by AelKennyr Rhiano
Standing in the garden of Lorien, surrounded by the quiet hush of green and growing things, only the waterfalls speaks in a babbling, constant clash of water against stone. Eonwe stands still, his feet touching the ground, crushing beneath his boots the soft grass, releasing its smell, a strong and fertile smell.
“Stay and find yourself.”
“Am I lost?”
“You are yours to find.”
He swivels his head to sweep his gaze across the water, where fish rise to the surface, leaving bubbles of air as evidence of their presence. Silence. He looks to the trees on his left and his right, verdant green in the eternal twilight. They shake their leaves at him as though to wag green fingers when the breeze sweeps over them and rustles his hair. Silence. He looks at the sky, looking for what he knows not, seeing nothing. And suddenly, quickly, this body he has worn throughout his exile from Manwe’s side is fatigued, leaden, exhausted. A thousand aches pull at his mind, draw his attention to their complaints. The muscles in his calves tighten and spasm. The muscles across his back throb. The muscles in his stomach roil and curl like some terrible hungry beast. Four ages have passed, and never have the Maia felt such lethargy seize him, dragging him down. He looks to his right, where stands a tree with drooping branches and sorrowful leaves, green and fertile and somehow still mournful, and drags his feet, wills his body to cross a narrow part of the lake where stones provide a dry walk way to the tree. Sinking down with a sigh, he rests his back against the tree. Stretching and turning from side to side, he is rewarded with a popping sound as the vertebrae realign, and his back feels more comfortable. A yawn rises up from somewhere inside him, and Eonwe covers his mouth instinctively, eyes a little wide for the experience of yawning is unknown to him before now. Stretching out his legs, he leans forward to rub at cramped muscles, hissing as they protest his ministrations and pull taut before finally relaxing.
Silence. The world about him, save for the waterfall is smothered in silence. Eonwe leans back, and slowly, slowly, slowly, his eyes begin to droop and close, fly open, droop and close….
Eonwe falls asleep. To say time passes…what means it to a Maia? Should the yardstick be the mortal world of Middle Earth, and the length of time spent in which the once and future Herald of Manwe be measured by the passing of mealtimes in the Shire? The journey of Arien’s vessel or Tilion’s? The birth of a child of the Atani, his rise to puberty, adulthood, parenthood, old age, death? The long days and longer twilight of the Firstborn of Eru, the elves? No, that time means nothing in Aman. It means less here in Lorien. For time here, unwinds a thinner thread in Vaire’s tapestry, a finer weave that can be judged by nothing else save itself. Between Aman and Middle Earth lies the path that one must know to pass between the two. Between Aman and Lorien lies a parth that only Este knows, and her Irmo, and most certainly the Breath of Arda. But Eonwe knows it not. Insensible to aught else, he dreams.
Dreaming, he is sleeping, with the chattering of the waterfall following him into his dreams. The grass soft grows up around him, a cushion and a blanket, as the blades stretch across his body and weave a covering. Branches of the tree stretch down and brush dark hair from the closed eyes of the Maia, and woodland creatures—squirrels, rabbits, birds cautiously creep near and gaze upon him with eyes curious and round. The body, so heavy before he fell into his sleep, now feels light, renewed, relaxed. It is so good to rest, Eonwe the dreamer thinks in his dream. I should stay, he continues. Here I should stay.
Here there is no disappointment. Here there is no pain of mind or body or heart. Here is all silent, all peace, all stillness. Except for the splashing, tumbling discourse of the waterfall. He listens to the water’s discourse. Slowly, over time, the sound changes for him, and what was the plopping, cascade of water becomes sounds, a song…
Music!
Eonwe the dreamer knits his brow and purses his lips as in his dream within a dream, the sound of the waterfall becomes a voice, a voice giving rise to a song, a song without speech, without words. The Song. His eyes open slowly, blinking as he, in the dream, looks out over at the waterfall, his ears filling, like a vessel filled to overflowing, with the One Song. The song. The Song that brought all into being. He leans forward, and blades of grass unclasp their grasp about him, and part like a great cocoon. He looks down, and as he watches, a myriad of colors explode as blooms of every conceivable flower known to Middle Earth, releasing a perfume that is heady to the Maia. He rises slowly, as if drunk on the smell of the blooms, of the feel of the grass, pulling back from his body, of the sound of the Great Music.
Standing up, Eonwe turns blue eyes up to the top of the waterfall and traces the path of the water down, down, down, back into the lake, swaying a little as he does so, in time to the timeless music. He staggers toward the edge of the lake, kneeling, and hears suddenly behind him a soft swish of fabric. Turning quickly, he stands back up, his eyes widening, mouth smiling. Before him, clothed in a cloak of white, floating above the grass, face luminous, so bright features cannot be seen, he sees the one Maia who knows him above all others, who has seen into his heart, so it seems to Eonwe, who knows him without hesitation or judgement.
“Ilmare,” he breathes, and his face breaks into a radiant smile, the eyes alight and shining. He stretches out his hands to her, sees the cloak rise, but as he looks down, there are no hands in his. Looking back up at the radiance of the face, he sees the ethereal form back away, slowly, and a fold of the cloak rises, as it would if an arm was raised to beckon him forward. He tilts his head, a smile still upon his face, and takes a step forward toward this shining form. This Ilmare. The fold drops as though an arm has dropped back down to one side, and now there is not just the voice of the waterfall. There are two voices, clear, clean, sweet, indescribably perfect. Eonwe opens his mouth to join the song…
But no sound comes out.
Startled, he lifts a hand to his throat and tries again, but there is no music from Eonwe the Maia. Slowly, this Ilmare turns around and around, the fabric of the cloak, swaying and flapping softly as the ghostly figure sings in harmony with the waterfall. Try as he might, no sound emerges from Eonwe. Hot tears spring to his eyes and roll down his cheeks as he stands, transfixed by his silence, shattered by his inability to join the song.
The Music swells, and all about him, bit by bit, more and more join the Great Song. The birds tilt their heads, stretch their winds and their beaks open as they give throat to the music. Squirrels drop their nuts, and puffing out their cheeks, chitter and chirp along. Rabbits, noses twitching, join in, and beneath his feet, the grass rubs their blades together to make their contribution. Finally, the tree which had offered him respite shakes its leaves to add its music to the Song.
But Eonwe remains silent. Unable to bear this separation, this inability to be part of the whole, he turns his back upon the Maia before him, the creatures of the garden of Lorien, the tree and the grass and stumbles to the water’s edge, dropping to his knees.
“You are yours to find.”
The voice is a sigh. The voice is a challenge. The voice is part of the song he cannot join, and his arms wrap around him in his despair. Alone, Eonwe the dreamer thinks. I am alone. I don’t want to be alone.
“You are yours to find.”
What does that mean? Eonwe cries out in his mind. What does that mean? I belong to nothing and no one, not even myself. I do not know who I am, what I am. The tears roll down his face and spill into the Lake, and the song comes to a crescendo and pauses. Startled by the silence, Eonwe watches the last tear spill from his cheek, and drop into the lake. Circle upon circle ripples out from where the tear fell, and as they roll back into the water, the reflection clears, and Eonwe sees no only himself, but where there was one other Maia, there is now the other Maia and a white radiance Eonwe knows with his heart and soul.
Manwe!
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