Living Stars, Living Bright by Elrond's Library  

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Living Stars, Living Bright

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The skies were still dark when Indis received a summons to the Halls of Vairë.

Indis despised the dark. It hadn’t always been so, for she had been born at Cuiviénen, the first generation of the Begotten Children, her mother acting less on experience and more on instinct as she drew an infant Indis, squalling and bloody, to her breast for the first time. In those early days, the darkness was familiar, for it was the only state of being she had ever known. As she grew, she learned to fear that familiar darkness, or rather, what dwelt in the dark, grasping and violent, stealing away people and hope in equal measure.

It was the stars, the light, she fell in love with as a child. She had learned to dance on the boundary between sea and sand and sky, heels digging into the earth even as her hands reached for the bright points of light she could never touch. And it was the promise of greater light, everlasting light and safety that drew her into the West, following her brother across hill and river and over the sea to the land where darkness held no sway.

In hindsight, it seemed obvious that the Light would never, could never last.

Change is the only constant thing.

Stasis is antithetical to the process of living.

The Halls of Vairë were nestled high in the mountains, above deep valleys filled with lush pasture to support the hundreds of fat and happy sheep that supplied the wool for Vairë’s devotees to card and spin into the yarn that made up the Valie’s tapestries. Or, at least, that had been the case before Ungweliantë had changed everything.

Now, the only creatures living in the fields of dead grasses, browned and whispering in the wind, were her and the swarms of fireflies, their luminescent little bodies blinking rhythmically, twinkling like living stars. The vast majority of the sheep had been given to the remaining Eldar, Vairë sacrificing the tools of her craft to feed them all. They had been assured the Valar were working on a solution, something that would rejuvenate the fields, but there was no word on how, or more importantly, when.

These were all worries that grew more distant the longer she climbed. The cares of ruling, of responsibility all fell away. She could let herself truly feel and inhabit the bone-deep grief, nursed in silent solitude, that was the loss of her wife, half her children, all her grandchildren. It wrapped tighter around her heart as she walked alone, the living stars twinkling gently in the grass. Vairë’s Halls were tucked into the mountainside, just below the Halls of her husband, Námo, and though Indis had more affinity for plants and poetry and logistics, she would swear she could hear the very stones echo in the mourning of this place.

And yet, a sort of quiet anticipation grew alongside her renewed heartache, for Indis had some inkling of why she had been summoned.

Indis passed the hedgerows that marked the boundary of the Valie’s territory without challenge, the leaves rustling in her wake, dead and dry. The workshops, once bustling with song and the beating of a thousand looms, lay silent and empty in the darkness. She followed the main road through the myriad single-floor buildings, nerves settling like a bucket of writhing eels deep within her gut.

She could only describe this place as eerie; once so full of life, now extinguished.

The Hall’s doors shimmered in the faint reflection of the stars, opalescent and watery. Indis raised a hand to knock, but as her knuckles connected with the smooth wood, the door opened on silent hinges.

A Maia, in the fana of a child with no outward gender, greeted her with a smile, warm and polite. It led Indis through the Hall which bracketed an expansive courtyard on three sides, the south open to the valley below. Ezellohar loomed in the distance, the corpses of Telperion and Laurelin stretching their gnarled and bare fingers towards each other in a grotesque pantomime of a lover’s embrace.

And there, in a rocking chair of smooth malinornë, sat the form of her wife.

The still-dead – no, the living form of her wife. Her chest rose the slow and measured way of sleepers, every muscle relaxed. The too-still body in Lórien did not breathe.

Her white eyelashes brushed like waves over pale cheeks, her hair, simply braided, fell like a waterfall down her breast. An embroidery frame was set up before her, illuminated by the harsh blue light of one of Fëanáro’s lamps.

The Maia left her standing there before the sleeping Míriel Serindë with a silent bow.

Loathe to disturb her, Indis settled in to wait, sitting at her feet, occasionally reaching out to run the embroidery on the hem of Míriel's dress between shaking fingers, as if to remind herself that this was real, this was true.

Eventually Indis drifted into the half-awake state she had so often adopted in the presence of small children. Too needful of rest, but too aware that without some amount of supervision small hands and curious minds would find some way to get hurt or swallow something they ought not. She was aware of her surroundings, but only just.

So it was with only the tiniest of jolts, an aborted gasp, that Indis returned to herself to find Míriel’s hand resting heavily atop her head.

Their eyes met. Indis’ warm brown, Míriel’s watery pink.

“Indis,” Míriel whispered.

Indis pushed into Míriel’s hand with a shaky sigh, heart squeezing as Míriel’s clever fingers tightened in her hair. “Míriel. It has been …”

“Too long. I know.” Míriel’s voice was threadbare, thin, the barest hint of a breeze over a still pond. “Forgive me, meldanya.”

She shook her head, quietly reveling in the physicality of having her wife’s hands on her. “You could not have known how the situation would evolve. How can I hold you at fault for the events of the past centuries when you have not been here, able to act?”

Míriel raised one eyebrow, voice strengthening with each word. “And now? Now that I have taken this action?”

Indis blinked. “What could you possibly mean?”

“Me. Here.” Míriel folded her hands on her lap as she sat back in her chair, sending it rocking on its curved rails. Her voice took on an edge, knife-sharp and bitter. “That I felt again the call of flesh and craft, and have returned from the Halls of Mandos. That in the doing, and despite his blessing, I have forever trapped our Finwë in that place, in the dark and the solitude.”

“I lost him long before he perished,” Indis retorted, lightning fast and just as vehement. The old, cold seed of anger bloomed in her chest once again. This was not what she thought her first conversation with Míriel would be, not what she had hoped for during the lonely march up the mountain that sang with Doom. “He left me! He left me for your son! Threw down his damned crown and all that he had built and followed him into exile. It was our Finwë,” and these words she spat, “who was the true source of Fëanáro’s heresies, of the rifts between your son and mine.”

Míriel inhaled, held it for a long moment, before releasing her breath slowly. Her fingers found the hems of her sleeves, the repetitive rubbing an all-too-familiar self-soothing motion. “I don’t want to yell, Indis,” she finally murmured. “If things had been different, had I been here for Fëanáro’s childhood, then maybe …”

“I doubt you could have saved us single-handedly against the Dark Vala.” Indis huffed, wry laughter in her tone as she tried to rein in her temper. “Don’t put that on yourself. You, you I hold blameless. How could you have known? How could any of us have known how you would struggle in those last days?”

Indis remembered the ecstatic joy in Finwë and Míriel’s face when she told Indis that all their years of trying had finally borne fruit. And then all those long, tense hours spent kneeling at Míriel’s bedside, holding her clammy hand as she struggled and screamed and strove to deliver Fëanáro into the world. The way Míriel’s fatigue never lifted, the way her milk just would not come, the physical and spiritual rejection of the son they had all so desperately desired. And then the long ride to Lórien, pleading with Estë and the rest of her Maiar to find a solution so that they might keep Míriel with them, that little Fëanáro might not perish from hunger. 

Indis had ended up nursing Fëanáro. They could only save one, for the cause of Míriel’s suffering could not be found, and she abandoned her hröa and all who loved her. 

“Indis,” Míriel said, voice firm, breaking through the memories. “We could not have known. Of course not. But I ask you now, again, will you resent me my choice to return, despite my earlier firm conviction I would not? Will you hate me, for taking him away from you forever?”

Indis shook her head, voice mournful. “We parted poorly, Míriel. I – I do not think – I doubt I would have accepted him in my house again, had his self-imposed exile ended before he challenged the Dark Vala.” 

Míriel chuckled. “He thought you would say so.”

Indis snorted. 

“Indis, meldanya,” Míriel continued with a sigh. “I have missed you most of all, beyond even my craft.”

“You can have me,” Indis murmured, wrapping her hand gently around Míriel’s ankle. “Forgive me for my earlier outburst. You are not the person I mean to direct my ire towards.”

Míriel reached out, brushing her fingers – thin, always too thin, long and clever – lightly against Indis’ cheek and down her jaw. “You’re forgiven.”

Indis turned her head, brushing her lips against the inside of Míriel’s wrist. Lavender and cedar and sandalwood, betraying that her clothes had only just been retrieved from storage. 

“Will you stay a while?” Míriel asked after several comfortable minutes. Holding each other, delicately, tenderly, settled something in Indis’ grief-stricken heart, relieved the tightness in her chest, lightened her bones. “The House of Vairë is fairly empty now, but not lacking in comfort.”

Indis smiled for the first time in … years, maybe. Since before the Darkening, certainly. But for Míriel, the grief and anger that encased her heart like ice could crack. Loving her was easy, easy as breathing. Nothing, not even what had happened in the years after Míriel left them, could erase that simple fact that she had never stopped loving Míriel. 

What was grief if not another kind of love, torn and reshaped and molded into the reality of change?

“Of course. I would love to see the home you’ve made for yourself here.”

Míriel stood, each motion deliberate, mouth twisted in a slight grimace. Indis picked herself off the ground, and offered her arm to her wife, who leaned against her heavily. She had forgotten, somehow, that Míriel was a full head and a half shorter than her. She shortened her stride accordingly. 

“Do you think you’ll ever return to Tirion? Or Valimar?” Indis asked as Míriel led her through the Halls of Vairë. The ceilings arched high above them, airy. Indis could imagine how they might have looked with Treelight shining and catching on the polished stone where now only shadows dwelt. 

Míriel shook her head. “Too many people, too much noise. The pace of life here suits me, I deem.” Míriel sighed. “I am tied to these Halls, Indis, but I would welcome you here, as often and for as long as you are willing. I know you have ties to Tirion, even now. Here.”

The rooms Míriel had been given were comfortable, as befitted a Elda of her station. Wooden floors were covered with an intricately patterned rug. Another embroidery stand, another project in progress to keep Míriel’s hands busy. A hearth, cheery fire already lit and casting warmth and shadows across the room. The large bed was adorned with richly embroidered velvet bed hangings, depicting a wildflower meadow, fireflies picked out in jeweled beads, seeming to blink across the fabric as Indis crossed the room. Like living stars. 

Míriel settled on her couch, tucking her feet up. She gestured for Indis to join her. “Come. Tell me of your joys, vanimelda. I have missed so much of your life.”