Náre Oialëa Lúcë

[anerea]

Author: Anerea

Title: Náre Oialëa Lúcë

Characters: Melian, Thingol

Text type / Format: fixed length ficlet

Source / Fandom: Silmarillion

Rating: G

Word Count: 222

Summary: What actually happened between Melian and Thingol while the stars wheeled above them for two hundred years? (Overlaps with Lómelindi Lúcë.)
Prompt/Challenge: a fixed-length piece of 222 words
Notes: Thanks to rocky41_7 for inspiring me to write this ficlet with your "(if you can call 200 years a "moment"...) comment!

Being filled with love Elwë came to her and took her hand, and straightway a spell was laid on him that it seemed he made a great journey with her, and he beheld through her beauty and song the immeasurable vastness of Eä in endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, so that it filled the Void to overflowing. In the midst of the innumerable stars he saw countless worlds hung globed, and he perceived that the darkness between the stars was not void but was as kindling for the Secret Fire.

Elwë was other than anything Melian had hitherto known, the stuff of Arda and yet strange and free, and being filled thus with wonder the more did she love him. In him she beheld the mind of Ilúvatar reflected anew which otherwise had been hidden even from the Ainur, and she saw in him a world like unto Arda, as vast and manifold and thorough in its crafting, yet so small as to be wholly contained within. And at his heart was kindled the Flame Imperishable.

Though long years passed as they stood beneath the wheeling stars and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark about them, it seemed to them but a short time ere they spoke.

Author's Note:
The title is my Quenya approximation of The Enchantment of the Flame Imperishable.

Written for the SWG Arda On Ice Challenge with the prompts: Rocker: a quiet moment, Flip: something unexpected, Upright: a change of perspective, Mohawk: forming an alliance, Layback: look skyward


Lúcëmetta (Enchantment's End)
"fine silver rain began to fall" (this illustrates the ending described in Lómelindi Lúcë but I only painted it after I posted.)
(full image is on the SWG)

Comments

[shirebound]

This is absolutely beautiful.

[anerea]

Thank you, that's lovely feedback to receive!

[keiliss]

The art of course is beautiful and the piece itself is lovely. I like the switch in perspectives and you worked the prompts perfectly.

I tend to look at the part about the trees growing tall around them and wonder how.... but some things are not meant to be analysed in our modern, literal manner. Once you have trees growing tall under starlight, I guess you need to stop asking silly questions.

[anerea]

Thanks for your thoughtful compliment and comment, Kei!

Haha! Yes, I also have to force part of my brain into "Hush" mode and stoke my "Believe In Magic" parts.
There are a few lines which offer the possibility of Valarian intervention: Of The Beginning of Days has

"...it was by the power of Ulmo that even under the darkness of Melkor life coursed still through many secret lodes, and the Earth did not die"

so maybe Yavanna got Ulmo to infuse his waterways with liquid Treelight from the vast vats that caught the Treelight-rain? Someone also suggested residue from the Lamps, which I like too; it would also explain areas of different growth rates (that Tolkien didn't mention except for Nan Elmoth, but I like to think there are other areas.)
Of The Sindar has

"Though Middle-earth lay for the most part in the Sleep of Yavanna, in Beleriand under the power of Melian there was life..."

so I just tell myself that if Ulmo and Yananna can keep most things on the continent alive but hibernating, Melian (despite — or perhaps even because of — being evidently driven to distraction by Thingol) can imbue them with enough magical whathaveyou to cause them to grow.

The other way I look at Middle-earth is as a historically convergent AU — so rather than diverging from a common point with different outcomes, universes of varying degrees of similarities (and some with very different rules of physics) are gradually converging... although since spacetime is infinite (and infinitely weird) they're probably all simultaneously and continually diverging again as well.

I generally find magic easier to wrap my head around though!

[rocky41_7]

omgggg this is so beautiful! You captured the style of "The Silmarillion" so well!! I'm fascinated with these two as a couple and you made this "moment" between them so touching and intimate and wondrous...I'm in love with this ✪ ω ✪

[anerea]

Thank you, I'm delighted you like i, and thanks also for the inspiration to write about their "moment"!

I'm really enjoying writing in Silm-style so I may try it again. (I went to sleep after replying to Keiliss above and now I've woken up with a few more ideas about how the trees could grow so tall (and other things keep growing at all!) so might write that next.)

[hhimring]

Oh, I had missed over on SWG that this was a prompt fill for here as well!
I have already mentioned over there, I think, how much I love it!

[anerea]

Thank you! Yes you did, and I see I didn't (mention this was a prompt fill on SWG. Only the first chapter was so I've fixed that now, thanks!)

The change in the weather is only implied in this one if read in conjunction with Lómelindi Lúcë, but I really liked the challenge of a 222 word piece. It did mean I needed to cut out the bit with the lovesome pair flying through the cosmos (both macro and micro) together, which I actually think is a fortunate thing! 😅

[lferion]

This is so beautiful, words and art both!