The Sign of the Three Claws
The Resurrection of Mordor
the sign of the three claws
The Port of Osgiliath
All hope died twenty years ago. Most of us who surrendered were herded up and put in camps. Some escaped into the wilds and at least live free, or at least we in the camps hope so. The bones of our nation were dumped into pits and burned. Everything seemed gone with Sauron’s death. I have had time to think upon this and I am convinced, even if female opinions are disparaged now as then, that our obsession with Sauron’s vision obscured a different path that we should have followed. There are facts that my observations alone found: hints and clues in writings and carvings. No one then was interested. But all those who ignored me are gone. With this finding yesterday I am certain now that I can find this path, but I will need help to do so: we female orcs cannot travel unescorted outside the camps.
The Shire
I have been told that life in the Shire is and always has been utterly predictable. Can I say boring? Seasons and years go by with mild winters and calm summers. Crops grow predictably. People grow predictably. Upsetting the apple cart, as it were, is the farthest thing from anyone’s mind, and has been so before anyone can remember. Or read,, though there is not much need for writing. Oral tradition reigns. Festivals are never skipped, we children grow up to be responsible. Communal wisdom has always been to stay calm and carry on. Change never happens, and new ideas well, never occur to anyone. Else that is.
Twenty years ago a great catastrophe for lands far away was averted by the actions of four hobbits, one of whom is my father. The Shire was little effected by the war, and the hodge podge of changes brought in by an ex wizard called Saruman were quickly razed by the four hobbits and then forgotten.
One hobbit, known as the ring bearer, soon went with the elves to the West. The other three stayed in the Shire, married, raised children like me, and became respectable hobbits, though the community of hobbits admonished we children of these three that we should not attempt to emulate the unusual deeds of those times.
However, we children of the three hobbits have felt an affinity for each other from an early age, and formed a close group: this alone is unusual but not un respectable. The eldest of the group is me, Belladonna, the daughter of the esteemed Peregrine Took. If any family in the Shire was thought to have unusual tendencies, it is the Tooks. I am the leader, mainly by age since we are all headstrong. We are also all inquisitive with the mildly annoying trait of questioning things.
This trait had been mentioned politely to our three fathers, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, as being un-hobbit. But our three fathers have never seen fit to correct us, other than to say be discrete. They can not explain this laxity with us, but they all recall the amazing things they have each done, which is construed by the hobbit community as strange, new, bold, brave, and very unhobbity.
It started on a light sunny day when we were roaming a field, watching birds soaring with rigid wings outstretched. “How do birds fly?”
“Because they always have?” Answered Frodo, Sam’s son.
“That’s not an answer and you know it” said Rory, Merry’s son.
“Have you ever held a bird?” Asked Frodo’s big sister Elanor. “They’re very light, and their wings have a curve in them.” She was very observant. “I made a picture of this” and she pulled out a small bundle of papers from her apron pocket. We all crowded around.
“This is a sketch of a dead crow I found a while ago. It’s wings were this long and wide and the whole thing weighed less than this stone. I think that each square of the wing..I used my thumb to measure it… carried part of that little weight. “
“So what are you thinking, that you can figure out how to fly?” This from me was a kind of challenge.
“Yes: I have an idea. We need something stiff and light.”
Evading all chores yet again, we snuck into the town hall, and into a room where there was paper. The respectable hobbit who was the town clerk was having a respectably long lunch with beer. We split into three groups, making our usual contest out of it.
There must have been a fatherly intuition happening, as our three fathers (they told us this later) looked at each other across the table in the tavern, and got up as one and headed to the town hall. They could hear excited voices and some shouts of triumph in the back.
As they opened the door, three birds..no, machines…swooped past them across the room. This had never happened in the history of the Shire, and maybe even middle earth, and the fathers knew it.
And at that moment, as I well knew too.
Under the Mountain
The Dwarf King moved easily through the tunnels and halls in the mountain. He reflected on the stability of his kingdom this past twenty years: his sons were strong, lusty, hearty and boisterous, his mead hall filled with loyal dwarves, drinking contests, roaring fires with meat, boasts and bards, rooms filled with gold and gems, and with all dedicated to the dwarf Kingdom. As he did every other month, the king looked in upon the halls and corridors of the women performing their traditional work. It would never do to let them into the sanctums of the men. But the king was merciful, and with a sigh, decided to review the work of the women (some of which was highly useful to mining) and at least make an effort to seem interested. More often than every other month would be seen as weak, and undermine his authority amongst the warriors, miners, and goldsmiths of the kingdom.
As he passed by, one woman broke all protocol by addressing the king directly: actually asking how he was doing! Affrontery! The king turned his back and walked off. Suddenly, he was in the air by his collar! A young woman among the female geologists and engineers, which was mostly women’s work, held him up and turned him to face her. The kings guards held their weapons at the ready for the king to order her taken.
“Hello, I said. You could be polite you know. Oof, your breath!”
The king turned purple, and the woman put him down, roughly. Many women laughed as they saw this, and the king knew it would be all over the kingdom by morning.
Turning to his advisor, he said “she is polluting the entire kingdom. Send her on a mission to find useful rocks in the middle of Mordor.”
And that was that.
