All Manner of Beasts and Birds by sallysavestheday

Oysters

Slow, sweet singers of the deep lands: they are Ossë’s children, sleeping in the sand. Shaped out of the ancient dark, bearded and wise, they dream their way through the long years in an elemental trance, humming. The pale lace of their mouths washes the current as they sing. Starlight dances down over their great beds, layer on layer; it weaves through the water-weed as the tides ebb and flow. They swallow secrets, wind them in nacre, hide them to be transformed. Beauty sleeps in humble, sheltered places. Pearls there were before the Eldar thought or dreamt of any gem.

*****

Eagle

Familiar of Manwë but not his slave, Thorondor keeps his own council, stakes his own claims. Fingolfin’s eldest has ever been kind to creatures of the wind -- as a child he carried bread, always, to feed great and small alike. From lark to hawk, the birds know and love him; they follow him, singing. All the way across the great plain and into the mountains he has been begging them for silence. The feathers on the shaft he aims in his misery gleam gold. He keens like any young thing might, so wounded at heart. Thorondor banks, circles. He stoops.

*****

Horse

They have known each other for so long that their bodies move as one, shifting weight and stride in perfect synchrony. From youth’s first shared apple to the last charge across the blackened wastes they have been bound: one great, free creature, running, leaping. The bright plains outside Tùna could not contain them; no more can the Anfauglith. Stones strike sparks at their passing; the beaten earth shivers and groans.

Afterward, limping home to Hithlum, Rochallor’s spirit slips its tether. He shivers, but Fingolfin’s warmth is gone. Half a heart is not enough to live on. Rochallor stumbles; he falls.

*****

Dog

What a misery, to have the power of speech, yet be so circumscribed! The bright blur that is his master would benefit from a wise dog’s conversation: words might settle his wild heart, cool his fevered blood. Their hunts would be enlivened: fine jests could be made of the quarry that got away, the awkward slither down a muddy riverbank, the burrs that cling to hair and coat. On a rainy night they might curl before the fire and share tales of the scuttling rabbits, the rich scents from the badger’s sett. But Huan must only whine, till Lùthien calls.

*****

Wolf

It burns; it burns: the bright stone, bitter and luminous, calling like a beacon to his black blood out of the creeping mists and the noisome smokes.

The Man holds it, foolishly outstretched. Too bright. It hurts; it must go out. The soft flesh separates delicately enough under his teeth, the crunch of bone is so slight as to be no matter. A great gulp, and the light is gone. But it is not: no, it sears him from within, all Song, its sharp edges slicing, wounding.

He runs, blindly, chasing the end of himself as he flees. Incandescent. Howling.

*****

Bears

It should be preposterous: the lumbering march of the bears, their great limbs stretching and turning as through honey, slow and sweet and sticky in the fading heat of autumn. Their eyes are solemn, gleaming gold; long claws furled into their softened paws. They move as to some piper’s wild song, in a grand promenade, its meaning clear to them but uncertain to the watching Men. None dare laugh – history and courtesy demand silence, even in delight. No wise man scorns the dancing bears, knowing the secret strength of their shaggy shoulders, the snapping power of their long white teeth.

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