Of Beechen Green and Shadows Numberless by Innin

Chapter 1

The title was shamelessly borrowed from Keats' Ode to a Nightingale. Written for hereff during an impromptu Skype livewrite. 

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Doriath is safe. Doriath is utterly safe; no foul thing will pass the Girdle of Melian, and walking alone after nightfall under the stars is the favourite pasttime of Galadriel.

Her footfalls rustle through the grass, and other than that quiet reigns, the evening songs have been sung and the air cools with gathering dew on the bare skin of her arms. Until, close to her ear on a low branch, a nightingale trills into the stillness.

Galadriel jumps.

She does not commonly startle easily, but there is a cadence to the little bird's voice, and a light in its beady eyes that makes her suspect that this is no ordinary bird. The nightingale flutters her wings, and with a piping call takes to the air as though it expects Galadriel to follow the quick flits through the underbrush. The bird finds an easy way - not often used and little more than a footpath overgrown with soft grass, but blessedly free of tree roots, of vines and brambles and snatching bushes, so that she will not spend forever mending her dress, and that thought has nary finished when Galadriel stumbles into another clearing, secluded on all sides by tall, silver-stemmed beeches, where a stream flows and pools into a shallow, clear and shimmering pond in the moonlight spilling over the trees with Ithil rising.

The little bird is nowhere to be seen, but over in the shadows under the beeches the air wavers as it sometimes does in the heat rising from a candleflame, and then Melian steps forth clad only in a cape of feathers in nightingale brown and grey, her feet and legs and shoulders bare, and her body certainly also bare underneath the feathers. She smiles at Galadriel, and her eyes seem all the brighter for it.

Galadriel kneels; after all this is her Queen, a lady of a higher order of beings, and she can scarce believe her luck to be the student of one of them once again, in so many more things than the Valar of Aman ever permitted, in so many more magics and enchantments - and many more worldly matters, too. And to some degree Galadriel understands that she is being groomed here, as much as she was in Aman, and that this entirely contradicts her plans and hopes for the world without - and yet not. She has all the time in the world, and she will learn what she can, and perhaps push for more, as she pushed for this, for at least the attempt of it. "My lady, is this what I -"

"Indeed you have guessed already," Melian says, now stepping fully into the moonlight, "what our lesson is this night. Disrobe, Galadriel, and we will test your aptitude for this matter of magic, the shifting of your shape. It will be exhausting for you, perhaps even perilous if you invest too much of yourself into the magics even with my assistance, for your Eldarin bodies were not intended for such things, and even if this becomes a magic you master against expectations, you must not use it except in the direst circumstances."

Galadriel nods mutely. For all her expectation her mouth goes dry, her skin feels stretched tight and tingling across her frame, and suddenly the night breeze seems too cold and the moonlight too glaring, but she obeys, rising and stripping off her dress, the undershift of silk, her breastband and loincloth until she stands under the moonlight bare with something - not the cool air, or not only - pimpling her skin all across her body, and her toes twist into the grass as Melian approaches, pulling the feathered cape from her and revealing that she is indeed wearing nothing else except her hair spilling down her back like a dark waterfall, nearly to her knees. Melian places the cape around Galadriel's shoulders with care, and beckons for both of them to sit on the grass. Then she begins to explain, how all stuff of Arda is mutable, how even the Eldar may - with assistance, such as the cape - effect such changes, dictated by the mind upon the body.

Bidding Galadriel lean on her shoulder and open her mind Melian begins to sing a low, soft song, much like the nightingale's trill before, but in her own voice, and begins to touch Galadriel were the cape lies upon the skin, as though she were welding metal or sewing two pieces of fabric into one. Galadriel's skin prickles underneath Melian's touch; she can feel her body growing... different, arm bones shifting, feathers - feathers! - sprouting from her shoulders and down her arms, first soft down, then longer and stiffer ones, a bird's for flight.

There is no pain, but her breath quickens, her heart flutters, her voice trills in song as she seeks to speak, and yet the transformation is not yet complete - she has a woman's body still. Melian continues her touches, her fingers are warm and alive and familiar as they traverse over her body, ever down until Galadriel thinks she can take no more and the sounds she makes become trills of alarm, exhaustion, and Melian ceases her song, ends the magic, and Galadriel becomes herself again. The cape is a cape again, and slides from her shoulders when she slumps. Melian's arms go around her, a steadying embrace and a warm, firm body, and she kisses Galadriel's cheek with more than mere mentor's affection, and the next kiss meets Galadriel's lips in full when she wearily turns her head into it. Although her eyes threaten to slip close, she seeks reassurance. Melian murmurs of pride against her lips, that not many could have borne even this little.

Galadriel whispers her thanks and sees Melian's face shift into a smile. For now that is reward enough, and she can slip into sleep contended.