#fflewddur

Taram et Le Chaudron Magique (The Black Cauldron)

One of the many things I like about The Black Cauldron, is that all four of the main heroes, have a chance to shine. None of them are throw away or extraneous characters, and they all have at least one moment in the story where they are brave, and help save the day. The farm boy Taran, and the kidnapped princess Eilonwy, especially, have the kind of relationship, similar to Conan and Lana in Future Boy Conan, or Jen and Kira in The Dark Crystal, where they rely on each other, and even save each other, throughout the story. Really great stuff.

Chronicles of prydain

Fflewddur x Doli

Sympathy

The cold and the sound; both creep upon her black unconsciousness so stealthily that she’ll never know which wakes her; so simultaneous they seem linked, connected…except the sound is mellow, golden like drops of sunlight, a thing that could have no relation to the icy teeth gnawing at her bones. No, they are adversaries; the sound presses onward and the cold quails before it and she realizes it is music; a melody that curls around her like a quilt until her numb extremities tingle. Her eyes open and blink confused at a dancing red-gold flicker, interrupted by vague shadowy forms. 

She has a moment’s impression that the light moves in rhythmic synchronicity with the music and that both are birthed from the same place. Wood, broken, splintered and consumed, glows in the heart of fire like the chunks of an earth-fallen star. The music swells and entwines, seeping into her mind because it is familiar, too, somehow, and knows all the right passageways, unlocking and wandering through doors she’d shut and forgotten.

The muffled murmur in the background separates itself into voices she knows. Doli’s, gruff and somehow reverent; Taran’s, startlingly close, almost in her own head, which she becomes suddenly aware is cradled against his chest. And Fflewddur’s voice, a voice she associates with joy and warmth and laughter, yet now it holds a note that rends her heart; she finds his face in the light and sees his hands stretched achingly empty toward the fire’s inexorable song.