Merry knows an awful lot about the old forest

Merry is very young

The forest misses being that young

Time is old in the forest, and weary, but it is not yet winter when Goldberry sees her first. She has braved the Withywindle even this late in the year, barefoot in the water, and her feet are tinged with blue nearly to match the brooch that rests at her throat.

Or; Goldberry meets the woman who wore the blue-jewelled brooch from the Barrow-Downs. Four Second Age autumns lived, and one yet to come.

"You should be flattered," Thuringwethil counters, "To know that for you alone I would change my skin."

Aredhel scoffs. "Steal another's skin, more like."

(Be careful what you hunt. Or don't.)

Aredhel is dead, and her relationship with Thuringwethil evolves.

Galadriel and Melian, joy and magic lessons across the seasons in Doriath.

The child Ancalimë makes plans for a kingdom.

She is only nine summers old, Nienor, but already she knows that not all creatures are like her. She is only nine summers old, and she has not yet learned which of the others are to be feared, and so she approaches the girl with a heart vast as the sky, a heart that she knows her mother would scold her for not keeping shut.

She worried over such futures in the furrows of the world, the spaces of the in-between that she was sure held answers she had yet to grasp. Thuringwethil's skin did not come with her memories, but Lúthien knew what it meant when the world she saw no longer responded to her song. No more could she draw flowers from the earth, or ask the waters of Sirion to dance beneath her outstretched hand.

[ Lúthien, and the price she paid for skin. ]

Erendis does not love the Sea.

The Sea loves her, anyway.

Melian and Galadriel share a moment alone.

The forest at night is theirs alone

Lalaith and death are both patient creatures.

Death cannot take Lalaith from the river.

Light dies, and the web endures.

Three gifts Miriel gives the Lady of the Seas over the years, and one the Lady gives to her in return.

(surely you weren’t unaffected by the seasons change / and i’m estranged): On magic mirrors and voyeuristic star-goddesses

(you sleep in the light / yet the night and the silent water / still so dark): Here there is gold, here there is light. Silver light that sparks off her mother's ring, pale blue light that shimmers around Goldberry as she kisses Celebrían in the river over and over again. And if the shadows those lights cast aren't exactly where they ought to be, at least they can't consume the forest.