Legendarium [ Tolkien One-Shots ]

Loose Threads

Míriel Þerindë

She sensed it, as soon as Finwë entered the Halls. The familiar presence, the way his warm fëa commanded the respect and attention of all surrounding. She knew it to be him, and in that moment, Míriel knew the doom she'd felt so long ago had come at last.

Her heart ached, as she began to feel the warm glow of the fires in Vairë's Halls. Her body, reborn, held sensations that Míriel hadn't known in millennia. Her fingers touched her hair, her eyes beheld colors she'd somehow forgotten. But the ache of her heart remained.

Where Finwë's fëa had been warm, Fëanáro's had raged like an inferno. Her body still remembered the exhaustion, the way bringing her only son into the world had ripped apart her insides with the flames. She'd just wanted to rest, and after seeing the doom that would befall him, she'd held no hope for herself.

But she'd seen only fragments, loose threads not unlike the tapestries hanging around the Halls she now traversed. She'd seen the doom but not the path to it. She'd seen the fall, but not the cliff. Míriel felt her heart torn asunder as she gazed upon the tapestry newly complete, the tapestry of Finwë's final stand at the doors for Formenos, tears welling as she realized what could've been avoided had she only stayed.

Fëanáro's fire would consume him. It would consume them all, her grandsons whom she saw depicted in artworks around her, some with hair so red it echoed the very fire in their souls, their people too. Míriel had failed them, and her heart ached.

She found herself beside another Weaver, who worked tirelessly upon a tapestry of the other houses. The second and third, the sons of the lady Indis. A wave of emotion crashed over her. These, they would not exist without her choice to leave. These princes and ladies of the Noldor.

And in that moment, Míriel understood. She knew that good could come of her choice. Fëanáro would be tempered by Indis' children, Fëanáro's sons by the others. And in that moment, Míriel realized the doom she'd seen had been only part of the tapestry of Eä. She'd been given only the tiniest glimpse.

Míriel smiled. She smiled through the tears and through the ache that ripped through her body as she sensed as they all did, the cry for vengeance from the Spirit of Fire who had come from her own heart. But she knew not all would be lost.

A Weaver approached her.

"Míriel Serindë, would you care to work?"

Serindë. The name her son whom she'd left had tried so hard to rid the world of. She was not Serindë. Just as he had chosen to say Þerindë in her memory, so also would she choose it to honor her son. To honor him, and the sons of Indis, and every child to come from them thereafter.

"Call me Þerindë, and yes, I would."