A Hopeless Dawn by hennethgalad

Chapter 1

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   Thingol was impressed with the sculptures at the newest exhibition, the artist had come from Ossiriand, and was living in the orchards south of Esgalduin. The sculptures were formed from green wood, carved only as a carpenter would carve, at the joints, yet none were to be seen, the bark was whole, the illusion of life remarkable. Melian was laughing with the artist, whose face shone in the maia's warmth. Thingol smiled, what need of praise from him? But in mid-laugh Melian froze and clutched at her chest as one mortally stricken. Thingol was beside her, arms wrapped comfortingly round her, murmuring her name, but she threw her head back and cried a word of power in the speech of the Ainur, and Thingol and all the rest sprang back in awe.
   Melian was gone, her movement a blur and a flicker of wings as startled nightingales fled for shelter. Thingol, ignoring all else, sprinted after her, up the great stair, higher and higher until his chest pounded louder than his feet and his breathing grew hoarse. Up and up, until astonished guards leaped aside as she reached the High Doors. She thrust them open and raced to the edge of the terrace, and faced the west, and screamed.

   Thingol paused to draw breath as he approached her, weary and wary. After all, she might have consented to be his wife, and borne him a child, but she was no elf, and the ways of the maiar were unknowable to the eldar, no matter their wisdom or understanding. But she was still, and with his heart hammering no less swiftly, he moved to stand beside her. 
   "Alas, my lady, you are troubled. Will you not share your grief?"
   But Melian did not speak, nor turn, merely gesturing with a long, graceful sweep at the western sky. Thingol looked closely, the stars shone, there were none new that he could discern, nor any gone... "My dear, I see only the sky. What do you see?"
   "You do not see... Well, no, of course not, for it has gone. How could you possibly see?" she froze, her eyes beseeching him to make the horror not be, but he was perplexed. He put his hands on her arms and looked closely into her eyes "Melian, speak slowly, I am only an elf, your words mean nothing to me."
  She turned away, she turned away from him, and a part of his heart broke. But she was looking west and again cried out the desolate word that turned his blood to ice.
  "Melian! Speak! What is that word, what have you said?"
   
   Melian bowed her head "It is merely a cry of dismay. I am dismayed that you cannot even understand my dismay." She sighed, and looked at him, but the distance between them had never been greater "Truly, the sky appears to you as ever it did?"
   He nodded solemnly, Melian took in a shuddering breath "I did not know. All this time, and when... When we have dined her under the stars, and I have gestured to the sky and marvelled at the beauty of the lights, all this time you saw only the stars of Varda?"
   "And are they not beauty enough?"
   "Oh Elwë how can you ever forgive me? How can I forgive myself? But your beauty in Nan Elmoth smote me like a falling tree... I could..." She put a hand to her brow and covered her eyes, but Thingol took her hands in his and spoke in the stern but kindly tone he had used with Lúthien on rare occasions.
   "Melian, my dearest one, what has happened? For your first cry of anguish was before you saw the sky. What troubles you?"
  Melian gestured helplessly to the west, and looked pleadingly at him, but he merely raised his brows. She opened her mouth to speak, frowned, then gripped his hands tightly and pulled them against her chest. He could feel her heart pounding as his own, for a moment he entered the mystery of their love, and when he was able to see her again, he knew that she too had entered the spell, and found strength and solace there. Until she spoke.
   "The Light of the Trees, which rose like fountains and spread like wings across the western sky... the Light has vanished. I... I felt it... I knew it, but I could not accept it, I must see with my own eyes..." she looked away again, to the western sky, where the stars shone uninterrupted, as though the Trees had never been.

   It was too shocking, his mind recoiled; he had felt nothing, seen nothing, he would not have known... 

  They held vigil until he could no longer stand, but at last she became aware of him and shook her head "Nothing. There is nothing, only the void and the stars of Varda. The Trees are perished."
   "I cannot believe it, I cannot believe Manwë would permit it, I cannot believe that Eru Ilúvatar would permit it."
   Melian shook her head, and he led her home, to dine and rest, and to begin the unending journey of grief. 

   He was disappointed in how little the elves mourned the loss; for them, nothing had changed. Only he knew, only he had found his life enriched, his wisdom grown, his spirit strengthened under the living beauty of Laurelin and Telperion. But he had thought there time enough, time to live awhile amidst the wild wood, alongside the wild wood elves and in the warmth of the love of the maia. The Trees... naturally he had plans to return, in a while, in an age... The Trees would be there, how not, they were guarded by the Valar, behind the Pelori, nothing could harm them, it was unthinkable. 
   But at his side Melian was silent, wilting like a cut flower, fading, it seemed, as though the Light had been a part of her being, that was now absent. She had forsaken all speech, she would scarcely eat, nor drink, and she would not venture near any room with west-facing windows. Thingol sat with her, holding her hand, and at times, when his spirit was strong enough, singing the healing song in his deep and resonant voice.

   He was scarcely aware of how quiet Menegroth had become, feeling the silence only within himself, and, when she was aware of him, within themselves. But while their grief was raw and bleeding, there came a moment when Menegroth erupted with sound. Light grew, Thingol wondered if they were under attack, but the blare of shouts and bangs resolved into cheers, and the sound of fanfares on every kind of musical instrument, and pot, and kettle, and goblet. It was deafening. 
   Thingol turned to Melian, and, though her head was bowed, a slow smile curved her lips. She raised her head and gazed at him, but her eyes were sad. She rose to her feet "Come, darling Elwë, climb with me once more."
   They did not hasten, but all around them a river of elves poured up and out onto the topmost heights of Menegroth, for a wonder had appeared in the sky, a marvel from the west. Rumours flew down the stairs faster than the elves could run up them 'it is a sign!' 'the Valar are coming!' 'the enemy is destroyed!' and other such words, but among the excited chatter was caution; other voices spoke of the Second Children of Ilúvatar, of whom no rumour had yet been heard.
   The light grew around them, like starlight, but dazzlingly bright, casting sharp shadows and shedding a blue and purple glow that sparkled on gemstone and gilding. Thingol and Melian stepped out into the crowd, which, for the first time, did not fall silent. The moon rose slowly up the western sky, its sheen engulfing the stars of Varda. At first there was concern that the stars were consumed by the new light, but as it rose higher, the stars behind it shone unchanged. 

   When the first shock had passed, Thingol turned to Melian and smiled "Did you know that this would happen?"
   Melian shook her head "Not this. I thought, I expected something... But this... It is pitiful."
   "Pitiful?" Thingol was incredulous, but Melian smiled sadly.
   "What do you see, my love?"
   Thingol gestured up at the silvery disk "Ithil!" he cried "Ithil the Sheen! Surely a message of hope from Valinor!"
   But the eyes of the maia filled with tears "Shall I tell you what I see?"
   Thingol blinked, a lump tightening in his throat, and nodded.
   "It is a vessel, a marvellous vessel, constructed by Aulë himself, I surmise. It carries one of my kindred, I cannot decry whom... And in the wondrous vessel? A flower, a single flower, of Telperion. Ah! Alas for the Trees, fairest works of my lady Yavanna! For I fear that this is the last flower of Telperion, and to me it brings not hope, but despair. Now I know, in my spirit, that the Trees are perished."

 

   There came eagles bearing tidings, that the Noldor were returned, battle was joined, Fëanor perished, monsters unleashed from the north, and then that Fingolfin, and the children of Finarfin had come. Menegroth buzzed like a swarming hive, but Melian sat quietly, though she did consent to sing at a betrothal. And Ithil the Sheen shed the Light of Telperion over all Arda, but only Thingol, and Melian the maia, understood what it meant. 

   And then the sun rose. This was greeted in the silence of awe, Menegroth emptied as elves poured out into the forest and stood with upraised arms, half-blinded by the glare and dazzled by the bright blue sky that followed the train of Arien.

   But Thingol, who had become a part of Melian more deeply than he could have been with any elf, even one of the returning Noldor, began to slide into a dark pit of grief amidst the sunlight and the laughter of the wood elves. Melian knew now that the Second Children had come, that the elves were no longer alone in their forest, their playground, their home. There would be others, and there would be the Noldor... 
   And when the sound of singing elves greeted the rising of Arien, his heart stabbed his spirit, for this one fruit, and that one flower were all that remained of the Trees, and for the first time since meeting her, he felt regret that he had not taken the road west, with Ingwë and the others, that Valinor was gone, his one brief glimpse all he had to sustain him until the end of the world.