All That Was Not Lost to the Fire by Isilme_among_the_stars  

Threads

Two meetings, three drabbles and a promise. Míriel Þerinde comes to Nerdanel and within the sisterhood of caring women (mothers, aunties, grandmothers) a partnership is born. 
A little thematic preview to One in the Fires of the Heart of the World chapter 3. I hope you enjoy. 

My sons were born in vivid hues, each a different colour to their soul.

Tyelkormo as golden as sun drenched wheat fields.

Carnistir, the deepest forest green.

Atarinkë is the light that catches in the corners of steel, by turns iridescent and flickering white.

Colour, Ambarussa share, but not shade. Both are umber, one raw and earthy, the other burnt and ruddy like Mahogany heartwood.

My eldest are blue. Makalaurë is deepest velvety indigo shot through with gold. Rich as laughter, inky as night.

But Maitimo? He is soft and warm as the morning sky. The most beautiful cornflower blue.

She came to me in the night. In her hand she bore promises in three twists of thread.

One golden. One deep green. One silver-grey.

Eyes full of regret, she said, “I could not hold them when they were small. I promise you I will hold them now.”

Without a word I accepted them. I should have thanked her, one mother to another, who loved and nourished the children I could no longer reach with my care.

“Until they are once more in your arms,” she explained, leaving the lightest touch of a caress on my skin in maternal solidarity.

I trembled when she brought the sixth to me. I told her, “This cannot be!”

Her eyes this time were wells of pain, and I knew in my heart she felt the same. The sorrow that came when I held that last hue! What had become of my cornflower blue?

The thread in my hand white-bleached, not like snow. Like bone.

Hand over my hand, her hope sustaining mine, she opened the yarn to reveal the inside.

“Look,” she said.

And there, nestled in the little twist’s heart, the slightest streak remained of my morning sky.

Oh, my cornflower blue.