Unsatisfied with the Wizards' work, the Valar send another Istar to Middle-earth, Nerwen the Green, with the specific task to find the Ents, apparently vanished form the face of the world. During her mission, Nerwen will meet old friends and acquain...
Nerwen ran to the staircase and began to descend it with all the extraordinary nimbleness Ainur and Eldar had in common; she reached quickly the bottom, where she found Thalion and Thilgiloth looking both in the direction of the approaching noise, resounding and oddly melodious, almost a music from huge horns and bagpipes marked by equally huge drums. Both mounts were tense, but they still showed no particular alarm; even Calad, who perched on a low branch nearby.
And finally, there he was, emerging among the tree trunks: the shape was similar to a Man's, but he was gigantic, more than twice the height of a troll, very sturdy, with a long head and almost no neck; a grey-green bark covered his body, but his long arms were brown, while his huge feet had seven toes. Over a long and thick beard, looking like mossy twigs, two brown eyes shone, dotted with green.
Hoppla! Dieses Bild entspricht nicht unseren inhaltlichen Richtlinien. Um mit dem Veröffentlichen fortfahren zu können, entferne es bitte oder lade ein anderes Bild hoch.
Seeing Nerwen, the Ent came to a sudden halt and silenced abruptly; his mane of leaves rustled noisily.
Nerwen froze: ever since Yavanna Kementári brought the Onodrim in Middle-earth, she had seen none. Even when she went to Beleriand visiting her sister Melian, she heard rumours about them, but never saw them again; and therefore, now she felt so excited, she was hardly able to utter a single word.
The Ent watched her intently, equally silent. His eyes had a calm and solemn expression, but nevertheless, they were piercing; its pupils looked like very deep wells, full of things seen and kept in mind and pondered slowly and constantly since a very remote past; but on its surface, present sparkled vividly.
Finally, Nerwen pulled together enough to remember the traditional greeting formula; she bowed and said in Entish:
"I greet you, Shepherd of the Trees."
She needed several minutes to articulate the sentence in the slow, resonant language of the Onodrim, and her vocal equipment was put to the test. She would need some time to train her tongue, throat and lungs to this idiom, which was so totally different from any other one on Arda.
At the sound of his own language voiced by another living being, the Ent's eyes widened and he gaped because of the enormous surprise: nobody knew the idiom of the Onodrim, except their creatrix. Could this be Kementári in person?
He watched her even closer, while she was talking; she hadn't the aura of a Valië, and yet there was something in her that went beyond her human appearance. A disguised High Elf, perhaps? No, that was different. But how?
Suddenly he realised it: she had to be a follower of Yavanna, a Maia. She didn't look like an Aini, even of the lower rank; but no other could know his language.
When Nerwen finished the greeting, the Ent bowed in turn, bending stiffly his body at the hips.
"And I greet you, Ancient One," he said in Common Speech. Nerwen was glad: if he was willing to speak a different language than his, communicating would require much less time, and much less energy from her part.
