The leaves were long, the grass was green by Quente

On a warm evening in spring

Read On a warm evening in spring

The being who settled between her roots looked feverish, his eyes staring, his cheeks sunken with lack of food. He looked too thin, too sharp, and too young to be an Elf, and besides, he looked lost. Nestled against her, he looked up at her dancing branches, lifting his hand to enjoy the sun dappling him through her leaves.

“What type of tree are you?” The Man said, for it had to be one of those, it smelled strange and it was lost in her mother’s girdle. “I have not seen anything quite so fair in a long while.”

The tree, she’d drawn out of her mother’s memory -- a rich store, the treasures of Yavanna’s garden far away, in the place where light had been strange, bounded to the earth and not free-floating in the sky.

“When I was a child, and we had charcoal and slates to draw upon, I drew a tree like you,” the Man continued, smiling up at her.

No one had ever talked to her like this before. Gently, touched, she allowed a single leaf to drop from above him and down onto his chest. There, she thought. A gift. Now go to sleep, little Manling -- you need it.

He picked up the leaf, laughing in delight, and held the silver of it to his mouth. “Thank you, Tree. I shall treasure it. Although not for long, for I am lost, and I do not eat game, and I shall starve soon. Maybe I should just lie here beneath your branches, and become one with you?”

Luthien, for she was the tree, considered it. She had not thought often about death -- it happened not in her mother’s country, only outside the borders, a story and a rumor brought back by the border guards. She could sense it in everything, though, and thought it might be nice. Someday, to return to the building blocks of Illuvatar, patiently awaiting his next grand idea.

But surely this one had life in him yet. Thinking hard, Luthien shifted a little. Did this type of tree bear fruit? Raising her mighty limbs into a dance above his head, she changed her raiment with the season. There -- fruit. Three she dropped near him.

He rolled to his side, seeing the fruit, and then looked up at her again, his eyes touched with awe. “I lay beneath the fairest tree in the forest, and I see that I have chosen a mighty one. Thank you, O loveliest of trees!”

He took the fruit and ate it, economically, hungrily. The seeds, he planted.

That will be interesting, Luthien thought, amused. Introducing new species into the girdle -- she had not intended to, but this Man seemed to respect the life there as much as she did.

Sated, he leaned against her again. “Tart but sustaining, like a young apple,” he said. “And you have saved me, tree! I have planted your children, may they live long.”

After a while, when night fell, he curled up at her roots, one arm around her trunk, and slept.

In the morning, the tree was gone, but a maiden lay within his arms in the glade, and in her hair was the silver of the leaves, garlanded, and in her eyes, a question.

“Beren,” he said hoarsely. “I am Beren.”