Tolkien Fan Fiction
| 90 |
| Innocence |
Tari asked for Elves – several by name, none of whom wanted to talk. Fortunately, she also said "any Elves from the First Age on", at which point I got un-stuck. |
| As a child, she listened—to kings and counselors, hounds and horses, bees and beetles; to wind and heat, snowfall and seductive waters. To music. To her mother. Long she listened, then one day, spoke—and the world trembled. For she spoke mountains. Beauty. Fire. Passion. Sleep—that between life and death that makes souls rise from flesh. Then Melian took her daughter by the hand, and kissed her mouth, and proclaimed: "Lúthien thou art indeed, but no Child was born to speak so. In Silence forget thyself, therefore, until comes the better forgetting, when thou shalt Speak once more!" |
"Lúthien thou art"—'Lúthien' means 'enchantress.' Given that she was possessed eventually by some divine spark and moved Mandos to pity, I have this image of a precocious child bringing down storms just by singing about them in this intensely polyphonic voice until mommy was forced to intervene on behalf of the world. |