Stories and concepts ate snaked from both Annie Proulx and J.R.R. Tolkien. Regardless, I'm not making any money.
Many thanks to b73 (Maggie) for inspiring this.
The Last Song
Long ago, I met a ranger from the North, friend of Rivendell, where I sometimes came. I spoke of my journey across hard earth and sad, and he reminded me that the rocks had a memory almost as long as the Elves', longer perhaps. I queried of him why those stones mourned so, but he would not answer, or could not, I know not. It was years later, not long, as I recall, before the battle for Middle Earth in that age, that I came upon a tale from the rocky places Northeast of Rivendell, from the liar of Mount Gundabad, a story of men of old. It is a story of men that has lived longer than some of the finest stories of Elves, and, my interest piqued, I went in search of the truth of it. I finally found it in the rocks of Moorhalin. For rocks, it seems, have a memory, indeed.
They were two young men, stationed there, one the Steward of Gondor's reckless son, in need of discipline. The story tells he had eyes like the sky over the sea, like the color I saw on my way to the Grey Havens, but how people know that, I cannot say. The other was the King of Rohan's sister's son, strong and sure and fearlessly good on horse, but quiet and scared of demeanor. Gondor thought Rohan could teach its son steadiness; Rohan thought Gondor could teach its son ardor. Both were true.
It became apparent that after those men had spent a year together patrolling the barren wastes, they had steadied. For, the few times they received heralds, the son of Gondor was hard at work; the son of Rohan's face shone with a smile. They complained not. Neither was to be king, and neither were even their eldest of brothers, so as time rolled on the courts of their homelands forgot them. Not entirely, no. They were invited home, lessons learned, but they did not return. More than a few mouths suggested that what went between Rohan and Gondor in the Northern Wastes by the Grey Mountains was not to be spoken of. Some said allurement, others abomination, still others thought their desire to abandon their homes was master.
What story passes from here is not from the mouths of men or their tales. Be warned, this tale comes from the slabs of stone that held those boys on sunny days, and that made their lonely death barrow, of which no one has told before now. Stones are not in the habit of deceit, for they tell tales frankly. And in cases such as these, that is to be feared.
For indeed, whether allurement or abomination, that thing that kept the young men in the grip of the Northern Mountains was that timeless sentiment that ever grips-- love. Erurainon, the Malinanar, as he is known now by Elves, and Baran-rochir (as his given name is not recorded) folded their days into that stone of the mountain. The rock tells of their passion, meleth a word not unheard, and of their ceaseless nights. Their days were filled with the toil of life in the wastes, no doubt, as they bound their very lives unto that stone. None can say, not men and their tales, nor stones, nor Elven wisdom, the causes of that thing that touches the soul alone. And though their lives were hard, herald after herald they turned away towards home, turning instead to pinning of elk and foul under arrow, rather than banquets of fine wine and beast. For they had that food which feeds more deeply, and were not wont to give it up.
As all such tales of Middle Earth who tell of love too sweet are bound to stray, terror and horror visited itself upon those men, the rocks tell. Men now, because the heralds had stopped coming, and though their herd had but grown under the ministrations of the horse-master, never did those horses set foot South. A small scout troop from across the Northern Wastes, the forward of an invading Army set on Gondor and Rohan both, happened upon them. They fought together and valiantly, and beset the invaders, stopping them entirely, but not without sustaining mortal wounds each.
The rocks tell me of a stain upon themselves, where the men bucked up against the stone to share a parting agony, but more sweet, for it was shared. As their wounds made red the ancient Earth, both tried to agree that they had fought and died at last for their lands, and that it was worthwhile. Gondor and Rohan both would be safe, as they had set out to make it as youths when they'd known not the perils of ardor and steadiness. But in the whispering grass, Erurainon softly confessed that the land he'd been fighting for had not been Gondor. Baran-rochir admitted he recalled not the color of the fields of Rohan, and cared not to save them. They were for each other, and had died for their private kingdom in the North.
It was Erurainon who went first, by an hour, and the sad song the rocks sing to this day is but a faintest echo of the keening cries of Baran-rochir upon that grass. And even though the grass does not recall the strangled noises of a lone horsemaster, the rocks cannot shake it.
I went back to the lonesome valley in the Northern Wastes, strict barren stone mostly that does not bloom in spring, and I saw there a cove where wildflowers grow, and I wonder, maybe the grasses do remember. But, like that Ranger, cannot speak of it.
While all of Elven-kind was taking ships across the great Western Sea towards the Grey Havens, and looking towards the sky beset with gulls, and wondering at its glorious beauty, I marvelled not at the color of it, for I felt maybe I knew that color, though I had not seen it, but at the endlessness of it.
And then I knew that men like Erurainon and Baran-rochir do not fade as the Elven do. Their souls are more timeless than stone, and somewhere, when the songs of Beren and Tinuviel are sung no more, perhaps after the notion of love itself has flown away, those souls will ever seek and search, and find, yes find, and lose each other, until one day every rock in all of Middle Earth, and perhaps beyond, will echo still the keen of sorrow, and it will be the last song left to dwell upon the rock.