'Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,

And by the strand of Ilmarïn there grew a golden Tree.'

- The Lord of the Rings

JRR Tolkien

~

Journey

For Cirdan

- Part one

"My Queen?"

She entered the room cautiously, afraid of something she could not quite place. Even the warm smile she received did not put her at ease.

Hesitant, her step faltered as she closed the door gently behind her, betraying her to the buzzing presence in the room.

Buzzing? Where did that come from?

The Queen had been described by many words before, but certainly, she thought, it was the first time anyone had applied to her the adjective of 'buzzing'.

It was surely the way she felt it, having crossed the threshold, as she was immediately assailed by the troubled consciousness of a presence, the unavoidable awareness of the being that sat in the chair. It was warmth, and it was a golden warmth, a rich, bright, satisfying golden warmth; somehow fulfilling and annihilating all self-conscious desires and notions of will; insinuating and lovely and surrounding and kind all rolled into one, hazy yet intense and already dying.

"My Queen."  She repeated, momentarily out of breath for the effort of standing up to the sudden impact of the Lady's spirit. A shock she had almost forgotten, for the spinning of her head and the beating of her heart. One that could, it had been rumoured, make fall to their knees the hardest-hearted of the elves of Beleriand, hunters and assassins, slaves already half-turned, with the single draft of a smile.

And she who had never before wavered under the gentle gaze…

"Yes. What do you want, child?" Child. And she had never called her anything but child, however offended the young girl she was had been by the appellation.

But every passing second seemed to drain her of her strength, and, at last realising that she would be able to stand no longer on her weakening knees, in four steps she was standing in front of the radiant lady, and stooping to the ground, rested her forehead in the Queen's palms in a gesture of submission.

"Your benediction."

Then a gentle shiver –oh! almost imperceptible- shook the pair of white hands she held, and the charm broke over the place and turned the molten gold into bare air then into silence. She felt then that the woman whose hands she held at that moment was no more than that, a woman; but she did not dare look up.

"Yet the lands outside are dangerous, and once you have set a foot outside the Girdle my power will be able to give you aid no more."

Cautiously, she raised her eyes. The smile from the divine face was gone, leaving only a pair of deep, grey eyes, unreadable for too heavily burdened by numerous ages of joys and grieves.

"Only your benediction."

And it is said that Time is a factor perceived differently by immortal souls as by mortal ones. A millennia to the Firstborn children can be as elusive as a fleeting season, while for the Firimar it means a hundred deaths and more. Understanding of Time can also be a very personal matter. Sometimes a decade can pass like a single second, and sometimes like an eternity.

Sometimes.

It probably did not, she assumed, account for the century that lapsed away before at last the Queen eased down and placed a light kiss between her brows.

~

She knew that, after the Nirnaeth, the lands outside were strewn with Orcs, more dangerous than they had ever been before. Hardly had one left the relative security of Doriath for half a day that one could still hope to be alive. Companies went forth, with the swiftest horses and the surest swords, hunters went forth, the best archers of the land, lone seekers and madmen went forth one day or another, and few ever  returned. Few up to one, or two, and one up to none.

None returned and none left. The people of Menegroth lived enclosed, voluntary prisoners behind the secure magic of their Queen. There was no law, no real law; but unspoken as it was, it was known among the denizens better than any decree of the King, and feared with a dread they could not name.

Then Tumhalad had past, so of the mighty elven kingdoms of the Age, remained only the Girdle of Melian, and a faint rumour of a City in the South, a name, a shadow: Turgon, the Hidden King, who dwelt somewhere still with a people and a host.

Yet for now, no one, it was felt, could be trusted to be let out in the wild, in the mere outskirts of the kingdom, one day's travels from the heart of the City. Those who returned, were shunned, would it be only because they never should have, and distrusted ever then; those who did not were mourned, and promptly forgotten by those who wished to. Even within the woven walls of the Girdle, there was no faith among the people, and under her wary eyes the shadows lengthened fey.

She left alone, before the dawn, with only her horse, her sword, and enough lembas to survive for a month.

~