I am SO sorry for the delay- Let's just say that I've been experiencing a
newfound displeasure (for me) that I'd like to call, not writer's block,
but something else. I shall call it- winter, as my muse for living,
growing, green things is dead for this time. I want it to be spring! I want
to smell the rich soil of my garden, see the riot of colors made up of
birds and flowers and plants, hear the gentle summer breeze, and I want to
run barefoot through my back yard without having to worry about getting
frostbite and slipping on the over-abundant ice! Why must it be February?
Whatever happened to carefree summer days without schoolwork or early
mornings?
But I digress.
Disclaimer: I don't profit off of this or the Lord of the Rings- rather, that profits off of me, as I am using all of the money I own to scrape together enough to go see the Return of the King multiple times, which is why this chapter may seem a wee bit influenced.
~*~
Ellen rolled over restlessly. She couldn't sleep, and couldn't pin down the reason *why*. She threw back the covers, sat up, and walked over to her window, suspiciously glaring at the dark corners of her room. She didn't like the dark much. But she couldn't think of anyone her age that did.
She pressed her forehead to the cool windowpane stared out at the road in front of her house. More accurately, she stared at the branches obscuring her view of the road in front of her house. A large gust of wind made the green leaves shiver and shake, rubbing together and rustling with the wind's rhythm. Shhhhh. Shhhh.
She grinned. "Shh yourself!" she murmured softly. Quickbeam had told her that not all of the moving trees were bad. She wasn't sure about that, but she knew the tree in front of her house was pretty safe. That was the first tree she had ever climbed, and it seemed to not mind that she still sat in its branches occasionally. It also didn't seem to mind Ellen had used it for a makeshift ladder, from her window to the ground.
"Don't tell anyone," she had whispered into the trunk the first time she had climbed out her window to its branches. It was a reasonable request, as most trees didn't talk, but Ellen had just wanted to be sure all the same.
Yes, there were several things her mother didn't know about pertaining to trees. She didn't know that Ellen talked to them. She didn't know that Ellen visited with them. And she certainly had no idea at how Ellen had gotten to be so tall for a child her age.
"You're turning into a giraffe!" She had exclaimed one day after Ellen had returned from the forest. She had gotten into another nasty scrape with a tree, and it was an incident she cared not to remember. In fact, she couldn't remember, because she had apparently been hit on the head with a rather large branch. Quickbeam had said that she must have lost her memory, and had given her a draft of Ent draught to take care of the lump on her head.
"Really?" Ellen had asked enthusiastically.
"No, that's just an expression to say you're getting taller. And look," she said, lifting a lock of Ellen's curls, "at your hair! You need another haircut already!" He mother had looked her in the eye and smiled. "I'm not sure I understand how you grow so fast." At that, she had lifted Ellen up, swung her around and had begun to tickle her mercilessly.
Ellen's eyes were getting heavy. She yawned, and then lifted her head from the cool windowpane, rubbing the cold circle on her forehead as she stumbled back into her bed to sleep.
I'll go visit Quickbeam after school tomorrow, she thought blearily as her eyes shut.
~*~
The bulldozers nearby her school didn't catch Ellen's attention at once, as she was too busy talking to her friends on the bus to notice. It was the shriek of an enthusiastic little first-grader that caught her ear.
"COOL!" the little blonde boy shrilled. "LOOKIT THOSE AWESEM TONKAS!"
"Bulldozers," corrected the boy across the aisle from him, who was in fourth grade, automatically giving him a seemingly higher authority on matters such as these. But the first grader didn't hear, as his nose was pressed against the glass, staring (almost hungrily) at the machines.
"Oh no," Ellen whispered. Her stomach clenched as she saw the fence being set up to barricade off the small wood of thick, gnarled trees that stood across the road from her school. She could easily guess what was going to happen.
Ellen turned from the window and sank down in her seat. She had come to hate those tools of destruction, especially when they were used against the more ancient of the trees. Quickbeam had told her that those trees usually "had voices of their own", whatever that meant. She also had learned that many of the nicest trees were very old, too, but there were just as many bad ones. As much as she despised those bad trees, she felt sad at the thought of them being destroyed.
What she really regretted, though, was that she had never had the chance to go into this particular grove. She had meant to, every time she looked out the window of her classroom at it. Now it looked like she would never get the chance to do so.
The hiss of the bus doors opening jerked her from her reverie. The little blond boy shot off the bus, pushing past the people in front of him, and then stood, staring in awe, at the machines. Several other little boys came and joined him. Ellen got off the bus as if she were walking in a horrid dream. The air smelt acrid and unnatural, as smoke billowed and choked from the bulldozers. The restless rustles of the little boys and their excited jabbering about how "awsem" those "Tonkas" were filled her ears, along with the grinding groan of the bus engines and bulldozers.
"What are you building?" called one of the braver first-graders to one of the men standing there.
"Housing complex," shouted the man over the roar of the engines.
Suddenly a loud cracking noise rent the air, and the kids began to cheer as the trees started to topple. The teachers began to herd the children to their classrooms, and the little crowd of kids moaned as they were torn away from the machines. Ellen gladly turned away, not wanting to see the destruction that was already underway.
~*~
Ellen ran down the path, panting and jumping over the branches that had fallen from the wind last night. She had to get to the clearing- she had to see Quickbeam!
The muscles in her legs were screaming, but she didn't listen to them. School had felt so long- much longer than was usual. Just a little further- a bit more- she burst into the clearing. Thankfully, Quickbeam was there. She ran over and clutched at his leg.
"Quickbeam!" she said frantically. "Quickbeam! They're cutting down the trees! The trees across the road in front of my school! They're cutting them down! They had the bulldozers and everything! The man there said they were putting in houses or something like that. I don't want them to do it! Quickbeam?"
Quickbeam looked down at her sadly. "I know, little one," he sighed. "I already know."
"Then why don't you do something?" she cried. "Can't you?"
He said nothing.
"Quickbeam- I liked those trees," she said softly. Ellen began to climb up his leg to get to his branches, but Quickbeam lifted her up and held her for a moment.
"I can't do anything about this, young child," he said.
"But why not?" Ellen asked, frustrated. Quickbeam could do anything! He was an Ent!
Quickbeam sighed again. "There aren't as many Ents as there once were. We can't defend the forests as well from these, buraroom, these tree-killers."
"But-" Ellen stopped suddenly. Something connected in her head that she hadn't thought of before. "Wait- we? There are more of you? But I thought- I thought you were the only Ent!" Her eyes were alight with excitement.
"There were many of us, yes. Then some became, hm, tree-ish, as you may say. As the trees begin to grow to be like us, so do we grow to be like the trees. Come," he said as he put her in his branches. "I have something to show you."
~*~
They walked for a long time. Quickbeam was humming sadly to himself. Ellen began to feel tired, and rather impatient. She rocked back and forth with the swaying of his branches, and was almost asleep when Quickbeam stopped in front of a gnarled tree.
"Hm?" she breathed softly, sat up, and looked around inquisitively. "Er- why are we here?"
Quickbeam gestured towards the tree.
"What?" asked Ellen. "It's just- oh!"
Quickbeam began to hum in his tree-speech, now soft and quiet, now louder, but still keeping a consistent pace. His voice, however, was not consistent, but varied as much as the species of trees. Now it was the voice of an ancient being, now a breath of wind and shuddering brown leaves, now the gentle creak of branches swaying. And the tree answered.
"What is it?" she said in a hushed tone to Quickbeam when it had finished.
"He is an Ent, like me," answered Quickbeam sadly. "Over the years, we become more tree-ish, as the trees become more Entish."
"But- are there any Ents like you left? That can move and talk to people like me?"
"I haven't seen any for- what would seem to you- a long time."
"Does that mean most of the Ents are like this? Are they? Is this why you can't stop us from cutting down trees? Oh, Quickbeam!" Ellen's eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry." She began to quietly cry.
Quickbeam was unused to tears. He had only seen them once before, long ago.
~*~
Quickbeam had been standing outside of his home, listening to the Entmoot continuing in the distance, when he heard a soft sound from behind him. He turned to see what it was and saw that one of the hobbits was sitting up, with tears pouring down his face. Curious, as he had never before seen tears, Quickbeam moved closer to see what was wrong, but stopped when the other hobbit had sat up and seen his companion's distress.
"Pippin!"
There was a sniffle from the other.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, Merry, I was just thinking of what could happen if- if-"
"If the Ents don't go to war?"
"Exactly! What will happen? What could happen to the Shire? Our friends?" here he drew in a shuddering breath, "And Frodo and Sam?" Pippin looked towards Merry, his green eyes watery and sad.
"Oh, Pippin-" Merry broke off suddenly, biting his lip. He seemed to be fighting back his own fears and tears. "Come over here," he said, and Pippin threw himself into Merry's tight embrace.
'This is why I'm going to war,' thought Quickbeam firmly. 'For the little people. For the rowans. For the wellbeing of the innocents.' And with that, he turned back towards the Entmoot.
~*~
Quickbeam stared at Ellen's tears for his people. That meant a lot to him, that she should feel so deeply for his kindred. And he had his sorrows too, sorrows that he had kept back for many a year. Such things should not be bottled up for so long.
Quickbeam threw back his head and howled mournfully, letting out his grief in one long, unearthly wail, his voice echoing and mingling with the small, gasping sobs of the child on his shoulder.
~*~
Right then. Onward!
shirebound: Thank you! You don't know how much it means to me to get reviews from someone like you!
LalaithoftheBrunien: Thanks! Sorry I couldn't update sooner.
littlesaiyangirl: I'm sort of basing this girl on my little brother, a bit. That could explain some of the cuteness!
AB4: Many apologies as to the lack of updates. Thank you!
BoromirDefender: I'm glad it's original! I haven't seen too many stories about Ents, and I thought that they needed a bit of recognition.
Elberethia: I'm a little paranoid of trees too, so I hug them whenever I can to keep them in a good mood. ::grins:: And I'm highly convinced that there are hobbits somewhere out there, or in the very least a few elves a- lingering.
Aislynn Crowdaughter: Don't worry. I don't think I have any plans for Ellen to be blabbing about the Ents. She's too smart a girl to do that- as of now, that is. I'm not sure what she'll be like as she gets older. Yet.
ShireElf: Funny, I salute people all the time- only I say "yes sir!" just to irk them. Irk. I love that word.
Sylence: You're working on a Treebeard story? Cool! And sure, I can give you tips. Ents usually aren't so hasty as Quickbeam is. And they're very slow and not entirely precise, wandering from one subject to another, but still staying on track somehow. Also, their life is nature-centered.
Alc Fluteo: I love the EE of The Two Towers! Have you seen it yet? My favorite parts are with the Ents. ::waves a flag that says "I love Ents!":: But hobbits are cool too. ::is wearing a Merry and Pippin t-shirt::
soul: I wish I could have updated sooner. Sorry!
Reviews are quite welcome. And Precious. Yes, they're very precious to me. My Preciouses!
But I digress.
Disclaimer: I don't profit off of this or the Lord of the Rings- rather, that profits off of me, as I am using all of the money I own to scrape together enough to go see the Return of the King multiple times, which is why this chapter may seem a wee bit influenced.
~*~
Ellen rolled over restlessly. She couldn't sleep, and couldn't pin down the reason *why*. She threw back the covers, sat up, and walked over to her window, suspiciously glaring at the dark corners of her room. She didn't like the dark much. But she couldn't think of anyone her age that did.
She pressed her forehead to the cool windowpane stared out at the road in front of her house. More accurately, she stared at the branches obscuring her view of the road in front of her house. A large gust of wind made the green leaves shiver and shake, rubbing together and rustling with the wind's rhythm. Shhhhh. Shhhh.
She grinned. "Shh yourself!" she murmured softly. Quickbeam had told her that not all of the moving trees were bad. She wasn't sure about that, but she knew the tree in front of her house was pretty safe. That was the first tree she had ever climbed, and it seemed to not mind that she still sat in its branches occasionally. It also didn't seem to mind Ellen had used it for a makeshift ladder, from her window to the ground.
"Don't tell anyone," she had whispered into the trunk the first time she had climbed out her window to its branches. It was a reasonable request, as most trees didn't talk, but Ellen had just wanted to be sure all the same.
Yes, there were several things her mother didn't know about pertaining to trees. She didn't know that Ellen talked to them. She didn't know that Ellen visited with them. And she certainly had no idea at how Ellen had gotten to be so tall for a child her age.
"You're turning into a giraffe!" She had exclaimed one day after Ellen had returned from the forest. She had gotten into another nasty scrape with a tree, and it was an incident she cared not to remember. In fact, she couldn't remember, because she had apparently been hit on the head with a rather large branch. Quickbeam had said that she must have lost her memory, and had given her a draft of Ent draught to take care of the lump on her head.
"Really?" Ellen had asked enthusiastically.
"No, that's just an expression to say you're getting taller. And look," she said, lifting a lock of Ellen's curls, "at your hair! You need another haircut already!" He mother had looked her in the eye and smiled. "I'm not sure I understand how you grow so fast." At that, she had lifted Ellen up, swung her around and had begun to tickle her mercilessly.
Ellen's eyes were getting heavy. She yawned, and then lifted her head from the cool windowpane, rubbing the cold circle on her forehead as she stumbled back into her bed to sleep.
I'll go visit Quickbeam after school tomorrow, she thought blearily as her eyes shut.
~*~
The bulldozers nearby her school didn't catch Ellen's attention at once, as she was too busy talking to her friends on the bus to notice. It was the shriek of an enthusiastic little first-grader that caught her ear.
"COOL!" the little blonde boy shrilled. "LOOKIT THOSE AWESEM TONKAS!"
"Bulldozers," corrected the boy across the aisle from him, who was in fourth grade, automatically giving him a seemingly higher authority on matters such as these. But the first grader didn't hear, as his nose was pressed against the glass, staring (almost hungrily) at the machines.
"Oh no," Ellen whispered. Her stomach clenched as she saw the fence being set up to barricade off the small wood of thick, gnarled trees that stood across the road from her school. She could easily guess what was going to happen.
Ellen turned from the window and sank down in her seat. She had come to hate those tools of destruction, especially when they were used against the more ancient of the trees. Quickbeam had told her that those trees usually "had voices of their own", whatever that meant. She also had learned that many of the nicest trees were very old, too, but there were just as many bad ones. As much as she despised those bad trees, she felt sad at the thought of them being destroyed.
What she really regretted, though, was that she had never had the chance to go into this particular grove. She had meant to, every time she looked out the window of her classroom at it. Now it looked like she would never get the chance to do so.
The hiss of the bus doors opening jerked her from her reverie. The little blond boy shot off the bus, pushing past the people in front of him, and then stood, staring in awe, at the machines. Several other little boys came and joined him. Ellen got off the bus as if she were walking in a horrid dream. The air smelt acrid and unnatural, as smoke billowed and choked from the bulldozers. The restless rustles of the little boys and their excited jabbering about how "awsem" those "Tonkas" were filled her ears, along with the grinding groan of the bus engines and bulldozers.
"What are you building?" called one of the braver first-graders to one of the men standing there.
"Housing complex," shouted the man over the roar of the engines.
Suddenly a loud cracking noise rent the air, and the kids began to cheer as the trees started to topple. The teachers began to herd the children to their classrooms, and the little crowd of kids moaned as they were torn away from the machines. Ellen gladly turned away, not wanting to see the destruction that was already underway.
~*~
Ellen ran down the path, panting and jumping over the branches that had fallen from the wind last night. She had to get to the clearing- she had to see Quickbeam!
The muscles in her legs were screaming, but she didn't listen to them. School had felt so long- much longer than was usual. Just a little further- a bit more- she burst into the clearing. Thankfully, Quickbeam was there. She ran over and clutched at his leg.
"Quickbeam!" she said frantically. "Quickbeam! They're cutting down the trees! The trees across the road in front of my school! They're cutting them down! They had the bulldozers and everything! The man there said they were putting in houses or something like that. I don't want them to do it! Quickbeam?"
Quickbeam looked down at her sadly. "I know, little one," he sighed. "I already know."
"Then why don't you do something?" she cried. "Can't you?"
He said nothing.
"Quickbeam- I liked those trees," she said softly. Ellen began to climb up his leg to get to his branches, but Quickbeam lifted her up and held her for a moment.
"I can't do anything about this, young child," he said.
"But why not?" Ellen asked, frustrated. Quickbeam could do anything! He was an Ent!
Quickbeam sighed again. "There aren't as many Ents as there once were. We can't defend the forests as well from these, buraroom, these tree-killers."
"But-" Ellen stopped suddenly. Something connected in her head that she hadn't thought of before. "Wait- we? There are more of you? But I thought- I thought you were the only Ent!" Her eyes were alight with excitement.
"There were many of us, yes. Then some became, hm, tree-ish, as you may say. As the trees begin to grow to be like us, so do we grow to be like the trees. Come," he said as he put her in his branches. "I have something to show you."
~*~
They walked for a long time. Quickbeam was humming sadly to himself. Ellen began to feel tired, and rather impatient. She rocked back and forth with the swaying of his branches, and was almost asleep when Quickbeam stopped in front of a gnarled tree.
"Hm?" she breathed softly, sat up, and looked around inquisitively. "Er- why are we here?"
Quickbeam gestured towards the tree.
"What?" asked Ellen. "It's just- oh!"
Quickbeam began to hum in his tree-speech, now soft and quiet, now louder, but still keeping a consistent pace. His voice, however, was not consistent, but varied as much as the species of trees. Now it was the voice of an ancient being, now a breath of wind and shuddering brown leaves, now the gentle creak of branches swaying. And the tree answered.
"What is it?" she said in a hushed tone to Quickbeam when it had finished.
"He is an Ent, like me," answered Quickbeam sadly. "Over the years, we become more tree-ish, as the trees become more Entish."
"But- are there any Ents like you left? That can move and talk to people like me?"
"I haven't seen any for- what would seem to you- a long time."
"Does that mean most of the Ents are like this? Are they? Is this why you can't stop us from cutting down trees? Oh, Quickbeam!" Ellen's eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry." She began to quietly cry.
Quickbeam was unused to tears. He had only seen them once before, long ago.
~*~
Quickbeam had been standing outside of his home, listening to the Entmoot continuing in the distance, when he heard a soft sound from behind him. He turned to see what it was and saw that one of the hobbits was sitting up, with tears pouring down his face. Curious, as he had never before seen tears, Quickbeam moved closer to see what was wrong, but stopped when the other hobbit had sat up and seen his companion's distress.
"Pippin!"
There was a sniffle from the other.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, Merry, I was just thinking of what could happen if- if-"
"If the Ents don't go to war?"
"Exactly! What will happen? What could happen to the Shire? Our friends?" here he drew in a shuddering breath, "And Frodo and Sam?" Pippin looked towards Merry, his green eyes watery and sad.
"Oh, Pippin-" Merry broke off suddenly, biting his lip. He seemed to be fighting back his own fears and tears. "Come over here," he said, and Pippin threw himself into Merry's tight embrace.
'This is why I'm going to war,' thought Quickbeam firmly. 'For the little people. For the rowans. For the wellbeing of the innocents.' And with that, he turned back towards the Entmoot.
~*~
Quickbeam stared at Ellen's tears for his people. That meant a lot to him, that she should feel so deeply for his kindred. And he had his sorrows too, sorrows that he had kept back for many a year. Such things should not be bottled up for so long.
Quickbeam threw back his head and howled mournfully, letting out his grief in one long, unearthly wail, his voice echoing and mingling with the small, gasping sobs of the child on his shoulder.
~*~
Right then. Onward!
shirebound: Thank you! You don't know how much it means to me to get reviews from someone like you!
LalaithoftheBrunien: Thanks! Sorry I couldn't update sooner.
littlesaiyangirl: I'm sort of basing this girl on my little brother, a bit. That could explain some of the cuteness!
AB4: Many apologies as to the lack of updates. Thank you!
BoromirDefender: I'm glad it's original! I haven't seen too many stories about Ents, and I thought that they needed a bit of recognition.
Elberethia: I'm a little paranoid of trees too, so I hug them whenever I can to keep them in a good mood. ::grins:: And I'm highly convinced that there are hobbits somewhere out there, or in the very least a few elves a- lingering.
Aislynn Crowdaughter: Don't worry. I don't think I have any plans for Ellen to be blabbing about the Ents. She's too smart a girl to do that- as of now, that is. I'm not sure what she'll be like as she gets older. Yet.
ShireElf: Funny, I salute people all the time- only I say "yes sir!" just to irk them. Irk. I love that word.
Sylence: You're working on a Treebeard story? Cool! And sure, I can give you tips. Ents usually aren't so hasty as Quickbeam is. And they're very slow and not entirely precise, wandering from one subject to another, but still staying on track somehow. Also, their life is nature-centered.
Alc Fluteo: I love the EE of The Two Towers! Have you seen it yet? My favorite parts are with the Ents. ::waves a flag that says "I love Ents!":: But hobbits are cool too. ::is wearing a Merry and Pippin t-shirt::
soul: I wish I could have updated sooner. Sorry!
Reviews are quite welcome. And Precious. Yes, they're very precious to me. My Preciouses!
