Agents of B.A.R.B.I.E. -> Skye (a.k.a. Daisy Johnson)
This Barbie is an Inhuman!
idc if you reblog this from me but reblog it every time you see one of your friends or mutuals have reblogged it
L.M. Montgomery, letter to E.B. Weber, 7 April 1929
I was out on a ramble with one of my dogs just now, and it really was a nice ramble. Bit of trespassing, bit of ice. Walking right overtop the stream, as it's been quite cold for the past few weeks, though it was relatively warm today. It was along a part of the stream I'd never been along, as it is decidedly not our property, and not conveniently along the road.
So I was out rambling, and came across a very nice tree arch, a bridge, some kind of abandoned tiller thing??? and a couple frozen waterfalls. It was along a very briar and bramble and bush filled section of the creek, though, and I had to get a little creative getting around some of these obstacles.
My dog, however, had no such qualms. He was off darting over and under all these brambles and branches and all such, and often looked back to see why I was being so slow, while I clumsily, cumbersomely, awkwardly crawled under branches or carefully held back thorns as I attempted to step over them.
I felt rather like a parent whose child was trying to show them something, squeezing between fenceposts that the parent had to either climb over or go around, as the child wonders why their parent's being so slow.
And then I wondered if that's how Aragorn felt traveling with the hobbits? He's been in these woods since he was 2, knows every tree and rock and leaf. He knows what he's doing. But they're traveling and there's a briar patch, and he's all ready to tell the hobbits 'alright, we'll have to cut through this. get behind me so you don't get hurt.' ... But they're already darting under and around and through it like Brer Rabbit himself. Pippin calls back 'Strider, you wouldn't even let us stop for second breakfast! what are you doing back there?' And even injured Frodo is skipping through it like a deer, and he's wondering how exactly he thought he was this great woodsman when these hobbits who have never stepped a foot outside of the Shire in their lives are just. staring at him. from the other side of the briar patch. that he can't get through.
Happy Birthday Chloe Bennet! 🎂🎉
Eilonwy held up the golden ball. He took it, cradled it reverently in his hands, and whispered something she could not make out. He looked her in the eye. “Did you know this was your mother’s?”
Warm gladness bloomed in her chest. “I thought it might be,” she said, “because I couldn’t imagine Achren giving it to me. But I wasn’t sure. She never tried to take it away.”
“No,” Gwydion said, that wistful smile back on his face. “She coveted it, beyond a doubt, but it would have done nothing for her. But for you…” he hesitated. “Can you use it?”
“I can do this.” She took it back and cupped the smooth sphere, raised it glowing before his face. A spark of glimmering gold mirrored it in both his eyes. She felt from him a rush of emotions so palpable it almost knocked her over, too many, too intense even to unravel one from the other. He was looking at the light as though transfixed, and with an effort that felt like a dam breaking, he tore his eyes away and gently pushed her hand down, blocking the glow from his vision.
I have some thoughts on Héra's "death" line at the climax of War of the Rohirrim and how it relates to Rohan's story during the War of the Ring.
Spoilers below for the movie!
When Héra tells Wulf that she was promised to death on the siege tower, I think that she was genuinely expecting to die there. Even if the plan went perfectly, she would be isolated from the Hornburg (as the siege tower's gangplank burned down) surrounded by an enemy army. Even if Fréaláf showed up, which to her is still a big if on timing if nothing else, that is not a situation one can reasonably expect to survive.
Yet, it's the only hope her people have to escape. She might die, but the rest would live if she could keep enough attention on her. Is this not what Théoden would do centuries later, first on the ramp of the Hornburg drawing the attention of the Uruk-Hai? Then again at Pelennor Fields, one probably last charge to try and win survival for their people. Failing that, at least choosing to die on their own terms instead of waiting for their turn to fall.
Is that not why Théoden's riders cheered "death!" at the enemy as they charged, throwing back the fear Mordor sought to spread back at its hosts? That they had accepted it and were ready to meet it? Is that not what the ideal of a warrior is so often touted as, fighting because they love what stands behind their aegis?
Héra may not have been fighting the same kind of existential war that Théoden was, but the same kind of courage was needed. Even if it all went well, I doubt she had any expectations of surviving that night. She nearly didn't, even with Fréaláf arriving and utterly terrorizing the Dunlending host into such a panicked rout. Yet, it was the way she could save those under her charge.
The moment she rode out onto the tower's gangplank, Héra truly promised herself to death.
Christian FangirlMostly LotR, MCU, Narnia, and Queen's Thief
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