A/N: Starting out fresh with a redone story. The story will focus primarily on strong platonic love between friends and self-discovery. The Thranduil romance will be featured later.
Dedicated to my close friend. I'm not going to claim I'm a great writer, but she loved Tolkien's works. RIP.
Time is an elusive thing. It was often said that time was a menace, an endless ticking in the ears of men counting steadily to their final moments. Time pursued the hapless mortal, tormented him throughout his existence until one day its mighty watch ticked one last time in his ear. But little ones, what a terrible misconception. A pittance that such slander against time be believed so widely throughout even by the wisest of mortal kings.
Time was no menace. Time, rather, was a scribe. It stood indifferent to the suffering of men, a keeper rather than a pursuant. With broad strokes, it recorded events gone by onto a large parchment. Once written, the ink instantly dried and the pen would move on, writing steadily that which has happened and poised to strike down onto the paper that which has yet occurred. Time could not tell man of his last hour, for time knew only the past and would continue the broad strokes of its pen long after man's death.
If time was not the enemy, the children inquired, then was death the true evil?
The elderly woman's lips twisted into a gentle smile. To her great great grandchildren, she must have appeared already a foot into her grave. Perhaps that is why they asked their silly questions of time and death. "Come my loves, come to me," the old woman said. She laughed heartily as a fresh little one jumped onto her aged lap and looked up in innocent curiosity.
Death, unlike Time, was a different sort of essence. It's strength was rooted in fear, and more so, uncertainty. From this ignorance, it drew its power over the lives of men and hid within the cloaks of Time to cast its shadow. For you see, Death was, in truth, a terribly weak thing. The shadow was only that: a shadow. It was not tangible nor was it threatening, for the dark alone is simply the dark. Its fright was found in the unknown, on what it hid, which was nothing at all except mortal foolishness and superstition.
The old crone did not fear Death and wondered with fondness of Time's scroll. She lived a very rich life, full of adventure and love. Wrapping her aged arm around the little one and taking another child onto her lap, she boasted of the four sons she bore her husband and two daughters. It was an honour to be a woman, she told the small girls. For only women and women alone could brave Death's shadow and within their wombs forged new life. Only women had the strength of body to create flesh from nothing and live through the agony of its delivery into the world. Men, the elder laughed, wept like hungry babes at the slightest flick of their little berries.
"Mother, children don't need to hear that sort of filth," another woman muttered. She cleaned out the frames the old frail woman kept and placed them gently against the wall. The portraits were of great value to the elder woman with blue eyes and wispy white hair, and she had kept them close as decades passed by them.
"Grammy!" one of the girls piped up. "Tell us of your adventures again."
"My adventures? Again? You girls should have those stories etched on your foreheads by now!" the elderly woman replied.
The girls giggled. "Please? I want to hear about the Fair Folk again."
"Ah, not just any Fair Folk, my love. The Elven Queen, beautiful and wise, none are her equal." The elderly woman motioned for the younger woman to fetch her one of her most prized portraits. The other woman regarded her with frustration but ultimately consented, handing to the aged woman the portrait of a beautiful and timeless elleth. Only one of her many portraits.
More children gathered at the elderly woman's feet and she placed the drawing against her centre for all to see. It was aged but still clear, the image of an elleth with long, lustrous hair, pointed ears, and bright eyes. One day, she promised them, she would bring to them a portrait of the powerful and fearsome Elvenking. However, today, she would tell them the tale of her journey through Middle Earth with the radiant and beloved queen, then only an unassuming Woodland Elf.
"It was 130 years ago. Before I came to be known as Meldis among the Elves, I was called a far simpler name for a far simpler time. My name," Meldis began, "was Poppy."