Mirelle grew up at her Nana's knee hearing the stories of Middle-earth in ages past. She learned about the great wars between good and evil, the Elves, the Men, the Dwarves and the Orcs. Her favorites had been about the Hobbits and the Ents, but she really loved them all. Well, not the Orcs.
'Stop filling her head with all those fairy tales,' her father would grumble. His head had been filled with them too as he grew up, but he managed to turn out alright despite the fact.
Nana only smiled and asked, 'Did I ever tell you about the Arkenstone?'
Mirelle of course had heard about it many times, but she always said, 'Oooh, I love that one, Nana, tell it again.'
After her Nana died, Mirelle told the stories to anyone who would listen. However, it didn't take long for everyone in the small village to grow tired of the girl who told the wild tales of long ago. 'Those people never existed.' Or 'Let the past go, Mirelle, the future is what we need to worry about. All that stuff is dust now and doesn't matter.' But Mirelle believed it had all happened and that it did matter, so one day she set out to prove it, if only to herself.
The world was much safer now in the Fourth Age. Kings had reigned in Gondor for centuries and peace and plenty were the rule of the day. Mirelle's father reluctantly let his daughter go on her quest. 'I know I will never have a moment's peace if I don't,' he said. And deep down in his heart, part of him wished he could go along. It was a very small part and he kept it hidden. Grown men did not seek to prove myths and legends or look for magic.
She took the gold her Nana had given her for birthdays over the years and set out on a horse one early spring morning. 'I'll be fine, Papa. I'm sure I can find others to travel with on occasion.' She waved happily and turned her horse to the West.
The village was not far from Bree and Mirelle thought that would be a good place to start. Nana always said that hobbits had lived there at one time. She arrived at an inn with a faded sign. The Prancing Pony looked as old as the tales she was following. 'Do hobbits live here anymore?' she asked the innkeeper.
'Hobbits? Now that's a word I haven't heard since I was a wee child,' he replied. 'My mum used to tell stories about the little folk, but none exist around here that I know of. You might try further to the West. There was a land called Shire or the Shire at some point. Supposed to be quite beautiful if you can find it. A king long ago forbid Men from going there if I remember my history.'
Mirelle asked several other old-timers about hobbits that night in the common room, but she heard no more than she had from the innkeeper. 'Nope, no hobbits. I doubt they ever existed, but the stories say they did and I know my great great said he had seen one once or twice,' one old codger admitted.
Morning found Mirelle back in the saddle heading west. The location of the Shire was a bit vague, but someone said if she could find the line of the original Great Road, it would run right through it. Two weeks later, Mirelle hoped she might have found it. The land was certainly beautiful. Rolling hills gave her heart a lift after the flat plains. The grass was green and flowers abounded but there were no people, hobbit or otherwise. It was a wild country long abandoned.
Everything looked overgrown and untended, but every once in a while she thought she saw signs that a cottage or barn had existed in a more open area. Small mounds of decay were spread over the countryside and they often were amid a riot of flowers and plants that normally were planted by people. Eventually she rode along a placid river that wound through sloping hillsides. Dismounting, she found that the holes in the hill often showed fragments of wood. Doors? It was hard to tell. There wasn't much left. If there had been homes behind them, they had long since collapsed. Still, it seemed like a place where the shy hobbits would have liked to live. In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit or so one of the stories said.
Leaving the Shire behind, she continued west. The stories said that the Elves had departed to the west. Maybe she could find some trace of them. Alas, it was not to be. She stood on the shores of a broad sea but found no trace of Elves, just some crumbling docks. The folk she met smiled at her stories. 'Old wives tales!' they said.
She told her stories in the inns of the land, hoping that someone somewhere had some remnant of Elvish lore to share, but she knew more than any of them. One old woman did give her some encouragement. 'One of my ancestors wrote a book long ago about those times. I read it when I was a child.'
'Do you have it? May I see it?' Mirelle asked breathlessly.
The old woman's face fell. 'No, it was lost in a fire many years ago. I never thought to copy it. It was just a book of stories after all.' The woman patted the girl's hand. 'You tell them beautifully though.'
Discouraged, but determined, Mirelle sought the Dwarves next. Turning north, she headed for the Blue Mountains. Long ago it had been rumored to be a minor holdout of dwarves. Sure enough, she found mines in the mountains, but they were occupied by Men.
'Dwarves? They only exist in children's tales,' she was told. 'They must have died out long ago if they ever did live around here.'
'Did Men do all this work?' she asked as she gazed at the large halls carved into the mountains.
'Of course we did. Who else?' she was told.
'But why are the tunnels and doors so small?' she asked.
'Men were shorter then,' they told her but to be honest, none of them had ever given it much thought. Dwarves were myths after all, weren't they?
Mirelle found no dwarves, but she did believe she had found one of their homes no matter what the current residents claimed.
Having no desire to find out if Orcs still existed (they sounded like a rather nasty bunch) Mirelle turned East in pursuit of the final myth: Ents. According to Nana, the ents were the oldest of all. The first and last of Middle-earth. If anyone survived certainly it would be the ents.
She returned to Bree and spent the winter months waiting for spring. She could have gone home, but she was afraid her family would convince her not to leave again. And she was afraid that she might agree. Searching for magic was more depressing than she had expected it to be. The Bree folk supplied her with food and housing in return for her stories, but she longed to start the last leg of her quest.
Early March found her on the road to the East. It took her several months, but at last she reached the tower of Orthanc, unchanged since the day it was built. Men lived there now and swore they always had. 'Wizards? No, just a solitary old man or two in past ages. Ents? You really believe the stories about walking trees? If they ever existed, they are long gone,' she heard over and over.
She set out for a small remnant of forest on the hills above the black tower. Working her way through acres of tree stumps, she climbed high into a narrow canyon that contained the last tall trees. 'I guess the Ents are all gone. I had hoped there was at least a little magic still in the world, but I was born too late. We've lost it all,' she said to herself. A lone tear slid down her cheek and fell to the ground. All her travels had been for nothing. This forest was too thin and small to hide a walking tree. She sat at the foot of the tallest one she could find and leaned back against it. Exhausted from the climb and disappointment, she fell asleep.
Standing above Mirelle, Treebeard sighed. Another young one in search of magic. There had been quite a few at first, but none for many years now. Maybe because the magic was almost gone. There was no room for it in the Dominion of Men. He thought of his lost Frimbrethil. He hoped she had found a bit of magic wherever she had gone.
Over the centuries, he had moved as high and as far as he could from the axes, but he didn't know how much longer he would endure. All he had left were his memories, but those were a power all by themselves. This young one was proof of that.
Although it was difficult for him now to move (he had allowed himself to become too treeish) he reached down a still-graceful limb and brushed the girl's forehead. 'Remember, little one. As long as even one person remembers, all that has passed away will live awhile longer. The magic will still exist. Remember….'
Mirelle stirred and woke from her nap. Visions of stories she had never been told and all those that she had raced through her head. Remember, remember, remember echoed in her ears. She looked up at the towering tree, a vague impression of branches reaching down. It might have been her imagination (which was always very active) but she thought that for just a moment she caught the gleam of a pair of solemn golden eyes. 'I will tell the stories, I promise. I will keep the magic alive.'
She journeyed slowly home, telling all she met of her wonderful adventure. Most smiled and nodded to humor her. There was no magic in the world. But a few listened and learned and after she left, they repeated her words. They remembered and kept the magic alive. And until the day she died, Mirelle still believed that magic still lived in Middle-earth even if was very hard to find.
This popped into my head one night. It is a little rough around the edges, but I thought someone might enjoy it. Please let me know your thoughts, reviews appreciated.