Flashes of Fancy by heget

At the trill of birdsong that entered strong and bright into the clearing, the lingering lethargy of sleep fled from Beren’s limbs. His eager feet borne him from the shadows of the trees where he had slept in a soft bower of moss. Leaping into the sunlight, he sang his own wordless song of welcome and joy. Lúthien had returned to the forest, and she called to him as the songbirds did in spring, returning to the nest with love tokens to build a new life together. “You have leaves in your hair,” she teased, plucking them from his head.

“When we fled to the sea, it was strange, for we had shunned it for so long. Partly for love of the forests, but partly in anger. Strong anger that you -that Uncle Olu and our family- had been borne away by the island. I could see that remnant across the bay, like it was mocking me. We, Eglath, thought you had forgotten us.”

Elwing’s distant uncle, named in honor of her Great-grandfather the same as her older brothers, embraced her. “Oh, never, my brave niece. My father never forgot either of his brothers, or any of his kin.”

The elf bustled around the parlor room with arms full of fragrant myrtle branches, harried in expression and locomotion of her limbs. She hastened to the door, realized her false alarm before she touched the latch, and backed away from the door. She refused to succumb to panic. Laughing, her companion unfolded the gossamer thin cotton that made the robes worn by patients in the Gardens of Lorien. As the healer bustled around in anticipation of the approaching reunion, her companion snorted. “I know your concern is not that they have forgotten you, and this is naught but nerves.”

The bustle of the training field could not be compared in poetic terms to a beehive or whatever metaphor most pleased the departed Noldor. The fragrant scent of sweating men refused to be softened either by pretty words or breezes. The movements were repetitive and small, the tedious and unglamourous work of real soldiers, not the grand flashy movements of warriors. The recruits hastened to line up in wobbly orders, their sticks held aloft as they practiced the single step forward and thrust. An embryonic pikeline was slowly forming, one that would defeat what all the cavalry had failed to.

“The heart of the matter is that we cannot stay by the shores of Cuiviénen, even without this great opportunity. The safety, light, bounty of a new land- all would be reasons alone to rejoice and accept this offer. Our encounter with Arâmê saved all the Speakers, and the Chieftains are fools to ignore this!” Finwe shouted, waving his arms in front of the fire.

“They don’t ignore,” Elwë corrected, “but they lose too much if they concede our truth.” He stroked the kindling and added another handful of dried sticks to the fire. “Have you spoken yet to Kwendê?”

Fân added one more stroke of pale green to the edge of the leaf that he was painting above the fire brazier of Bân’s living quarters. Pulling back, he inspected his work. The bright oranges and pinks of tropical flowers flashed like brassy cymbal notes in a song of interlacing greens, disguising plain stonework as the jungle foliage that Bân kept in his heart. The other elf spoke of birthplace during their first encounter as if not homesick, but Fân could see the silent yearning for a least a touch of memory. And flowers were a cure for that ache.

He sketched rough design for the patterns of flowers and vines, adding more of the giant leaves with their curling points as directed by his friend. Bân, pressed close as they huddled in the hollow of an uprooted yew bush sheltered on the far side of the hill from the wind, offered corrections in the dim evening light. He tapped the parchment with the stick of charcoal, his sword hilt awkwardly peering over his shoulder. “The colors won’t clash.”

It was a truth tacitly accepted by those with any degree of familiarity with all the children of Fingolfin that the second son was the friendliest by far of his siblings, without the haughtiness and standoffishness that caused clashes and dim expectations of their capabilities as independent rulers, the only one to eschew rough manners for grace and courtesy. Turgon was amiable with everyone, for he genuinely loved company instead of shunning the populace for solitary pursuits or the exclusive companionship of the other royals. The sigh of sorrow at his disappearance passed like a dark wind through the North.

Bledda stared at the snow-covered visa before him with the bleak flat-eyed gaze of dead sea creatures, the black thoughtless look of creatures that would scurry across the sea floor. The scion of the People of Bór glanced to his commanding officer for reassurance. He knew it would be too much to pray for a denial. The commander of his Vanyar troop was adamant that they cross into the no-man’s land of the north. The man took a bracing breath. This would be an ordeal.

“The flower crown looks...bleak and unfinished,” Beril said as she forcefully shoved another sprig of snow-white maiden’s breath into gaps between the braided flowers, “and don’t scurry away and say this is Wise Women’s Secrets, Sister-mine.”

Andreth sighed.

“Oh, sad martyr. You shall starve - but proclaim your brave sacrifice for all to hear and lament in heart-wrenchingly lovely song, for your king has forsaken you. The stars shine upon your noble torment.”

“Father...are you addressing your cat?” Ingwion entered the monastery with a box of tax receipts bound in a wide array of colors, blues and teals for Valmar and sunset oranges for the farmlands to the south, with white ribbons around the scrolls for schools and other royal properties allotted to public works.

Guiltily, the High King of All Elves looked up from the floor.

“Milady, if you want me to play-act as a love martyr, I have moved past extremes of emotion. It’s a comfort of death to no longer be boxed in by one’s heart.” Daeron huffed, then softened, “I have grown accustomed to contentment in your company, surprised though I be by the feeling, but there are no stars in my eyes when I gaze upon you. Or your work space. I beseech you - let me craft you a better loom than the one you currently use. It insults me. It should be like a sunset - swiftly ended.”

Míriel smiled.

The book was an accounting ledger, one of many nearly identical volumes shelved in the room adjacent to the steward’s offices. In this utilitarian wing of Nargothrond, no beech trees carven into stone decorated the walls. This was the orderly world of the bookkeepers and inventory talliers. The unadorned leather was a rich chocolate brown, and on the pages were neat binomial pairs of numbers and lists, for Edrahil believed in redundancies and indexes. The blank space at the bottom of the tooth-white page accused them. How dare you think yourselves worthy to replace Tacholdir, the abandoned open book snarled.

“If I write the binomial out, I can compare the slopes and find where to add the next gate - the sluice mechanics in the Thirty-Fifth Wing might be small enough to retrofit into the space. Construction cannot continue until I solve this problem, or we face a world of complications and setbacks.” Durin chewed at the end of his stylus.

Daeron doodled a tree in the margins of his own notes, writing mathematical equations above each branch for the angles, perfectly accurate for all he seemed to eyeball. “Remember when your mathematics were simply dividing chocolates? Alas, maturity suits you.”

It was a hollow feeling, to stand on the riverbank right before the river flowed through the gateway of the walls around Alqualondë. The wall had not always been so tall as to hide the scars of the city. Once it had been just an ornamental embellishment. Now chains bridged the current. To book passage down the river to the docks of the bay was no longer the seamless journey that it had once been. Nowadays the locks of the canals were watched and guarded. The city’s innocence was long destroyed, like a spiderweb against the might of a storm.

The last wound would scar, if the king did not allow his healers to attend to him soon. But King Thingol’s healers were on the other side of the River Aros, far from the carnage that ringed the Amon Ereb. That was what the book would call this place, the Lonely Hill, location of Denethor’s last breaths. Hollow promises of aid and eternal friendship, mockery made of the bond of kings delighted as co-rulers of Beleriand. No matter the multitude that he sent to the Halls of the Judge, no death would miraculously bring Denethor back to him. Thingol wept.

The Kin-strife cast a shadow over all of Gondor, but after ten years into Eldacar’s Restoration, peace has time to take root. People’s livelihoods were rekindled. For instance, in Ithilien the seedlings of new trees were beginning to bear fruit, replacing the vast orchards burnt during the war. At last, Lalaith hoisted the travel pack on her shoulder, setting off for Minas Arnor. Somewhere in that city were the survivors of the Garden Watchers, the secret agents of the kings. Túrin and the others awaited her. Stubbornly, she knew she could find them. Hope was like the serotiny of seedlings.