Decay

Modern AU (and mellow).  The ponderings of an elf on the passage of time in the realm of mortals.  Quenya names used (Maglor refers to himself as Makalaurë) and my OFC Vardamírë is conspicuously present.  She's Maglor's wife, and if you want to understand the pastries, read "Blush".  It's not angsty, I swear.  Anyway, this is kind of a play off the theme for "Sunshine", a story I wrote on dA which people really seemed to like even though it had about two sentences of action and the rest was introspection.  Takes place in our time (probably in Paris because that's where he and his wife end up in all my modern stories for reasons even I cannot explain).  Mostly introspective.

Disclaimer: Tolkien owns the Silmarillion.  The modern AU was even his idea, I swear.

Pairings: Maglor x Vardamírë (not really romantic though)

Characters: Maglor, Vardamírë (mentions Maglor's children, Eru, Manwë, Aulë, Yavanna and Morgoth (in a roundabout sort of way)

Warning: extremely AU, Middle-earth and our world are one and the same, talks about war, some touchy material here and there

Song: Anna's Theme

Words: 1,098
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decay (verb): to decline from a sound or prosperous condition; to decrease usually gradually in size, quantity, activity, or force; to fall into ruin; to decline in health, strength, or vigor; to undergo decomposition
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decay

Time brings all things to an end.

It was a strange concept for any elf born of the golden shores across the Great Sea.  Under the grace of the Valar, sweet Valinor never declined, her golden fields never frosting and blackening in death, her flowers eternally blooming as watercolors dotted across a painting of green, captured forever in perfect stillness and harmony within a gilded frame.  And, as the land never changed, the people never changed.  They never aged and never died, never grew beyond what they were in their prime and never changed their ways, so set in tradition were they after thousands of years of routine.

This was not so across the Great Sea.

At his lofty age, Makalaurë had never been more aware of the reality of his world, the creation marred in the Song yet so perfectly harmonized in dissonance--his world, the cycle of decay.

It was a world where the people did not remain golden, frozen in time like watery after-images burned into the eyes.  Their skin grew weak and wrinkled, their hands veined and knobby, their hair wispy and white, as their bodies fell into disrepair, slowly breaking down until they could carry on their catalyzing and functioning no longer--a broken-down machine rusty from misuse--and the Gift of Ilúvatar was upon them at last.

They reflected the world they lived upon.  So fleeting this bizarre place.  Mountains once tall were brought low, carved and rent by the forces of nature beyond the description of awed tongues.  Rivers were turned, their paths that had run straight and true for a thousand years suddenly shifted and diminished inch by inch by inch.  Empires, once strong, fell into despair and ruin, their society unraveling at the seams until finally its frayed edges and rotting stitching could no longer hold inside the turmoil and discord bubbling beneath.

Everything would fall apart.  As the flowers wilted into dust, so too did the gemstones of human history.  Their golden age past, they withered in the hot sun under the heavy hand of long, unforgiving years until they were naught more than the whisper of a thought from whence they had been birthed.  All that was left to mark their passing were relics of a bygone age, meaningless gestures that fascinated the modern man, but mysteries of fleeting interest once their secrets had been unveiled.  One day, these vast empires of a mere millennia or two past would be little more than legend, would be lost in the vaults of time--as the great kingdoms of elven brethren and the vast empires of the southern men, as the lonely island of Númenor beyond the waves and the great dwarven strongholds hidden beneath invisible gates of stone.

Now, so many years after he had first touched the ever-changing shores--Makalaurë had lost his count somewhere in the Dark Ages--the world was reaching its pinnacle and again preparing for its descent.  All around him, every day, millions of people swarmed as drones over the surface of their vulnerable, naked earth.  Magic was all but forgotten and skepticism reigned supreme over the sheep of the newest generation of mankind, greater and more terrible than the last.

Already, he could see their unraveling, could smell the rot, the sickness eating away at the innards of the monstrous creature called civilization.  The infighting and conflicts, the blatant murder and surreptitious scheming, it surrounded and engulfed the once-prince of a long-past land.  He was a warrior--a murderer and a traitor and a sinner--but even he could not fathom what awaited just around the corner of the future...

"What has you so far away, laurenya?"

Vardamírë was behind him, and on her hip balanced a tray of pastries giving off the most delicious odor, wafting under his nose in a sultry dance, beckoning.  The moving world came back, and once more Makalaurë could feel its revolutions about the sun, could feel the movement of time flowing around his form, ghosting by as a cold wind that did not dare touch his blazing soul.

"Time," he replied, and looked down to his hands where they had paused in their working of bread.  The flour spread up to his sleeves and the soft, cool dough oozed between his fingers. "How long, do you suppose, the next generation will remember the ones who came before them?"

An odd question to an outsider, but his wife understood.  She set her tray down and began to slip the pastries under the display window to tempt unwary customers into buying more than their stomachs could handle. "Perhaps a millennium or two.  They will leave behind quite the scars, this youngest generation."

That they would.

Well he could picture the bare steel skeletons of past great cities rising into a hazy skyline of soot.  Well he could imagine the desolate wasteland left behind as their lovely earth, the living sculptures of their Lady Yavanna and the treasures of Lord Aulë's deep caverns and the clean, fresh winds of Lord Manwë's wide open skies were stripped bare, taken and taken and taken and burned away into ashes until there was nothing left.  Until there was no path left but decomposition into utter ruin.

Well he could imagine walking that earth and hearing long distant whispers of men who could flatten cities with a single blow, of monsters who could haunt a man's footsteps across the world, who could tail him into his very dreams.

But they would be only whispers, already mere rumors crumbling into tales told to frighten children into good behavior and early bedtimes.

And when all was said and done, he and his wife and his sons would be there, probably still baking pastries in some quaint little hand-built cabin hidden away from the world, watching as even the wake of destruction was scraped from the face of Arda, until even pollution and sickness and iron and steel melted back to the minute particles from whence they had been birthed, just as many an empire before them had done.

"The scars will heal," he said as he worked the dough between ancient, scarred warrior's hands, content and patient. "They always do.  It was in the Song."

For time brought all things to an end, good or bad. And the cycle of decay, Makalaurë decided, had its own strange sort of charm.
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LOL I swear I'm not an environmentalist.  Elves just like plants and dislike people who destroy them.  In any case, I think it would be fascinating to sit in a position where you could watch history unfolding and remember all of it because you were there.  Sorry I'm such a dork, but that's how I think about it.  And as for the prompt...

If you really think about it, long after humans are gone the earth will still be going about its business, screw us--not to say that bettering the earth is a bad thing, because it's not.  It just feels to me that we're only concerned with the earth because we're concerned with the survival of what we perceive to be important; in the cosmic reality we probably seem rather egocentric.  But hey, who knows?  Maybe we are the only life inhabiting the universe.  It's just that I happen to find that idea rather depressing.

And anyhow, how did we get on this topic?  Forgive me, it's been a long week.  I am currently listening to Anna's Theme from the Red Violin, composed by John Corigliano.  And, of course, solo violin performed by Joshua Bell.  Beautiful, gorgeous, amazing song--but I must say that Josh is not really much of a looker.  Look him up playing the Four Seasons and watch his facial expressions LOL.  In any case, listen and enjoy; it's worth two minutes and fifty seconds of your life.

Note: "The Song" is the Ainulindalë and "laurenya" means "my singer" and is derived from Maglor's Quenya name.