Title: A Light at the Edge of the Universe
Author: AsianScaper
Disclaimer: I don't get paid for this, so please don't sue me.
Rating: G
Category: General
Spoilers: None
Feedback: Friends, enemies: Send your comments or constructive criticism to asianscaper@edsamail.com.ph. Advice is highly sought after!
Summary: *An absolute must read* Set after the Lord of the Rings in Gondor. Aragorn and Arwen share a few moments of peace, dialogue, and wisdom.
Archiving: Just email me the URL to allow me a peek.
Dedication: In memory of JRR Tolkien, who has reminded me constantly that fairy tales can serve as very good food for the soul and heart. Also, dedicated to Howard Shore who gave birth to the movie's wonderful music. Alison M. Dobell, this is for you...
Author's Note: Hope you like it! Done in a great hurry...and in a style that never seems to change to my liking. Oh, and the topics are pretty heavy. I don't want to sound too desperate but please review. I need all the help I can get. Thank you!
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Silence was known to the quiet traipse of time along the many drops and falls of a valley. Upon their emerald stalks, burning with tendrils of verdant green, grim clouds blew through the many precipices designed for their passage along limb and bough. The cliff bore little in the way of cold and dark, though the mist rose as it fell from the heavens, clouds rolling and tumbling like ghosts from the hands of the dead. The cliff dropped thousands of feet, cradled by vast meadows at its foot and entwined in bitter vines that clung to its test of age, seeking crevices for anchor, like lichen on trees.
At the edge of the cliff, there stood an ancient tree, bent in several directions, an old man seeking the flight of order with his many fingers tipped in nests and green things. It occupied the space above and below like a fortress of wind and wood; the many turrets were branches of shifting colors, the banners flagging with innocent youth.
Its trunk tangled around its very bark, climbing in circles and patterns akin to wheels. Indeed, it seemed to ride within itself. And rode it did to the tip of a great bough overhanging the view below. It reached far from the edge of the cliff and was long exposed to zephyrs that blew from the land below. There upon its craggy, jutting edge where leaves burst like flowery repetitions of a May caper and where their olive petals dripped to provinces of streams and rivers, sat a cloaked man with his hood cast aside to welcome the very air birds possessed.
He, indeed, maintained wings of gray and black, for his cloak's fabric seemed woven of rock's charcoal hue yet light as a feather upon the nightingale's back. It flew like the songs heard upon Elven flutes, flying through age and time, unheeding to even the movement of earth, when that brown mother clothed in green, swept past oceans and opened paths of rivers and harvest. It was a cloak bent with the seasons, following the craving youth of spring, prancing to lutes before summer fires, cradling the great potency of life and death in autumn, and attending the carpets of white in winter.
Its source was the movement of the being beneath its ashen skin, where a beard long accompanied by maturity frightened the warmth from his blue eyes. He did not smile now, for his face fought upon a stage of gravity and concerns. Though upon this tree older than the birth of his kin, there was peace.
Fiery red ants did not sour their walk on his callused hands as he rested his palms upon the vast bough where he lay like a creature of daystars, bathing under shade. Strange caterpillars grazed upon the fibers of his cloak yet left him alone, for along his great frame radiated the dignified expression of a king. It burned to share their feet with him.
Though his munificent volley of estrangement felled the small plants below him, the green things remained as effects for him, without feel for the juice that rolled off their crooked leaves.
"You are as a child," the wind whispered. "King of Gondor."
Aragorn opened his closed eyes, for he had surrendered his lids to the brash hems of daydreams. "You speak now?" he answered in turn, in a language offered to wind, which he blew from his lungs. "Whilst I lie and take my ease?"
The wind whistled and said, "Someone comes, King of Gondor." Quickly! Quickly!
The great bough which grew from the tree's immutable frame, seemed suddenly brittle as the many branches above him bent to the force of invisible hands and seemingly fell like emerald jewels from vials of brown.
There was rustling below and he quickly forestalled the soft dialogue to find a gentle lady conquering the branches with her slender feet. The wood below and above her changed to the music of her footfall, stroking a mellifluous tune upon the percussion of its bark. Often did she pause for the tree provided steps that her hands need not take the brunt of acrimony from blood shed in a spindly roof of broken wood.
He stood and upon her last step, offered the pleasure of his hand. She smiled at him, in a mask of excellent proportions. Alterations of beauty beset the surface upon where she stood, and veneration upon the skin she presented. Aragorn bowed to the extent of nobility flowing in her veins.
"Lady Arwen," he intoned, suddenly blessed with a smile he did not entrust to the sea.
"My lord," she said in turn, her skin brightening to shade's opposite that ivory careened from the facets of her smile. "You left verily, without word, while I wrestled with the queries of the court. And here you are." There was no anger upon her, only the calm entitled to rocks under the harsh white of rivers. "Sitting upon a tree with naught to say but my name."
Their smiles widened considerably that Aragorn's throat flooded with laughter so brilliant that another wind stole it away to bear to other lands. His hair flew against his face and his cloak fluttered and sidled across his back and around Arwen's, that almost, 'twas like an embrace, for the warmth his body flowed unto his clothing bathed them both.
"There is…but your name, Undomiel," he whispered gently, as if speaking to the very queen of winds and of high tales from zeniths reached only by currents of air. He added without humor, "My sincerest apologies for your plight."
"Which is all but yours, my lord." She traced the artless course of his jaw and said, "You cannot flee the mischance of Men's frailty for you are not an Elf. Rhythms of dates and centuries shall prove you enemy if you do."
He took her hand from his worn face and, kissing it gently; sighed to face the view he had neglected when he first lay to rest
"'Tis true, what you say. Duty comes as oft it does, and heavier burdens shame the face of peace." He stepped upon a bough, which stemmed from the great appendage they stood upon and in surveying the vast lands of Gondor, quietly brought his thoughts to a halt. He slowly failed to stand, sitting with one foot dangling about the greens.
Arwen joined him, watching the fleeting glide of birds not far upon the horizon, studying the rolling plains and mountains not far away, clothed in gray and blue as the eye tricked the passion of colors. The mists were thin, powerless blankets from the weather the sun brought and little cold eschewed to remain. Soon, the sun was high upon the sky, parallel the flatness of the earth where they sat, seeking passage through the tree's many instruments and shingles. Indeed, a few broke away the thatches and shied away from Arwen's beauty, filling Aragorn's empty flask with warmth.
"I seek little of the path of ease, though I am seduced by it," Aragorn said.
"As all of us are." Their hands tightened about the other and Arwen's fair head rested upon his shoulder. "And I tell you, my lord, that you have proven stronger than most Men…and stronger still than a few Elves, though your strength groans to the level of all my kin. That is good."
"All is good. From the footsteps of evil men to the markings of hallowed ground, I find much to fight for, 'ere the nature of all is steeped in right." He planted a chaste kiss upon her forehead and where his lips left her face; the blessed generosity of a noble man engraved the markings of kindness. Indeed, valor was the mead to a land of bare mounts and bread to the sharp tinge of cheese. 'Twas not a violent thing, for it had its roots in love and lived by it verily.
"Indeed."
The silence provided much for the breezes to work on and they enclosed the two with amicable quilts. Closing their eyes, the music of the lands beyond reached their ears.
There was the gaits of horses in Rohan, the fell repose of woods and rolling hills in hobbit country, and the striking bellows of hammer against steel. Long lost to the ballads the breezes sang was the frail music of Lothlorien, deep and unsure like the very occupants of space and time. Flee upon the wind they did, lost to ears, which heard and contemplated upon mirrors of reality and dreams.
"Have you news of what lies beyond?" Aragorn asked his queen, reading the jewels upon her forehead, for they gleamed and did all to brighten her brow. Her crown was such, that it offered garlands upon the altar of her strength.
"None that grates upon my thinking. Elves don the cloaks of travel and Dwarves marvel at the last sight of veins in their mounts. Hobbits still climb the fortress of cheer and live within. Men…" She met his gaze. "Of Men, their fate is the scouring of each and the harvest of all."
"Life and death, you mean?"
The quiet she provided was enough and the response of crying babes upon a hamlet leagues beyond followed her words. But she spoke, "Such is the price of peace. For what is peace without Men to give it meaning?"
"Was it clear and foretold?"
"No, my lord. Fates are not clear nor are they foretold. Liberty marks the birth of every man and freedom descries his choices. There are cobbles on roads upon which stone has many forms. There are paths that lead to the same hearty source."
"I see." Aragorn plucked a flower from its cranny in the tree's bark, for it had grown there, a horseman in the journey of draughts. He offered it to Arwen who buried her nose unto its silken tresses, then in plucking every petal from its place, set it free to float upon contemplation of its own demise. "There is good in some things and bad in others yet it is not for us to judge quickly the very cycles of all…though it is our calling and oftentimes I wonder if it is rightly so."
"It is yours rightly, for you are anointed for such a task. Thou art a king, Isildur's heir and Gondor's sole judge. Set aright your standard upon a spear." Her hand in his, she pulled him to her feet and led him upon the wooden stairs molded by the tree's graciousness. "Come, there is much to do."
"And much more to learn, I daresay."
She laughed. "Yes, my lord. Much more."
The sun grappled for the last handhold upon the sky and as Arwen's white dress faded from wakefulness, so did the sun's flight crave the chariots of fire.
***
What cheer escapes his eye of every palt'ring hue
Emulating skies of an angry, misty blue
That beholders down, in white, sing the shrouded clue
To all that listen, a faltering, falling few
Ev'ry man veils his sight to cover artful deeds
And on words' account write not of every flesh that bleeds
For tongues shall move to bidding of e'en bending reeds
Oaks shall reel 'gainst winds in which perdition feeds
Oh, what curse howls its dreaded hymn to every man's defeat
That he, in stately flight, shall fight in courage, meet
This plague that spreads full wings of tainted, poisoned heat
To take the festooned throne, this thriving, golden seat!
Courage doth hide behind each man's deluded eye
Fear but weaves the quilt cov'ring every muted cry
Which in petal's hue shall wage war and never sigh
Of sorrow nor charity for the deadly lie
-An Excerpt from "Lies and Equivocation"-
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-The End-