Lúthad "Enchantment" {story + podfic + illustration} by Anérea

Stars wheeled above the great wood while the Telerin lord's eyes lingered in the enchanting gaze of Melian the fey, and long years were measured before they spoke any word one to another. Though Middle-earth lay for the most part in the Sleep of Yavanna, under the power of Melian there was life and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark about them. So still were they as each beheld the other, she with the light of Aman in her face, he with it in his eyes, that warbling nightingales alighted upon their shoulders while small woodland beasts foraged about their feet.

Their glade was open to the stars and the fall of rain came not upon them in all that time. Yet everchanging mists wreathed about it in a slow rise and fall as if it were the very breath of the trees, inbreathing from the damp loam, outbreathing through their crowns, allowing the passage of neither sight nor sound. Thus it was that Elwë’s folk who sought him found him not, though they fared nearby.

Then on a time a great storm rode up out of the west; thunder echoed between tree and cloud while lightning glittered in the shadowy glade. The first drops of fine silver rain began to fall, and the lovers stirred from their enchantment.

Being filled with love Elwë came to her and took her hand, and straightway a spell was laid on him that it seemed he made a great journey with her, and he beheld through her beauty and song the immeasurable vastness of Eä in endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, so that it filled the Void to overflowing. In the midst of the innumerable stars he saw countless worlds hung globed, and he perceived that the darkness between the stars was not void but was as kindling for the Secret Fire.

Elwë was other than anything Melian had hitherto known, the stuff of Arda and yet strange and free, and being filled thus with wonder the more did she love him. In him she beheld the mind of Ilúvatar reflected anew which otherwise had been hidden even from the Ainur, and she saw in him a world like unto Arda, as vast and manifold and thorough in its crafting, yet so small as to be wholly contained within. And at his heart was kindled the Flame Imperishable.

Though long years passed as they stood beneath the wheeling stars and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark about them, it seemed to them but a short time ere they spoke.