Disclaimer: All places and persons belong to Professor Tolkien whom I greatly admire. This was written for the simple joy of writing. No copyright infringement intended, no money made. Andrahar belongs to Isabeau, while his father is mine.
Rating: General, suitable for all.
Series: Sons of Gondor
Archiving: my website and Edhellond. Everyone else: please, ask first.
Summary: Andrahar thinks back at his childhood. Triple drabble, 303 words.
Dedication: to Nerwen Calaelen, for Edhellond's 5th anniversary.
This piece has not found a beta reader yet. My apologies.
Author’s note: This particular vignette has been inspired by a side remark in “Wisdom of the Sands” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Rating: General, suitable for all.
Series: Sons of Gondor
Archiving: my website and Edhellond. Everyone else: please, ask first.
Summary: Andrahar thinks back at his childhood. Triple drabble, 303 words.
Dedication: to Nerwen Calaelen, for Edhellond's 5th anniversary.
This piece has not found a beta reader yet. My apologies.
Author’s note: This particular vignette has been inspired by a side remark in “Wisdom of the Sands” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
I remember a bright morning – I could not be any older than six summers – when a young woman, the concubine of some rich merchant or powerful khan – was caught and judged for some wrongdoing I could not fathom at that time. My father ordered her to be taken out to the desert, outside the city, bound to a wooden pole and left there, ‘til her spirit would be freed from her sinning flesh. I remember her beauty and her desperate pleas to be spared; yet none of those would move my father’s heart.
Afterwards, when her screams could not be heard any longer, I asked my father why would he not spare her. My father looked at me for a long time, as if trying to decide whether I was old enough to understand.
“My tiger,” he finally said, “I was being merciful. By freeing her from the sins of her flesh, I have saved her spirit from being stained. One day, you will understand.”
Had he lived long enough to raise me as a true warrior of Harad, I might have understood indeed. Yet Fate has brought me to the West, where I was taught a different kind of mercy. I wonder sometimes which one is my true nature now.
~The End~