The Root of Light by Anérea  

The Root of Light

Melian may have had the magic power to make Nan Elmoth grow, but even magic requires raw materials, in this case, photons.

Yavanna walked in the agelong gloaming of those lands and forests where the Valar seldom came, grieving the staying of the growth and promise of the Spring of Arda. She set a sleep upon many fair things that had arisen, so that they should not age, but should wait for a time of awakening that yet should be.

Yet even in sleep, the green things of Arda thirsted for the nourishment of light greater than that of Varda’s stars. And so she besought the aid of Ulmo, who governs the flowing of all waters and whose spirit runs through all the veins of the world, in bringing the light of the Trees to the Great Lands. For though the winds of Manwë spoke in the lofty leaves of Telperion and Laurelin, their roots lay shining in the waters of Ulmo.

Thus flowed through the deep grots and caverns at the roots of Ambar the silver-gold sap, until it came even unto the darkened lands where it seeped up into hill and plain. Alone in the deep twilight Yavanna sang songs of utmost enchantment, calling forth a vast living web of interweaving threads that spread, glowing, through rocky places and sandy loam, twining about the roots of the slumbering olvar, carrying the shimmering sap of the hallowed Trees, that they may drink light.

Chapter End Notes

Olvar is a Quenya word meaning ‘growing things with roots in the earth’

As with my Lúthad series about Melian and Thingol, I have once again unapologetically pilfered phrases from various parts of the Silmarillion as well as The Book of Lost Tales and pastiched them into my piece.