The Ainu Ficlets by Raiyana

Love for a Child

Yavanna was not pleased about the creation of the Dwarrow... but how do the Children of Stone feel about the Father's beloved Wife? Can two so separate sides come together for love of the one they share, or will Aule and Yavanna forever be together but separate? - (865 words)

"Do you hate me for it?" Time, such as it is, has passed since angry words rung in the space between them, words he had not heeded - had barely heard - lost in the frenzy of creation.

She sighs, bending to caress a small green shoot. The leaves seem almost too vibrant to be real.

"No." When she turns to look at him, he knows it to be true. Somehow, it does not bring the relief he had hoped for. "I was saddened," she continues, "for your Children are not mine, not ours."

There is new distance between them now, one neither seem to know how to bridge.

When he leaves, his brows are furrowed and she does not call him back.

"Will you meet them?" he asks, feeling unaccustomedly bashful, standing in one of her favourite gardens. Silence greets the question, long enough that he almost turns to leave. She nods, just once.

In his Halls - Námo and Manwë both had asked him to build a Hall for the Children, whose joy in crafting is unchanged by their passing from life; undimmed in either volume or joy - the first of the Children fall silent. She stands there, in the finely wrought doorway that leads to the garden he built for her, pillars wrapped with flowering vines surrounding her with their light perfume.

The hammers are put down, the bellows silenced.

Each one stares, apprehensive but stubbornly brave. Shying away, but oddly longing, too. He sees it in their faces, those faces he carved so very long ago and filled their souls with all that he loved best.

Durin is the first to step up. His favourite Child, so alike in temper to his Queen he might have been her son; while they sleep in the forges, the ones he is still making, he tells them stories in the language he made for them. Mostly stories about her, the distance that still seems to divide them, but also the love he feels for her – no matter how their interests clash.

He feels oddly proud and humbled at once, watching the Dwarf present a golden crown made with the most beautiful gems they could find in the shape of flowers to Yavanna, who laughs, delighted. With a thought she is smaller, small enough for the crown to fit.

They stay a while, though she speaks only to the Children and not to him. Aulë tries not to feel disappointed that the joy he had tried to share with her has gone unrewarded, staring forlornly at one of the blossoms she has left behind, dropping it into a small vase with a sigh before heading back to the workshop. Once his workshop was full of such vases, but he has smashed many as time passed and there was little need to replace them.

"How are they made?" He is so surprised by the quiet question that he drops a hammer on his foot. Khuzdul is great for cursing, he realises, but the thought is gone in the next moment, banished by the light sound of her laughter. "My clumsy love," she tuts, coming to stand beside him. Back to her usual form, she stands a little taller than him, the green hair rippling down her back, flowers blooming along some strands. In her hand, she holds the crown Durin made with his brothers, placing it gently beside one of the unfinished Children.

“I shape them,” he says, “as forms they grow into; the Children have children of their own.”

She hums, looking at the small bodies, finely carved granite and marble, slate and flint and all the types of rock found at the roots of mountains. He barely remembers to wrap his arm around her when she leans into him, filling his nose with the odd combination of honeysuckle and white-hot metal. He does not finish the object on the anvil before him, leaves it to cool and warp as he breathes in her familiar perfume, letting it fill his mind with nothing but her.

“This one looks like you,” she murmurs, reaching towards but not quite touching the blue granite form still unfinished on the table.

“You can touch them,” he whispers, watching the gentle smile on her face as she runs a finger down one tiny Dwarf.

“I cannot hate them,” she says softly, once the forge has died to embers. “They are your Children... and I love you.”

“Help me make these?” he asks, keeping her close when she makes to move away. Yavanna looks at him, her bark-like skin wrinkling in a smile.

They are not her Children, but a few in each generation have been touched by her hands, her love, and they are the ones who grow to care for the food the Children will eat. The inventor of the first irrigation system suitable for growing mushrooms inside a mountain had hands as barked as those that had made them.

Yavanna laughs when he tells her, filling the vases he keeps in the workshop with a collection of mosses, filling his spirit with kisses and love.

They are not her Children.

But she is one of their Mothers.