Divine Intervention by Meril

She smiles, pleased, and
a galaxy flares to life.

"Beautiful..."

The sound of Her voice is carried
through vast skies,
sliding between the stars,
the earth;
breathing through every wind.

But what is this?

She leans closer, looking.

Ragged ships, sails torn, bobbing tiredly in the great north bay,
and the south bay as well!
Exhausted travelers spill across the beaches in waves.

Two tired and careworn men, whispering beside a fire:

She-of-many-names frowns, displeased.
(The galaxy trembles.)

Varda likes her universe ordered.

"These men, these
youngest-children-of-the-One, these
wanderers.
They mar the perfection of Today.

That will never do."

Leaning closer-closer-closer,
descending silent through the skies,
alighting on ghostlike tiptoe next to the ragged pair.

The eldest one starts, wide-eyed, speechless.

She smiles, steps closer,
lays a hand across Eldest's cheek, whispers in his ear:
"Go north, and you will find what you seek."

Later, as She examines a divine fingernail,
watching absently as Eldest rises the last hill,
and joyfully reunites with
his tall father, wide-smiling mother,
family, friends,
and the rest of his people…

She thinks, There.

Where are You, Sister?  
Our Festival starts anon!"  

Yavanna,
She-of-fewer-names-than-Varda,
yawns,
stretching over Her silken divan beneath Arien's light
vines trailing after Her fingers,
ripping through the sheets and erupting
into a stream of crimson flowers.  

Varda
dislikes
Yavanna's apartments, She knows, seeing
Sister's flashing eyes darken at the sight of the
hanging
moss,
the perpetually vine-encrusted furniture, the
carpet of mushrooms near the door.

Varda
is
neat
orderly
perfectionistic
and
obsessive-compulsive.
Even
the
stars
are
evenly
spaced.

Whereas Yavanna prefers the soft, the
filthy but comfortable,
revels
in unevenness and imbal-
ance.  

"SISTER!"

Kementári rolls Her eyes and
pops a grape into Her mouth,
stretching,
waiting for the divine
SHRIEKS
("How irritating She can be!")
to fade.  

When the halls are silent once more, Yavanna
jumps
down and looks over the balcony's edge, examining
affairs Below.  

"Interesting," She muses, tracing a dark thread of marble
on the balustrade, watching
Olórin and The Scruffy Wanderer
(her own nickname)
trading stories beside a campfire.  

Idly, she sends a cloud of midges
to bother Scruffy,
to nip his neck and give him annoyance,
all of which gently nurse her grudge....

O, what long-held shame!  
O, what snide comparisons!

"Did You hear that, Sister?  
The Elves have created six hundred more hymns to
Me!"

"Charming."

"Have You seen, Sister?
My
image hangs in palaces from
Gondor to Mithlond!
The delightful dears!"

"Quite."

And that final straw...

"Sister, that Ranger, that Aragorn,
has sworn by
Me
to win his love!
How quaint!"

"...Indeed."

Delightful.
Quaint.
Of course.

Did he forget that athelas,
(his birthright, his power)
belonged to Her?
Did he not recall that his herblore
was Her domain, that
everything he was famed for
was from Her?  

No.

Selfish mortal.  

So she spited him with many
difficulties
of freezing winters, parched summers, and
inopportune injuries,
lazily,
from her living, leaf-strewn throne.

Ha.
Ha.  

"May you be plagued by them," she thinks smugly, and--

sneezes.  

"Oh!"  

A seed slips from Her palm,
white, wrinkled,
and now covered in Her sacred spit.
Shaking Her hand in disgust, She flips it
over the balcony
towards Arda.

It lands with a tiny "thump" in the southern mountains.  
She peers closer,
examining the soil, the snow,
and exhales on it, Her breath causing nearby trees to
instantly
grow twenty feet.  

She pads back to Her divan

falls back into slumber

while Sister's stars wheel

overhead,

time passing,

dreaming of her forests,

their peace,

her children

on Arda,

growing from seedlings

among harsh soils and

inconstant rains.  

Years pass in a blink

of Her eyes,

or minutes
depending on HIS whims

and suddenly She awakens,
yawning wide and blinking away sleep.  

In the south, She sees,
propping her chin on the balustrade,
there is a to-do over a new king.  
Yavanna is dismissive until--
"O, by Me!"
--she recognizes "king" as "Scruffy."  

She is childishly delighted at his new deference, actually
clapping aloud!  
He worships Her Sister, yet
kneels
to these small, rounded beings...

...and what victory is that?

Feeling slightly triumphant,
she salutes Scruffy-king with a gracious hand--  

Wait.

She squints.
Listens.

A pause.  

She giggles, and watches as Scruffy-king and Olórin
step
closer.  

An oblique wave of her hand, and
the soil around the tree loosens, freeing itself
into Scruffy's grasp.  

Yavanna yawns again, watching them
through drooping eyes.  

A celebration, with silken banners
and rejoicing crowds, thronging the streets
of the circular city.  
Cups being raised to peace, to
the king,
praises to Varda
("Hmph.")
for the blessedly clear night.

Lounging balanced on the balustrade
stretching clear from horizon to horizon,
Yavanna dips a hand down through the clouds,
down millions of leagues
into the city,
nudging a maiden's heart into lust,
placing a handsome guard in her path
and settling back to watch.

(Varda
likes
perfect love stories:
Scruffy's love for the Princess, his quest
to win kingdom-crown-and-all, his
hidden heritage.  
Yavanna likes her stories to have
a bit of color,
but she usually has them turn out all right.)  

"There," she thinks,
drowsily,

and
slowly

drifts

back into