Thunder, distant and subtle, rumbled across the sunlit sky, but was easily overcome by the faint buzz of chattering voices coming from the courtyard. Aragorn peered from the shade of the sheltered passage up to the sun-soaked risen platform that was his destination. Already others awaited the same performance he was to attend and they passed the time talking amongst themselves, except one party who he assumed were the performers themselves.
An unassuming assembly of ten Elven men and women stood facing one another in a small huddle, eyes closed and hands linked. Aragorn had often seen Elven singers take great care to prepare themselves for a particularly challenging song, but never such meditation en masse. Tonight's revelries, he decided, should prove to be out of the ordinary.
He leaned against one wide, sturdy pillar to wait for his companions and entertained himself in watching the goings-on up the short flight of stairs. Moments later, he heard the heavy fall of dwarf-boots clomping down the walkway in his direction.
"Good evening, Aragorn."
"Good evening, Gimli," he greeted. "Are you ready for another concert?"
"I am," the Dwarf replied, sounding surprised with himself, "but I believe this performance will be somewhat different than we have come to expect. Your wife sought me out earlier today: 'Dress well,' she said."
"She told me the same," Aragorn disclosed with an amused smile. He took an exaggerated step back to survey the Dwarf's attire. He was, indeed, dressed quite finely by Dwarven standards and Aragorn could tell that he'd even taken what must have been a sturdy comb to his bristly hair for his abundant beard lay remarkably flat. "I think we have done quite well for ourselves, Gimli."
"Indeed, we have, Aragorn!" Gimli cried, hooking his thick thumbs on his belt and lifting his chin proudly. "We have groomed and polished ourselves most admirably."
Side by side, hands on their waists, Dwarf and Man stood with puffed out chests, awaiting their companions. A trio of pretty elf-maidens glided by, receiving a suave nod from both well-dressed cavaliers.
"You have beaten us here," Legolas said with pleasure, coming up behind them. Aragorn and Gimli turned.
Legolas stood before them, resplendent in a magnificent jerkin of softest green accented by fine embroidered gold leaves, open over a smooth tunic of pale blue. Highlighted by the colors of his raiment, his elven eyes seemed to glimmer in the shadows and his newly braided hair shined, smooth and glossy.
After a span of silence, Gimli coughed uncomfortably, his proud chin lowering, his thumbs leaving his belt. Aragorn looked down at his fancy clothes, which suddenly seemed less fancy.
"We should claim our seats," the oblivious Elf recommended. "This shall not be a performance to watch from the shadows." Legolas strode past them and swiftly mounted the steps.
Aragorn exhaled slowly, shrugging to the equally deflated Dwarf beside him. Gimli forced a smile, but the Ranger saw when only moments later, he licked one finger and tried to give his belt buckle a quick spit shine.
"You look very fine tonight, my lord." Aragorn heard Arwen's familiar voice behind him as he watched Gimli slog up the stairs after his agile friend.
"Not by Elven standards, I am afraid," he said, taking care to adopt a casual self-effacing tone. But when he turned to his wife, all calculation left his mind.
"Even by those standards you are extraordinary," Arwen breathed, her delicate fingers caressing the red trim on his duster. But Aragorn could not muster a reply.
Arwen seemed to glow in a pale green gown, as simple as it was beautiful. Her black tresses streamed over her shoulders and down her back, stippled with small silver leaves, seeming to make a star-filled night sky of her hair. It had been years since he had seen the locks loose and free anywhere other than their bedchamber when retiring for the night. She had taken her role as Queen of Men seriously and had, from their wedding day until the present, worn her hair bound as befit her title among her new society.
But at that moment, Aragorn only dimly recollected that such a society existed and that he was the liege of that land. He felt transported as Arwen neared him, her warm smile fighting off the chill in the air. This was years ago - a lifetime ago.
His heart seemed halted in his chest as he gazed upon this vision, this unimaginable loveliness. And he was shocked to see the same adoration directed at him from the tender sapphire of her eyes. She raised one slender, delicate hand and ghosted it over his cheek. The softness of her fingertips brought to his attention the roughness of his own skin and the stubble across his jaw that he never managed to be completely without.
He caught her hand in his and tried to ignore the countless number of scars and calluses the contact emphasized across his palm and fingers. "I believe Legolas and Gimli will have saved us seats," he said, his eyes averting from her for only a moment.
Arwen smiled slightly and Aragorn couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw a flicker of sadness cross her fair features. "Lead and I shall follow," she replied, her voice sturdy where her expression had faltered.
Aragorn climbed the steps and he and Arwen claimed the empty seats beside Legolas and Gimli. He gripped the arm of his chair as he sat, surprised by the strength of the timber. These same sturdy chairs had graced this circle all through the days of Sauron's rise and had witnessed the first joining of the fellowship. They appeared remarkably unworn despite the span of years, but elven furnishings were, after all, made to endure both wind and weather.
Legolas sat beside him, his eyes already focused on his seemingly unexceptional kin standing silent beneath the massive blooming tree around which this raised courtyard had been built. A select group of Elves filled in the remaining chairs.
Instead turning his gaze upward, Aragorn noticed the storm clouds, marring the otherwise clear, sunlit sky. His nose wrinkled slightly in displeasure; he didn't like rain, a disdain fostered by his days as an active Ranger. Rain meant a diluted trail to track and a cold, wet bed at night. Knowing that this rainstorm could be tolerated from beneath the protective canopy of a balcony did not make the prospect any more enjoyable.
However, he was nearly alone among his companions who felt as such, it seemed. He sensed a certain eagerness in the air and glimpsed many acute elven eyes glancing expectantly at the deepening sky.
"If I did not know better," Gimli said, turning to Legolas in critical bewilderment, "I would think they were looking forward to the rain." A knowing smile was Legolas's only answer.
Silence fell and Aragorn's mind and eyes were pulled toward the tree and the regal performers standing before it. No voices had been speaking, no bodies had been moving and yet, from that silence, they had collectively descended into one even deeper. The very wind seemed to halt its breath, urging the leaves on the trees to be quiet.
One Elf-maiden stepped forward from the others, her dark hair covered by a smooth scarf as green as her eyes. Focusing her gaze beyond her audience, beyond the mountains embracing Rivendell, seemingly beyond all of Middle-earth, she began to sing.
With each crest of her rising song, the woman lunged forward, her hands outstretched, reaching toward the ground. Her emerald eyes lowered to the stone beneath her and she bent her fingers as if calling forth the rock itself. The insistence in her voice intensified: No longer ordering, but demanding; so forceful she compelled the blood pumping through Aragorn's heart to match her rhythm.
Her slim hands tightened into fists and with one last entreating, melodious cry, she threw her arms high above her head, wrenching imaginary sinew from the ground and suddenly two shining plants burst through, forcing their way to the world above.
The woman stepped back, joining her fellow Elves as they raised their voices with hers and all eyes watched the quiet glimmers upon the ground, standing tall, growing towering, stretching out limbs and boughs from their smooth, glimmering trunks.
Elf-minstrels, Aragorn realized, these were Elf-minstrels, those rare Elven performers whose gift it was to make that of which they sing appear before those who listen.
Aragorn felt his jaw go slack in the majestic light of the vision as one tree shined with an incandescent silver while its companion darkened, turning to a luminous golden hue. He knew this story, had heard it many times during his childhood. The Trees of Valinor, the Trees that had been the origin from which the sun and moon had come forth.
The Elf-minstrels linked their voices once again, coaxing the lustrous saplings further from the stone. The shining trees grew large, filling the limited space of the circle, spreading their gleaming canopy of leaves over the heads of their minstrel creators and those listening. They bent and moved within an invisible wind, their bark as glossy and swirling as a molten mirror, their leaves each made of the same liquidity, but fluttering in the breath of air with the rapidity and inconstancy of their earth-bound equivalents.
The iridescent boughs of the gold tree extended far over Aragorn's head. He felt the warmth of the tree, though it was not real, and sensed the reflections of light from the leaves on his face, though they did not exist. Beside it, the silver tree spread its limbs thick with stunning flowers and leaves of deep green and ever dropping a rain of silver dew that fell to the stone and disappeared. As the minstrels sang around them, the trees blossomed bearing fruit and flowers with all the light and glory to be found in the imaginations of Men or Elves.
Then, suddenly, the song turned sour and Aragorn felt his heart leap in worried anticipation as a shadow seemed to fall over the glorious Trees. A great hideous spider stole slowly and deliberately toward the unprotected loveliness, accompanied by a creature of a darkness more profound than the simple absence of light. The warrior in Aragorn tensed and only his knowledge of reality stayed his hand. Beside him, he felt Legolas's archer's arms turn protectively to stone and Gimli's hand flew to the hilt of his axe as the threatening horrors moved ever closer to the sparkling boughs.
With a great discordant cry of simultaneous anguish and triumph from the singers, the looming darkness slashed each tree across its radiant trunk with an inexplicable hunger for destruction worthy of a pack of Orcs. From the gashes, sap poured forth, drenching the ground with blood of silver and gold.
The minstrels' voices lowered to a sorrowful wail as the grotesque arachnid knelt, thrusting her face forward, forcing the enchanted sap to pour into her beaked mouth. With gentle, melodic sobs accentuating each horrible swallow, each terrible gulp, the evil creature drank the Trees dry, robbing them of their light, of their beauty, leaving them blackened, arid husks of timber.
One Elf-maiden forced her voice above the others, letting out a shriek of grief that chilled Aragorn's skin and forced tears to his eyes. The spider disappeared in a disgusting cloud of black filth while the shadow departed, fleeing with a dreadful cackle supplied by one of the male performers.
Two Elven ladies stepped forward from the others. From their bodies, two lithe and graceful visions walked out, approaching the wounded Trees and sorrow branded the faces of both newly imagined elven goddesses as they caressed the damaged branches. With even the slightest touch, the thickest of limbs fell frail and lifeless at their feet. A note of pure sorrow filled the air as tears slid down the goddesses' pale marble cheeks.
Kneeling beside one another, linking hands, the two slender maidens lowered their heads, silken hair covering their faces from view. Voiced by two earthly Elves, the goddesses joined their voices in song. Low from the ground the aria began, rising, spiraling higher and higher; an entreaty for life to continue. Apprehension grabbed Aragorn as the two Trees, now dark and brittle, thickened, their ebony bark frosting over with almost imperceptible light.
The Trees swelled slightly, straining to reclaim their stolen mortality. Aragorn's chest constricted painfully at the endurance of the solitary note of the song; his lungs fought for air even as his heart longed to see a sign of life in the imaginary Trees.
The Trees were Gondor, they were all of Middle-earth, and that foul creature had been Sauron, pillaging, bleeding it to lifelessness, beyond all terrible imaginings, beyond all fears - and perhaps even beyond repair.
But all of that remained buried deeply within the monarch's mind. His consciousness only acknowledged his atypical reaction to the story as elven bewitchment, nothing more. That the Trees, for all their apparent substance, were merely mystical fabrications, he knew. They were no more tangible than the wind.
No more real than an unspoiled Gondor.
With a gasp, one maiden wrenched her voice from the other, tears and dismay marring her features. The Trees had ceased to move. She stood and with a despondent shake of her head, abandoned her companion and the lifeless Trees, knowing all their efforts to be in vain. The damage had been too great, too devastating. Life could not be restored where death had taken root.
The Elf-minstrels reclaimed the vision of the despairing woman into their fold as they combined their voices in lament, accompanying the remaining goddess, still kneeling.
The notes seemed to be at the very pitch of Aragorn's soul. Though he had never before heard it, the sound was familiar. He almost felt as if he could have sung along, as if he already knew the pathetically hopeful words; the lyrical futility of a ruler begging for light before a field of darkness.
Then, once more, silence fell.
The solitary imagined deity raised her head, her mouth opening just as a vocalist began singing to give her voice. Soft and gentle, the words spoke more of sorrow and release than of life-giving and return. With pain in her heart, and the hearts of all listening, the fair elven goddess bid farewell to the Trees of Valinor. Bid farewell to a beauty that could never be again, knowing that she had failed.
But, even as she said goodbye, a limb of each tree stirred. Aragorn felt himself lean forward in his seat, wishing to make sure that the movement he had seen had been real. Straining with effort, their extension languid, the two boughs each presented one last splendor. One, a glimmering silver blossom, glowing with all the former unearthly beauty of the Tree that bore it. The other, a fruit of pure shining gold. The Moon and the Sun.
With tempered happiness and a smile full of tears, the goddess claimed a gift in each hand. Standing, she sang aloud, calling the world to her attention. All the minstrels joined together to give this one vision a voice, a combined voice powerful enough to shake the chairs upon which their audience sat, powerful enough to vibrate the ground beneath their feet.
At this mighty call, two forms appeared, brought forth by the song itself. One was a striding warrior, his straight hair of deepest ebony. It was not only the bow and quiver of arrows upon his back that made Aragorn liken this imagined archer to Legolas, it was his proud carriage and athletic frame, as well as something of the intelligent and royal in his face. Were it not for the dark hair and tunic of silver, Aragorn might have quite mistaken the two.
The other figure was an Elf-maiden with flaxen hair cascading long over white shoulders and a dress of gold. The elegant arch to her eyebrows and the delicate bend of her lips reminded Aragorn of Arwen as readily as the archer had of Legolas. But also, Aragorn knew of this maiden. He knew she had been described as a woman of surpassing loveliness, with eyes so bright, even the Eldar could not look upon her. And when not in human form, she appeared as a living flame, unimaginable in her beauty. In Aragorn's soul, Arwen had always appeared as just such a flame.
His heart thumped with pride and his throat felt tight with sobs of inexplicable gratitude, as if it were truly his wife and his friend who had dared answer the call of the deity, who dared to salvage the beauty of a ruined paradise. The silver archer and the golden maiden stepped forward to the goddess as the Elf-minstrels sang her thanks and praised their bravery, goodness and selflessness.
As the silver archer received into his hands the silver flower, a streak slid across his form. Faster and faster more streaks descended, dissolving away the archer, the golden maiden and the goddess alike as the singers abruptly halted their voices.
The rain had begun.
Instinctively, Aragorn darted down the stairs, taking refuge beneath the nearby balcony, and he was not surprised to find only Gimli upon his heels, retreating from the curtain of thick water droplets claiming the clearing.
A crackling like the sound of wet tinder thrown upon a healthy fire tore across the sky, and the minstrels lifted their voices, in one tremulous, unified tone to meet it. As the skyward sizzling grew, the singers responded in kind, growing louder and louder until a jagged spike of lightning stabbed through the air, releasing the mounting pressure.
Arwen and Legolas sat beside one another, their backs to Aragorn and their faces turned upwards, allowing the insistent drops to tap against their faces. Joining the minstrels in song, the other Elves began to dance in the drenching rainfall.
Aragorn trained his gaze on his friend and his wife as they stood to join their kindred. In one fluid movement, Legolas slid an arm around Arwen's narrow waist and pulled her smoothly against him. The pale greens of their clothes blended them seamlessly together and Aragorn noticed for the first time the harmony of their raiment: the same gentle emerald, accentuated by leaves of gold on Legolas and on Arwen, delicate leaves of silver. The rain already soaking into her hair to descend in rivulets down her face, Arwen locked her eyes on those of her fellow Elf and the two began dancing with the rest.
The wind whipped the trees, the deep jade leaves stirring individually and yet moving as one with a graceful wildness, contrasting starkly with the luminescent bright white of the clouds. Thunder rumbled through the air, sending deep vibrations through the pillar on which Aragorn rested his hand. Serrated veins of lightning pierced the sky as waves of rain swept across the raised courtyard, billowing in like clouds of smoke.
Then, for a moment, the thunder silenced, and behind the delicate din of raindrops, Aragorn heard the birds twittering happily, singing with the Elves.
He suddenly felt as though he were witnessing some sacred ritual that was not to be observed by mortal creatures. The Elves seemed connected to the storm and the wind and the birds in a way that the Ranger, for all his years spent in the wilds, could never fully comprehend. The Elves, more than any other race, were Middle-earth.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the still bright sky with frenetic energy, the atmospheric sizzling matching in harmony with Elven voices. The rain drenched the Elves' hair, leaving it in dripping tendrils that clung to their faces and shoulders as they spun.
Arwen's hair, heavy with water, soared through the air with the rapidity of her motion as she held to Legolas, the glimmering silver leaves and dark locks creating a star shower amid the rain. The cleansing downpour soaked in further, turning Legolas's pale jerkin dark and causing Arwen's soft green gown to cling closely, displaying well the perfection of her feminine curves.
"Blagh!" Gimli cried out in disgust as an errant gust of wind dashed a sheet of rain at them beneath their shelter. "A cold, wet, noisy nuisance," he growled, brushing the droplets from his prodigious beard and furry eyebrows. "And yet he dances in it, the fool Elf. If I were to spend a hundred years with him, Aragorn, I still do not think I would understand Elves."
"Perhaps they are not ours to understand," Aragorn mused aloud. The sudden laughter of the Dwarf beside him was so startling a contrast to his own mood that the Man instinctively turned to his companion, tearing his eyes from the intoxicating Elven distraction.
"That cannot be," Gimli countered with a chuckle. "I am a dwarf-lord and you are a King; there is no riddle in Middle-earth that is not ours to decipher. And certainly not one so trifling as 'why do silly Elves dance in a thunderstorm.'"
Aragorn feigned a breath of laughter. "Perhaps you are right, Gimli," he replied, though he could not feel it to be so.