#the day i can open up the grey hunter outfit ill die

[ann-beth]

Still learning how to use the glint booth so here's my newest batch (anticlockwise):

(timings dynamics practice:) the Team™ ready to kickass

Neya discussing poses with Rafayel (happiest on this!)

A lil Dawnbreaker looking at the Aurora snowdoll (not happy w this one's posing >:{ )

Neya's (basically everytime we) meet a Sylus

[hildorien]

A Rom-Com in Dom-Lomin.

Ataniweek Day Two: Edain. 

I wrote this because Morwen and Hurin deserve a whole lot of love. They aren’t a fairy tale romance, they don’t get a happy ending, but they were deeply in love and deserved a happy ending. Only the best for the true Gomez and Morticia of Arda.   

@ataniweek

A03 LINK (X)

It was no secret who Hurin, son of Galdor, loved more than any jewel in a noldor's private coffers. She was black as night and a true beauty. Sadly, she was colder than ice and had a tongue sharper than the best sword but Hurin only saw his whole universe in her. Even from the age of six, he met her dark brown eyes and that sealed his fate. He had always tried to impress her. 

He climbed trees he shouldn’t have, to impress her.

He picked fights he couldn’t win, for her. 

He wrote a love letter after love letter, each one more dramatic and bad as the last.

Morwen, for her part, had adored him too then and until the end of her days. It was said she regarded him as her first friend in a new and scary land she had to flee to in rags. She did not see pity in his eyes, only the shine of the sun and a mischievous tint and that meant everything to her. After that small act of kindness, it was like God, himself, granted them his blessing to go and be in love. 

They had been together for years, not once did one’s heart wander away from each other. Not even the flowers found during his entrapment in Gondolin could make Hurin wander. When he returned from that place, his brother at his side, the cold rain of north east Beleriand bearing on him, he saw her on the battlement like a spirit of war with only a lantern and a cloak. He made his way through the gate, leaving his brother in the dust and ran to where she stood. 

He smiled, “you waited for me.” 

“You are late.”

“I’ve always been late, my lady,” he laughed stalking closer to her to cup her cold cheek in one hand. “But I hope you can forgive me.” 

In her grey eyes was a fire as she spoke, “make it up to me then, Hurin.” 

He smiled and kissed her, dipping her slightly despite the rain, he felt so warm as her arms wrapped around his neck. Pulling away and gazing on her soft, smug smirk, Hurin realized something. 

He wanted to marry her. 

Now. 

But the words didn’t escape his lips before Morwen started pulling them down the stairs towards her house. 

-

It had been a month since he returned from Gondolin and he still couldn’t find the words. He stalked around his house, his brother giving him tired look. 

“I think if you just asked, she’d say yes.”

“I can’t, everytime I see her, I just freeze.”

“Fearsome Hurin, son of Glador, taken down by the steely gaze of his true love,” Huor mocked as he bit into his apple. “What a horrible things to have bard write about you, utterly pathetic.” 

Hurin smacked him, “I’m being serious and don’t mock me when you can’t even talk with Rian.” 

“She’s just too nice!” He whined out, his words slurred by pieces of apple that flung out of his mouth onto the table. 

“Whatever,” Hurin snorted and sat down, his head in his hands. It was then that a tired Galdor came walking through the door; despite his disposition, he looked amused at his two young sons. 

“I heard your hennish squawking from outside boys. What are you fighting about now?” He asked. 

It was noted that Huor resembled his father more than Hurin did. He was tall like Galdor. Huor often spoke like Galdor, respectful and metaphorically. It was something among the Edain that was labeled as very Elvish; as to hide your feelings behind words and riddles rather than giving a straight answer. Even sometimes as they grew older and older, people mistook Huor for Galdor if he was looked at from the back. Most days this minded Hurin not, he did not mind being smaller than most (even smaller than Morwen), or that he was loud on the border of being too loud, or that he was blessed with his mother’s Haladin features but there were others were he wondered if his father wished the two brothers had been born with Huor as eldest (therefore heir to his legacy ) and him as youngest (the spare). 

“It’s nothing important father, just,” Huor gave him a smug look. “Hurin’s just being a ninny about asking Elfsheen to marry him.” 

He picked up an apple and lobbed it at him. “Don’t call her that she hates it.” 

Galdor laughed, “it’s a complement to her beauty.” 

“She hates it, so I hate it.” 

“Devotion is a good trait to have,” his father said absentmindedly, “but please stop lobbying apples at your brother.”

“I will when he stops being an ass.” 

Huor stuck out his tongue like a child. 

“Then that will be like waiting for the sun to rise in the west.” 

Hurin’s face broke out into a smile while Huor's turned to horror. “Father!” 

Hurin imitated his words in a whiny tone, “One-Almighty! Sometimes you're so pretentious. You never called him father before Gondolin, just say Da, like a normal person.” 

“The Elves in Gondolin call their Da’s ‘father,’” the younger boy mumbled munching on his apple. 

“You aren’t an Elf, Huor,” Hurin rolled his eyes. 

“Okay, enough boys,” Galdor put his foot down. “So you are serious about Morwen?”

“I’ve been serious since I was a babe, Da.” 

Galdor smiled, “that may be true. But have‘ye asked Emeldir yet?”

“Emeldir?” 

“She is Morwen’s keeper, is she not? That bear of a women,” he said with a roll of his eyes almost out of habit, though a friendly and loving lent never left his voice. Galdor and Emeldir butted heads, but it was like Hurin and Huor, a sibling relationship. The strong chieftess of the Beorians had enamoured the settlement of Dom-lomin with her striking inability not to die, not from illness, or grief. She watched over every child she brought with her as if they were her own. No one was more enamoured by her than Hurin’s own mother Hereth. The two were thick as thieves. Hurin imagined it was because Emeldor reminded his mother of the women from her youth in Brethil, who she missed dearly. 

“I have not,” he gulped. 

“I think it would be best if you asked her before you did anything impulsive. You wouldn’t want to upset the bear women of the Beorians by asking the hand of one of her favorite wee ones without even so much as a notice?” 

Hurin could see his body very clearly thrown in a ditch somewhere where no one would find it if he did that. Nodding to his father, he made plans to visit Emeldir in the coming days. 

-

Emeldir’s house was uttermost east of the main village of Dom-Lomin. It was located near the land designated for holy sights where festivals would happen, the highest vantage point of the whole main village. Now it was called the Grey Corner, or the Beorian Quarter since that's where the refugees located themselves. His father had given them full range to live wherever they wished, but they wished to remain almost separate from the rest of them all. Some found it odd, other a little insulting, but Hurin somewhat understood, the best he could. They had lost so much. All they wanted was a place to rebuild and remain Beorians rather than just another section of the people of Marach or Hador. He grew to see as a very Edain way of doing things; coming into a new land and making it yours despite someone else threatening to overcome you and make you them. It was early that morning when he went, the sun had barely came over the peaks of the mountains when he reached the steps of the Beorian’s chieftess' house. It was given the name “white-den” by him and some other children back in Hurin and Morwen’s youth because it was made of white wood and some children had been sure Emeldir had been one of those Bear shape changers. Hurin wasn’t one of them, but if he was going to find out if he was wrong, it would be now. 

Knocking on the large door, he heard a soft “come in!” 

He opened the door, he saw Rian coming down out from the kitchen area. The house was rather dark still, silent. He hoped Morwen wasn’t home. 

“Oh! Rin-rin,” she cooed, her clothes were covered in dirt and she held a hoe in her hand. Hurin gave her a small smile and gave her a small hug. She refused to call him anything less than the name she gave as a babe. “Morwen isn’t home.” 

“Ah,” Hurin smiled, “I am actually here to talk to Elemdir?” 

Rian blinked, and cocked her head to the side, “why?” 

“I needed to ask her a question.” 

“Ah, I see,” Rian smiled, her smile was soft and shiny; utterly polite and coy. It was a ‘princess’ smile, Morwen called it. Sometimes it was hard for Hurin to understand that she came from the same family that produced Morwen and Elemdir. She was more of a flower than the cold rock the rest of her family was. She was somehow still soft, sweet on the eyes and the ears, more interested in singing and dancing than politics. She was a folk tale princess come to life, that is what his brother always said about her. He had always fancied her, respectfully from a distance. The two of them dancing around each other, constructing their perfect folk tale romance.  It all seemed like too much work for Hurin’s take rather than to be not subtle about his feelings and have a constant bedmate. For that reason, she was never Hurin’s type. 

“She’s in the barn. You can go around and see her.” 

“Thanks Rian.” He turned. 

“Oh and Hurin,” she called after him as he walked off. 

“Yes?”

“Don’t let her scare you,” she winked. “She’s all bark and no bite.” 

Hurin laughed. She may have been more a flower than a rock, but she was still a Beorian. 

-

If there was ever a moment that defined who Elemdir was as a women, it was right now, Hurin thought to himself. She was wearing her typical black dress (that she either wore for mourning or she wore to be even more terrifying than she was), her hair was outfitted with beautiful beads and clips, her face was lined with wrinkles and her hair was looking more silver each day and yet she looked like a chieftess, no, a true Queen worthy of the throne. However, it was juxtaposed against the fact that her hands were stuck in the guts of a deer as if she was common hunter. She barely looked at him when she grunted welcome at him at him. 

“Hello Hurin.”

“Hello Chieftess.” He bowed, still, respectfully as his mother had taught him. 

“Why are you here?”

“I have a question for you,” Hurin squirmed. 

She ripped the heart out of the animal, “and that would be?”

“I would like to ask Morwen’s hand in marriage.” 

She threw the heart into a bowl, the blood splattered onto Hurin’s face. There seemed to be a chill in the air the moment the words left him. She looked at him as if examining his very soul, not a single emotion on her face. Hurin frowned. 

“Is you're silence a no ma’am?” 

She raised up a bloody gloved hand. “I have a question for you before I give you my answer.”

“Yes ma’am?”

“Do you love her?” 

“More than the sun, moon, and stars. She’s my best friend.” Hurin spoke his cliche words with sincerity. It was the truth, and for that, he was not ashamed. 

Softly a smile appeared on her weathered face, “then the answer from me is yes.” 

Hurin knew he wanted to cry but he kept his face stoney as to not embarrass himself. “Thank you, Chieftess.” 

“I cannot say she will say yes, though,” Emeldir said evenly.

“Even if she does not,” he smiled. “I will have her know she is the only woman who will have my heart.” 

With that he turned to leave, before Emeldir called out for him, so he turned back to her. 

“Your a good man, Hurin. You remind so much of my husband and my son, both of whom are lost to us all now, please,” she pleaded. “Don’t gamble away your life away for stupid reasons and leave my little one heartbroken and weathered like I am.” 

“I will try not to, Chieftess.” That was all he could offer her in these times. 

“That is all I ask you to do.” 

-

It was a rush of happiness since that moment. He tried to ask Morwen to wed him so many times it was almost a joke by now but each and every time they fell short. Every time something was wrong. They were either failures on his part put to get the words out or nature ruined the moment. It just had to be the rainy season when he got his okay from Elemdir. Though sometimes much worse ruined any goodwill and happiness in Hurin. The pyre he stood in front of said it all. 

“The smell of burning flesh is horrible,” Hurin said to himself as he watched his father’s body become ash with the rest of the fallen. He was chief now, and yet he still felt like a child. Too much like a child to lead his people, too much of a child to have lost his father. He felt as if someone had extinguished his flame with ice water and left him to languish in the bitterest winter blizzard. He couldn’t even comfort his mother or brother, he could barely comfort himself. He was being hailed as a hero, but what kind of hero couldn’t save his own family? 

He cursed everything when he lifted his father’s body to the wise women and men to clean his body. He wondered why the One Almighty would take good men like his father away them but keep Morgoth and his monsters around to kill those good men. 

In his anguish, he felt something touch his shoulders. It was fur. 

“Standing here in the cold doesn’t bring them back,” Morwen was stoic as always as she stood next to him. She had left the mob of wailing women still singing funeral songs that had long had the Edain sung when they lost someone too early. Her grey eyes staring into his soul. 

“Fighting didn’t do anything either. Nothing does.” 

“You did what you could.”

“Then why do I feel so cold?” Hurin asked, his voice was rough and mean and he practically barked at her. She didn’t seem very impressed. 

“Because you love so strongly, and you care, and you hate to lose. But loss is a part of our life, Hurin, that’s the fate of mortals like we are. We cannot linger with what we did, what could have been done, the what ifs, we can only keep going. Let the dead be dead, but do not die with them. That is what I have learned.” She it all like it made sense. 

“But I, too, have lost my father, my mother, cousins, aunts, and uncles. I know loss, Hurin. This is a new experience for you, but the pain will always be fresh no matter how many times it happens. He was your father, you are allowed to feel pain, allowed to feel cold, allowed to cry. I never allowed myself to cry, and it only brought more pain. I was in so much pain before I met you Hurin, but you taught me that crying and that the pain I was feeling wasn’t weakness and neither is yours now.” 

“Chiefs shouldn’t cry.” Hurin said weakly, his eyes shadowed and glossy. 

She looked at him, a soft and warm hand went to his cheek. “But Hurin, son of Galdor, should.” 

With only a few words, she had unravel him. He broke down; ugly wet streaks came down his face, he scooped her up in his arms and sobbed. Her arms tangled around him like wisteria on a wall. He slept with her that night, nothing happened, it rarely did these days. They weren’t kids anymore and he was increasingly more busy. Eventually being Chief got easier after a year, the pain dulled, and then after two he was finally starting to get the gist of this thing he was groomed his whole life for. It helped that Morwen was at his side constantly, a beorian through and through her mind was made for this kind of work. She could neogate and organize with the best of them. She was often the logic to his emotions, his blue to his red, often just smarter than him.

One night, they sat together late into the night piecing together Taliska and Sindarin documents and talking about crop rotation under candle light when Morwen paused and stared at Hurin. 

He laughed, “was it something I said about the peas?” 

“I’m tired of waiting, Hurin.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Hurin, will you marry me?” She reached inside her cleavage to pull out a ring. 

His jaw fell open.