Arrival of a Gift

Miriel's face was tightened in pain and her body lurched forward. She let forth one final scream in agonies, the crushing grip of her hand upon Marileth's arm. The younger sister was wincing herself at both the merciless clutch upon her, and also the entire situation at hand, her blue eyes wide and her face paled to grey. Miriel gasped, and room grew silent for a moment

Marileth held her breath thinking she might faint for the smell of blood in the room, and she looked down to her arm when Miriel released her, immediately pulling it against her chest and trying to rub off the bright red handprint and slight indentation of her fingernails. Blood was oozing slightly from her own arm where Miriel had clawed against her skin. Marileth almost cried at the pain of it herself, yet there were no others there to hold her hand and the twelve year old had steeled herself over the last two weeks to be helpful as she might to her family.

The baby then began to cry, and Tinuves let out her own breath. It was a few weeks too early, and she had been worried yet the tiny child seemed a bit too small, though in perfect order. “A girl,” Tinuves said with pride, lifting her first great grandchild into her arms, and rocking her ever so slightly before crossing around the bed to Miriel's side and letting the baby rest upon her granddaughter's breast. Meleth hovered near, stroking Miriel's hair, and reaching out to touch the damp hair of the baby.

The young woman was dripping with sweat, her face a ghostly pale, and her black hair hung limp around her shoulders. “A girl,” she breathed quietly. Glad. Miriel had wanted a girl, not a boy, and she thanked every one of the gods she could remember by name that instant, that the child had been born female. She could not have fathomed what it would have been like to look upon a little boy who grew in likeness to the babe's father, Durion.

“Her name is Melian,” Miriel whispered, looking lovingly down upon the black haired baby. Her cries had stilled at the sound of her mother's heartbeat and she rested there. One little eye on her red scrunched face opened, and Marileth was hunching down now near the child's face to look upon her and saw it. “Grey eyes, Miriel. She's so cute.”

Another relief. Not the blue-green eyes of her father, nor even her own green, but grey. Like Meleth and Narbeleth, and Faeldor. Like the rest of her family who were awaiting them soon in Belfalas. The little one would have a good life on the shores of the sea, and she would be glad to leave the stone walls of this wretched White City.

Miriel frowned lightly in thought. She could not stop looking upon the child, and wished that her sister could be here. Though the circumstances surrounding her conception had brought shame upon the house, none blamed the small child, and she had been loved by the whole household even while still in the womb. Beleth would have been so pleased to look upon her just now. The most perfect work that Miriel had ever created now wiggling against her, and Beleth's first niece.

The past two weeks had been tedious. The labor had started so long ago, and she had bled, and bled, and bled. It had not stopped. Tinuves had made her stay abed though the time passed so slowly. The children, her mother, and brother, and her grandfather roved in and out to keep her company, but it had been not the same, and Miriel longed for the lack of her little sister.

The household had been busy; packing, readying for their move to Dol Amroth. Miriel looked up, scanning the back wall of the room where her trunks and belongings were stacked against the side. Much of the furniture in the home had already been sold. Tinuves and the children had been hard at work keeping their days busy. No lessons had been taught since Yule when Faeldor began to training the new Stablemaster, nor handwork taught since the day Meleth had begun training the new baker at the palace Kitchens. Just packing and preparing for the rest of the household. It was going to be a difficult journey for Miriel; she had known all along. But they had plenty of warm things for the baby, and they could make themselves comfortable enough in the carriage, and stop at the Inns along the way. It would be a worthwhile trip, and she wished to be rid of the city before news made it to Durion that the child had even been born.

“Is that the baby? Can we come in?” Faelon was calling from the doorway outside. Tinuves moved to cover Miriel a bit more fully on the bed before giving him entry. Haliel came along thereafter, her small cane tapping against the floor as she worked her way slowly to the bed.

“She is named Melian,” Marileth told her younger siblings first, and then her grandfather. Her stomach had begun to settle now in joy for it seemed perhaps the worst of it was over. Now Miriel could mend, and there would be a new baby to play with.

Melanir ambled in behind the children, and Tinuves moved to hug him. “A great-grandchild!”

“I'm an Aunt now,” the eight year old said happily. It was perhaps the first time in the two weeks since their world had turned upside down that Haliel had any bit of brightness to her voice, and it caused Tinuves to smile, tears gleaming in the corners of her eyes.


"She's an aunt now too," Miriel mumbled, though not entirely pleased, and changed the subject. "Oh, Faelon, run down to the stables and tell Fael she's here. I want him to see her before the end of day."

The tiny baby was now contentedly suckling against her, and she brushed the infants cheek with one finger. “Your Uncle Fael will be glad to hold you, little one,” Miriel whispered.