Come Back Broken by StarSpray

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

I have come back to you broken,
Take me home.
And my body bears this trouble,
Take me home.
- The Wailin' Jennys, "Starlight"

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Twilight fell over Lórien like a soft blanket. It was a warm evening, and the fireflies twinkled like tiny stars in the tree-shadows, reflected in the softly-laughing streams and the still, quiet ponds. Everything took on a purple hue, and the evening flowers opened where the stars shone down through gaps in the canopy, their perfume lifted and carried down the many twisting paths on gentle breezes.

Estë stirred from her sleep and sighed, stretching herself out over her small island and across the calm waters of Lórellin. All was quiet in Lórien. There was no one in urgent need of her care, so Estë took her time in gathering herself again to thread her way through the trees. She did not take physical form; it was easier to drift along with the mists rising from the streams.

She found her husband dancing with the fireflies over a lily pond. The Maiar who served both her and Irmo were scattered throughout the wood, drowsing or dancing or singing or simply being. Estë discovered Oromë drowsing beneath the forest eaves, where the trees opened up toward Yavanna's wide pastures. She hummed a soft lullaby that drifted over him like a quilt, and flitted on. She shrank down to a moth to flutter through the trees on soft silent wings, and then whirled up as a breath of wind toward the sky to greet the stars.

In the west the sky was awash in purple and deep red, clouds billowing up to form what would become a thunderstorm, somewhere over the Outer Sea. For now they were towers of vapor brilliantly dyed by the bending light of Arien's passing.

Over the rest of Valinor the last vestiges of sunlight were fading slowly, and in the east the sky was brilliant with stars. As Estë cast her gaze around, drinking in the sights and smells and sounds and everything—something passed through the Calacirya, like a shadow or the shadow of a shadow. Estë watched it flit and flutter past Tirion on its bright hill, and over the woods and rivers and fields, toward Lórien. It moved unsteadily, in fits and starts, shifting and changing as it went.

In one of her meadows, towering over all the other trees, her arms as branches reaching skyward, Yavanna stirred, and reached out to the little shadow as it made its way west, catching it as she caught baby birds who fell out of their nests, and cradling it in leafy arms. Her thoughts reached out to Estë's with the feeling of a sudden frost, shocked into stillness. The wounded shadow was one of their own—it was Melian.

Yavanna brought her to Estë, on the island in the middle of Lórellin. The songbirds, who had not yet finished their evening songs, fell suddenly silent at their arrival. Estë wrapped herself around both Yavanna and Melian, who if she had taken on a fana would have been trembling, perhaps weeping. As Estë gathered her up, trying to impart comfort, she found that it was worse than she had thought. Melian had done far more than take on a fana to stay in Middle-earth so long. She had wed one of the Eldar and bound herself to that form and bore a child and wove her power and her will through the forests of her home to defend it against Melkor, so strongly that even he had never managed to pierce it. No, it was not Melkor who had reduced Melian to this, a shadow of herself, now unable even to move, only to quiver like mist in the grass and flowers and grieve for all that she had lost.

Yavanna hovered like a mother bird with her wings outstretched to shelter her young, her worry surrounding all three of them like the tension before a thunderstorm. Estë sang a song of healing and of rest, the music like water flowing and wind whispering through the poppies. She added the comfort of soft grass and the relief of soft rain. As Melian sank into something like sleep, something like rest, there was nothing more Estë could do, at least for the moment.

She had never before had to help an Ainu so diminished, so spent. And as for Melian's grief—Estë could help her escape it for a time in slumber, but it would take Nienna's songs and tears to help Melian with that. If she could be helped. She had loved so fiercely and for so long—maybe only the return of Elwë Singollo could cure that wound. Maybe not even that. Who could say? For the rest—time must tell.

All of this she told to Yavanna, on the shore of Lórellin, as they stood in the form of elven women, talking quietly beneath the trees and gazing out at the island, its grasses and flowers silvered by starlight. It felt better to use a mouth and a tongue to form the words. To communicate only by thought and feeling was almost overwhelming, like Melian's grief was spilling over like water over falls to drown them at the bottom. The lake lapped gently against the pebbles by their feet. Yavanna did not answer, standing and swaying like a young tree in the breeze, her hair falling like trailing vines over her shoulders, her tears like a small rain shower; tiny flowers bloomed where they fell. Before long Irmo joined them, a mass of fireflies slowly coalescing into something like the form of an elven man. He listened to the news, flickering still like a firefly, or like a guttering candle.

They adjourned without any real sense of what to do. Estë had others to tend to. She flitted through Lórien, whispering words of comfort and singing songs of rest and strength and healing to those slumbering beneath the beeches. Irmo danced through their dreams with his fireflies. Yavanna departed to seek out Nienna.

Melian slept for a long time. Nienna came to sit with her and weep, but Melian rarely stirred. When the sun rose Estë joined her on the island in Lórellin and curled around her. In the evenings she sang songs of strength and healing and peace. Irmo told her that Melian dreamed of forests, and a river's song, and a child in blue dancing through white flowers that sprang up in full blossom wherever she went, and of halls beneath the earth with great carven pillars, and silver fountains, and mosaics made of precious gems. Most of all she dreamed of Elwë Singollo, her Elu Thingol who had stumbled upon her in the shadows beneath the stars long ago, and who had taken her heart with him into Mandos.

Time passed. Seasons changed, spring turning to summer to autumn to cool winter, though the chill of frost scarcely touched Lórien. Melian still did not stir, but by the time her daughter's granddaughter arrived in Alqualondë Estë could see that she was strengthening. She woke properly, if briefly, for the first time when Vingilot first ascended, and the Silmaril lit the evening. At the sight of it Melian wept, and Nienna came to weep with her, and Estë wrapped herself around them both.

And then the war came, and Estë had to leave Lórien and her charges there. Many of her Maiar went with her, for there would be almost too much work for them in the depths of Angband, but some she charged to stay behind, to watch over the Eldar who still needed their care, and particularly to watch over Melian.

The War of Wrath was long and grievous and by the end of it Estë felt nearly spent herself. She returned to Lórien and curled up amid the trees on her island (some of them had not yet sprouted when she left; others she had loved had lived their lives and died in her absence), and closed her eyes, but even the peace of Lórien could not banish the darkness and the smoke and fire and bitter smell of blood from her mind. The first wars had not been like this. Even the overthrow of Utumno had not drained her. Of course, there had been far fewer prisoners and thralls in Utumno. But they had spilled out of Angband, as though it had been filled to overflowing with their small and fragile bodies, and it had taken Estë and Irmo and Nienna all together to gather them up and offer even a small bit of comfort, as they blinked and cringed in the bright light of the sun and wept at the sight of the stars. Even so, too many had in the end laid down and answered not to Estë but to Námo.

Irmo came to her sometimes, to refresh her dreams with visions of the stars and the sun and butterflies on bright flowers. But it was Melian who came and stayed. Her grief remained, but it was tempered by her growing strength, though she still lacked the ability to take on physical form. She wrapped herself around Estë, humming old familiar songs, and they both slept, surrounded by poppies and by small white flowers that bloomed, slowly, one by one, in Melian's wake, for the first time west of Belegaer.

Twilight descended gently over Lórien. Mists rose from the streams and from Lórellin, as it lapped against its shores in a softer, gentler imitation of the Sea. The trees whispered to one another, and Irmo sang songs of sweetness and comfort as he flitted like a pale moth through the gardens. In the branches of a young and slender beech tree with its pale leaves, a nightingale burst into song to greet the stars.