Back to Middle-earth Month 2010 Stories by Dawn Felagund  

A King in Paradise

Finarfin imagines what his life would be like if he had taken his brother's road. A drabble.

Challenge: Choose a character. She or he wakes up to find she or he is in the body of another character. It can be someone of a total different race, sex, or even time period. Your character, however, retains her or his own thoughts and memories. How does your character deal with this sudden unexpected event?

I awoke not on satin but sheets uncouth, for who notices the slip of satin on skin after a long day of hunting, tillage, prospecting, negotiation? Of building my city up from the soil?

I looked out not on my inheritance but my devising; not on stone towers but the imperfect shapes of my dreams--but my dreams. Mine. My hands grasped nothing so irrelevant as a balcony rail but a windowframe, the sash uplifted and the cold wind buffeting me with the scent of new-turned earth.

I awoke to exile, adventure, damnation, and possibility.

Nolofinwë, I awoke as you.