The Return of the Banners

[allie-meril.livejournal.com]

Title: The Return of the Banners
Author: Meril
Word Count: 100
Characters/Work: Haradrim. LOTR.
Adult Content/Pairing: none.
Disclaimer: Don't own them, not making money.

Author's Notes: Written for same instant drabbling challenge as my previous entry. The words this time were bewailed, diviner, muddles, and struts.

The Return of the Banners

The caravan’s frayed remnants slunk into Umbar like a wounded dog, trailing dust and blood and shame. They had marched out of the city chanting war-songs in myriad tongues. Their swaggers and struts had been almost comical to watch.

The holy diviner proclaimed our victory, she thought, listening as young women bewailed husbands who would not return. But she would not wail: she had given two husbands to the harsh sands before coming to live in the city, aside from three children.

Ragged scarlet banners muddled before her old eyes, twisting and warping until all she could see was blood.

Comments

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

Amazing!
I can't believe y'all produced these wonders in, what, fifteen minutes each? I can drabble, but it takes hours. I can't imagine doing it with a time limit! But I'm looking forward to trying it sometime :)

[allie-meril.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was definitely challenging, but I've rarely had so much fun! But it was strange because it really put my muses in high gear; normally, I fret over a drabble for a couple of days before I get it right.

I'm in the process of formatting them all and making a hawriters story for them. One chapter for this event, and more for any future events.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Oooh, a fascinating look at people we may not often think of. And so much detail in 100 words!

[allie-meril.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Ruby! The Haradrim have always fascinated me.

[ithiliel-silver.livejournal.com]

Love this drabble! The Haradrim fascinate me, for some reason.

I wish so badly that I could do Insta-Drabbling, but unfortunately I don't have YIM and I can't get it. (Permission issue, not tecnical.)

Is there some other way that this could be done, or is that the only way? [/wishful thinking]

-Ithiliel

[allie-meril.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Ithiliel!

Hm... IM is the most convinient, and YIM is the best choice of all the services, for a couple of reasons:
(a) most people who belong to HASA also belong to the HA Yahoo list, which means everyone has a Yahoo ID,
(b) the formatting is best on YIM,
(c) a drabble is allowed in one post (it doesn't exceed the word count for the message window, which it would in AIM), and
(d) it looks prettier than AIM (well, that's one of my reasons).

However, I definitely don't want to exclude anyone, and I know that you love drabbling (from your involvement in the b-day cards forum)!

It's a parent issue, I take it? Trust me, I understand about that all too well. Mine gave me free reign on the computer, just limiting how long I could stay on (evil dialup).

After a bit of brainstorming, I think it might work if you and I e-mailed back and forth. I could e-mail the words, you'd drabble and e-mail them back, I'd post them in the conference... Or do you have any sort of IM service? AIM, MSN? I have AIM, YIM, and MSN, though I only use the first two. AIM is the most popular, though for the purposes of insta-drabbling, it is too snarky.

E-mail me or something. We'll try and figure out a way.

[kortirion.livejournal.com]

I like this very much - it conjures a whole new set of aspects to the Tolkien!universe and mythology.

[allie-meril.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Kortirion! I'm glad you liked it!