Entry for CJ_Callahan Gandalf's Challenge, Season Two

Word count: 3,275 words

Cover by Stars_Alight

Her eyes looked wonderingly at the small plant that has sprouted out of her small, child size garden. It was strange to her young and inexperienced hands, but naneth had told her not to harm it. To leave it be. "Trees are sacred," naneth had explained gently. "This one is no exception, for it has decided to spring up where you have watered the ground and grown your flowers. Trees do not make decisions lightly."

And so she let the tree grow. In the middle of her small fenced plot of land, where she tended the soil and kept the more invasive parts of the forest out, the little tree nurtured its leaves under her careful watch. The little one seemed confused at why a tree would choose her land to grow in, but soon accepted, with that innocent kindness only a child can give, that the tree was not moving and therefore she would care for it, no matter the circumstances.

Her naneth and adar watched her from their home in the wide, grand forest of Mirkwood. She was a petite being, a flitting figure busy in her own corner of the world, working among the plants  she knew and loved.

In her tiny, sprouting garden there was thyme, sage and basil. She grew the herbs because she loved the smell they emitted when the wind blew, catching the leaves and swirling the spice smell in through her bedroom window. She also grew elanor flowers, with chrysalis vines trailing on her fence. They spread everywhere, and her little toes would get hopelessly tangled in the vines.

Butterflies and tiny animal friends would come to visit, alighting on her flowers or snuggling under the leaves of the tree that was steadily growing taller. The child was their friend, another creature of the woodland to live in harmony with.

She remembered the day she first saw those curious eyes of his. Running in the street, playing with the older children. The village people spoke of him in hushed whispers, bowing whenever he was near. They said he was a prince. A prince! It couldn't be any closer to the truth, for he commanded respect that his guileless heart could not fathom, and he was as light and free as a bird. His blonde hair shown like a crown though he wore none. She thought him a strange child, nothing like her and indeed he was not.

He was running straight towards her, bouncing a ball he had. He looked up, his eyes and face in mid-laugh and she stared back, her tiny fingers gripping the fence between them. Her smudged face looked wonderingly into his.

He looked down and shuffled his feet, gripping the ball in his hands. "Good morning," he said quietly.

"Good morning." She had quickly lost some of her initial curiousity. "Why does your hair look so strange, ellon?"

He frowned at her and instinctively patted his head as if checking to make sure nothing had happened to it. "It's not strange," he growled. "My hair grows like this because my ada has this hair."

"Oh." She frowned. "Your ada must be strange."

"He is not strange!" He scowled, looking peeved. "He is the king."

"Your father can't be king." She giggled, her face crinkling into a wreath of smiles. "The king lives far away, naneth said so."

"He is the king!" He insisted, making her dissolve into giggles again. He glared at her, baffled. "I came here with my father to watch the warriors." He puffed out his small chest, standing as straight as he could. "Ada says I am going to be a great commander someday, so I must watch and learn."

The little gardener only smiled and reached through the fence to squeeze his hand. "Keep dreaming, ellon." She waved at him then and scurried back to her plants, letting him stand there staring until he shrugged and left also.

In all that time of her childhood, life was as magical as the moon. Time trailed steadily onward, bringing small, new pleasures every day to the small garden. The tree grew taller than her by the time she was an older child, capable of caring for larger and more important things. Soon her family entrusted her with some of their livelihood, and she undertook the job of herb mistress in her community.

The sun and stars and quaint sounds of laughter and joy were like a passing wave in her life...all too soon everything would change. For there is a larger world that happens outside the corners, and all too soon the world decides to disrupt the pattern of the innocent and youthful.

She remembers the sorrowful, tear-stained face of her naneth as she had watched her ada walk away to war. At least that's what her naneth had said on that dew-filled morning. The wind was breathing chilly air on her face as the figure of her father disappeared into the morning fog. She felt a small piece slip out of her life then, but the tiny feeling stayed far away, pushed to the back of her life as she continued growing with her garden. She observed her tree day by day, and yet could never tell the type of tree it was. It was curious, different in a way she couldn't describe.

It was close to dusk one summer day when she heard a step outside her gate. She turned, her brown locks askew from getting caught in a new prickle bush she was attempting to grow. Her surprise grew when the ellon of many summers ago stood there, taller than her and with a small bow in his hand. His form was stronger, leaner. He looked to be on the cusp of adulthood, just as she was.

"It's you again," She stated calmly, brushing her hands off as she neared the fence. She smiled as the worn fence gate creaked a little as she leaned on it. The wood wasn't as young as it used to be.

She studied the ellon carefully. She knew his name now, his station. His entire bearing was of royalty and intelligence, yet open and frank in his distinguished face.

The ellon nodded, watching her. "Elleth, do you still consider my hair strange?" A corner of his mouth lifted upwards at her laugh.

"Even if I did, Prince Thranduil, I would not tell you, for fear of injuring your princely pride." She smiled as he mock-bowed. He laughed merrily and she joined him, feeling no qualms about insulting the future heir of the Woodland Realm.

"You have much more respect, though it still lacks some, than the first time I met you," he paused, "perhaps the next time I see you, I shall inform you of my promotion to elven warrior just as I vowed I would be as a child. Then you shall not laugh."

She smiled demurely, pushing her hair behind her ears as she turned away. "Keep dreaming, my prince." His boisterous laugh once again followed her as she disappeared back into her garden which had grown with her years.

That was the last she saw of Prince Thranduil for many centuries. She grew still wiser and more mature, her tree keeping a steady watch over her garden as it grew larger with her. Strangely, the outside world never invaded her garden as long as the tree stood in the center. Had she not allowed it to grow, the thick, greedy brambles of the forest would have tried to ensnare her home.

The elleth's life grew harder as she grew older. Her naneth, weary with time and continued separation from her ada, joined him on the battlefront, which grew closer and more troubling to our heroine's heart day by day. When her mother left another piece slipped out of her life. This time, she knew with the queer, intuitive finality only an elven feä can give, that she would see neither of the pieces again.

She tarried away in her garden, season by season, year by year, bringing aid to the weary travelers that stopped by her gate. The village near by had long since faded into the forest, as the wood elves have a habit of doing. They had asked her to accompany them to a new home, and she had smiled softly and looked at the tree, her garden. "Nay," she whispered, "the tree guards me, so must I also guard this garden."

It seemed strange to passing travelers and warriors returning from deployment that a single elleth would choose to live alone in the wood. Yet those whom she assisted and cared for inside her garden told a special tale of a sweet, herbal essence and light aura flowing from the tree inside her garden that soothed them and assisted their rest. "A spirit of the forest," they would say in awe of the garden. "There is a spirit of the forest living there."

Spirit of the forest or no, the garden continued growing with the years. There were little changes, yet our heroine never grew tired of her own little corner in the vast world she lived in.

One fall day, a vast noise of a traveling company fell upon her ears as she rested underneath her tree. She looked up curiously as the tree above her quivered as if in excitement. Slowly, as her eyes did not deceive her, the tree seemed to reach its leaves towards the noise, as if greeting someone coming in it.

She stood up, cautiously, and beheld a caravan, royal and resplendent in color and ornament. She knew immediately when she saw the ellon at the front of the caravan that it was the strange ellon, her prince and ruler. She watched calmly from the gate as the caravan made to pass her. The face of the prince was turned to an elleth riding a beautiful steed at his side, her beautiful face wreathed in smiles and blushes. The prince brushed a piece of her hair out of her face, and the elleth laughed at something he said. Our heroine watched calmly, taking everything in how she always had, silently.

At the last moment he turned and looked upon her there, and he shouted with surprise, stopping the caravan. He swiftly dismounted and ran towards the garden, stopping at the white fence like he had so many years before.

They stood in silence, regarding each other. "Prince Thranduil." She greeted him softly, watching his eyes widen with surprise.

"I recognize your voice," he exclaimed, "it is indeed the voice of the garden elleth who called my hair strange so many years ago. You have not changed that much."

She smiled then. "But you have, my prince." She gestured to his caravan, the wife awaiting behind him. "You have grown into what you were called to be."

He nodded.

Then she smiled mirthfully. "But are you a warrior, my prince?"

A broad grin grew on his face, and a laugh spilled from his lips as he placed a hand on his sword, glittering by his side. "Indeed I am, elleth. Captain of my king's guard." He frowned. "What is your name? I have made a grave mistake in not learning it."

She played with a vine growing on the fence. "My name," she began, softly so that he bent down to catch the words, "is not important to me, nor to my garden." She looked up, her eyes glittering. "The forest cares not what my name is, for it is not the name that matters, it is the pure heart of the feä." She looked behind her and smiled at the tree, standing steady like it always had. "Many storms have I weathered out here in the dark, and the forest has never failed me, even though it knows not my name. Therefore it is not important for you to know it, my lord," she finished, watching his eyes widen at her thoughts.

He stood unsure for a moment, regarding her carefully, his silver blue eyes searching her face. "You're right," he said finally, looking down at the vines that had swiftly climbed their way to wrap around his fingers. She watched the tall prince tenderly caress the young buds, and she knew that he understood. He was one with the forest, for it had chosen him.

She stayed silent until the prince had departed once more with his people, his face thoughtful and contemplative. It was strange, how he would appear and depart like the wind came and went. Yet she stayed steady, willing to take everything in stride.

Yet tides turned as quickly as they came.

The whispers of war grew slowly louder till they became a roar, shudders hurling through the trees by night and shaking the ground by day. The refugees came by the steady flow, their eyes seeking places far away that only their kin could find. Droves of warriors passed by in winds of shouting and dust, bringing news to and from the battlefront.

With the roar of war came sneaking darkness in the night. Shadows of strong men lurked in the garden at night, and even her faithful care could not keep them away. The men were strong, afraid and cowardly, running from something they could not control. Often she would wake to find the white fence that had served as a wall to the outside world broken and bent, and her herbal works of art smashed and stolen. The ground would be ripped up and only a few stems of the most delicate of her plants remained.

Her tears watered the earth during this time. Whenever a plant broke under the heedless feet of those who came to steal, her heart broke with it, carrying away more pieces like a swollen river carries leaves. Then came the day when her tree itself groaned under the pain of an axe, and a branch had disappeared entirely.

She felt it that day, the two large pieces which had left her long ago, the ones she had adored, the ones who had raised her, were no more. Ada and naneth would never return from the war.

The heat of summer came, and she toiled on still, her vision clouded by sadness. The plants grew back slowly under her care, though the dark thieves still came in the night. But there is a stubbornness in the gentlest of hearts, that even the most courageous cannot fathom. And the tree still stood tall, a guardian of that which lay below it. Whenever our heroine raised her eyes to it, she found new hope in her heart.

At last the war drew away. The final battle would be fought elsewhere, leagues upon leagues southward. And the thieves stopped coming, the refugees did not flee. The forest was quiet once more.

It was late one night at the end of summer when she lay drowsing upon the largest root of her tree. Her eyes were closed, her dark eyelashes fanned onto her cheeks, but her mind wandered through the paths of dreams.

It was in that night that a wind passed through, so great her tree bent nearly double, bowing before the presence of the great wind. It left nothing harmed, yet the roots of every living thing in the forest trembled with its force. And in the dreams that she walked, a tall ellon stood, his brow shining with a crown, his form proud. He appeared and passed in a moment, leaving a sense of loss in her heart. A king of the Wood had walked his road, and had returned across the Sea.

It was only the next night she stood awake by the fence, watching the stars overhead, listening to the heartbreaking song the trees seemed to sing. The stars had no sign for her, as the king was not of the stars, but of the earth. And it was then she felt a presence on the path outside her fence and beheld the prince, the ellon with the strange hair, standing there.

His head was dropped, his sword unsheathed, bloodied and low. His armor, for that was what shone with the moonlight, was dented and worn. Then their eyes met as he looked up.

It was like staring into two different worlds. His eyes were haunted, burden and scarred with the things he had seen. Hers were wet with tears, but patient ones, saddened ones. She could not bear the hurt in his, yet her heart pounded within her as the trees swirled around him and he lifted his arms, letting the wind blow him onto his knees.

Here was the new king, crowned by the earth and yet broken, just as the forest was. Here was the ruler they needed, one to mend them and fix the damage the war with darkness had done. And as she slowly knelt on the dirt of her garden, she knew that the forest was safe now.

His spirit would guard it.

That was indeed the last time she saw the King of the Wood. Her feä had wearied from the war against the darkness that had entered her own corner of the world, and she finally lifted her eyes to the top of her tree and beheld leaves falling from its branches.

Just as she was slowly giving up, so did her tree.

Seeing this, she carefully pulled up the white picket fence day by day. Her  calloused hands removed all the covering vines and her eyes watched as tiny trails of the forest reached to claim what was hers.

And then the day came when she reached for the lowest branch of her tree and pulled herself up, watching the sky above the entire time.

She would see the world.

Up, up she pulled herself, the tree bending carefully to her unsteady feet, cradling her as she slipped again and again, her body giving way to her feä. She would lift her eyes to see what she had never wanted to; her inner being longed to feel the freedom of the air above the trees.

As she reached the top, a free, playful wind tossed her brown locks into the air and a butterfly startled at her gentle touch. The tips of the leaves shone gold in the evening light, and her dim eyes sparkled once again as she looked out over leagues of forest ocean. Her eyes reverently followed an eagle as it screamed across the sky.

Her forest, the land of her people, stretched on for miles. Unceasing, unchanging, and it seemed to overwhelm the earth and cover it in its viridescent blanket. Far away, above the blue haze, stood the great mountains, the ones she had only heard tales of, never seen with her own eyes.

She sighed happily, and her spirit hummed as she sank back into the leaves. The tree seemed to wrap around her as the song of the forest lulled her into sleep.

It was time to let go.

And not hours later a small, tiny drift of wind carried a laugh upon its shoulders as it disappeared into the air above the earth.

And the tree soon lost its leaves and grew quiet, yet the ground within its reach was always left bare, the forest never touching it.

Time had given and time had taken, and the forest would continue on, holding the memory of the garden that had persevered through the years, bringing peace and calm to all who found it.

Medui galas.