Líse Miruvor i-Lamba (Mirkwood, June 2320 T.A.) {Adanedhel}
Apr 18, 2018 16:06:35 GMT -5
Post by AMARIË on Apr 18, 2018 16:06:35 GMT -5
Líse Miruvor i-Lamba, Sweet Miruvor on the Tongue
Mirkwood, beside Long Lake
Mirkwood, beside Long Lake
The air was crisp, and a heavy rain had fallen through the night. Now the forest sat misty in its depths, fog hanging above, but the essence of summer blooming below. The White Elderflowers growing on tall woody-stemmed bushes against the backdrop of the Long Lake. They had walked some time the morning to reach this place where the flowers bloomed plentifully, and were laden down each with baskets for their work. Gathering.
Amarië smiled upon her dark haired elfling; though elfling he was but barely. Taller than she had he grown, though not yet of age. Ninety springs had he lived, bringing joy to her heart, and day by day Amarië would teach Adanedhel the lessons he must know; the histories of their people. Of the Noldor, of the Sindar, though yet she had never told him their true lineages. It was in part for his own safety; though also for Amarië's own shame. The blood of the kinslayers was within her. When the time came for such tales Adanedhel would know already the feats and fates of their people.
Today thus she was remembering upon Finrod, her cousin whom she had loved. Long ago had he departed from life, and long ago had he been the King she had been born under, living within the halls of Nargothrond. Her mother-name even had been given for him. Amarië. For Finrod had left behind his own Amarië when he had departed Valinor with the flight of the Noldor.
“Finrod was like his father in his fair face and golden hair, and also in noble and generous heart, though he had the high courage of the Noldor and in his youth their eagerness and unrest; and he had also from his Telerin mother a love of the sea and dreams of far lands that he had never seen. The fire of their hearts was young, and led by Fingolfin and his sons, and by Finrod and Galadriel, they dared to pass into the bitterest North; and finding no other way they endured at last the terror of the Helcaraxë and the cruel hills of ice. Few of the deeds of the Noldor thereafter surpassed that desperate crossing in hardihood or woe. They often they looked behind them to see their fair city, until the lamp of the Mindon Eldaliéva was lost in the night. More than any others of the Exiles they carried thence memories of the bliss they had forsaken, and some even of the things that they had made there they took with them: a solace and a burden on the road.”
Glancing to Adanedhel, she cut from stems another cluster of the white flowers. “Brave were the feats of Finrod in all he did, and it was in loyalty to his friend where he met his fate. Amarië began to sing as the worked; the song of which was named for cousin, telling of his deeds before Morgoth.
“He chanted a song of wizardry
Of piercing, opening, of treachery
Revealing, uncovering, betraying.
Then sudden Felagund there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape
Of snares elude, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps,
Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong
The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,
And all the magic and might he brought
Of Elvenesse into his words.
Softly on the gloom they heard the birds
Singing afar in Nargothrond,
The singing of the Sea beyond,
Beyond the western world, on sand,
On sand of pearls in Elvenland.
Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing
In Valinor, the red blood flowing
Beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew
The Foamriders, and stealing drew
The white ships with their white sails
From lamplit havens. The wind wails,
The wolf howls. The ravens flee.
The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea.
The captives sad in Angband mourn.
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn –
And Finrod fell before the throne.”
Amarië's eyes were damp upon the finish, for Finrod had been beloved to her, and the news of his passing when they reached the halls of Menegroth grevious. She set her hands back to work. His golden hair and the beloved songs he would sing. When she was Adanedhel's age; how she would sit alongside him in the gleaming halls of stone and listen to his voice echo in glimmering lantern light. He was more than a king to her but beloved kin, and it tore her heart that Adanedhel could not know him on this side of the sea; yet she also rejoiced for long years had passed and she knew he had been reunited with his own Amarië on the western shores.
“It was loyalty not only to his own blood which led him to his fate, ionneg,” Amarië said. “But loyalty to the adan, the first men.”
For the name his own Adar had given him, Amarië had not sought forth visions of her son's future. Adanedhel. Elf-man. Yet as time went on and he grew, and she saw how his heart was turned toward goodness, and kindness; though his hair was black as her own, she saw in Adanedhel some of the same nature which had been belayed in her cousin. She wondered if he too would have the same love for the adan which was given unto Finrod. The same curiousity.
Of all her kin, of all the kin of Saeros; if the blood of Finwë was within Adanedhel, it would be whichever strain had been taken up by Finrod that Amarië would wish upon her son.
Amarië turned and glanced across the Long Lake. There the kingdom of Dale was far off. If it had been a clear day it would not have been too far for elven eyes to spot the shining of the belltowers, yet now the fogs blocked their visions. Never yet had she taken her son beyond these borders of Mirkwood. The days were too dark; too dangerous, and still something told her that the day would come when he would seek beyond on his own.
Her fingers moved, and she felt flower petals fall against her shoe, having rolled over the edge of her well filled basket, and Amarië looked down, laughing lightly, the sound ringing over the lake. “My baskets are full to bursting. “You reach the last of the lofty blooms for me, and then we shall depart.” She smiled brightly; her tall son could reach further than she, and it was with his help now that she would finally share with him the makings of miruvor.
--
Song and Words in Italics by Beloved Professor