“Do you hate me for it?” Time, such as it is, has passed since the angry words rung in the space between them, words he had not heeded - had barely heard - lost in the frenzy of creation.
She sighs, bending to caress a small green shoot. The leaves seem almost too vibrant to be real.
“No.” When she turns to look at him, he knows it to be true. “I was saddened,” she continues, “for your Children are not mine, not ours.”
There is new distance between them now, one neither seem to know how to bridge.
“Will you meet them?” he asks, feeling unaccustomedly bashful, standing in one of her favourite gardens. She nods, after long silence.
In his Halls - Námo and Manwë both had asked him to build a Hall for the Children, whose joy in crafting is unchanged by their passing from life - the first of the Children fall silent. She stands there, in the finely wrought doorway, pillars wrapped with flowering vines surrounding her with their light perfume.
The hammers are put down, the bellows silenced.
Each one stares, apprehensive but stubbornly brave. Shying away, but oddly longing, too. He sees it in their faces, those faces he carved so very long ago and filled their souls with all that he loved best.
Durin is the first to step up. His favourite Child, so alike in temper to his Queen he might have been her son; while they sleep in the forges, the ones he is still making, he tells them stories in the language he made for them. Mostly stories about her, the distance that still seems to divide them, but also the love he tells for her, no matter how their interests clash.
He feels oddly proud and humbled at once, watching the Dwarf present a golden crown made with the most beautiful gems they could find in the shape of flowers to Yavanna, who laughs, delighted. With a thought she is smaller, small enough for the crown to fit.
They stay a while, though she speaks only to the Children and not to him. Aulë tries not to feel disappointed that the joy he had tried to share with her has gone unrewarded, staring forlornly at one of the blossoms she has left behind, dropping it into a small vase with a sigh before heading back to the workshop.
“How are they made?” He is so surprised by the quiet question that he drops a hammer on his foot. Khuzdul is great for choosing, he realises, but the thought is gone in the next moment, banished by the light sound of her laughter. “My clumsy love,” she tuts, coming to stand beside him. Back to her usual form, green hair rippling down her back, flowers blooming along some strands. In her hand, she holds the crown Durin made with his brothers, placing it gently beside one of the unfinished Children.
“You can touch them,” he whispers, watching the gentle smile on her face as she strokes a finger down one tiny body. He barely remembers to wrap his arm around her when she leans into him, filling his nose with the odd combination of honeysuckle and white-hot metal.
“I cannot hate them,” she whispers, once the forge has died to embers. “They are your Children… and I love you.”
“Help me make these?” he asks, keeping her close when she makes to move away. Yavanna looks at him, her bark-like skin wrinkling in a smile.
They are not her Children, but a few in each generation have been touched by her hands, her love, and they are the ones who grow to care for the food the Children will eat. The inventor of the first irrigation system suitable for growing mushrooms inside a mountain had hands as barked as those that had made them.
Yavanna laughs when he tells her, filling the vase he keeps in the workshop with a collection of mosses, filling his spirit with kisses and love.
They are not her Children.
But she is one of their Mothers.
(via tolkieniad)
