Out of the Ashes by StarSpray

In the wake of Melkor’s latest swath of destruction, Aulë found Yavanna kneeling, disconsolate, on the barren ground. Molten stone had flowed across this plane not long before, and ash settled around them like a mockery of clean snowfall. Varda’s stars gleamed in the sky above, seeming cold and uncaring in that moment.

“How is anything to grow in this world?” Yavanna asked as Aulë joined her. Soft plums of ash rose and settled as he knelt on the ground. The light in Yavanna’s eyes was dimmed with grief. “Even should Melkor depart and leave us in peace, this will happen again! Rivers of fire have been awakened and I foresee that they will wreak such havoc on the world again and again! Aulë, can you not do something?”

Aulë considered the hardened and cold stone beneath them, and also the ashes around them. He scooped up a handful and let it fall back through his fingers, humming a few low notes as he did so. “Melkor has worked against his purpose in this, my love,” he said finally, smiling. Let this ash mix with the rich soils that we have made together, and your creations will grow fuller and taller than you dreamed! There is great virtue in it, and there will be more when my songs are done.” He scooped up more and poured it into Yavanna’s hands, and she regarded it with a new keenness in her gaze. “There are currents of stone beneath the earth as there are currents of water in Ulmo’s realm, and I too foresee that they will burst forth—but from such destruction will come new growth, and more and better than before. And new lands will raise up where your seeds can take root!” Beneath them the ground trembled, and Aulë could feel the heat and the pressure building, before lava bubbled up and poured out of a nearby vent. “And the gases, too, will help to shape the world for your seeds and for the Children to come.”

He rose and drew Yavanna up with him, and they grew until they could survey the whole of the lava plain, and the steams that curled up from the shore where Aulë’s domain met Ulmo’s. Clouds gathered in the distance, promising rain. Yavanna began to sing, and after a few notes Aulë also raised his voice, and as their songs joined in harmony, green shoots curled up out of the ash at their feet, and the earth settled, and the stars shone bright in the sky above.

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