Tom and Polly
Disclaimer: Oz is Baum's (and others') as Arda is Tolkien's. Rating: PG
Polychrome sat among the rushes on the muddy riverbank. Her skirts pooled around her in a froth of violet, rose, topaz, olive and azure, soft as the clouds that scudded off towards the hilly country to the East. On all sides, the sun sparkled on the millions of droplets left by the storm. It struck prismatic flashes from the few drops that still fell – large sparkling tears from the maiden stranded on the riverbank.
“Oh, how could I have done it again! How could I have forgotten what my sisters told me,” she sobbed. Once again, she had danced too long on the green fields, as she loved to do, and had missed the rainbow bridge back home.
“Now I’ll be skyed* for years and years! Mother said she’d put me on restriction if I stayed out too long one more time!” So absorbed was she in her melancholy that she did not notice the man until he grabbed her in a great hug around her waist and spun her so that her golden hair floated out in all directions.
“I caught you, River-daughter!” he chuckled.
Polychrome broke off in mid-sniffle and giggled at the grinning man. “Shaggy Man! How did you get here?”
“I came for you, fairy slender as a willow wand and clearer than clear water. You shine like a single golden berry on a tree of gems.” Releasing her, he began to sing.
“Fairy-light and fairy-fleet
You danced upon the river side.
The earth bloomed joyous at your feet,
And seeing you, Tom’s heart sighed.
Rainbows fell into the water
When my darling damsel cried.
Weep no more, River Daughter –
Stay with me and be my bride!”
Polychrome could not resist the merry tune, and danced along bank beside him. They ended laughing together.
“Let me show you to my house – I promise you will like it,” Tom coaxed her. Polychrome studied him gravely for a long moment, then flashed a dimpled smile at him and laid her slender hand in his broad one.
“I will want to return to the sky, when my father stretches his bridge down for me,” she warned.
“You shall visit your family as often as you like,” he promised. “Tom, he likes to travel too and never would he hinder you. But warm and tender will his love burn to greet you at your return.”
A/N
This is a crossover from the later Oz books, which include Polychrome, the daughter of the Rainbow, who loves to dance on the grass when it’s raining. She has an unfortunate habit of stranding herself when the rainbow fades. She first appears in The Road to Oz, in which the Shaggy Man is also a character. Her description (quoted by Wikipedia):
"A little girl, radiant and beautiful, shapely as a fairy and exquisitely dressed.... She was clad in flowing, fluffy robes of soft material that reminded Dorothy of woven cobwebs, only it was colored in soft tintings of violet, rose, topaz, olive, azure, and white, mingled together most harmoniously in stripes which melted one into the other with soft blendings. Her hair was like spun gold and floated around her in a cloud, no strand being fastened or confined by either pin or ornament or ribbon."
For the Tolkien part, there seemed to be a Hades-Persephone thing in Tolkien’s account of how Tom and Goldberry met. It could be a lot more romantic. (See The Tolkien Reader for the “Adventures of Tom Bombadil” and decide for yourself.)
*For a cloud-dweller like Polychrome, being grounded wouldn’t be a restriction.
Polychrome sat among the rushes on the muddy riverbank. Her skirts pooled around her in a froth of violet, rose, topaz, olive and azure, soft as the clouds that scudded off towards the hilly country to the East. On all sides, the sun sparkled on the millions of droplets left by the storm. It struck prismatic flashes from the few drops that still fell – large sparkling tears from the maiden stranded on the riverbank.
“Oh, how could I have done it again! How could I have forgotten what my sisters told me,” she sobbed. Once again, she had danced too long on the green fields, as she loved to do, and had missed the rainbow bridge back home.
“Now I’ll be skyed* for years and years! Mother said she’d put me on restriction if I stayed out too long one more time!” So absorbed was she in her melancholy that she did not notice the man until he grabbed her in a great hug around her waist and spun her so that her golden hair floated out in all directions.
“I caught you, River-daughter!” he chuckled.
Polychrome broke off in mid-sniffle and giggled at the grinning man. “Shaggy Man! How did you get here?”
“I came for you, fairy slender as a willow wand and clearer than clear water. You shine like a single golden berry on a tree of gems.” Releasing her, he began to sing.
“Fairy-light and fairy-fleet
You danced upon the river side.
The earth bloomed joyous at your feet,
And seeing you, Tom’s heart sighed.
Rainbows fell into the water
When my darling damsel cried.
Weep no more, River Daughter –
Stay with me and be my bride!”
Polychrome could not resist the merry tune, and danced along bank beside him. They ended laughing together.
“Let me show you to my house – I promise you will like it,” Tom coaxed her. Polychrome studied him gravely for a long moment, then flashed a dimpled smile at him and laid her slender hand in his broad one.
“I will want to return to the sky, when my father stretches his bridge down for me,” she warned.
“You shall visit your family as often as you like,” he promised. “Tom, he likes to travel too and never would he hinder you. But warm and tender will his love burn to greet you at your return.”
A/N
This is a crossover from the later Oz books, which include Polychrome, the daughter of the Rainbow, who loves to dance on the grass when it’s raining. She has an unfortunate habit of stranding herself when the rainbow fades. She first appears in The Road to Oz, in which the Shaggy Man is also a character. Her description (quoted by Wikipedia):
"A little girl, radiant and beautiful, shapely as a fairy and exquisitely dressed.... She was clad in flowing, fluffy robes of soft material that reminded Dorothy of woven cobwebs, only it was colored in soft tintings of violet, rose, topaz, olive, azure, and white, mingled together most harmoniously in stripes which melted one into the other with soft blendings. Her hair was like spun gold and floated around her in a cloud, no strand being fastened or confined by either pin or ornament or ribbon."
For the Tolkien part, there seemed to be a Hades-Persephone thing in Tolkien’s account of how Tom and Goldberry met. It could be a lot more romantic. (See The Tolkien Reader for the “Adventures of Tom Bombadil” and decide for yourself.)
*For a cloud-dweller like Polychrome, being grounded wouldn’t be a restriction.