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6 Fourth Age: Dawn of Narbeleth; [ open ]
Topic Started: 9 Nov 2008, 06:41 PM (406 Views)
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The tenth month of the year was upon Fangorn Forest. Quickbeam saw its fingerprints in the closed flower petals and changing palette of leaves. The Ent covered the ground in long strides, his every footstep creating a twelve-toed track in the earth. Over fallen logs, boulders, and streams he glided, all the while singing a deep Entish song that echoed through the forest.

Drifting in Narbeleth,
Weeping boughs release
The victory of Lothron.


Quickbeam paused in his walk through the trees and crouched down to observe a sapling. He blinked curiously at the infant tree. There had not been young trees in Fangorn since the darkness descended on the forest.

“I will look after you, youngling rowan,” Quickbeam promised it. “You will survive this winter and many more.”

The rowan sapling quivered, as if the voice of the Ent had awoken it for the first time. Quickbeam’s mouth twitched into a smile. The little Hobbits had defeated Sauron, a King sat on the throne of men again, and now new life was born in Fangorn. He had lived to see the cycle of history begin again.

The Ent began his walk through the trees once more. His song had a renewed tempo. Other Ents would call it a hasty pace.

Blushing hues of autumn,
Trees embrace the chill
And Ents stand guard through Narwain.

 
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Slowly at first, circling, gaining speed. A movement in the trees, spotted below. The Ents of old, as old as Gwaihir, rarely came into a clearing, for in the forest, there were rarely clearings, but Gwaihir’s eyes and ears could tell where he walked.

Finally his wings pull in and descending with great speed from the sky toward the forest clearing below. As if falling on a prey, he flies, though graceful in his own accord. As graceful as an enormous creature can be. As he neared the ground his wings suddenly spread, and like a sail, catch the wind. They beat a few times until he merely hovered for a moment, as if floating on the air, talons now stretched outward, digging deep into the earth. The stop was sudden. It were as if he had descended for leagues of the sky, and landed with hardly as much as rustling the trees.

The great bird's neck feathers ruffled, his beak clicked in thought. Wings stretched outward to their full span, and then were brought back into to rest at his sides. His eyes were focused on the Ent. In the days of old. The days of the Valar, they so came into existence by the hand of Yavanna, as he had come by the hand of Manwë. The Ents were the watchers of the forests, as Gwaihir was the watcher of the sky.

The Windlord bowed in greeting, sharp crimson eyes closed for an instant as his golden feathered body moved low to the ground. “Greetings, watcher of the forest,” he declared. His voice was not that of a mortal man. It was as a gust of wind, voiced yet voiceless. Aged, yet ageless. His beak clicked again. Gwaihir was in the southern reaches of his realm, and he desired information of the goings on of Fangorn, and of Isengard. Perhaps this Ent would give it to him.
 
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Quickbeam’s song trailed away as he saw the streak of brown and gold overhead. He watched as the great Eagle circled and landed, then went to meet Manwe’s servant. The trees rustled and groaned their protest. The Eagle’s beak was sharp, and its talons deadly. Quickbeam rumbled back in response. Though predators of the sky, different as night and day from the Ents, their loyalty to the Valar made them friends. When the Eagle bowed, Quickbeam did the opposite. He stood up straight as he could, raised his arms to the air, and shook his leaves in greeting.

“Greetings to you, Lord of the Sky. It has been a long time since any of your kind have visited the Forest of Fangorn. The memory of my kind fades into the trees, but I remember you, Gwaihir Winglord.”

It had been ages ago, ages and ages, before the Common Speech of Men had named him Quickbeam. He had been Bregalad, in the Elven language, and a much longer name in his own Entish. The world had been so different then. His precious rowans had grown everywhere, not only in small copses, and the Ents had still held hope of finding the Entwives.

“I would offer you some Ent-draught, but I recall our palettes are not the same. What hospitality can an Ent show an Eagle?”

 
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"So it has been, Bregalad, keeper of the rowan, watcher of the forest." His voice cracked into a screech at the end of his statement. The trees seemed as if they loomed overhead and disliked his presence. Gwaihir was never a percher of forest trees anyhow. Too low to the ground; he was a guarder of the mountain passes.

Eagles were much more hasty creatures than Ents, and Gwaihir would have them get right to business in their speakings, yet it could not be so. He stepped sideways to move his talon from the small sapling that it grazed against, and instead it now lay upon a green vine. There was nowhere to perch in such a forest. He did not wish to offend the Ent with his presence, and decided that the leafy vegetation of the vine was a much better resting place than a small tree. His claws relaxed, and his talons rested on the earth.

“I ask not for draught nor food,” he replied. His beak clicked as he thought out his words, and slowed down his speech for the gratitude of Bregalad. “I come bringing tidings from the sky, and I look for news of the forest before making the great Journey northward.”
 
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The Ent creaked and shook his leaves with a deep, rumbling laugh. The sound echoed into the depths of the forest, carrying to trees ahead. News of the Eagle’s presence was spreading through Fangorn.

Ba-rum. You are a hasty creature, Gwaihir, even compared to me.”

Quickbeam laughed again, and in his laugh was a little song to calm the sapling that had been so close to Gwaihir’s talon.

“Very well, Gwaihir. I will listen to your news of the sky, and then I will tell you news of the forest. I will try and be as hasty as any Ent can be.”
 
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"Forgive me, Bregalad, but my words travel as quickly as wings in the wind," Gwaihir answered. As he perched still in silence for a moment, it were as if he could feel the very earth in rotation, and the the sun in it's course to evening. Gwaihir heard the rustling of the leaves as the trees spoke to one another, and knew that the message of his presence here had spread among the forest. He was careful not to move or offend. His great body did not seem to fit well in the forest, and he was greatful for his reign to be the open skies.

"I have wandered far and wide, and seen in the skies even further. All has been clear, and there have been no fell beast spotted or heard of in all of my realms for the past six circles of seasons. Not since the fall of the beasts have I been this far on the South wind. Though, the Heralds of Manwë have not been idle. The mountain passes have teemed with torturous orcs. When they show themselves among the ledges, my Vassals have taken them. I find that though the dark powers have diminished, the mountain orcs and goblins have not. It is as if a force still draws them to their wicked ways. Tell me, Bregalad, how have the forests seen the orcs? Have they diminished here?" Gwaihir spoke as slowly as he migh, though his words were rightly still quick for the Ent.
 
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Quickbeam nodded along with Gwaihir’s words. He waited for a long pause before giving his own information. The events in Fangorn and Isengard were in flux. The trees moved, and the Ents with them. One happening might be relayed by a fifty trees to half a dozen Ents. A single event might be mistaken for a hundred.

“The Orcs venture into our wood as before, but the Ents have awoken now to guard this land. They have claimed the life of no tree since the Ents took Isengard. We have crushed many of them here. To Isengard they do not go. Maybe they are retreating to the mountains, or maybe to somewhere else, but they are beyond the reach of the Ents.”

The Ent halted his news to look up at the sky. It could not be seen through the heavy canopy of Fangorn, but Quickbeam felt as if it had passed its zenith. There was a feeling of rain in the air. He hummed pleasantly.

“Your eyrie will be wet tonight, my friend. Rain comes to us even in this season.”

 
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Gwaihir nodded slowly. His eyes blinked, and his beak clicked, sending a screech to the sky. The forest was well protected now, the trees awoken, the Ents watching over.

His feathers ruffled at the mention of rain, and he felt the prick on his skin of cool winds and a moist evening. "So it will be a wet flight, though my eyrie is oft wet this time of year. The snows are in the mountains and the winds are bitter in the open air." He thought of the nights. The skin of the eagles was thick, and meant for such weather, though there were many times in the bitter winter when even he slept huddled and blinking long into the night before a sleep would come.

"I thank you for your gracious words, tender of Rowan." Gwaihir bowed slowly, as not to brush his feathers or wings against trees that he might offend.
 
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The first drop of rain splattered against Fangorn’s canopy. The soft pinging of steady rainfall began a moment later. No moisture had reached their place in the clearing yet, something which Quickbeam must correct.

“When the rains come, the Ents must go to work. I must take my leave, Gwaihir Winglord. I will watch the earth, and you will watch the sky, and we will meet again.”

Quickbeam lifted up his arms to the sky. He waved his branches and shuddered his leaves in respect of the Eagle of Manwe. He turned and took three long strides into the forest, speaking in Old Entish to a grandfather tree as he went.
 
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"May you be met with fair winds, my friend," Gwaihir answered. As the ent moved away, Gwaihir's talons stretched, and the great eagle crouched low before lifting off. It was a fraction of a second before he broke through the canopy of the forest, as a shower of leaves made their way to the ground with the raindrops from his take off.

He flapped his great wings as he rose higher and higher into the cold winds which would bear him northward this evening. The raindrops pelted him, and he blinked his eyes, but their force was nothing compared to his great body.

"Water the earth, and grant the Tree Shepherds their gift," he said to the Valar, the last of his sentence becoming a screech as the ground diminished from sight above the clouds.
 
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