Story Downloaded from Open Scrolls Archive (https://www.openscrolls.net)

Title: Starlings (#4281)
Author: NancyBrooke
Chapters: 1

Archive: Tolkien
Category: Lord of the Rings
Description: On the threshold of Edoras, Thorthild Thengelsdottir stands with her sister, as Change comes smiling. A double drabble Inspired by OSA Drabble Challenge #143, and a companion piece to my story the Meagd Feoran.
Published: 25 Sep 2010
Updated: 25 Sep 2010
Warnings:
Type: General
Characters: Torthild (OFC); Tortgyd (OFC)


Chapter 1 - Starlings

Just like Theod the unruly wind of Edoras just can’t resist tugging and tangling at our hair. And on this, of all days! Tortgyd’s hand twitches but mine is already there, spider-fingered, smoothing our separation.

Perhaps it just cannot tell us apart; the Rohirrim never seem to have learned. We have stood out here, alone: starlings in a corn field.

If Tortgyd’s Intended ever makes his way up from the gate he’d better see. He’d better see her, the prettier one, the quieter one, although if he mistakes her silence for passivity the back side of her tongue will set him straight soon enough.

And at last he arrives … Oh, poor Tortgyd! Her new home must be far away for his horse is tired and dusty, although not overridden, which is promising. His own fatigue he hides behind a smile, also promising, his eyes fixed on Tortgyd with never a glance at me. As she has been instructed, she lifts the goblet to him, and he drains it, but measuredly, not greedily.

With the tiniest curl of a smile, I see she begins to accept him. In a fortnight, they will be gone, and then who will I be?
------------------------------------------------------------------

Printed from Open Scrolls Archive (https://www.openscrolls.net) on Sat Nov 14, 2026 8:12 pm