The road goes on and on, but what if we'd picked a different one? meme

[durinsdaughter]

~An alternate timelines of Arda meme~


{What if Thranduil really liked flowers?}

The road goes on and on, but what if we'd picked a different one?

We all love Arda as it is. The drama, the heartbreak, the joy, all the good and bad dumb buttfaces people that walk its ground. But what if it wasn't quite as we've come to know it? What if Melian just wasn't into elves? What if Tuor had ended up in Doriath and Turin in Gondolin? What if the whole company had survived BotfA or Balin hadn't gone to Moria? What if Galadriel had taken Frodo up on his offer?

Basically, this is a meme to explore all the things that could have been but didn't happen. Go nuts!

"Rules":
♫ Comment with your character, putting their name in the header (OCs are welcome, perhaps add a line about who they are in the comment?). You can offer a starter (saying what went differently) or leave it blank.
♪ Have fun!


A few ideas:
♫ Celebration! Maybe it's a crowning, or a coming-of age; a begetting day or a simple garden party, or perhaps a victory won or a treaty signed.
♪ Never say that it at least cannot get worse. It can always get worse. Maybe there is just an additional war, or maybe you and a beloved one ended up on different sides of duty or desire. Maybe you just weren't lucky or were captured after all, or by an even worse captor. Maybe your decisions sucked even more than they did already.
♫ Family life! Maybe you married someone else, or married at all - or maybe the spouse thought your dumb idea was great this time around, or convinced you that no indeed it was dumb, and thus you stayed together. Perhaps you had children that you wouldn't have had otherwise, or you adopted someone else, or were adopted - the sky is the limit!
♪ Off-screen or This Should Have Happened: Glóin freaking out when Gimli tells him about his new bff; relatives/friends/spouses going U DUMB when their kids/siblings/etc return/are re-embodies/etc; somone inquiring about hobbits and their mushrooms, someone trying to give Radagast a bath...
♫ Born the other way - perhaps this guy was born a girl, or was a girl all along (not that you'd necessarily notice with a dwarf or elf...)? Perhaps your character's parentage is different, or they were born in a different age or belong to a different race?
♪ WHATEVER ELSE really

Comments

[mining_mole]

[Okay I made this harder on myself than necessary and in the end gave up but Celegorm named him Ion and his chosen name is Galadion. Set around the time of the split between Cel and his father/uncle in Nargothrond, your pick if before or after. I hope this is okay]

"BROTHER!"

They jump between "brother" and "cousin". Choose which to use depending on mood and situation; depending on what they want to emphasize (that they have been raised as if they were brothers, no mothers and their fathers acting as a unit more often than not; that one is the son of a crafter and the other the son of a hunter; that they are Fëanor's grandchildren, only them and no others...); there are many reason to choose, and when he bursts into his cousin's rooms, throwing the doors open so that their slamming against the walls can be heard far and wide, his words ring of proximity.

More than anything, they are family, after all... though that is exactly what is coming tumbling and crashing down around them.

[lastoftheline]

[Ohohhoho, after/during, methinks, and this looks lovely c: and I likewise hope this works!]

The fact that Celebrimbor wasn't in the forge was as much sign as any that something was amiss. The opened (and half emptied) bottle of brandy was another sign. But truly, the harsh and most striking indication was in Celebrimbor himself. His knife lay open, unsheathed blade glinting as cool as frost, the scabbard tossed haphazardly to the side. It was undeniably the tool that had been used.

Celebrimbor's hair, before, long and thick (though often scorched) was now cropped roughly below his ears, the ends uneven, sticking out at rough angles, shorter now than that of the meanest servants'.

Celebrimbor's head jerked in the direction of his cousin, lips thinned, his gaze a strange mix; the fiery anger that so often dominated him, though this one was of a deeper sort, less of the sudden fits of temper that would hold him. But swimming underneath that molten layer lay grief, and the eyes of a lost child.

His chin tilted up, defiant, as is challenging Maeglin to ask him what happened.

[mining_mole]

It's demanding enough, challenging enough that Ion doesn't ask - stalks over to his cousin's place, grasps him by the shirt and hauls him up instead, or attempts to - starting to shout even before he is quite there, not caring for the doors being open or who might hear. There can hardly be more damage done now, and besides he truly does not care. Whichever direction they are headed towards, halting is not an option now, however daring it seems to move forward.

"Why are you sitting here when the city is in upheaval?" A brief, scathing glance flies towards the brandy, and his lips curl into a sneer. "You need your wits gathered upon you, brother, and not on the ground with your body after you had too much."

[lastoftheline]

Celebrimbor isn't drunk, not nearly so, and not yet. The muscle of his strong jaw stands out as he grinds his teeth, and jerks from the other elf's grip.

"Not, brother. Not cousin." He grinds out. He was braced for the words to hurt, he expected them to hurt, but even so, the pain is shocking, a heart-hurt that seems to grind down to the marrow of his bones.

"I left the family." His breath shivered out between his lips, as he reached up, peeling Ion's hands from his front. "My wits are...perfectly intact."

[mining_mole]

"You-" He lets his cousin go, eyes widening at the words, and his worlds are almost a snarl, out of disbelief more than disapproval. He still can't believe what he has heard and witnessed, all of it hard to make sense of (the pieces all do, yet still, trying to fit them into a larger picture he fails - where did their fathers misstep so? When did they all start on this path, and how did they continue on it like this?). But this, this is far beyond even that, and grey eyes narrow as he leans forward again, both hands coming up to grasp Celebrimbor's upper arms. "Do not speak like that and claim your wits to be perfectly intact, for no clearer sign is there that they are not."