Yavanna's Dream by MisbehavingMaiar

Yavanna's Dream

Vana vs. Sauron, or Nature vs. Industry explored through the medium of EPIC AINUR FIGHT SEQUENCES. 

This is the nightmare that came to me, when I saw the smoke rising from the pits in the forest: 

Having come at last to the Undying Lands, the Shadow raised his challenge to the open woods.

"I’ve decided to begin my conquest with you; I am the strongest of all Maiar and you, by far the weakest of the Valar. Let us see how untouchable are the ainu masters, when pitted against me."

"You wish to fight." Says Vána (child-faced, lustrous as a chestnut seed, grey-furred and soft-eared; my sister is beautiful), "But I do not fight."

Our smallest Valië grows disparate, vanishing into the thousand dewdrops and curling leaves and buds of the forest, no longer distinguishable as a round face with lavender eyes. A light grey rabbit skids out out of the rushes and thumps a warning, zigzagging away into the trees. 

"I multiply. I diversify. I evade. I grow. And if you would subdue me, Gorthaur, you must catch me first."  

"Very well." The Cruel One cracks his neck to one side and bends, growing immense and furred, jaws pulled long, fang-dripping. He gives chase to the fleeing hare, matching its quick turns and its jolts, snarling and snapping at her feet. She darts up a tree, no longer a hare but a squirrel, leaping away from his wet jaws that close just behind her.  He leaps and snarls and claws the bark. He could change shape, and give chase as he might in a riddle, by turning into a panther or a hawk, but he has no patience for subtlety.

The wolf stretches, its huge body uprooting and shoving aside the trees as it grows. It tears the whole trunk from the earth and shakes it as if it were prey dangling by its throat. A flock of grey birds erupts from its fallen branches and takes to the sky; in the wheeling wings, and dark spots of bodies overlapping, a wide-eyed face appears before dissolving again into the whirl. 

The monstrous wolf roars and stretches out like the skin of a drum, shedding fur and extending bony wings until it too launches into the sky; a vampire of horrific shape. 

It dives and scoops the birds up like so many gnats with its leather wings and tail, harrying the flock high into the air and then down again, needled mouth wide to devour them. The birds do not scatter or pull away. They plummet straight into the meadow ground like a hail of arrows, and where they land, bright flowers unfurl.  

Sauron too, lands heavy amidst the blossoming. His gold eyes take in the spread of green and violet as Spring spills over the tops of hills in the lowering sun. A breeze ripples through the grasses and petals, stirring the humming, chirping things that thrive there.

—It is all Vána, for she cannot be drawn out of all her manifold lives. 

The Maia breathes deeply and fills his bellow-lungs, reaching a hand into the earth and muttering a Song whose sound is rocks falling and crushing and grinding to dust. Sand piles around his fingers; the earth sinks, flowers choke and smother under the sifting ground, a field of summer grasses becomes a wide swath of dunes. 

The buzz of insect life is silenced, the chirping of frogs and birds ceases as all things green are swallowed. The Maia shuts his fist, hard as a diamond; the ground and air surge with steam and waves of heat.  The sand shines red, then white, then fades to dull, translucent black. Now the meadow is a sheet of glass, and his metal boots strike sharp against it as he surveys the hardened landscape. 
He waits, not betting on his triumph.

The glass cracks, a harrowing snap that spiderwebs to the horizon. From the crackling ground stab pale green tendrils and tenacious shoots.

“I Grow!” They speak, curling together and forming a child’s face, round and wild. “I am sister to Yavanna the mighty, and I will overrun you with plentitude. You will not kill a seed by burying it!” 

The Maia cries in alarm as he is tangled and gagged by weeds; they sprout from his skin and wind through his armor, beautiful winged insects fly from his mouth and eyes, iridescent and glinting in the last of the sun.

Twilight cuts parallel across the sea of growing things, and as it fades to dusty violet, the dark lord ceases to buck. Where Sauron stood is now a rooted, twisting gnarl rising from a plateau of crystalline shards. 

But he is not still for long; tendrils writhe, smoke rises, fumes billow into the dusk. Soon the ruined field is alight in red; heat-haze shivering under the embers of a great, fell eye. 

Vána shrinks, long grey ears flat to her head, trembling.

"Then I will pave you, and plough you, and fill you with concrete and tar; I will dam your rivers and drain your springs. The air will turn black with poison and the filthy clouds will drip acid. Your roots will perish and the skin of the earth will blow out to sea. The skies will crack open and the sun itself will parch you until you bleed. I am not as my Master. I too, will grow." 

"Yes," my brave little sister replies, "you will grow— you will cover the earth until you choke yourself. And when you have no resources left to plunder you will find that I still remain. You can build over me only what you take from me, and to me it will return… with or without you." She smiles, and from  blackened fields she sprouts again anew— ever young, ever changing; as ruthless and impartial as the earth itself. 

Chapter End Notes

I had a devil of a time trying to write an ending for this drabble, but I was inspired by the unlikely source of a George Carlin skit. Basically: the planet doesn't give a shit about you and your industrial pollution. If humans make the environment unlivable for humans, that's humanity's business. The planet donesn't really care if you're on it or not.