A Mixed Platter for the Solstice by Himring
Fanwork Notes
The Bake-off prompts covered here are: Pie, Cheesecake, Gold Coins, and (sort of, with a real stretch) Toad in the Hole, Mooncake.
The drabbles are all Teens (I think), but otherwise vary considerably.
More details in the Chapter Notes.
(All four are 100 words in MS Word.)
- Fanwork Information
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Summary:
Drabbles written at the Insta-drabbling session at the SWG Discord on 21 December (Winter Solstice in the northern nemisphere), for expanded prompt sets based on the Bake-off Challenge.
Major Characters: Círdan, Gil-galad, Dwarves, Stewards of Gondor, Barahir (Fourth Age), Bombur
Major Relationships:
Genre: Fixed-Length Ficlet
Challenges: Great Beleriand Bake-Off
Rating: Teens
Warnings: Check Notes for Warnings
This fanwork belongs to the series
Chapters: 4 Word Count: 408 Posted on Updated on This fanwork is complete.
Away-from-Home Pie
Gil-galad (Ereinion) and Cirdan, just after Fingon sent his son to the Havens for safety. Cirdan is trying to make the boy welcome, but the circumstances are weighing on both.
(Fingon has not died yet, though.)
Read Away-from-Home Pie
Cirdan watched Ereinion dig his fork into the fish pie. There was a lot of effort being made, but little of the pie was making its way into Ereinion.
After a while, Cirdan said: ‘It is all right to say if you don’t like the taste of haddock, you know. We can find something else for you to eat.’
Ereinion laid his fork carefully aside.
‘It’s not that. I like the taste of haddock fine. It’s just…’
Absence filled the room, palpable and unspoken.
‘I do also like the ball, I really do,’ added Ereinion, too politely. ‘And everything else.’
Chapter End Notes
This was based on Dawn's extended prompt set for "Fatherless Pie", which played on the literal sense of "Fatherless". The gift of the ball, which ended up not being played with, is from a prompt taken from "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin. Gil-galad was mentioned by another of the prompts.
Toads of Kheled-zaram
Early on in Balin's attempt to reclaim Moria, nothing has yet gone wrong. Ori, left to himself for a bit, reflects.
Read Toads of Kheled-zaram
Ori crouched on the sward beside Mirrormere. Small pink cyclamens grew around his boots. Balin and the rest were investigating and had left him as a look-out. He had been as enthusiastic as anyone about their plans, wanting to lay eyes on the ancestral halls that the songs told of! Now he was fighting down misgivings.
Three toads hopped into the lake, ignoring him. Plop. Plop. Plop. He did not remember any songs mentioning toads... Had they already lived here in olden times? It was fanciful but he wondered whether the toads of Mirrormere had their own legends featuring dwarves.
Chapter End Notes
This was written in response to an extended prompt set based around "Toad in the Hole", which included the following prompt: They saw tiny rose cyclamens between their toes, growing / Where the slow toads sat brooding on the past.
(From: Sicilian Cyclamens, by D.H. Lawrence)
Ah, it goes against my heart To lose my cheesecake
Not much is known about Dior, the ninth Ruling Steward of Gondor, except that he died without children.
A bit of faux academia, with apologies to Dior, although I maintain plausible deniability.
Note: Faux academia implies possible bias, of course!
Read Ah, it goes against my heart To lose my cheesecake
One of the mysteries of the annals of the Stewards of Gondor is a song attributed to Dior, the ninth Steward, which may have earned Dior an undeserved reputation for gluttony—if it is indeed by Dior. The song, earliest attested in a manuscript written in the time of his heir Denethor I, but at first without attribution, is a truly heart-rending lament—but apparently a lament for cheesecake or, in some versions, cheese tart!
An article by Barahir suggests that Dior did not remain unmarried because of his girth—always a historically unlikely explanation! The “cheesecake” was a woman.
Chapter End Notes
This is a response to Dawn's extended prompt set for "Cheesecake", which included a link to this etymological discussion of the use of "cheesecake" to mean "woman". The discussion cites the following very early use in a poem or song that refers to the banishing of women whose morals Cromwell objected to:
But ah! It goes against our hearts,
To lose our cheesecake and our tarts.
Poems and Songs Relating to the Late Times (1662)
I feel I have to apologize for daughterofshadows for the use I made of their research on the Stewards of Gondor here! They were raising the possibility that Dior may have had no heirs because he was aromantic or a different shade of queer. Well, perhaps queerness is not entirely excluded here!
For an earlier story that shows Barahir speculating about earlier historical figures see History and Conspiracy.
Two Small Fiddles
Some time after the events of "The Hobbit", two surviving members of Thorin's Company are spending an evening in Laketown.
Warning for grief / mourning.
Read Two Small Fiddles
In the newly rebuilt Laketown, Bombur sat in an alehouse that Bofur had recommended, with a magnificent view across the water. The beer was as good as promised, and strong. The cheese crackers that came with it were yellow-gold and very rich. Bofur was talking, but Bombur’s mind wandered a little, pleasantly—dozing almost. Already the moonlight was like a path of silver across the still lake.
Suddenly Bombur jerked wide awake. He had missed the evening’s hired musicians setting up behind him. Unexpectedly, the twinned sound of two fiddles rose up, catching at his heart. Oh, Kili! Oh, Fili!
Chapter End Notes
This was written for Dawn's extended prompt set for Mooncake, which included this four-word prompt: Four words (from "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late"): beer - fiddle - silver - doze.
More straightforwardly, it also covers the prompt "Gold coins" (cheese crackers).
From The Hobbit:
Kili and Fili rushed for their bags and brought back little fiddles.
Another drabble about Bombur (warning: this is set later and is even sadder): Bombur in Old Age
