Gerion

Olórin said nothing to this, for the answer came on its own, along with a fine whiff that made the door open itself and lightness stood suddenly on the threshold of Beleg's house. Gerion barely noticed how everyone bowed low, Olórin and Círdan, and Beleg, and Nellas, yet he could not. He could not move.

If Nellas had not been, this was obviously the Maiden. Seven bloody hells, this was the true, true, true Maiden, beautifully sad like a sun-kissed autumn tree, ravishing as a fairytale song, one with eyes that held the agelong wisdom and agelong tenderness. Gerion was scarcely a man prone to tears, both of joy and misery, and he had never deemed his heart a particularly fragile thing, yet such a torrent of emotion flowed over him now, as if he suddenly had stood under a waterfall of them, and he had to fight a ridiculous urge to throw himself at this lady's feet and sob like a little boy.

Something utterly strange also happened and when it was over, Gerion might not be sure whether it had chanced truly or it was just his imagination that had failed him and made a mockery of him...

As the lady watched him, he grasped unexpectedly that they no longer were in Beleg's house, but by a stream so clear it might have known no dirt, its water crystal and humming merrily, the flames of the sun reflecting off it and the gushing droplets glittering like liquid gold reaching Gerion's face, tickling it. He also noticed there was no one beside him anymore, not Beleg and Nellas, and the frightening lords, but he was alone with the Maiden, her beauty burning just by his side, making his whole body and soul burning as well.

"What dost thou conceal inside thy pocket?" the lady asked, her voice barely more than a whisper, soft like the smell of summer fields, yet still tingling in Gerion's head as loudly as a tower bell. He hastily slipped his hand into his pocket, only to discover in astonishment that it was empty, and at the same moment the Maiden reached to the stream and pulled his stone out from it, and raised it between her slender fingers. Gerion stared awhile, wide-eyed. How did it shine now! More than the day he had found it, more than ever, as though the water had polished it or made anew.

"Till now I have asked myself," the lady spoke, her gentle eyes never leaving Gerion's face, studying him thoughtfully, "forwhy him? Now I see. Therefore, keep it." She took his hand, nestled the stone inside a cup of his palm and closed it like a shell. Her touch was featherlike, yet left Gerion shivering nonetheless. "Since it found thee itself, allowed to be tamed and left thee unsullied. There is no desire in thee and haply that is why thou."

'Is there no desire in me?', Gerion highly doubted inwardly and would have laughed was he not dumb in fear and enchantment, and shyness, and this bareness. Yes, his whole being felt so bloody bare before these eyes of hers!

"I desire many things, my lady," that was all he managed to stutter out aloud. He could not take his eyes off the Maiden, and all his erstwhile desires seemed so filthy now, even those childish and ridiculous as when he had dreamed of Tywin falling into a bucket of boiling tar. It seemed to him that he was sinking in mud and this mud was coating his whole body: his legs, his arms and hands, his face, that he had his mouth full of it and might hardly breath.

"Perhaps." The Maiden smiled slightly and so lovely Gerion felt again his eyes get wet and his heart heavy with the intensity of emotions. "Yet thy hands blacken not."

Afterwards, Gerion found himself back in Beleg's room, and at last he remembered himself and also bowed low, and he meant it. So far, there had been little faith in the gods in him, and even less willingness to bow down to them in the sept or anywhere else, and now he meant it, and the realisation left him so utterly befogged and stunned that he might scarcely force himself to move and nod weakly as the lady approached him and asked, "Thou are Gerion, are thou not?"

"Olórin," the Maiden said thereafter, as she turned to the old man and gave him a prolonged look. Gerion might only guessed that there was much more meaning in this look than he could have ever read out of it. Oh, but bloody hells!: he was being so awestruck now he could scarcely understand simple words, let alone meaningful glances of gods!

"Olórin, dost thou bear enough love for me to keep this meeting a secret even from Manwë?" the lady went on in a now quieter and somehow astir voice, her grey-blue as sea waters eyes never leaving the old man's face.

Lord Olórin gave a heavy frown. "Wherefore, my lady?"

"Olórin, dost thou?" she insisted. "If needed," she then shifted her gaze fleetingly over them all in turn, "I may bid them to say not a word of it, although I would do so with unbridled self-loathing, yet thee my will cannot and shall not command."

Olórin looked long at her ere he said at last, bowing slightly once more, "I am thy servant, o lady! And you know I would trust your judgments whatever they may be, and I trust that you alway do what is needed to be done."

It seemed to be enough for the Maiden, for after Olórin's words she moved her gaze towards the window in wistfulness and sighed, in a manner both lightly and lovely. As the lady's eyes were now no longer anywhere near him, Gerion dared to look at her and in the blink of an eye he found himself staring. He was not sure how such beauty might even exist, an ethereal and eerie being drifting between wakefulness and dream, and he also wished the moment would never end, so that he might just swim in it as in a shoreless sea.

"My heart is in fear," the lady said meanwhile.

The old man frowned even more. "What does your heart fear so, lady? It is greatly odd that this Man has come hither without the knowledge or will of thine, I deny that not, yet it was also never said to be thoroughly impossible, albeit stiff. We have for ages wist of that if fate strikes the right Man, with heart and soul free of greed for these lands, he shall manage to reach the shores of the Blessed Realm. Elves even chant prophetic songs of such a Man at times."

"Prophecies," the Maiden said to that, turning her fair head back to him. "Those are what I fear."

"Which prophecies most notably?" lord Olórin asked carefully and suspiciously, yet the lady did not explain clearly, or much too unclearly for Gerion to conceit, "When there are sun and moon no more, and the long night falls."

"I have spoken to Ulmo," she went on thereafter, her eyes again somewhere afar outside the window. "He says the seas are changing, and he says also that whilst waters change, the world and times and nature along with them. That is a process, though, that we have known for not a day, not a century, not an age even, and even Manwë in his great wisdom find it not disturbing enough to deem it a threat. I owe allegiance to his decisions, yet... I do fear, and so does Mandos. I know my brother well and I see clearly that a shadow peeking out from behind the veil of futurity gasts him." She made a pause then, her gaze studying awhile the swallow, a little friend of Nellas, who had perched on the windowsill as she would offtimes do, yet had frozen there now, seemingly bewildered by the meeting with the goddess as well.

"It is the seas that have made the seasons self-willed and fickle in the East and in the world of the Men, it is the seas," the Maiden glanced at Gerion as she continued, and he anon lowered his gaze to flee from the brightness of her eyes, "that have led Gerion hither. Yet what pushes the seas to these? I wot not of."

"Forgive me, lady," Beleg, who had hitherto seemed well nigh as frightened as Gerion himself, dared ask, bowing slightly once more, "but I fathom not. Is not the highest lord Ulmo the king of the seas? Is he not the one who rules them?"

"To an extent, yes," lord Círdan said. "Yet to an extent only. Fools are those who believe a sea may be understood and its waves may be steered. Even lord Ulmo is not capable of that wholly. Nature has been blessed with freedom and a will of its own like all else that lives."

The Maiden gave a little nod and smiled fleetingly and sadly. "Ciryatan speaks wisely and the truth. Our rule is alway only to an extent and nought above it. There is no being bating Eru Ilúvatar whose power is boundless, and there shall never be. And the nature is as free and mighty as it is fragile and nonimmune to ills. Changes in nature may be a cloak of a great evil being born anew in the world, that is what my heart keeps telling me."

Olórin, who had been silent for a long while, listening and thinking deeply, wrinkling still his grey and thick eyebrows, said now, "It shall be my errand to go delve this evil, shall it not, my lady?". And he suddenly seemed impatient, as though staying here any longer, conversing, all at once had become merely a waste of time.

"Yes, Olórin," the Maiden gave another nod, then looked at Gerion. "Yet now I know thou shall not be going alone."

Gerion might be awestruck still, yes, but this he understood all too well. No!, his whole being yelled in despair whilst the lady smiled at him softly, her smile sweeter than honey. No, no, no! I am not coming back!

Ty so much for reading, and Toraach for your reviews, I'm not answering your questions (no spoilers), but they made me smile :)