At the Mercy of a Burning Coal

Disclaimer; I own nothing of Tolkien’s, but Lathwen is my character.

Lathwen was tending the blazing fire in the hearth, trying to ignore the servant’s whispers as they watched her. She knew that she was object to curiosity...as much as she had been five years ago, but it still bothered her.

Five years ago when she was thirteen, her parents had died suddenly, and she had found them lying on the floor, their faces the very pictures of terror. She remembered screaming for help, and frantically trying to "wake" her mother and father, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her father was a blacksmith, but her mother had once been a lady in waiting for the Lady Eowyn of Rohan until she met Lathwen's father and fell in love, coming to live with him and working as a seamstress.

Lathwen didn't remember their funeral; everything had been a blur then. She did remember walking out into the meadows a year after they died, and cursing the bees for buzzing, the flowers for blooming when they should have been weeping for her fallen parents. It should have rained that day, but instead the sun was shining, its warmth reminding Lathwen of her mother's embrace. The tall grass brushed against her legs, resurfacing the memory of her fathers coal black beard roughly pressed against her face when he kissed her forehead. Everything should have been dead and sad, mourning for what Lathwen had lost, but instead it was the exact opposite, as if trying to spark the painful memories that she held locked in the back of her mind.

Her uncle who had seemed kind and gracious at the time had generously offered to take his own niece in. Immediately when he returned to his home, he threw her harshly into the servant’s quarters and told them, barked at them actually, to give her something decent to wear so she could go to worn in the tavern. Naturally, the servants were curious about who she was, but her “kind” uncle only frowned and growled that it was none of their business.

And so Lathwen had lived in cold, harsh conditions, taking beatings and verbal abuse with a quiet acceptance, silently seething under the surface, wishing fiercely that she could hurt them back without being beaten up ten times as badly as before.

Lathwen brushed her black hair out of her grey eyes, looking pointedly at the servants clustered around the doorway watching her. Instantly, they left, going back to their duty. Lathwen sighed and wiped her hands on the stained white apron she wore over a threadbare blue dress. Her eyes scanned the crowded, smoky tavern as she straightened up.

The tavern was not a pleasant place, and Lathwen had learned her best swears and insults by listening to customers and servants complain about her uncle. Of course, he knew he was hated, but nobody could do anything about it…their jobs were on the line. But no one loathed him more than Lathwen did…she was counting the days waiting when she could actually do something about her poor job.

Until then, she would continue doing the work of a simple scullery maid…tending, cleaning, washing, mending, and cooking. Still, she kept hoping that someone would come to deliver her from this abusive place if she couldn’t do it herself.