Disclaimer:I don't own anything to do with LOTR, Enya , or the quote from Gollum's Song that I used in the fic.
This fic was inspired by the title of one of Enya's songs. It's about how elvish dwellings would feel like once the Elves had left Middle Earth. Finishing the books had left me with a really bittersweet, lost feeling and I tried to express that in this fic.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The Memory of Trees
It was so quiet, so still. The scene was frozen in time, a moment captured for all eternity. The moonlight caused soft, silvery reflections to be thrown off the long-abandoned buildings which could be glimpsed not far away.
Buildings which had been dwelt in and built by hands other than those of men. Calm and peaceful even when they had been filled with life, now the same stillness invoked in the abode an eeriness which chilled me.
It was easier to believe they were really there when seen from the corner of the eye, as to look straight at them was more to be looking through them than to be acknowledging their existence.
I looked down into the waters of the pool and seemed to see reflected in it the happenings of centuries. Time had passed over this place, time far longer – and yet briefer – than any mortal could comprehend.
The slightest breeze touched me, and yet it too belonged to the mystical scene. Nature was at its most alive, brightening the cold monuments. The emerald leaves reached out to a sun which had long since set, the grass and creepers could almost be heard growing. The magic surrounding the place had held true for too long to be broken now.
Under the moon shadows moved, shadows which where felt rather than seen. The memory of fair children with long hair caught up in the wind, processions of beings of ethereal beauty never again to be seen in this world.
As I swayed slightly in the non-existent breeze and brushed against a tree, I wondered at the endurance of silent, unmoving creations. The trees had crossed over from that far off time to this, they belonged to both eras, outstaying the departed people, so much older and wiser than humans and who had yet left in order to make way for the age of men.
Once again I touched the rough old bark and I let out a sigh as I tried to hold on to the thought of all that had been lost when that last footfall had echoed through the abandoned green.
How can one ever hope to know and feel and see all that which had taken place there? Such knowledge could never be contained, save in the memory of trees.
Where once was light
Now darkness falls
All around this place, yet not in it, and though the names of its inhabitants are forgotten over time, nothing can erase the fact that once they had been.
I tried to brush off the solitary tear I felt trickling down, but when I touched it, there was nothing there.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hope you liked it! It's open to interpretation but my own interpretaion is that it was one of the trees narrating. Please review to let me know what you think, I crave feedback!(^-^)
