Shards in a Dustpan

by CrackinAndProudOfIt

Third Age, LotR-centric drabbles and vignettes from B2MeM12, feature many genres and characters, from Aragorn toward Caradhras, to Frodo post-Quest, to the tragic past of Denethor, to everything before, behind, and in-between! Very bookverse.

6. The Treegarth of Orthanc

Bingo #: N36

Prompt: green

He inhales; there is nothing that can compare with the aroma of the beeches in leaf, the dogwoods in blossom, the green creeping back to the oak's ancient boughs. What once was the funeral pyre of these very trees' kin has become a silvan paradise.

But he remembers. Though the earth itself, rent and wounded as it had been with the pockmarks of industrial caverns, may begin to forget, healed by the gentle roots of the orchard he beseeched now so long ago to dwell there, he will never allow himself to unlearn all that occurred so that this vale could have peace once more.

Beautiful, natural, tranquil, free: the Tree-garth of Orthanc.