It is so sad to read this! I mean, there is just one or two short lines in Silmarillion that Beleriand was sunken, and a reader goes on and probably doesn't give much attention to it, as other things follow in the book. But to read this - to actually see and feel how all those places and living things are being destroyed - it is heart-breaking. :(

Beautiful story, well written.

Different from what I was expecting, but I really liked it. I agree with the review below: the drowning of Beleriand, and what it entailed for the flora and fauna there, is not something I ever paid much attention. I cheered at the end as I was sure the elm was going to die.

Liked how you inserted parts of the poem, and how you added mentions of people who lived in those places… I felt it helped to drive the point that they were all gone across.

What a creative idea and illustrated in an equally wll written story. I have not seen many stories about Ents, but I like the perspective of Treebeard here. This is fantastic and I only wish it was a bit longer because I njoyed it so much. I like how you described the destruction, so poetic and tragic all at once.

Beautiful and sad. Well done! Thank you for sharing.

This is beautiful. Thank you. The juxtaposition of Treebeard's viewpoint with the omniscient narrator's tale of what is happening elsewhere in Beleriand is really well done.

I'm about to compose a MEFA review for this but wanted to add a touch more privately that I cannot believe I'm crying over a tree....  I'm so glad the old tree managed to remember in time and followed him.

This was beautiful and very entish.

This was an effective, wrenching story.  Treebeard's song is my favorite of Tolkien's poems and I find it delightful that you've expanded on it in this way.  It's one thing to know, in the broad epic sense, that Beleriand was drowned, and another to see it in vivid detail with reference to both the song and to historic events.  Nicely done!

Himring this is utterly heat wrenching. The sinking of Beleriand is one of the incidents in Silmarillion that in completely glossed over - but it is so sad. All those years of work put in by so many people, all the blood, sweat and tears shed for that land, all the pain, joy, hope and fear that it encompassed, lost forever under the sea. 

And then to read this, to actually see and feel every one of those moments, to imagine the agony of those beings - it was enough to reduce me to tears. I think that, he must have carried that grief with him through the ages of the world, but the edges, gradually blunted by time.

The way you used the poem in comparison to the sinking of Beleriand was beautiful and that you used this poem, even more so. Ents get very little recognition in the Silmarillion - it is so easy to forget they were there as well, along with the elves, dwarves and men.

Once again, a gorgeous story, very well written. Thank you for sharing.

While she usually writes about the Feanorians, or Maedhros and Fingon in particular, Himring definitely shows that she is able to get into the heads of a great many characters, not the least difficult being the esteemed Treebeard himself.

Building on Treebeard's Song about the Trees of Beleriand, Himring draws on the events of the War of Wrath and the gradual, terrible destruction being wrought to Nan-tathren, Dorthonion, Neldoreth and Ossiriand. In a very entishly drawn-out fashion, she weaves in the history of these places, while at the same time narrating Treebeard's attempt to help a single elm escape the cataclysm. The gradual buildup and interchange of destruction with narration makes for a very compelling rhythm, the language is spot on, and all that together makes this fic ripe with impending doom, almost like a countdown. The note of relief toward the end becomes all the more palpable when the elm finally begins to wake and react to Treebeard's narration, and the tree-hugging part of me had to swallow a lump in her throat at the end. As one of the other reviewer said, emotional storytelling involving trees... quite a feat!

A fantastic story, and I'm very, very sorry that I didn't read it any sooner. But thank goodness for B2MeM! And thank Himring for writing this!

Keiliss pointed me this way after a discussion about the sinking of Beleriand.  

It makes me shiver, reading this.  Powerful words, and images you've conjured...and so sad.  So much lost.  The little details killed me as well -- the Laiquendi leaving behind posessions to carry a sapling.  The willows in brackish water and then swept away.  You make it very vivid and real.  It wasn't just an event.  It was a way of life, and lives, that were lost and never will come again (ok, maybe Arda remade, but still!). 

You bring home the disaster and the loss in a very personal way that just left me gutted.  I've always had a love for the less-seen characters in the Silmarillion, and this...well.  This is just beautifully heartbreaking.  Well done!

This is one of the saddest things I've ever had the pleasure to read, and yet it is so beautiful! I like ents as much as the next person, but I never felt so much for them- I'm a tad ashamed to admit that this piece made me a little emotional.

YES -- for my TRSB, I wrote about this, but from the POV of one who wanted to save as many animals as possible. I am glad you wrote about the trees! It is amazingly sad that Tolkien created this gorgeous world and then destroyed it in a scant page of writing, maybe even less. Treebeard -- this is a beautiful image of him, slowly saving a tree while everything around him drowns. Thank you!