Title: Songfic: “Nuingiliath”

Author: Fantom Fox
Comments: please! comment at fantomfox00[at]hotmail[dot]com
Song: “Under the Milky Way” by The Church
Comments: playing around with this idea in my mind. Original character, fic conceived in the car while driving with my mind wandering in all directions (as it does). The title is elvish and means “under the stars.”
Dedications: Rana, for those who wander...

@}--’--,--’--,-----

All I could see above me as I ascended was a canopy of green. All around me, soft whispers brushed across my face. I had never really stopped to listen to the sweet voices that surrounded me day to day, hushed songs and stories of days long forgotten, news from across the land carried only by the wind, the movements of those that came and went.... I had been taking them for granted, and it was not until they held their collective breath that I noticed they had gone. Since then, there was no thought in my mind other than their absence. No music was inspired until I could find them. As I climbed in the dark of night, their voices returned, one soft caress after another, and again I could hear them. My flight would not go unnoticed, but to once more find the touch of that tune, that song... anything was worth it. The whispers came louder as I found myself, higher and higher, wrapped in the endless green of centuries.

The surrounding cover broke, catching my breath as I stared off into the endless blackness above me. A thick stream of light flowed through the sky like a river parting great mountains. Stars that burned like distant candles flickered in a solid blanket of dark. A swift cold North wind swirled around me, and I could feel it in my bones.... The world grew quiet.

Awe consumed me as I stared into the void. Nighttime away from the world of endless light and magic, away from the others. All I could feel was the whip of the wind and the lure of the vision above me. The whispers hushed as if they too felt the awesome power in the sky. The darkness and light began to sing to me, and I could hear without them making a sound. My own thoughts left me, and all I could hear was the voice.

The wind rustled through the trees as if each deep green leaf was its own animal straining against a tether. The song of the stars descended to my ears. Concealed within was nothing and everything, the essence of the forest around me and the physical touch of the aging night. The light glistened upon my hair as long dark locks spilled over my shoulder, causing white streaks to shine across it like lightning, cold and pure against the black of night. The forest song swelled at my feet like an overripe fruit on the vine, begging for the release of lyric and verse.

Clear wind and song swirled around me, tossing my hair like a storm as words that could not be spoken filled my heart and spilled voiceless from my lips. The beauty I had lost would soon arise again, born anew in the darkness and the purest light....

The song recounted a tale that has never been heard, of ancient times past before corruption touched this world, days few remember and fewer yet will tell. The starlight was as liquid cascading from the unknown deep into the lightest beds of verdant color stretching far beyond the hopes of the most innocent dreamer. Of these times the stars still lament, for they have and will outlast all, untainted and eternal in their existence more so than even we. Undaunted by the pain, the forest still grasps for the love it lost, yearning for the embrace of the long lost sky, pushing its roots deep and its branches ever into the heights of immortality. The sad duet resounded in my ears like the crashing of waves on distant shores and the falling of the softest rain.... I did not arrive here by chance. I was invited as one willing to listen by one who more than anything desired to be heard.

And it's something quite peculiar
Something shimmering and white
Leads you here despite your destination
Under the Milky Way tonight

Cold wind stirred my thoughts as I gazed across the endless sea of green. I reached out to grasp what I did not know. Into my outstretched hand a leaf alighted, fair and shinning like the sun in the silver starlight. I curled my fingers, but the young thing would not be contained, flying from my hand as if in a rage. To be free, flying gently in the whipping of the heartless North wind, was its destiny. It would travel the world seeing all that it wills before settling where it always knew it belonged.

The night was too old now. I knew not how long I had remained perched in the treetop, surrounded and engulfed by the inherent music overlooked by so many for so long. The gradual brightening of the sky in the East chased away the thickness of the black and the gracefulness of the pure light.

I touched down on the soft forest bed and was met by the gleam of white sunlight off familiar fair elven locks. My mind returned to the young leaf, escaping the boundaries of the forest to chase its destiny. I never again would feel the splitting desire to leave or stay such as I did now. One brilliance called for me from beyond the woods; the other beckoned me home. The songs of night and tree welled up inside me like the birth of a new spring as I heard the soft breeze play frivolously through the branches above me. The choice was laid before me....

Under the Milky way tonight..

And so I followed my true silver as I returned with him into the heart of the woods, my love leading me home. My time had not yet come to wander, but instead to stay and retell the song of the ancient times that had been entrusted to me. I would sing to all who cared to listen.

As we walked deep into the forest, my love turned to me. His smile spread across his face like the sweet breaking of the dawn, slow and brilliant, breathtaking after an endless night. He captured me in deceivingly strong arms. His long, shining locks mingled with my own black, reminding me of the stars perfectly paired with the deep void.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” His was a soft whisper, like the sigh of a leaf at the cooling dusk.

“No,” I breathed. “It found me.”