| Tell a story in the form of a love letter.
22 November, 1820 of the Third Age of Middle Earth
My Beloved Ranger,
How I long for you…your strength and tender mercies catch my hair in the wind, sending my heart into the distant lands to where you fly tonight under the stars of your dreams. How I pray that your dreams contain thoughts of me…
Every day is chilled, like the blood of a corpse, when you are not home. The sun shines little, the stars loose their magnificent beauty, the moon sings a song of sorrow, and my heart is weary with the absence of your touch. Father has spoken harsh words to me, bidding me to cloth myself once more in the colors of the elves and forget the world of mortal man, but I cannot. He does not understand my heart lies in your keeping. There is no turning back for me now. You have taken my song by surprise, turning it from the melody of loneliness and dreams spoken to faithful stars, to a song of waters that run pure and deep through a dessert land, of golden elanor blossoms alive on a carpet of green, of the jewels set in your eyes that shine brighter than the ring upon your finger. The ring that holds your fate…the sign of your descendants…of the kings of old who have gone before you and now leave the burden of man upon your shoulders. Yes, my Love, I sing of you. Mother knows of the nights I lay on the hilltop where you and I once stood, and pledged our eternal love. Now as I lie on the dark green grass, and the birds of morning rest in silence as the nightingale sings, the stars shine on my tears…Where once I danced alone, now my dance is full of your memory, your brown eyes that run deeper than the treachery of Valinor, deeper than the evil of the Dark Lord, as pure as the light of the Two Trees, white as the blossoms of the sleeping tree in the courtyard of Gondor, your home. I will forsake my eternal life for one more touch of you lips across mine, for one more feel of your fingers entangled in my hair…
Do you remember the day we met, in the winter of the Great Breath Stilled? All seemed to be wrapped in a chill unknown by any in this world. Warmth was something of a memory, any color besides that of the white blanket that froze the ground and the silver trees of Lothlorien, blooming even though the air felt like a sheet of ice, still and cold, able to shatter at the slightest noise. You came to the land of my Father, far from your home. As I was singing at the river, glazed over and sparkling in the cold light of the sun, my voice caught your ear. You followed the sound of what, you did not know…I heard no noise as you came and stood not but ten yards away, but I felt your gaze upon my face, beholding the way I sat upon a rock, the way my hands twirled a silver blossom in my bare fingers, cold from the bite of the wind, the way my hair fell across my shoulders, clothed in a deep grey to blend in with the paleness of the world. I halted in my song, and turned my eyes to you…from that moment, I was taken. By your kind smile as your eyes locked into mine, by the way your cloak draped from broad, lovely shoulders, warming arms of a strength that flushed a hint of rose through my cheeks…I remember you, still looking in my eyes, as though I was the first yours had ever seen, standing tall and skilled in the ways of the woods, of the seas, of caves, of the road less traveled. I remember you walking towards me, reaching your gloved hands out toward mine, and as you bent down to your knees, you took mine in yours, the warmth of your skin beneath the worn leather heating my entire being…you took the flower from my fingers and gently placed it behind my ear, pushing my hair back as you did so, letting your fingers trail my hair and down the side of my face, for just a second. And that second was enough…We stood, together, and you wrapped your cloak around me, pulling it tight, your arms around my back. We stood like that, before the waters, in the presence of Iluvatar alone, for days, neither one of us noticing the grass slowly turning green underneath our feet. The trees around us began to bloom in rich red blossoms and burst with color as though spring had finally come, and the river began to flow with the pulsing of life. At last, I reached up for the pendent around my neck…the one given to me at birth, a sign of my eternal life…an eagle made of the last remaining Silmarill, a stone of surpassing beauty and clear as the stars...eyes set aflame by rubies of the deepest red ever known to the Earth, carried across the sea from the Undying Lands by those exiled so many years ago…and as I placed it around your neck, I said to you, “Here I give to you, Ranger of the North, Heir to the Throne…my eternal life in exchange for sitting beside you, for as long as we both shall live. If you shall have my love, I offer it to you, for you are the Keeper of my heart” And in response, you fell softly into my eyes once more, taking me deeper into yours…the words formed by your lips pierced the air like a flow of warm and healing rain, flowing through my soul with the sweetness of honey…”I shall have your love, Princess...(will take your life now, and care for you, and make ours a life filled with the Joy of Eru, until the bitter curse of death shall take the warmth from my bones and your name from my lips, and take you from this world in an end that will be mourned for ever, until the day of Judgment in the Great Halls of Valinor, and we shall once again be united…for you are the Keeper of my Fire.”
For many a day we walked through the woods, along the river, through the winter's cold, on into the first hints of spring, and late into the summer, when the sun was hot and we swam in the sea beside my Father’s castle. Then at night, you would take my hand and led me to the hilltop where I now lay in the Darkness that seems to descend past nights, writing to you…and you took both of my hands in yours, holding my eyes in your endless brown love, and spoke with no words to my heart, and to my lips.
Do you remember those days, My Love? Those days of never-ending joy, when time ceased to exist, and our hearts bloomed into one? Please keep them always in your mind, as you walk the hard roads of the North once more, searching out the evil that must be dissipated, destroyed, for good…for peace. Fly with eagle wings when you are weary of the walk....up above the clouds, above the suppressing darkness that overtakes the sun more every day. This is where you are needed, my Prince…this is where you must stay until it is safe for us to breathe again. I will not tell you do not weep, for not all tears are an evil…just know you are not alone…I will be near you on the coldest nights, during the longest part of your trek through the mountains, during the moments when my absence from you becomes unbearable. My soul will always fly to you, and my heart will always beat within your chest. I will always come for you, my Ranger…my Elessar…my Lover…my Rescuer…my Captivator…my Passion…the only one who will ever enter my secret garden. For you, I gave my life…please, let us share one together. I believe you can overcome this blackness of Mordor, and come to take me home…where we will sit in your castle, and you will bring Hope and Peace to all people. For this also is your duty, your inheritance…and I will be beside you, singing my love to you for all of Eternity.
I love you, my Guardian…my heart is now and forever yours. I love you deeper than the sound of the Horn of Gondor as it signals your return, sweeter than the best of the strawberries with cream, longer than the elves have breath, with more longing than the longing of the elves to sail home, across the sea…for that is no longer where my heart lies. You are my home, and I would sail across seven seas to get to you. I love you, my Beloved. I love you.
Namarie, Meluien…
Luthien Tinuviel |
