Drabbles: Non-Silm by Zdenka
Fanwork Notes
- Fanwork Information
-
Summary:
Drabbles! 100 words exactly, according to whatever software I'm writing in. See chapter notes for characters, summaries, and warnings.
Canon Source: Lord of the Rings
Major Characters: Denethor (Steward of Gondor)
Major Relationships:
Genre: Fixed-Length Ficlet, Het
Challenges:
Rating: Teens
Warnings: Mature Themes, Violence (Mild)
This fanwork belongs to the series
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 103 Posted on Updated on This fanwork is a work in progress.
men may bleed and men may burn
The Lord of the Rings, Denethor in the wake of Finduilas's death. (CW: grief/mourning.)
Written for the ao3_isdown drabblethon, for the prompt: Any fandom, any characters, bad coping mechanisms.
Drabble title from The Yeomen of the Guard (Gilbert & Sullivan).
Read men may bleed and men may burn
Denethor cannot falter. He is Steward, and his sons are still young children. What though his wife’s death seems to tear him apart with agony; that grief strikes him anew, like an inward-twisting knife, each time he remembers she is gone. If he falls, Gondor will fall. He will rebuild himself where he is weak, become unshakeable as the Tower itself.
He wears sword and armor under his clothing, even to sleep. Soon enough he will stop reaching out for a softly-breathing form in the bed beside him.
His sons must learn it well. Nothing above Gondor; nothing above duty.
Chapter End Notes
Denethor sleeping in his armor (??!) is canon. He has no mercy for himself, and none for anyone else either.
[Denethor] stood up and cast open his long black cloak, and behold! he was clad in mail beneath, and girt with a long sword, great-hilted in a sheath of black and silver. 'Thus have I walked, and thus now for many years have I slept,' he said, 'lest with age the body should grow soft and timid.'
ROTK, "The Siege of Gondor"
