Middle-Earth, The Shire, Hobbiton; S.R. 1389
It was fact widely known that Fëa did not escape the halls of Mandos, not because they didn't know how…quite the contrary, for those who were willing to ask it was easy enough to find the exit. But because all who resided there knew all too well what happened to you when you escaped. It wasn't like being let out of Mandos, you didn't have a nice new body waiting for you on the other side…yet you could hardly wonder the world as a houseless wraith, well I suppose you could, but it would be agony unending. So, your only hope then…was to find a body to possess.
When the fëa once known as Celegorm reawakened, he had no idea whose body he'd taken…just that it was not an elf's. It was much smaller for a start, well height-wise anyway, and it had much larger feet. Right at that moment though who or what the previous occupant had been, hadn't really mattered very much. What had was pushing that other creature aside and getting out of that bed…and then well hopefully things would become better in time.
They didn't…of course.
Middle-Earth, The Shire, what's-left-of- Michel Delving, Temporary Council chambers; S.R. 1391, June 1st
After the first waves of panic had settled and days in the Shire had started to get back to…well, not normal…never normal…but less terror-filled, the minds of the great had started to move on to other matters. The most important seeming was the replacement for Mayor Taft, who'd been one of the first victims of the explosion and some said, its intended target.
Paladin Took was not Thain, and if the thick layer of ash that coated everything in this bloody town had a say in it, he never would be. From the second he'd climbed out of his carriage – pulled by ponies, none of that steam powered nonsense thank you very much – he'd had to keep his handkerchief practically sealed around his mouth and nose. In fact, most of the hobbits that now sat around the make-shift table, hadn't let their handkerchiefs drop an inch since they'd sat down almost half an hour ago.
'Do we even need a mayor, anymore?'
The sharp, high voice could cut glass if it had the mind to, Paladin thought sourly. Lalia Clayhanger Took sat at the head of the table, presiding over all like the queen and regent she seemed to think she was.
'Really…where's the point? What possible purpose does a Mayor serve that couldn't be accomplished just as well by the Thain himself, or even the Master of Buckland?'
'Because they don't live here.'
All heads turned to assess the newcomer. Faldo Proudfoot was not just a fat hobbit, but a colossal one. When he moved round the table, he made it feel like another tremor was shaking the ground beneath them.
'As fine a person as the Thain is my good-hobbits, he can never rule up here with any authority. The hobbits up here at best think any Took or Brandybuck an utter fool or, at worst, believe you are hatching some dastardly plot to end the Shire. And after current events, thoughts of such a nature will be running rampant.
'If you force your hand on this matter, you'll have riots in the streets, I promise you that. No, you need a Mayor…someone to act when you can't …someone to see to it that everything runs smoothly from now on. Someone to see to it that everyone gets the justice they deserve.'
It was quite a speech, for even Lalia Took had fallen silent and thoughtful at the sound of the large hobbit's words.
'Now normally we would hold an election for this person, but tensions as I've said before are running high and as those with greater minds, we must take this situation in hand, before something even deadlier happens to our beautiful Shire. We cannot trust that the average hobbit will make the right choice… so we must, here today, choose someone from among ourselves to lead them…the only question is, who will it be?'
Lalia pressed her steeped fingertips to her lips and never once broke eye-contact with old Proudfoot, until he'd finished his speech. Then she sighed and shook her head in resignation.
'Of course, you're right; Tooks wouldn't enjoy being bossed around by a hobbit from up here, either. So, it is to be one of us then, well who could it possibly be? Certainly not a Took or a Brandybuck which clears most of the table doesn't it…the only ones without those names are me, who married a Took so that doesn't really count, and you, Faldo Proudfoot.'
For a second the two hobbits stared at each other, each trying to weigh the others weakness against their own, before finally Lalia looked away and sighed again.
'Fine, have it your own way…we may as well have at least the appearance that this is really a choice. Will all those who oppose this please raise their hand.'
No hand stirred from its owner's lap.
'Very well, the silence has it then…will everyone please welcome our new Mayor to the table.'
The applause was half-hearted and limp as Proudfoot squeezed his quite sizable frame into one of the chairs.
Mistress Took rose and directed a short bow to the newly 'elected' mayor.
'I'm afraid I cannot stay for further deliberations; I have a very busy schedule. Please do give the people of Michel Delving and Hobbiton my best, and may you enjoy your reign on their fate…such as it is.'
The first Ganyman, Celegorm had ever met was the one he had knocked over when he'd first taken this body for his own. Not that many people – either hobbit or elf – would call that a proper meeting. Still it had left an impression in the son of Fëanor's mind, lurking round a dead body was such a strange thing for anyone to be doing, but especially as he would learn later, for a hobbit. Hobbits were small and round, they didn't carry swords and they were never late for tea. All of this had been made perfectly clear to him his first night of being a hobbit; when after losing his way in the massive maze of tunnels the creatures call home, and being unable to make it to the other side, he had stumbled back to the room that he woke in.
He'd found her there, kneeling beside the cold looking bed and sobbing. Her mass of grey curls – clearly a wig – abandoned on the floor, and her bowed head as bald as the moon in the sky. He wasn't exactly ashamed to say that he laughed then, more out of bewilderment than any kind of cruelty; but he did laugh, loud enough to wake her from her solitary melancholy. She jerked her head to look at him, and her mouth, smeared with paint as it was, hung open in atonement.
'Faldo…Faldo…you're here, you're…I thought that awful Ganyman had taken your body.'
And there was that word, Ganyman – an odd thing for a creature that wasn't a man to call himself. Just the sound of the thing had a ring of power to it – the kind of power that any elf's fëa should be well acquainted with. No, no that was ridicule, Námo was all the way back in terrible Mandos – and besides what would the Valar of the dead be doing with well whatever these small creatures were. As he had been musing this, the wife had been talking.
'I never wanted to call that Ganyman in the first place, a nasty rustic tradition – what would the neighbours say? But you insisted, well it was all for naught now I suppose, you weren't dead anyway. That brute will want his money but don't worry, I'm going to keep you safe, we won't let any of those nasty Ganymen touch you. They think they can see the dead, or know them at any rate…well I know you, and there's no one more needed of a second chance at life. They won't take you away from me again.'
It is not a hard thing to hide what one truly is, to hide that you do not belong in your body. Most mortals will not ask, and even some of the ones that do will not care. The wife was like that, Faldo Proudfoot's wife was just so happy that her husband had somehow come back to her from the brink of death that she didn't even question it when he no longer acted, like fat old Faldo Proudfoot anymore.
When you weren't expecting an ancient sprit of a warrior elf to possess the quickly cooling corpse of your dead husband, you didn't see an ancient spirit of a warrior elf in your dead husband…you saw your husband.
It would take someone far more acquainted with Death to find out this little secret, and ruin…well all the Valar's plans.
And he couldn't let that happen, now could he?
The Shire, Hobbiton, Marketplace; S.R. 1391, June 12th
The signs had gone up long before anyone had opened market that day, no one was exactly sure who had put them up, but most people assumed it must have been one of those high-minded Tooks or Brandybucks.
Signs in of themselves weren't that uncommon a sight in the marketplace, even ones done by the Mayor's office. But these were different. They were a great deal bigger than your average notice for a start, and a great deal more…colourful. Some were as long as your arm, more list than poster and others were nothing more than paintings printed up onto poor paper. But whatever the type or format each poster's subject was the same: Ganymen.
May and Halfred Gamgee stood transfixed to the spot, unable to look away no matter how hard they tried. The article on whom their eyes were drawn to stated thus:
Beware the Ganyman's Lies
For as long as most of us can remember the Ganymen and their followers have spread their poison among some of our most vulnerable and easily-led astray families. Well I say to you no more!
Ganymen will have you believe that they and only they can grant you a good after-life. That no matter what you may have done in this life, so long as you tell your Last Tale to a Ganyman then you are guaranteed to not fade away into dust.
This is an archaic and poisons tradition, which spreads woeful slothfulness between the already dependent working classes. More than that though…it is a lie. Any Hobbit of Learning could and will tell you the truth…that if your faith lays with the Valar and their creator and only them, you will not go astray.
More and more hobbits are waking up to this reality and shunning the old-fashioned superstitions that their forbears once clung to. The Ganymen know this…and will do anything within their power to stop it.
The rest of the notice was taken up with an artist's portrayal of the Michel Delving disaster. Small shadowy figures holding Ganymen staffs situated in each corner of the picture. May's whole body began to shake, and she fell backwards into Halfred's arms. The youth growled under his breath as he pushed his sister back onto her own two feet.
'Come on…let's go home May. I'm suddenly not very hungry anymore, and Da needs to be told.'