Jesi

I keep rewriting little pieces, moving scenes around, cutting lines, putting them back, staring at the document like it owes me money. This chapter is one of those where every choice feels heavier because we’re so close to the end.

But it’s coming. Slowly. Painfully. Very much in the spirit of this fic.

In the meantime, there are already 32 chapters waiting on AO3: slow burn, angst, hurt/comfort, yearning, emotional damage, and one very stubborn heart underneath all of it.

📖 Between Legolas and Faramir - The Flowers of Ithilien

i wanted to come to say that I just started your fic and I'm GOBBLING it up.truly amazing stuff ♡

heyyy omg hi!! ay, this makes me a little embarrassed lol

it makes me SO happy that you started the fic and that you’re liking it. seriously, thank you for coming here to tell me 🥹

I’m not sure where you are yet, but I hope you keep enjoying it, although fair warning, there’s a lot of angst because apparently I don’t know how to write anything else lol

but Sam will always come out looking good because he is my GREAT protected one. no one touches him 🖤

It’s Saturday night and I’m already writing Chapter 33 of The Flowers of Ithilien.

And yes, it’s going to be absolutely painful.

The final arc is hitting harder than I expected. First, because I’ve poured so much love into this fic: so many hours, so much work, so much of myself. And second, because everything feels more final now. Every chapter carries a different kind of weight when you know you’re getting close to the end.

Thank you to everyone who has been here since Chapter 1, and to those who found the story somewhere along the way. You’re making me incredibly happy♥️

📖 Chapter 33 comes out on Thursday. In the meantime, Chapter 32 is already up on AO3.

Haven’t read it yet? Or feel like starting over from the beginning?

Here it is: 150k+ words of slow burn, yearning, and angst… but with a heart still beating underneath all the pain.

i'm not super far in, only ~chapter 18, but the scene in lothlorien where pippin and merry kind of doll emma up with her hair and her flower eyeliner just jumped out at me and i would really love to draw her if that's alright

if it's okay, could you give me a physical description for her? i know she has brown curly hair and green eyes, but if there's anything else like skin tone, body type, eye/face shape, that would be cool!

obviously only if you're alright with it! i just figured i'd ask :)

love your fic!!

hii!! 🥹 it's not weird at all, you totally made my day. it makes me so happy that you want to draw Emma, so yes, please do 💛

okay so: i imagined her from the very beginning as a hobbit but tall lol. she ended up way too tall to actually be one, but the hobbit spirit stuck. light brown hair, curly and unruly, fairly long (about Éowyn's length): she'd love to keep it tidy, she braids it sometimes, but it never comes out perfect. fair skin, like Pippin's. her eyes read green but catch gold in the light, especially outdoors 🌿

she's tall, in chapter 18 she tells Legolas she's almost as tall as him. but she has a much more human body than the elves, more trained, none of that fine, angular thing Arwen has. and that's an insecurity for her: in chapter 16 she looks down at her legs and tells the hobbits she's not as fine or ethereal as the elf-women. she's also a bit round-cheeked — which i love about her, exactly to set her apart from those sharp elven faces. there's a character who's going to be very important in the chapters ahead who finds himself thinking about her cheeks, in a moment where she's asleep:

Emma slept with her face turned slightly against his shoulder. The weight of her head pressed her cheek against the cloth, and that changed her face: her cheeks more pronounced, rounder than by day, softer, without the tension they carried when she was awake correcting a map or weighing a response. Her mouth slightly open, slack, without the guard she put on every word she said.

she wears elven clothing simply because it's what's around where she lives.

and two little things: she always wears a thin copper collar that was her mother's, she never takes it off. and the flower eyeliner from the Lothlórien scene is that soft little gesture from Pippin and Merry, so she looks a bit undone by it, like she's not used to being looked at that way.

and thank you so much for your comments on AO3, they make me really happy! i'd love to see the drawing whenever you have it, no rush at all 💛

he gives her his last piece of bread. he blocks the Orodruin with his body and tells her look at my feet, one, then the other. he leaves his spoon in the ash so emma's collar won't be alone. and when emma touches the Ring and can't let go, he doesn't give her a speech — he opens her fingers one by one and says it's not yours, miss. look at me.

the gardener who carries the world.

yes, there's a new chapter, and earlier than usual this time 🌿 chapter 32 — "you, who never had anything" — now available on ao3.

Hi!! Oh my god, yes, absolutely. It would honestly be an HONOR 😭🖤

I can’t believe you want to print all 560 pages and annotate them. That means so much to me. Please take them with you, and I hope Emma, Legolas, Faramir, Aragorn and all this pain keep you company while you’re afk.

And perfect timing: chapter 32 comes out tomorrow🌙

this comment made me so happy because yes. you caught me.

aragorn is not the center of this fic, but he is very clearly under my personal protection program.

i can make faramir look bad.

i can drag legolas through the mud, humble him, make him say the absolute worst thing at the worst possible moment.

i can write emma —my own OC, mind you— as unfair, clumsy, avoidant, selfish, painfully human.

but aragorn?

i’m afraid not.

i can write him tired. i can write him devastated. i can make him see something horrible and still force him to get up the next day and march toward the black gate, because someone has to, even if his heart is breaking.

but i cannot make him small.

aragorn loving emma like a daughter in every way except blood, and still respecting her choices even when those choices terrify him… yes. that. exactly that.

he loves without owning. he protects without caging. he suffers and still lets her remain herself.

thank you for noticing 🥲🤍

aragorn will always be safe with me.

sam too.

everyone else is on their own👀

by the way, chapter 31 is already available.

and this thursday, chapter 32 arrives: the Battle of the Morannon.

which means we are officially marching toward the Black Gate and pretending we are emotionally prepared for it🫠

“no—my little one,” he whispered now.

“i would have done her harm if i had stopped her.”

“that truth was not a weapon.”

legolas.

“i want to marry her.”

“if we are ever granted children, let them share her fate. let it be mine as well.”

“give me the gift of men.”

faramir.

“that i should save her by making her a prisoner once again?”

“let someone, just once, speak a truth in this tent before it is too late.”

“to buy more time for you!”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/81317656/chapters/230257751

chapter 31 is up now🌙

chapter 32 comes out on 24/06.

and now, at last, we march to the black gate.

In my head I'm Faramir defending Ithilien.

not only because he literally prayed for the gift of men — which already destroyed me, emotionally — but because he talked about their future children, and that will always, always make me soft😭

omg you have no idea what it means to read this 🥹 the fact that you came in team Faramir is perfect — his chemistry with Emma HAD to be that real. and yes, the prayer for the Gift of Men destroyed me too while I was writing it. a being that ancient willing to do that… idk, it says everything about where he is right now 💚

https://archiveofourown.org/works/81317656/chapters/230257751

i don't want to admit defeat for team faramir, but if she ends up with legolas, would you write an AU where she ends up with our captain?

I hear you and I get it 🫂 I won't spoil which way it goes, but both paths are real and neither one gets mistreated. And hey 👀 I've got drafts of an AU of "what if she'd chosen the other path"... so maybe the ending you want exists too, even if it's in another timeline.