King of beech and oak and elm by polutropos

King of beech and oak and elm

Read King of beech and oak and elm

A pair of tawny nightingales flitted between birch trunks hewn from rock, singing one to the other. The globes of fireflies hanging from the likeness of a great oak deepened the shadows in the curves of the relief. Passing his thumb through the chiselled clefts, Elu followed their lines to a white rose. The translucent wings of a butterfly rose from its centre, glowing orange in the warm light of the lanterns.

They lay on a green sward gazing up at the fires of Elbereth. 

“Ada,” Lúthien said, her child’s voice already full of song, “what is that one named?”

“Thorondûn,” Elu replied, tracing the constellation's lines through the air, “the Eagle of the West.”

“Why do the Eagles come from the West?” she asked.

“They are servants of Aran Einior, the Elder King, and they bring tidings to him of what passes in the Hither Lands.” 

“Do you think that he watches us?”

“I am sure that he does,” Elu said, though he could not be sure. 

“And that one?” Lúthien pointed, shuffling closer to rest her little head against his chest.

“That is Gwilwileth, the butterfly, that Elbereth set in the sky to give light to the Edhil at their awakening.”

“And you were born there, Ada?” 

“Yes, my dear, I began there.” He passed his hand over the silk of her hair, dark as the sky above them. Though he knew the power of her mother slept within her even now, he feared for the tiny body nestled between his arm and torso. He drew her closer to him and pressed his lips against her forehead. 

There was no light within the circles of Arda that could compare with her. 

Elu traced the lines of a blossom of niphredil, which had bloomed beneath her feet even before she could walk. Laced with the enchantments of his queen, the pale rock turned a bright white and the flower spread its petals at his touch. 

She whirled through the forest of elms, their trunks tall and straight, trailing a silvery shawl behind her. The cloth was woven with spells of awakening and each tree she passed hastened its growth and put forth new leaves before their eyes. 

The way his minstrel watched her as he played set an unbidden chill on Elu’s heart. There were many who looked at her that way, woman as she now was, and with each worshipful glance in her direction his jealousy grew another thorn. She could not always be his. (No, she had never been his to possess, Melian reminded him, her thought appearing in his mind. But at least she will always be, he replied, and his wife was silent.)

A lean rabbit hid among the ferns, a frightened eye staring out from the wall. Hidden in the branches of an oak, a silver owl watched, wings flexing at the joints, prepared to swoop silently down on its prey. The cycle of life and death, the nutrients of the earth passing from one life to the next–such was the strange fate of Ivann’s creatures.

“You cannot choose her path for her.” Melian rested a gentle hand on his cheek. “Did you not come upon me once, in a wood, and did you not put love before all else?”

“That is not the same!” Elu spun away from her, gripping his temples between finger and thumb. “I forsook all else for a love that would be everlasting, and for a purpose: to bring our child into this world, the most beautiful of any that has ever been or will be. All that I have done has been to ensure her safety and her bliss.”

“Then, my dear, allow her to have that bliss. Allow her to love.” There was a low hum of Music in her voice.

Elu drew in a laboured breath. He had not been able to unsee the image since Daeron brought him word of the intruder: grasping hands at his daughter’s waist, her beauty wrapped in a dark cloud, swelling around her until nothing of her light remained. Nothing of her remained.

He turned to his wife, locking onto the bright points of her eyes. “I will not. Not at such a cost.” (Eru, forgive me.)

Melian’s features hardened and the thin veil of her skin flickered. “Then you bring even greater suffering on us all.”

Crouching to the floor, he ran his fingertips over textured mosses, the stone soft and feathery. The fronds of giant ferns arced over the polished surface of a pond like a canopy; beneath, a pale turtle rested on a rock, his neck outstretched. The crowns of the beeches and branching oaks carved above were reflected in the stony water, obscuring the dark depths beneath. 

"You would confine me!" his daughter cried, her face dimmed by sorrow and twisted in anger. "Adar, please, I am not yours to cage." She knelt before him where he sat, stooped in his chair, guilt rising in his throat, fear coiling around his chest, and took his clasped hands between hers. “If you want me to stay, send riders out to call him back. This is needless,” she pleaded.

“Lúthien…” He opened his hands to hold hers. “You will forget this. You will forget him. This is not–” your fate, he wanted to say, but faltered.

“They will appoint it beautifully for you.” he offered, an empty reassurance. “It is not a cage, my love, it is only for–” your protection, he thought but did not say.

She dropped his hands and stood tall and cold above him. “It is a cage.” She glided silently out of the room. He did not go, and she did not come to him, when she left to ascend the ladder to the crown of Hírilorn.

Rising, Elu brushed his fingers over the pearl-wrought wings of moths and their feathered antennae that searched out the smooth bark of a birch. A shadow cast against the wall seemed to send one into flight, darting towards the lantern and disappearing in its light. 

The forest was so quiet when he awoke that morning. Not a pleasant, peaceful quiet; a deathly quiet, a silence that thickened the air. 

“She is gone,” the guard told him, shame painted in lines down his face. 

He should have rebuked him, as a king would, but said only, “... how?” 

“She wove a spell, she escaped in darkness.” 

Spells inherited not from him, but from her mother; spells woven about his Kingdom, without which there would be no Kingdom; spells that had bound him to Ennor. 

“My King? Shall we go after her?” The guard’s voice rippled over his ears. Was it anger he felt pinching at his lungs, tightening the flesh around his bones? For all that he had given, for his sacrifices, for all his love–

“No,” he replied. 

His hand came upon the soft, speckled belly of thrush perched in the branches of a leafy hawthorn. Another bird pecked at its clustered berries. Elu imagined he heard–or perhaps he did hear–the chatter and trill of its call. Distant but clear came a song in answer.

They returned as heroes and his heart swelled with pride. 

“Thank you,” Lúthien said, “for your love.”

He did not deserve her thanks. He did not deserve that jewel that burned now in the belly of the wolf. There was no light within the circles of Arda that could compare with her.

Nonetheless he had taken Beren’s promised price, meagre as it was. 

Opals buried seamlessly in the stone, the backs of beetles scurrying across a fallen branch, drew his eyes. He dared not touch them for fear his hands would tarnish their brilliance. 

When she returned from death–no, not death, not yet–she looked as hale and lovely as she had the day she was born. 

“Ada… you have grown old.”

Elu turned to hide his face from her, ashamed of his grief. 

She wrapped her arms about him and the dry frost that numbed his touch was turned to spring's dew upon his cheeks. 

“I have chosen my love,” she said, “for Beren.”

He withdrew to look upon her and his own pale grey eyes, bright with joy, looked back at him. “At what cost?” 

“Not a cost–a gift. To pass beyond the circles of Arda.”

Elu rested his palms against the cold stone and bowed his head. He wept. These great halls, this beauty, his Kingdom–what had it all been for?

Drawing himself away, he failed to note the empty space where his hand had been, where once a thrush had perched. 

 

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Chapter End Notes

Sindarin Translations*
I translated the constellation names, hopefully correctly. The other equivalencies are Tolkien’s. Ideally I would have Doriathrin translations but alas, that is not possible. 

Elbereth - Varda
Thorondûn  - Soronúmë
Aran Einior - Manwë, the Elder King
Gwilwileth - Wilwarin
Edhil - Eldar
Ivann - Yavanna
Ennor - Endor, Middle-earth

The flora and fauna mentioned in this work were researched by outofangband (Tumblr, AO3). See their post, and many more like it, here.

Thanks to Aipilosse for beta'ing this work and providing helpful suggestions. 

Work title from Lay of Leithian Recommenced, line 72.