In the Forest Singing Sorrowless

by Eruanna

Midnight hair and gentle grey eyes, light in darkness glimmering. The light of the moon falls upon her, bathed in radiance and crowned with stars, and she is singing, her voice like light falling from the heavens, mingling with the water-music of his harp. There is a brilliance in those grey eyes, and a keenness of glance that breaks his heart, as it has a thousand times before.

Stars above, and a star below, dancing.

~*~*~

It is dark here now, and the shadows are all around him. He does not think he will escape this time. There is a glimmer of fell eyes in the darkness. He sits unmoving, face turned to the sky, waiting. A single star is shining through the massed clouds. He remembers another star, dancing on the dewy grass, and almost he could weep, if only there were any tears left. But the star passed long ago from the world, and even the grass and the great wood where she danced are buried now under the waves.

For he knows what has happened to her, now. Even a wanderer in deepest shadow could not but know—the lays are sung in every habitation and in every tongue in the West of Middle-earth. And there are lays now even about her descendents. He is glad, in a way, for though he did not find her, she was not lost as he had feared. And yet, he had failed, and she is lost to him now for ever.

The shadows are closer still, dark and silent. He sees the cold glint of a fell blade, wrought with many spells. Scorning that deadly gleam, he turns his head and takes up his harp.

The first notes are faint and filled with a melancholy sorrow. But there is a beauty in them, too, unsurpassed by any of the songs of Middle-earth, and of those sung in Valinor passed only by that which she herself made, weeping before the throne of the Doom-sayer. He knows the lays well—and how should he not, for the greatest of them he himself wrought.

~*~*~

…and suddenly she began to sing. Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world…*

~*~*~

The shadows stop. There is a low hiss, like the last breath of a dying man, but dark too, and filled with anger. He thinks that they do not like the music.

The sky is turning grey. He wonders why it is that they wait, for already it grows less dark. But now the world is in half-light and haze, and he can see them less well. He does not know how many there are, but he thinks that they are all round him.

He closes his eyes, and remembers when the shadows held no terror for him, when all the world was in twilight before ever the first dawn arose, and the darkness served only to increase the splendour of her light, a brilliant star glimmering beneath the trees. He remembers how he used to play for her, and the way she would dance, gleaming and whirling, a spark of light casting her radiance on the dim earth and making it beautiful beyond words. He remembers when night and shadow were no more than words that might do poor justice to the glory of her hair.

They are closing again. He pictures her standing there beside him, and as he strikes the harp he sees her, luminous in the uncertain grey before morn, and he hears her sing.

With no words could he ever describe her song, even he, who is accounted greatest of the minstrels of Arda.

If she were here, these shadows would fail before the glory of her song. But she is gone, and his music now has not the strength.

In the distance, piercing clear in the gloaming, the song of a lark sounds.

He closes his eyes, and a single tear wets the now silent harp string.

The circle of shadows closes.

He smiles.

Far off to the East, beyond the walls of the world, the sun is rising.