’ life story is woven throughout the poem in a retrograde manner. Early in the catalog (Hesiod fr. 43a.61–65 MW), the “sturdy son of Zeus” is credited with coming straight from Troy to sack a lovely city on Cos, and then “in Phlegra he slaughtered the overbearing Giants” (ἐν Φλέγρηι δὲ Γίγαντας ὑπ-ερφιάλους κατέπεφνε, 65). When his birth is finally recounted (Hesiod fr. 195), Zeus’ intentions are characterized as engendering the hero as a protector against ruin (ἀρῆς ἀλκτῆρα, Hesiod fr. 195.29), making Heracles an indispensable part of his plan to thwart the chaos that the Giants will bring to his emerging cosmic order (Haubold 2005).

Heracles is present in the visual mythological record of the Gigantomachy as early as the sixth century BC. For example, a Corinthian votive pinax from the Penteskouphi cave, dated 575–550 BC, shows Heracles drawing a bow and Zeus hurling a thunderbolt against off-screen adversaries (LIMC Gigantes 98; Hanfmann 1937, 476–477). The pairing of Heracles and Zeus, both in attack mode, surely must be a moment from the Gigantomachy. The theme, however, was particularly in vogue in archaic Athens, where the battle was woven into the robe presented to the goddess Athena at the Panathenaea festival, newly renewed in 566 BC (Ridgway 1992, 122–124). The Panathenaea was a celebration of Athena’s birthday as well as her role in the victory of the Gods over the Giants (Callikrates FGrH 124 F5; Aristotle fr. 637 Rose). This depiction, paraded through the streets of Athens on a cart, was a prominent visual moment of pride: their tutelary goddess was an influential martial force against this attack on the cosmic order. Subsequently, abundant Attic black-figure representations of the Gigantomachy appear on vases dedicated as votive offerings on the Acropolis (Shapiro 1992, 38).3 These show Heracles fighting from Zeus’ chariot with Zeus and Athena in close proximity and, in many examples, Gaia appearing to supplicate Zeus on behalf of her children. This vignette from the battle compositionally emphasizes the mortal hero’s status in the ranks as equal to the Olympian divinities’ (Vian 1951, 51; Moore 1977, 308; LIMC Gigantes 104–123). An amphora in the Antikensammlungen in Munich, in the manner of the Lysippides Painter and dated between 530 and 525 BC (Fig. 19.1, Munich, Antikenslg 1485; ABV 263, 4), can serve as an example of the popular depiction of this theme in the Archaic period. Zeus, in right profile, is prominent brandishing his thunderbolt and mounting his quadriga chariot on which Heracles is already balanced. The hero is easily recognizable from the lion-skin that covers his head as a helmet and drapes its paws over a short chiton. With one foot on the chariot pole, he draws back his loaded bow aiming at the Giants in front of him. Athena, dressed in her aegis, strides out in front with the horses, her long hair flowing out from under her helmet, and is poised to throw a spear. Heracles, flanked by the two powerful divinities, emphasizes that his presence is essential for the success of the enterprise. In a few rare Archaic depictions (Vian 1952a, 64–67; Moore 1977, 308 n. 16), Athena and Heracles appear without Zeus, the hero alone with his patroness referencing their close relationship and her recommendation for including him as the token mortal in this battle.”

 - The Gigantomachy by Christina Salowey, in The Oxford Handbook of Heracles

[waitingforwinterwinds]

Game of Thrones - 21 TYRION III (pages 197-208)

Tyrion has a final dinner at Castle Black and takes a good-bye tour of the Wall, confirming his bro-ship with Jon and Ghost before he returns south.

-

“- Once the Watch spent its summers building, and each Lord Commander raised the Wall higher than when he found it. Now it is all we can do to stay alive.”

*Shocked Pikachu face* Oh, but that is so fascinating, for all that the Wall is talked about like it's this at least pseudo mystical thing, the Night's Watch has been building it for nigh on 8,000 years. How tall was the wall when Bran the Builder considered it finished? Did the wall melt and shrink as the years went on? Did the Lord Commanders make it much, much taller than it originally ever was, or just restore lost height?

“You are a young man, Tyrion,” Mormont said. “How many winters have you seen?” He shrugged. “Eight, nine. I misremember.” “And all of them short.” “As you say my lord.” He had been born in the dead of winter, a terrible, cruel, one that the maesters said had lasted near three years, but Tyrion's first memories were of spring. “When I was a boy, it was said that a long summer always meant a long winter to come. This summer has lasted nine years, Tyrion, and a tenth will soon be upon us. Think on that.”

Hang on, give me a second. *Checks appendix* Sansa – 11 years old, Arya – 9 years old. So... Sansa and Arya could have both been born during the last winter, but if they weren't, Arya, Bran and Rickon are all children born during the long summer. I'm not saying that means anything, I just thought it was interesting. (Do I have a deep-seated need for (at least one of) the girls to have been born in the winter and for that to have meant something? Yeah, a little bit, not gonna lie.)

A wooden stair ascended the south face, anchored on huge rough-hewn beams sunk deep into the ice and frozen in place. Back and forth it switched, clawing its way upward as crooked as a bolt of lightning. The black brothers assured him it was much stronger than it looked, but Tyrion's legs were cramping too badly for him to even contemplate the ascent. … His bare cheeks were ruddy with the cold, and his legs complained more loudly with every step, but Tyrion ignored them. … “I have a mile of Wall to guard. Will you walk with me?” “If you walk slowly,” Tyrion said. “The watch commander tells me I must walk, to keep my blood from freezing, but he never said how fast.”

Awww, poor Tyrion, the cold is just so bad for his legs, not to mention all the strain from horse riding and stair climbing he'll have been doing. I'm glad Jon's doing better, and that these two are on friendly terms. Now as long as neither of them turns into an unrecognisable asshat...

I also really like how Tyrion's POV describes the land north of the Wall, like they had dragons less than a century and a half ago, and for all they've mapped there's still so much they haven't, so much wilderness left in Westeros, but the land north of the wall is just so ancient and other.

[grab-mane]

He was so much better today even though we had a 20 degree temperature drop. Love this boy.

[keep-calm-and-event]

[saintseiya-zone]

Saint Seiya Birthdates

January

Capricorn

1 - Yoruhime Tsukishima

2 - Lionet Blériot

3 - Capricorn Eito

4 - Polaris Hilda

6 - Canis Major Sirius

10 - Black Canes Venatici Yudo

12 - Capricorn Shura

20 - Vampire Erhart

Aquarius

23 - Cygnus Hyoga

24 - Hakutaku Fei-Yan

25 - Hydra Curtis

26 - Owl Partita

27 - Papillon Myu

February

Aquarius

1 - Worm Raimi

2 - Mine

5 - Aquarius Degel

7 - Aquarius Camus

8 - Alioth Epsilon Fenrir, Aquarius Krest

10 - Hydra Ichi

11 - Quetzalcoatl Carbella

13 - Behemoth Violate

14 - Harpy Valentine

17 - Kraken Isaac

Piscis

20 - Centaurus Babel, Canes Venatici Asterion

21 - Cyclops Giganto

23 - Pisces Albafica

27 - Shelley

March

Piscis

2 - Scylla Io

7 - Harpy Chunfeng

8 - Sasha

9 - Pefko

10 - Pisces Aphrodite

13 - Frog Xeros

14 - Aries Theseus

15 - Poseidon Seraphina

18 - Aquila Marin, Seika

19 - Pisces Rugonis, Dryad Luco

20 - Sparrow Mudan

Aries

21 - Julian Solo

22 - Jamadhar Áima

24 - Ophiucus Shaina

25 - Griffon Minos

27 - Aries Mu

29 - Cerberus Dante

30 - Aries Shion

April

Aries

1 - Appendix Kiki

4 - Atla

5 - Miho

6 - Gioca

9 - Connor Lugh

12 - Crane Yuzuriha

14 - Aries Gateguard

15 - Alraune Queen

17 - Chameleon June

18 - Deadly Beetle Stand

19 - Aries Avenir

Taurus

20 - Shunrei

30 - Cepehus Daidalos

May

Taurus

2 - Taurus Francisca

4 - Bear Douglas

5 - Tokumaru Tatsumi

6 - Taurus Teneo, Black Cetus Allegre

7 - Sea Horse Baian

8 - Taurus Aldebaran

15 - Bear Geki

17 - Cor Tauri

18 - Taurus Rasgado

20 - Balor (Cruach)

Gemini

30 - Gemini Saga, Gemini Kanon

31 - Fluorite

June

Gemini

6 - Ahimsa

7 - Cat Sith Cheshire

8 - Wyvern Shouichirou, Gemini Soujirou

9 - Youalteputzli Nahualpilli

11 - Nasu Veronica

13 - Hypnos, Thanatos

15 - Bhuj Kókalla

16 - Sagitta Ptolemy

17 - Golem Rock

18 - Sea Dragon Unity

20 - Gemini Aspros, Gemini Defteros

Cancer

24 - Cancer Deathmask

25 - Pandora

26 - Elf Mills

30 - Cancer Sage, Altar Hakurei

July

Cancer

1 - Hanuman Tokusa

4 - Vouivre Garnet

6 - Garuda Aiacos

7 - Cattleya Mikagami

10 - Musca Dio

12 - Sphinx Esther

13 - Black Pegasus

14 - Cancer Manigoldo

16 - Wolf Junkers

18 - Black Herakles Laimargos

20 - Basilisk Sylphid, Wolf Nachi

22 - Black Altar Avido

Leo

25 - Celintha

26 - Nine-tailed Fox Hui

August

Leo

2 - Cetus Moses

3 - Deep Niobe

4 - Leo Regulus

7 - Laelaps Suzuri

8 - Jango

9 - Centaurus Photia

10 - Black Dragons, Chrysaor Krishna

11 - Upyr Leibold

12 - Bennu Kagaho

14 - Black Terror Ferser

15 - Phoenix Ikki, Herakles Alghetti

16 - Leo Aioria

18 - Leo Illias

19 - Lymnades Caça

22 - Auriga Capella

Virgo

25 - Esmeralda

25 - Sui

27 - Corvus Jamian

30 - Troll Ivan

31 - Pyxis Rusk

September

Virgo

1 - Saori Kido

3 - Pandora Heinstein

4 - Virgo Asmita

7 - Yi-Lin, Necromancer Charlotte

9 - Andromeda Shun

10 - Siren Sorrento

11 - Necromancer Byaku

12 - Agasha

14 - Genbu Gregor

16 - Alches

18 - Lycaon Phlegyas

19 - Virgo Shaka

22 - Kageboshi

Libra

25 - Bat Wimber

October

Libra

2 - Acheron Charon

3 - Puppis Lacaille, Dullahan Cube

4 - Dragon Shiryu, Black Andromeda

5 - Hao

8 - Salo

11 - Lacerta Misty

13 - Sylph Edward

16 - Centaurus Yugo

17 - Libra Itia

20 - Libra Dohko

Scorpio

23 - Atavaka

26 - Sagita Alcon

27 - Scorpio Kardia

30 - Wyvern Radamanthys

November

Scorpio

2 - Unicorn Yato

3 - Unicorn Jabu

5 - Corvus Rusé

7 - Gorgon Ochs

8 - Scorpio Milo

9 - Scorpio Zaphiri

11 - Perseus Algol

13 - Vela Tsubaki

14 - Mandrake Fyodor

15 - Lyra Orphee

18 - Sphinx Pharaoh

21 - Mermaid Tethys

Sagittarius

23 - Tezcatlipoca Huesuda

24 - Failinis

25 - Dubhe Alpha Siegfried

28 - Sagittarius Aeras, Athena (XV)

30 - Sagittarius Aioros

December

Sagittarius

1 - Pegasus Seiya, Ikaros (Touma), Garuda Matsuri

3 - Sagittarius Sisyphos

5 - Pegasus Tenma

10 - Equuleus Kyoko & Shoko

14 - Cassios

17 - Ursula Walden

19 - Minotaurus Gordon, Cetus Chris

Capricorn

23 - Mizar Zeta Syd, Alcor Zeta Bud

24 - Balrog Lune, Alone

27 - Capricorn ElCid

28 - Black Cygnus

30 - Lionet Ban

31 - Mephistopheles Youma

[roananddappleranch]

You can follow me on all my socials right here: https://linktr.ee/roananddappleranch

Who doesn't love a solid black horse with a few dapples and some flashy white markings in the western dressage ring, am I right? R&DR Bullet to the Moon was showing off so well inside the competition for the summer showcases happening now and she truly did such a great job for her first starting shows. Especially after being under saddle for only a little bit now, she shows so much potential.

[momento-molly]

thankful for the chance to get to know you♡

[frumiousthebandersnatch]

In our case he was spared, and lived to be the cheerful, jovial spirit of the Euphrates Expedition

The Battersby biography notes that James Fitzjames, like many of the men of the Euphrates Expedition, was taken ill near Lake Antioch (pg. 80). Battersby does not mention that it was Edward Charlewood who nursed Fitzjames back to health:

“But to return to this miserable little village of Guzelburj, with its hovels plastered with buffalo dung, and swarming with vermin. Many pleasing recollections are brought to my mind with reference to it. It was the headquarters of my dear friend and brother-officer, Fitzjames, who superintended the transport of the stores from thence to Murad Pacha.

“Upon one occasion when I again arrived with some wagons of boilers, I found everything at a standstill; all the boatmen had left, and Fitzjames was lying in his tent, apparently insensible with a raging fever, his tongue black and swollen, with one large blood-red crack across it, his Maltese servant being the only person with him. A doctor was at once sent for from the hospital which had been established in Antioch. Upon his arrival he shook his head very sagely, pronounced the case all but hopeless, and requested the immediate removal of the patient to the hospital. To our utter astonishment, Fitzjames upon this opened his eyes, shook his head, and muttered, ‘I will die here.’ The worthy doctor left in disgust; and as it was necessary for me now to remain at Guzelburj to despatch the heavy weights by boats, I made my patient as comfortable as possible, and during every spare moment employed myself dropping water gently upon his poor tongue. He took little or no medicine, but the water continually moistening the tongue evidently had a surprising effect.

“How Fitzjames gradually improved and at last was able to sit upon my horse, supported by me whilst walking by his side:—how upon one of these occasions he placed his dear kind hand on my head, and with tears starting from his eyes exclaimed, ‘Had you not backed me up, and refused to let the doctor take me to that hospital, I should now be dead: I shall never forget your kindness to me!’—how I am certain he never did forget it to the date of his death, when Captain of H.M.S. 'Erebus,' in Sir John Franklin's ill-fated Polar Expedition:—but how in our case he was spared, and lived to be the cheerful, jovial spirit of the Euphrates Expedition, to help us on when sickness and weariness depressed us all:—these are indeed reminiscences most pleasing for me to dwell upon, but perhaps uninteresting to the general reader.”

Edward Charlewood, from the appendix to Colonel Chesney's Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition (pgs. 479-480)

[amarettocoffee]

*yeets in*

I was given full permission to softly bully you into talking about your ocs from liz

Sincerly, other oc named iris haver

- @jonathanstigbitties

Hi 👋

oh boy …..where to I start?

Name: Iris Fleischer

Namesake: Iris- goo goo dolls, her last name is a nod to the leading singer’s last name (both mean butcher)

Birthday: may 13,1870

Age:  20

Race: Human

Gender: female

Ability: Stand( to be decided) / putting up with Diego B.S

Personality Traits: confident, friendly, patient, headstrong, spontaneous

Height: 5’4.5 ( inch or two taller then Diego)

Weight: 120 lb.

Hair/Eye Color: black / honey brown

Bio:  

born into a well-off racehorse farm owner, she grew up being the wild to her older sister’s calm. Her and Johnny’s father knew each other so they spent some time at the Joestar’s English estate, which is how she got a certain large black horse following an unfortunate event. 

She official met Diego at an engagement party hosted by her sister’s future father-in-law, they start messing around but swear it was only physical. After finding out Diego got hitch Iris realized she most definitely caught major feelings, and when she found out Diego was taking part in the Steel ball race she decided to join as well in hopes of reconnecting. 

She has three horses on the farm that are her personal horses a painted draft mule named Casanova, Blue roan appendix (quarter horse thoroughbred) La devotee and a strawberry roan mustang  named Regular Outlaw

Appearance:

 (can’t draw for shit, so Sims is my go to option) 

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

 STAND TEMPLATE( still trying to decide)

 Option 1

Name: Light My love

Namesake: Light My love- Greta Van Fleet

Type: Artificial Non-Humanoid Stands

Ability(s): tracking an individual the user is acquainted with ( name, hobbies, personality)

Ability Description(s):  a umbrella yarn winder with a cord of light winded in it

Appearance: 

this but with cord of light around it 

Option 2

Name: Lavender blue

Namesake: Lavender’s blue- old English folksong

Type: Phenomenon Type

Ability(s): sleeping gas/ fog

Ability Description(s): affects a specific area the longer you inhale it the heavier the effect

Appearance: Lavender/ mauve colour fog, smell like lavender, sage and frankincense

Option 3

Name: All Coming Back

Namesake: It’s All Coming Back to Me- Celine Dion version

Type: Artificial Humanoid Stands

Ability(s):  sudden debilitating clarity/ realization  

Ability Description(s):  those with in a set distance are hit with a sudden relation or clarity of an event past or present (that feeling when you suddenly realize what was going on or what you should have said)

Appearance: unknown

[arofili]

Men of Middle-earth Edit Series: Appendix D

Continued from Appendix C. This section will contain information on the Easterlings, Southrons, the Nazgûl, the mortal characters who appear in The Lost Road, and other miscellaneous Men who didn’t fit well into another category.

~~~

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Appendix A: House of Éorl Appendix B: Misc. Númenóreans, Misc. Dúnedain Appendix C: Middle Men, Northmen Appendix D: Easterlings, Southrons, Nazgûl, The Lost Road, Misc. Men (you are here!)

~~~

Note: We don’t know what any of the canonical Easterling and Haradrim words mean, so I’ve made up translations for their names and given myself a bank of word-parts with which to create OC names. I adopted a lot of names in this section from various adaptations; an asterisk* next to a word indicates that it appears in an adaptation (such as LOTRO or MERP), but not within Tolkien’s canon. These people would have possessed many languages, not just the jumble of word-parts I’ve assembled here, and of course would also include many, many more sub-cultures than I can depict, but I’m doing my best with the extremely limited information we have. None of this is canon unless explicitly stated.

EASTERLING GLOSSARY -(a)r || pluralizer || made up meaning (*Khundolar, *Jangovar, *Sûhalar) ban || “strength” || real element (Ban father of Blodren), made up meaning blod || “pride” || real element (Blodren), made up meaning brod || “great” || real element (Brodda), made up meaning chaya || “wind” || made up meaning (*Chayasír) da || “-ness” || real element (Brodda; “greatness”), made up meaning dola || “horse” || made up meaning (*Khundolar) dra || “beauty, beautiful” || entirely made up ekh || “wild” || entirely made up gan || “master” || real element (Lorgan), made up meaning gûr || “wisdom” || entirely made up hala || “axe” || made up meaning (*Sûhalar) -i || pluralizer || entirely made up; Veradja dialect -iag || “workers” || real element (Variag), made up meaning -ja || “language, speech” || made up meaning (*Veradja); Veradja dialect jango || “victory” || made up meaning (*Jangovar) kha || “power, powerful” || real element (Khamûl; Khand), made up meaning khor || “black” || entirely made up khund || “noble, nobility” || made up meaning (*Khundolar) kul || “song” || entirely made up lor || “fierce” || real element (Lorgan), made up meaning lund || “dark” || entirely made up mûl || “lord” || real element (Khamûl), made up meaning nab || “friend” || entirely made up -nd || “land of” || real element (Khand), made up meaning; Veradja dialect peg || “sword” || entirely made up rad || “light” || entirely made up ren || “one who is” || real element (Blodren), made up meaning sír || “to love” || made up meaning (*Chayasír) sû || “fire” || made up meaning (*Sûhalar) tan || “gentle” || entirely made up tavu || “sea” || entirely made up thû || “king” || one of Sauron’s early names, here made into his name among the Easterlings va || “sail” || made up meaning (*Jangovar) var || “money” || real element, made up meaning (Variag); Veradja dialect verad || “moon” || made up meaning (*Veradja) zakh || “mountain” || entirely made up

SOUTHRON GLOSSARY ashū || “south” || entirely made up boz || “open” || made up meaning (*Bozisha) can(na) || “oasis” || made up meaning (*Sud Sicanna) dala || “night” || made up meaning (*Dalamyr) (f)az || “land” || entirely made up ghyr || “worm” || entirely made up hash(a) || “silence” || made up meaning (*Hasharin) -i || pluralizer || entirely made up inkā || “north” || derived from canonical Inkā-nūsh, “north-spy” mahûd || “troll” || meaning guessed from context (*Mahûd Men) mak || “oliphaunt” || derived from canonical mûmak, “war oliphaunt” mir, myr || “desert” || made up meaning (*Miraz, Dalamyr); spelling varies by dialect mû || “war” || derived from canonical mûmak, “war oliphaunt” nūsh || “spy” || derived from canonical Inkā-nūsh, “north-spy” póac || “jungle” || made up meaning (*Tûl Póac) rin || pluralizer || made up meaning (*Hasharin) raz || “blue” || made up meaning (*Miraz) rûv || “wealth” || entirely made up sar || “magic” || entirely made up sica || “great, greatness” || (*Sud Sicanna) sud || “city” || made up meaning (*Sud Sicanna) tûl || “town” || made up meaning (*Tûl Póac) vek || “lord” || entirely made up yetta || “heart” || entirely made up zish(a) || “plains” || made up meaning (*Bozisha)

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EASTERLINGS AND SOUTHRONS

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First Age Easterlings ft. Tanrad Ídhron (OC), Ban, Tandra (OC), Blodren, Brodda, Lorgan; First Age Easterlings article The story here is mostly canonical. I’ve done my best to give these Easterlings a sympathetic portrayal, emphasizing their diversity and humanity, but that is difficult when all the named Easterlings have negative portrayals in canon. We’ll get more to other Easterling groups (the Khundolar and Chayasír) in a future edit. Tanrad is an OC; his story is covered in a little more detail in the edit I made about his wife Arasdil (also an OC). I gave Bór and Ulfang and their kids names in their original tongue, because they would certainly not have had Sindarin names when they came to Beleriand, and were definitely given those particular Sindarin names after their deaths, because no one would call their ally a name that means “ugly beard.” The story of Ban and Blodren is covered in my edit about the Gaurwaith; you can find out about the alterations to that story here. Brodda and Lorgan’s tales are mostly canonical, with some embellishment. We don’t know the manner of Lorgan’s death; I made that up. The Easterlings supposedly fought on Morgoth’s side in the War of Wrath, but I don’t buy that every single one of them did, especially since there had to have been people who were more chill and people who had mixed Hadorian-Easterling ancestry at this point, so I had some of them escape to join the other army. Elros’ position in the War of Wrath is a headcanon.

Bór the Faithful ft. Kulren Bór, Nabren Díbór (OC), Kultan Borlad, Kulnab Borlach, Kulrad Borthand 95% of this is headcanon, as we know very little about the lives of Bór and his sons aside from their loyalty to Maedhros. I’ve given them all names in their own tongue (they’re alliterative...sorry) because they wouldn’t have been called Bór__ from the jump. Some of the Easterling women were said to be “proud and barbaric” so I had Bór’s wife be a warrior also. We know that Bór died in the Nírnaeth, and that his sons killed Ulfast and Ulwarth before they themselves were killed, and that’s pretty much it for the canon info. Everything else I made up. I tried to justify the meanings of their Sindarin names by their roles/personalities/fates, and I thought Maglor putting them into song, since he would have known them personally, was a fitting way for those names to be applied to them posthumously. Ekhda = wildness; ekhren = wild one: this is basically the concept of a berserker.

Ulfang the Black ft. Pegmûl Ulfang, Lorrad Emerul (OC), Khagan Uldor, Lundda Ulfast, Mûlda Ulwarth Like the previous edit, this is almost entirely headcanon. We do know that Ulfang died before the Battle, leaving Uldor to lead his people into treachery; likewise, we know how Ulfang’s sons died. I made up pretty much everything else. Again, I’ve tried to portray these people sympathetically; they’re definitely not the good guys, but they did have reasons for doing what they did. Also I gave them all new names in their own tongue, because just like Bór and his sons, they wouldn’t have been called Ul__ (“ugly __”) from birth, especially not since they were named before encountering anyone who spoke Sindarin.

Easterlings (of the Land of the Sun) ft. the Easterling subgroups of: the Wainriders, the Balchoth, and the tribes known as the Khundolar, Jangovar, Sûhalar, and Chayasír (LOTRO) So, SO much of this headcanon, though a great portion of it is canon as well! And there’s a lot of LOTRO details thrown in for good measure, though again I have not played that game and am getting all my info on it from Tolkien Gateway. Let’s begin: Túvon is a proto-Sauron character who interacted with Men shortly after they Awoke, not wholly evil but whose arc would have turned against Men if Tolkien hadn’t scrapped him as a character and replaced him with Thû the Necromancer, who himself also replaced Tevildo, Prince of Cats. Since the Thû’s development leads into the creation of Sauron, but Túvon feels like a different sort of character, I have decided to distinguish between them and make Túvon into a lesser servant of Morgoth who also meddles with the Easterlings after the First Age. Everything about him after the first paragraph is entirely headcanon, and even that first part should be taken with a heaping grain of salt. Since there’s not really a great place for Sauron’s name of “Thû” to be reincorporated in his main storyline, I’ve made it instead his moniker among the Easterlings. Most of the places I mention are actually canonical locations! (Though a lot of this is taken from BoLT and not mentioned elsewhere.) Hildórien is where Men Awoke; the Land of the Sun is a name for the lands east of Rhovanion, aka Rhûn (which just means “east,” so I think that’s a name applied by western peoples and not what its inhabitants called their lands); Kalormë is the second-highest mountain in Arda (after Taniquetil) and sits amid the mountain range known alternately as the Mountains of the Wind and the Walls of the Sun (eta: I was wrong, Mtns of Wind are a different place); Palisor is the middle-most region of Middle-earth, aka the western edge of Rhûn / the eastern edge of Rhovanion; the Inland Sea is the Sea of Rhûn, which I’ve given the Easterling name “Tavukhor” (Black Sea) (eta: nope the Inland Sea is somewhere else; but I still call the Sea of Rhun Tavukhor); Sauron is said to have an “eastern stronghold” that the Blue Wizards failed to discover, so I made that a Dark Castle in Khundoland. Khundoland is just the name I made up for the homeland of the Khundolar. I didn’t actually intend for it to have the suffix -land; I just replaced the -ar suffix with the -nd suffix I had decided meant “land” (see Kha+nd, “land of power”) and it happened to turn into a sort of cognate to English, lol. The summaries of Sauron’s attacks against the West that involved his Easterling subjects are mostly canonical, with embellishment and an attempt to at least explain the Easterlings’ actions. Again, I’ve tried to make them sympathetic; they might be servants of Evil, but they’re just people working under a cruel overlord. Some are evil themselves, others aren’t, others just don’t care. It’s complicated. The Wainriders and Balchoth are described as a “confederacy of Easterlings,” so I took that to mean they’re from many different tribes united under Sauron’s banner. However, since I’d established the Khundolar as both Sauron’s main army and as horse-riders, I thought it made sense for them to make up the bulk of those forces. Their women are said to be trained in arms, though they stayed home to protect their villages; I altered this so that women were also warriors in the wagon-riding hosts. From LOTRO, I took the names of four major Easterling tribes: the Khundolar, the Jangovar, the Sûhalar, and the Chayasír. (There are doubtless more, but I had names to use with those four, and I can’t go over every single subculture that would’ve existed in Arda...at least not without anything to build off of!!) In the game (again, according to Tolkien Gateway, not my personal experience), the Khundolar attack Rohan and fight in the Battle of the Morannon; from that I developed the idea that they were horse-mounted warriors like the Rohirrim, and then you can see how I built more upon them as Sauron’s main Easterling servants. The Jangovar in the game attack Dale and Erebor, so I decided that they were probably closely situated to that area: thus, I picked the Sea of Rhûn to be their base, and made them sailors also. (This also happened to fit in nicely with my headcanon for the Nazgûl Kullund, an OC I’ll explore in a later edit.) The Sûhalar are “shorter in stature and armed with axes, to their point where some mistake them for dwarves”: from that quote, I decided that, like dwarves, they would dwell in mountains (also where I’d decided Túvon lived, so I put them together), and who knows maybe they’re part-dwarf in ancestry too, idk. They fought at Pelennor Fields. Finally, the Chayasír are, in the game, the only group who don’t fight with Sauron. They don’t particularly like him and stay out of the War. I decided that they were closest in kin to the Khundolar, Sauron’s strongest supporters, and that one of Sauron’s earliest moves in the East was to divide the two groups so they’d be easier to control, which worked when it came to the Khundolar if not the Chayasír (who were probably the less populous group to begin with). I also decided that the Khundolar-Chayasír people would be where Bór and Ulfang’s people originated from. Anyway, in LOTRO, an “unknown calamity” takes place in their part of Rhûn on the same day that the One Ring is destroyed, and the Chayasír refugees flee to the lands around Dale and the Iron Hills. Those folk are not happy about this, since they’d just won a war against the Jangovar, but while the Chayasír don’t see themselves as being related to the Jangovar, it’s hard to convince the people of Dale of that. None of the refugees will say what exactly happened in Rhûn, just that it’s absolutely impossible for them to go back. This whole situation is quite interesting to me: I decided it was a final curse of Sauron upon them and their lands that forced them to leave, in retribution for “betraying” him; it could be many other things, but this one has an element of mystery and magic to it which could explain why they’re reluctant to talk about it. Plus, zombies! I decided Aragorn in his kingliness would intervene on their behalf, and I moved them to the Desolation of Smaug, which is a shitty piece of land no one else wanted, but they’ll be okay in the long run. This is in contrast to the other three tribes of Easterlings, who kind of come together after their leader is vanquished, and pull themselves together much faster. Sometimes saying “fuck you” to evil is worse for you than if you’d gone along with it...but I imagine the Chayasír are proud they refused Sauron’s service. They’re probably cool people with a strong moral code. Idk. I didn’t actually go much into that in the edit, as you can see.

Veradi of Khand ft. the people of Khand and its capital city Zakhrad (my creation), the Variags We know very little about Khand from canon, so this is almost entirely headcanon. We do know that Khand and Rhûn had a bit of a rivalry before the Variags joined forces with the Wainriders, and that there were Variags at Pelennor Fields, but literally everything else is made up. I took the word “Veradja” (the name of their language) from MERP, but the meaning I gave to it is my own. I did take inspiration from the little summary about the Variags in LOTRO when crafting this story, but nothing super specific. Gûrban the Nazgûl will appear again in a future edit :) In our world, “Variag” is a word of Slavic origin meaning “mercenary,” so I decided to import that meaning into Middle-earth and have the Variags be just a specific military group from Khand and not the catch-all term for everyone who lived there. Since we have next to no information on these people, I had a lot of fun coming up with traditions and intrigue—and it’s very exciting to have a specifically known region outside of the vague “east” of Rhûn and “south” of Harad! To me this suggests a sovereign nation, and the nature of the term Variag implies that they aren’t really bound to Sauron’s will the same way his other Mannish servants are, so it was really great to be able to explore a non-Dúnedainic civilization that isn’t Evil with a capital E. Of course, this is all guesswork and headcanon, so don’t give Tolkien too much credit!

Haradrim ft. the Haradrim subgroups of: the Kingdom of Rûvashû (my creation), the Kingdom of Yettafaz (my creation), the Miraz of Tûl Póac (MERP), Cultists of the Blue Wizards, the Bozisha (MERP) of Lostladen, the Kingdom of Abrakhân (LOTR Strategy Battle Game), the Hasharin and their leader Dalamyr (LOTR SBG), Troll-men, Suladân (LOTR SBG) the Black Serpent of Sud Sicanna (MERP) Like with the East, MUCH of this is headcanon! We don’t even know much about Harad’s geography, and almost all of the names here were pilfered from Tolkien Gateway’s notes on various adaptations (mostly games I haven’t played). I painstakingly integrated those word parts into my made up conlang, adapted them into my verse, and only THEN did I realize upon looking at the main the main article for the MERP game that the game designers had done much of that for me...but whatever, I’m using the names but completely throwing out their ideas because fuck it. And only the Far Harad stuff had the potential to be useful, anyway; the Near Harad info was painfully Gondorian-based and not at all what I was interested in. Sar-Myrin is a (mis)translation of “Tar-Mairon” into cobbled-together version of the Haradrim tongue; they heard “Tar-” and thought “Sar” (magic) which wasn’t really inaccurate, and then Myr (desert) rin (pl.) = myrin = deserts, thus Mage of the Deserts. The Númenóreans and their descendants had much more interaction with Harad than they did Rhûn, so much of the story here is focused on those conflicts; I’ve done my best to make the Haradrim sympathetic despite their service to Sauron. Most of what the Númenóreans did in Harad is canon, though much embellished. I made up everything about the Southron Nazgûl; their kingdoms of Rûvashû and Yettafaz are entirely my own creation, though I borrowed the titles “High Sorcerer” and “Forsaken Reaver” from LOTRO. We do know that there were Southrons who moved to the woods and mountains to escape Sauron, but the names Tûl Póac and Miraz are Middle-earth Role Playing (MERP). The bit about the evening star is a nod to a detail from BoLT where Eärendil and Voronwë, flying in Vingilótë, see “tree-men” and “pygmies” in the south. I’ve referenced the Black Númenóreans Herumor and Fuinur in previous edits, but here I gave them an origin story and a name to their kingdom: Abrakhân, a name I stole from the LOTR Strategy Battle Game; since I translated Abrakhân as “faithful brother” I thought it a fitting title for my headcanon that Fuinur and Herumor were brothers. The Harashin were also taken from the LOTR SBG, as is the character Dalamyr. The bit about the Haradrim using the Nazgûl’s Black Breath to poison their arrows is actually canon! I’ve also talked about Karasalêth and Zâinazimril (aka Berúthiel) in other edits, but here’s the story from their side of things. Aside from Eärnil I’s death being arranged and not accidental, everything about him, Círyandil, and Círyaher is canon, as is the bit about the Corsairs, who I covered in another edit. We know that (though Rómestámo’s name refers to the East and not the South?) the Blue Wizards were more successful in Harad than they were in Rhûn, so I gave them a greater focus here than in the Easterling edit. The names Veksari and Sarazzin are my own creations. Lostladen is a canonical location that we know very little about; Bozisha is a name I stole from MERP and repurposed for my own needs. Inkā-nūsh (or Incánus) is a canonical name for Gandalf that he earned traveling in the South. I skipped over a lot of the minor conflicts during the reign of the Stewards, mostly because this was getting very long and they weren’t that interesting and the majority of them were by the Corsairs who I’d already covered. “Mahûd men” is a name for half-trolls (who were canonically at Pelennor Fields) that I stole from the LOTR SBG, as is the name Suladân in reference to the canonical figure of the Black Serpent. In the Fourth Age, it is canon that Haradrim emissaries went to Gondor, and Tolkien mused that perhaps the Blue Wizards didn’t return to Valinor and that they had a lasting influence in the form of “magic cults” in the South, though those last ideas are dubiously canonical at best.

Hashavis Kuilizîth ft. Hashavis Kuilizîth (OC) A late addition for B2MeM22; this is Berúthiel’s mother. Everything here is headcanon or covered in another edit’s notes. Her name in the Haradrim tongue is “hasha” (quiet) + “vis” (lady); I tweaked the pre-established word part “vek” (lord) to get “vis.” Her name in Adûnaic is “kuiliz” (quiet), which is derived from Primitive Elvish “kuilez” (quiet), + “îth,” a canonical feminine suffix.

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NAZGÛL

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Nazgûl ft. Tar-Míriel (Witch-king of Angmar), Khamûl, Eärmerco (OC), Rôthi Lustahondë (OC), Vekmû (OC), Sarnūsh (OC), Kullund (OC), Gûrban (OC), Aiwareiks (OC) We know, canonically, that Khamûl is an Easterling, and that three of the Nazgûl were once Númenóreans, including the Witch-king. The deeds of the Nazgûl over time are canon in broad strokes, but not in details; everything about my OCs is made up, and I’ve covered many of their stories in other edits. Tar-Míriel as the Witch-king is one of my favorite headcanons; if you want a bit more detailed take on her origin story, check out this fic I wrote.

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THE LOST ROAD & OTHER MISCELLANEOUS MEN

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Heden ft. Heden, Gyda (OC), Beorn Hedensson, Eoh, Mildwyn (OC), Ottor Wǽfre I chose to adapt the story of Eriol into my personal canon, with some alterations, but not the story of Ælfwine. This is largely because Ælfwine came as a revision of Eriol, and Eriol’s text stands mostly on its own. The core story here is “mortal man comes to Tol Eressëa and learns of the Elder Days,” but I changed some of what comes next. However, this first edit is about what comes before. Heden is described as “the leather and fur clad,” and I extrapolated that to get his professions. We know Eoh lived on the coast, but Eriol was not born there, so therefore Eoh must have moved inland, and since we know Beorn killed him that means his brother must have come with him. The duke and his lands are taken from Eriol’s story, but the duke as the father of Eoh’s wife is my idea. There are two versions of Eoh’s death, one where he is killed by his brother Beorn and one where he is killed in the last sack of the city. I decided to combine the two by having Beorn inciting the violence, though his reasons for doing so are my invention. We don’t know why there was war in the duke’s city other than who their enemies were, so it’s possible that Beorn was involved. The fate of Eriol’s mother is also taken directly from his story; I imagine that aside from starvation, she was treated poorly by her people, who blamed her and her father for failing to defend the city. Eriol’s enslavement and escape are also part of his story, though he does not dwell on that time, so neither do I.

Eriol ft. Ottor Wǽfre Eriol, Cwén, Hengest and Horsa, Naimi Éadgifu, Vorindo Heorrenda I decided in adapting Eriol’s story that he did not, in fact, come from our world: instead he is a Man of Middle-earth in later Ages (the Sixth? Seventh? idk), and it’s still definitely MIDDLE-earth, not Earth. Thus, though the text gives the island the name of Heligoland (a real place off the coast of Germany), I left it vague, keeping only nonspecific terms like the North and Western Seas. We don’t know how Cwén died, so I filled in that gap; we also don’t know how old her sons were when Eriol left for the sea, or who cared for them with their mother dead and their father absent. (I also headcanon them as twins, so uh...very Elrond and Elros vibes tbh.) So, not wanting to abandon them entirely, I gave them to Cwén’s family to be raised. Eriol’s not getting any Dad of the Year awards, but I don’t like the thought of him leaving his kids to the wolves. Ausir claims that the ancient sailor Eriol meets is Ulmo himself. The “westernmost island” where Eriol meets Ulmo is not specified in the text, but I thought it would be neat if it was Tol Morwen, which is the westernmost island on maps of Middle-earth after Númenor. The summary of the stories Eriol hears on Tol Eressëa is lifted directly from the Book of Lost Tales (both parts I and II). I changed the figure of Rúmil to that of Evromord, as Tolkien was planning on if he’d got around to revising this story more, largely because it felt strange to me that Rúmil would be on Tol Eressëa instead of in Tirion. I changed the name Vairë to Vairilmë to better distinguish between the Vala and the elf; I modeled her name after Vardilmë, the daughter of Vardamir. I changed the narrator of Turambar’s tale from Eltas to Ausir because it didn’t make sense to me that Eltas, a mortal from the First Age, would be somehow living on Tol Eressëa at all, let alone after all this time. I also called Littleheart by his Quenya name Ilverion. You’ll get more on all these elven characters in later edits. I was vague about Meril’s magic ability to make Eriol young again, as I’m not sure how I feel about the concept of limpë; it was also important to me to remind everyone that mortality cannot be permanently escaped: Eriol regained his youth, but he would in time grow old again. We know very little about Naimi: just her relation to Vairilmë, her marriage to Eriol, and her name Éadgifu. I gave Heorrenda the Quenya name Vorindo because of course his mother would also name him in her tongue. The end of Eriol’s tale gets confusing, as Tolkien never finished the story, so I did my best to finish it myself. Meril does warn Eriol against leaving Tol Eressëa (probably because its magic was keeping him alive and hale, even as he aged?), but he ignores her. We don’t know how Naimi felt about all that. In the original version of the story, Eriol returns to bring Men to Valinor in “the Faring Forth” (kind of like a continuation of the Great Journey?) and there’s some kind of great battle that happens (the War of Wrath??), but that was scrapped in the Ælfwine version, and I decided I liked that better. Heorrenda does go with his father and finishes the Golden Book. The whole point of Eriol’s story was originally to provide a mythological origin for England: Hengest and Horsa are the legendary Anglo-Saxons who sort of found England (it’s complicated and they probably weren’t real), and Tolkien meant for Tol Eressëa to become England! But as I mentioned earlier, that’s not in line with my headcanons, so I kept things vague. One last fun fact: apparently Heorrenda was a name Jirt liked to use as the name of the Beowulf-poet, which implies that he was a contemporary of Beowulf!

The Last Ship ft. Lissa Fíriel, Círdan, Celeborn, Galdor of the Havens This story is adapted from Tolkien’s poem “The Last Ship.” Since we know Círdan sails to Valinor on the very last (official) ship from Middle-earth, and that Celeborn comes with him, they were obvious candidates for the elves on this ship; I added in Galdor of the Havens to round things out. I gave Fíriel the original name of Lissa, because in this poem “Fíriel” feels like a name the elves give her (referencing her mortality) rather than her actual name. I added a bit of feelings/backstory to why everything is happening the way it did; the poem itself really focuses mostly on Fíriel’s encounter with the elves from her perspective.

The First Men ft. Ermon, Elmir, Nuin This story is adapted from the Silm chapter “Of Men” and from Gilfanon’s Tale. I decided Nuin was part of the Hwenti Avari, and also that they were nonbinary :) The name meanings of Ermon and Elmir are my own translations. I altered this story a bit to make Túvon (Tu) the bad guy, and I edited him out from the beginning. In the original text, the bad guy was actually Fangli (Fankil), but since they are both proto-Sauron figures I decided the change didn’t really matter all that much.

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My Peoples of Arda Edit Series continues with the Elves of Arda Series!

[lotrobsession]

The birthday, and death of Aragorn

March 1, 2931 Birth of Aragorn II (Elessar) (not from the appendices) “And it happened that when Arathorn and Gilraen had been married only one year… “ (Tolkien, 1965 Ballantine, p. 420 RotK)

March 1, 1541 The passing of King Elessar (not FROM the appendices—but IN the appendices) “‘Lady Undómiel,’ said Aragorn, ‘the hour is indeed hard, yet it was made even in that day when we met under the white birches in the garden of Elrond where none now walk.’” (Tolkien, 1965 Ballantine, p. 428 RotK)

Aragorn’s Vital Statistics:

Date of Birth: March 1, 2931 Date of Death: March 1, 120, Fourth Age Residences: Rivendell; various; later Minas Tirith & Annuminas Parents: Arathorn II and Gilraen Siblings: None Spouse: Arwen Undomiel Children: 1 son - Eldarion - and daughters Hair & Eye Color: Dark hair & grey eyes Height: 6 feet, 6 inches Sword: Anduril Horses: Roheryn and Hasufel Galadriel's gifts: Sheath and Elfstone Emblem: White Tree with Seven Stars & a Crown on a black field

Aragorn was born on March 1, 2931, and just two years later he became the sixteenth Chieftain of the Dunedain when his father Arathorn II was killed by Orcs. Aragorn's mother Gilraen took him to live in Rivendell, home of Elrond. Elrond accepted the child as a foster-son and gave him the name Estel, meaning "Hope." Aragorn was not told his true name and heritage until 2951, when he was twenty years old and Elrond perceived that he had grown to manhood. Elrond then gave Aragorn two of the heirlooms of the House of Isildur: the Ring of Barahir and the shards of Narsil.

Aragorn was a direct descendant of Isildur, son of Elendil. The Heirs of Isildur were the Kings of Arnor until that kingdom was divided in three in the year 861 of the Third Age. The line was then continued first by the Kings of Arthedain and then, when that kingdom was decimated by war and plague, by the Chieftains of the Dunedain. Aragorn was also descended from Anarion - whose heirs ruled Gondor - through Firiel, the daughter of King Ondoher of Gondor, who married Arvedui, Last King of Arthedain.

In the year 120 of the Fourth Age, at the age of 210, King Elessar knew that his days were at an end and he went to the House of the Kings in the Silent Street. He said farewell to his son Eldarion and his daughters and he gave Eldarion his Crown and Sceptre. Arwen remained at Aragorn's side until he died.

Then a great beauty was revealed in him, so that all who after came there looked on him in wonder; for they saw that the grace of his youth, and the valour of his manhood, and the wisdom and majesty of his age were blended together. And long there he lay, an image of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world. Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings: "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen," p. 344

It is said that the beds of Merry and Pippin were set beside the bed of the great king. After the death of the king, Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien, and sailed down Anduin and so over the Sea; and with him, it is said, went Gimli. With the passing of that ship came an end in Middle-earth to the Fellowship of the Ring.