N33 | Thoughts upon the Mitheithel

[huinare.livejournal.com]

B2MeM Challenge: “Beyond” (Deep Thoughts), “Coarse” (Textures).
Format: Ficlet
Genre: General
Rating: Gish
Warnings: Humor juxtaposed with a Transcendent Interlude.^TM
Characters: Pallando (and Gandalf, Saruman, Alatar and Radagast)
Summary:  How many Istari does it take to repair a rowboat?  This and more profound issues press upon Pallando.  Takes place within a year of the wizards arriving in Middle Earth.

(For those wondering, the glacier will arrive tomorrow)

“You two are best with telekinetic business, can’t you, I don’t know, make it seal itself?” Alatar said hopefully.

“No,” Olórin and Curumo grumbled in unison.

“The pitch the man gave us was fine, you just didn’t wait long enough for it to set,” said Aiwendil.  “I told you he told me to wait for–”

“Yes, but the villagers don’t have the ability to kindle uncanny fires, and we do.  That ought to have sped up the process significantly.”  Alatar glared his disapproval at the large rowboat which lay soddenly on the riverbank, a recently-reopened gash along its center bleeding pitch.

Olórin shrugged.  “Evidently our uncanny fires are not what they used to be.  We’re not going to get this boat in the water this evening, Alatar.  But once it is in the water it shall save us time, so I see no cause for impatience.  Why don’t we just reapply the pitch and leave the bloody thing overnight?  Then we could go back into the village and see what’s afoot there of an evening.”

“Just don’t tell them about this fiasco.  We didn’t till their blasted gardens all day in exchange for a rotting pile of planks, only to humiliate ourselves further by almost sinking it.”

“Whatever you like.  Now what’s become of the pitch, Curumo?”

Curumo raised an eyebrow.  “I thought you put it somewhere.”

“I thought I gave it to you to put somewhere.”

“I think you gave it to Pallando,” Aiwendil said helpfully.

Pallando shook his head once.  “I remember Alatar having it after Olórin had it.”

Alatar absolved himself, “I gave it to Aiwendil to put somewhere…”

Pallando sidled away from the group on the pretext of searching the deepening dusk for the item in question, but he searched neither too thoroughly nor too long.  He was unused to the constant company of a group of people, and frequently craved more quiet than they seemed able or willing to provide.

The voices behind him grew muffled as he wandered south along the river a ways.  The bank here was rocky, the strident water brushing past it with a singular sound, a muttering both hollow and substantial.  He stopped, taken with a sense that he knew they all experienced at times, an urge to shed all physical incarnation and pass immaterial among the varied pieces of the world. 

The impossibility of doing so was difficult to bear at times, the body dragging like a cloak of brambles that nettled at one’s person–that snagged constantly on the world beyond the person, even while isolating and alienating from that world.  

Yet they had all gone into their task with eyes open, knowing what was ordained.

Pallando sat down cross-legged on a boulder, looking out over the dark water as the stars also arrived to gaze downward.  He absently ran through thumb and index finger the stalk of some kind of grass or reed, a cluster of which huddled between his seat and anther rock.  It was coarse, perhaps faintly unpleasant; yet without any warning or fanfare it disintegrated the isolation, and the world came rushing in, intently present.

Joy, of a kind that eludes seeking and defies keeping, existed for a brief time before ebbing away into the south-running current. 

---

I picture the boat as being something like this.

Comments

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

Love their bickering and the very sibling-like 'who had the pitch?' debate. Liked how naturally this progressed from humorous to quite serious, A body - a new encumbrance, something to still be got used to after the freedom of spirit. I never thought of it like that before, but it must have been a bit overwhelming at times. The ending was lovely, that unlooked for moment of joy.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Ainur & The Encumbrance Of Mortal Bodies is one of my pet themes which I spend an absurd amount of time pondering, so if I can inflict it on others as a new idea that is a good thing. =D

[aliana1.livejournal.com]

I am really really enjoying the fact that they're five wizards--wizards! and between them, they still can't manage to repair a rowboat, and have to go around doing odd jobs, like that reality show with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie where they go around pretending to be bohemian and doing odd jobs, and which I obviously have never watched, except it's Istari instead of heiresses? Anyway. I like it. (Your story, not the show.) I like Alatar's insinuation of Gandalf and Saruman being good at the telekinetic stuff, and their emphatically denying that it won't work here.

The Transcendent Interlude(tm) is great, with lots of lovely language: the singular sound, a muttering both hollow and substantial and especially the body dragging like a cloak of brambles that nettled at one’s person–that snagged constantly on the world beyond the person, even while isolating and alienating from that world. A wonderful way of making tangible something that's difficult for us mortals to imagine.

Yay hot glacier!

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I was right in the middle of formulating a clever reply to this yesterday, when the internet I was using had a big snit. To attempt it again:

1. Thanks as always for your kind comments!

2. I do remember catching an episode of that show, and how things went down was that the heiresses used a farmer's credit card to buy a gift for the farmer's wife, without the farmer's permission. When the farmer came to confront them and tell them to take the gift back, Paris attempted to avoid the situation by making up a sob story about her cat dying.

3. Villager: Wait, you wizards need another boat? Why?
Radagast: Because we sank the first--
Curumo: Because. OUR CAT DIED. And we're sad.

[engarian.livejournal.com]

What a lovely boat. I love the bickering between the five. This has been a fun little series.

- Erulisse (one L)

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Erulisse! =]

[blslarner.livejournal.com]

The boat reminds me of a Makah canoe, also. The idea that they'd need to work in order to obtain the boat and the means to fix it is one I'd not thought of, but certainly makes perfect sense, and the quibbling about who last had the pitch is hilarious! As for Pallando's need to get away, the realization that this body is alien to his nature and he cannot escape it--that is something I find I love. Certainly your images fit perfectly! Well done!

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!
I tend to err on the mundane side when writing about the wizards...like, just because they might each have particular powers unique to themselves, doesn't mean any of them are able to manipulate the physical world to the point where they can magically repair boats. I debated with myself whether they'd have money to purchase a boat, or whether the villagers would be impressed enough by them to just give them a boat, and decided against both of those. :)