Numenor That Was by Himring

Vanimelde Dances

The Third Ruling Queen of Numenor--as a girl, as Queen, and in old age.
A slightly revisionist account of the importance of dancing.

Rated Teens for Mature Themes (Numenorean politics)

Originally written for Marta for Fandom Stocking 2014 and simultaneously (in the form of a true drabble) for  Tolkien Weekly for the prompt "ballroom".

Read Vanimelde Dances

In the king’s palace in Armenelos, in the disused ballroom in the old west wing, Vanimelde dances. She dances, all by herself, to the music in her head.

She lifts her arms, she twirls, she leaps… Dancing, she is beautiful. She is powerful. She is at the centre of the universe. She is Luthien, whose dancing ushered in the spring after the harshness of winter each year in ancient Doriath. She is the Valie Nessa, who, swifter than the deer, danced at the world’s first wedding, her own, in Almaren before the destruction of the Lamps.

Some of Vanimelde’s teachers—those of the King’s Party—frown on these stories. Vanimelde herself does not quite know what she thinks of them, but she hears their music and so she dances.

***

She knows they say she should have renounced the sceptre, should have allowed herself to be passed over in favour of Herucalmo. She has no head for economy or legislation, they say. (She would never admit to anybody that it is not for want of trying.) Herucalmo can juggle figures and paragraphs much better than she. That is all that they think it takes to rule.

Is that all that it takes to rule? The people of Numenor are well-fed and well-clothed; Herucalmo has seen to that. But their hearts are restless, threadbare with longing. And always they are drifting further apart. Hardly a conversation that does not threaten to become a dispute—about the Valar, about life and death, about policies in Middle-earth—and, increasingly, each dispute ends in bitter quarrels.

Vanimelde has no real answers, no final cure. She offers beauty instead. If the people of Armenelos cannot speak without quarrelling, she will make them sing. If the nobility of the Yozayan cannot meet in amity, she will make them move in harmony together on the dance floor. Even if they must make do without words, they shall not forget they are parts of a whole, as long as Tar-Vanimelde rules from the ballroom. She issues commands and Herucalmo grudgingly pays for an academy of music, open to anyone with talent, an opera house in Armenelos and theatres in the provinces, annual festivals. A waste of money, Herucalmo thinks.

Tar-Vanimelde thinks: let the Dunedain express their fears and desires in music and movement rather than allowing them to poison their lives. In the ballroom, members of warring parties bow to each other and walk hand in hand to music, King’s Man with Elf Friend. And so, in their midst, Vanimelde dances.

***

She is old now. Death is a gift, the Elf Friends say, although it is three generations since those of the line of Elros willingly accepted it. Occasionally, she finds herself rattling the box to guess what might be in it.

For some time now, she has been limping behind in life’s dance. But she cannot freely leave. She has allowed Herucalmo to become too powerful and now she worries for her son. It is bitter that she should have to spend her last years trying to wrest power back from her own husband. All her life, she has tried to be serene and impartial, above party strife, to be equally beloved of all. Now she finds she has few allies.

But even when in the end her legs refuse to bear her, in her heart, Vanimelde still dances. To her son Alcarin she says on her deathbed: ‘I hope there will still be music.

---

Chapter End Notes

It's possible that the King's Men called themselves Queen's Men during Vanimelde's reign. I have continued to call them "King's Men" to show that the party antedates her and that, although they are nominally royalists, that doesn't necessarily mean they would support Vanimelde's own policies.

The Queen as a Young Girl (drabble)

Tar-Vanimelde, future Queen of Numenor, as a young girl discovers what dancing means to her. 

Fixed-length version of the ballroom scene in "Vanimelde Dances", as originally written for Tolkien Weekly

(100 words acc. to MS Word)

Rating: General

Read The Queen as a Young Girl (drabble)

In the disused ballroom in the old west wing, Vanimelde dances. She dances, all by herself, to the music in her head.
She lifts her arms, she twirls, she leaps… She is beautiful. She is powerful. She is at the centre of the universe. She is Luthien, whose dancing ushered in the spring after the harshness of winter. She is the Valie Nessa, who, swifter than the deer, danced at the world’s first wedding in Almaren.
Some of Vanimelde’s teachers rather disapprove of these stories. Vanimelde does not quite know what she thinks of them, but she hears their music.

---

Chapter End Notes

The fixed-length version also posted here, for comparison, as I believe it may show different strengths.

With thanks for permission to the SWG mods.

A Missed Catch

Tar-Ancalime and her granddaughters--maybe a sad tale of repeated misunderstandings.

Here is an episode from their childhood, from the POV of one of the (apparently unnamed) granddaughters.

Rating: Teens

Warning: Mature Themes (Dysfunctional Family)

True drabble (100 words in MS Word)

Read A Missed Catch

'Catch!' I cried, tossing the ball to my sister.

But my aim was bad. It hit the Queen’s shoulder instead as she came strolling along the path. I froze, expecting punishment. Slowly, my grandmother stooped and picked up the ball, looking at me.

Insufferable woman! How I hated her for the way she spoke to Father sometimes! Inexplicably, he always forgave her.

Ancalime dropped the ball again and simply walked away.  I breathed a great sigh of relief. Only now, seeing the scene in the mind’s eye, do I realize: she had been going to throw the ball to me.

---

Chapter End Notes

For more background, see the following chapter

What She Said

Years after Tar-Ancalime's death, her elder granddaughter opens a letter from her for the first time.
Its contents change her views--both about her present situation and the past--and enable her to move on.

A slightly revisionist account of the tension between Ancalime and her granddaughters towards the end of her rule.

Sequel to "A Missed Catch"

Rating: Teens

Warning: Mature Themes: (Dysfunctional Family, Failed Marriage implied)

Read What She Said

Work Text:

Alone, she walks through the empty house. She mounts the broad staircase in her elegant slippers, hearing her short train swish behind her on the marble steps in the silence and smiles bitterly down at the hem of her sleeve, encrusted with seed pearls, as her right hand trails along the railing. The realization has been forced on her by recent events that she is no longer young.

She reaches the haven of her own private study and sits down at her delicately carved desk. But there is nothing to write, nothing left to do. For a moment, she sits, blind and immobile. Then her hands start moving again, finger groping far towards the back of the left desk drawer.

But surely she threw away that old unread letter long ago? And even if she did change her mind and kept it, what would she want with it now? Why give her grandmother a chance to gloat at her humiliation, even from beyond the grave?

Nevertheless she continues groping until she catches the brittle envelope between her fingertips. She draws it out, studies the yellowed paper a moment, flicks away the crumbling seal with a long finger nail and—finally—begins to read:

 

My dear,

It has come to my ears that you are putting about that I am forbidding you to marry to punish you for declaring publicly that you will refuse the sceptre if it is offered. I did not enjoy the experience of being married so greatly myself that I would choose to inflict this particular kind of punishment. If I tried to forbid you to wed that man, it was for the most obvious reason—or so I thought: he is entirely wrong for you, child, as anyone with two eyes in their head could see.

Well, I should have known better. I hoped you would reconsider if I forced you to delay the wedding, but you are too much like me and I can see I merely put your back up. Now you will marry him, even if doubt should come creeping in, because you know I did not want you to.

I had planned, in the last years of my rule, to do for you and for your sister what I could not do for myself—push the council into revoking that foolish rule my father managed to impose on us, the one that forbids the royal heir from marrying outside the House of Elros. As if my mother’s ancestry had been the only reason that my parents’ marriage failed! My own marriage was to prove so well how entirely happiness is guaranteed on every side if one weds within the family! But I can hardly undertake to battle the council on behalf of two granddaughters who are declaring loudly they would not accept the sceptre in any case under any circumstances—only to give one of them the right to marry a man that will clearly break her heart.

Be that as it may—it seems I am slowly getting too tired to fight any more battles of any kind—and how surprised those who knew me in my youth would be to hear me say so! Soon enough the time will come to let the reins of Numenore slip through my fingers... Your grandfather has rested in peace in Noirinan for more than fifty years. But my own heart was buried long ago in fair Eldalonde. You know nothing of that; you do not need to.

And who knows? I may even be wrong about that suitor of yours. But I do not think so. I truly do not think so.

 

A.

 

She reads her grandmother’s letter over a second time. Then she lights a taper and, in an incense dish, burns it to ash. No historian needs to know that the great Tar-Ancalime ever admitted to weakness.

Ancalime’s elder granddaughter, in her elegant velvet slippers and her white dress stitched with seed pearls, walks away from the wreck of her marriage, out of the empty house and down the drive. Not all is lost. She gets on well with her brother, King Tar-Surion. There may yet be deeds to do in Armenelos.

---

Chapter End Notes

The reference to Eldalonde is an allusion to my OFC Faeleth, who features in an earlier Ancalime story (Loss All Around, archived here as a chapter of "Pyrrhic Wedding")

The rule about marrying within the House of Elros was introduced by Aldarion, because he blamed the failure of his marriage to Erendis on their different lifespans.
Ancalime, who clearly had her own views on the reasons of the failure of her parents's marriage, as she was right in the middle of their strife, does not show a great deal of respect for this rule--even when she was young, she declared once that if she had really wanted to marry someone else, she would not have hesitated to renounce the throne. She ended up obeying the rule and marrying a distant cousin, due to political pressures on her, and it was a very unhappy marriage indeed.

Originally written for Legendarium Ladies April 2015

A Love Song (Imladris Collection of Numenorean Songs No. 72A)

Who is Yavien? A princess of the House of Elros--a name and a date in a genealogical table. We know little about the early days of Numenor.

But it seems that in a collection of songs found in the Library of Rivendell, a song is preserved that mentions her name...

Rating: Teens (very mild sexual content)

Read A Love Song (Imladris Collection of Numenorean Songs No. 72A)

Where River Siril
lazily meanders
on its last lap to the sea,
well shielded among rushes,
knee-deep in gladden and yellow cress,
Yavien, oh Yavien,
will you remember who kissed you,
fair as your foremother Idril,
will you,
although you're of the House of Elros
and I the daughter of fisher folk?

Where River Siril
lazily meanders
on its last lap to the sea,
I still remember, my love,
our first kiss,
well shielded among rushes,
knee-deep in gladden and yellow cress,
although you were a fisher from Nindamos,
fairer than elves to me,
and I the great-granddaughter of Elros.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for the International Day of Femslash Challenge by the Library of Moria (which supplied the prompts "Yavien" and "yellow cress") and for the (Not a) River Challenge at Tolkien Weekly (which supplied the prompt "meander").

The river Siril is the chief river of Numenor and flows southwards from Meneltarma, the holy mountain in the centre of the island. Before it flows into the sea near the fisher village Nindamos, it slows down and winds its way through marshes. That seems to be an area where yellow cress would be found, a plant that grows in wet or boggy places.
I decided Yavien was a blonde--hence the comparison to her ancestress Idril rather than her ancestor Luthien, who was dark-haired.
I considered adding a faux commentary by the librarian of Rivendell or going on to fill in more of the background to Yavien's story, but so far these have remained pipe dreams.

Time and the Traveller: Yavien of Numenor

Elros's great-granddaughter Yavien returns from one of her journeys through the land of Numenor. This particular trip was a life-changing experience for her. What does she tell her family and how does the encounter go?

Written as a background story for my poem "A Love Song (Imladris Collection of Numenorean Songs No. 72A)", but it also develops its own concerns besides that.

Incorporates "Time Passing: A Fair Copy", a scene featuring Vardamir Nolimon and his grandson Elendil Parmaite (later King Tar-Elendil of Numenor), written for Akallabeth in August and the first prompt of the Passing Time challenge on Tolkien Weekly: calendar. This had been previously posted to the Archive as an independent chapter. 

Rating: Teens (Mature Themes: social issues and reference to canonical character death)

Read Time and the Traveller: Yavien of Numenor

The weather is pleasant today, so grandfather and grandson have decided to move out into the open air. There is a quiet portico alongside the courtyard of the White Tree. They have set up next to a column: Parmaite bent over his portable writing-desk, Vardamir ensconced in a comfortable wicker chair with his notebooks.

‘I could not make out what you wrote about the differences between the calendars of Tirion and of Gondolin,’ says Parmaite.

‘Let’s see,’ says Vardamir, studying the page.

He explains and Parmaite dips his pen into the ink and begins to write: careful, beautifully formed tengwar.

 

Evening comes. Although Parmaite lights a candle, it is too dark to go on writing and soon too dark to read. But they remain, talking at random of this or that—of all the lore of Aman and Middle-earth, neither of which either of them has ever seen. They do not talk of Numenor—the land still seems so new it has not occurred to Vardamir that it, too, might have lore worth gathering and remembering…

The candle is half burnt down when they hear a light familiar step approaching along the portico.

Delighted and surprised, Parmaite cries out: ‘Yavien!’

 

‘Where have you been, Yavien? You were gone more than three months!’

‘Was it so long? Maybe it was. It was full moon when I left, I remember…’

‘Where did you go, this time?’

‘I followed the course of the Siril down to the sea.’

‘But there’s nothing much there, is there?’

‘You’d be surprised!’

Usually, Parmaite has no trouble making Yavien talk; she was happy to tell them about discovering the tremendous cliffs of Sorontil on the North Cape and the sweet scents of lake Nisinen in the West.

Tonight she sighs, smiles and finds it hard to begin.

 

‘But you must tell me about the wonders of the Land of Gift, Yavien! You know I want to write them down, just as I do Grandfather's lore!’

‘Then look.’

Yavien opens her satchel and brings out her spoils: dried flowers and reeds, a set of fish hooks, a sketchbook filled with jottings. She begins explaining them.

‘Enough for now,’ she says, finally. ‘How's Great-grandfather?’

Suddenly, Parmaite looks sad.

‘Not well?!’ asks Yavien, alarmed.

‘Well enough,’ says Vardamir.

‘Yes,’ admits Parmaite. ‘Only, when I look at him, it's as if I see time like sand in an hourglass running out...’

 

***

 

The sundial is neatly inscribed in Quenya: Count the Sunny Hour.

Yavien finds Elros seated beside it, soaking up autumn sunlight. He smiles as she crouches down.

‘Great-grandfather’, she begins. ‘I met someone I could… Someone I care for.’

‘Did you, my Yavien? When will I get to meet him?’

Yavien hesitates.

‘She’s a fisher girl from Nindamos.’

A moment’s silence.

‘What a pity’, says Elros then. ‘I’d put on a plain cloak and travel to Nindamos to see the woman who’s captured your adventurous heart, but I’m too old.’

‘You’re not old, great-grandfather!’

‘Sadly, my bones say otherwise, Yavien.’

 

I remember a time when my brother and I sat by the shore, fishing for our next meal. I remember a time when most of my people were freed thralls. I remember a time when none of us were sure we would live to see the next day and some took love as they found it, asking no questions.

The seasons of the world wrought changes. A couple of centuries went by—and already in Numenor they believe there is much difference in station between a princess and a fisher girl. Who to love and how? The rules apply.

Could I have done more to stem that tide? But was I not chosen myself for kingship precisely by those rules, heir to Tuor and Beren by blood? They were never entirely suspended; regained prosperity has brought them back in force.

My little Yavien, silver-quick, her hair bleached by Numenor’s sun like ripe wheat! Voronwe told me he could see something of Idril in her. Now she is grown, she loves, but cannot freely speak.

Could I have done more? It is too late. All things have their season. Mine is past; already the kingship has slipped almost from my hands…

---

Chapter End Notes

In "The Line of Elros", It is said of Elros's son Vardamir that "his chief love was for ancient lore, which he gathered from Elves and Men" and of Tar-Elendil that "he was also called Parmaite, for with his own hand he made many books and legends of the lore gathered by his grandfather".
The "Land of Gift" is a name for Numenor (Adunaic: Yozayan; Quenya: Andor). The river Siril, Sorontil and Lake Nisinen are canonical and feature in the geographical description of Numenor in the Unfinished Tales.
Elros's thoughts in the final section refer to his youth in Beleriand with his brother Elrond and several of his ancestors: Tuor of the House of Hador, Beren of the House of Beor, Idril, princess of Gondolin. Voronwe is a former elf of Gondolin; I have written about his friendship with Elros elsewhere.

Originally a drabble sequence written for the Passing Time challenge at Tolkien Weekly on LiveJournal

Individual drabble titles and prompts: A Fair Copy (Calendar); Ancient Lore (Candle); The Traveller's Return (Phases of the Moon); Exchange of News (Hourglass); A Confession (Sundial); Thoughts of an Aging King (Seasons).

The Crane and the Crow

A working-class girl gets entangled in the intrigues at the court of the last King of Numenor.
It earns her mortal danger and heartbreak--and ultimately survival.

Warnings for death of an OFC with canon-typical violence as well as occasional prostitution and class differences, which render the central relationship arguably dub-con.

(Rating: on the Mature side of Teens)

Read The Crane and the Crow

 

Inzilmith could so easily not have been on one of the Nine Ships lying off Romenna.

Inzilmith was not one of the Faithful. Faith, of any kind, was too costly an item for one like her. It was something for the noble, the wealthy. Maybe it had been different in the past. Maybe it might be different in Romenna, for those who happened to live there.

It did not mean she was a follower of the Zigur--she was entirely uncertain whether he was able to make good on any of his promises and in any case very certain they were not on offer to one like her. On most days, she was less bothered about immortality than about survival. She had a roof to keep over her head, tomorrow's crust still too earn.

She worked as a seamstress, long hours into the night, ruining her eyes by the light of a tallow lamp. She sold her work and sometimes the fitting sessions gained her a little extra. That had come hard, the first time she sold herself along with her work, but she hadn't eaten for two days and desperately needed to pay the week's rent. She had got used to it. Faith, after all, was for those who knew where the next meal was coming from.

Things had changed a little when she acquired patronage. It had started with the red bodice. She had dared to experiment a little with the embroidery; the pattern showed a crane and a crow flying together, as if in friendship. It had caught the Lady's eye. Soon more orders were coming her way.

The Lady was from Romenna, rumoured to be one of the Faithful--that was potentially dangerous, but the Lady was discreet. Inzilmith had never seen any evidence of association with the Elendili when she visited the household to make deliveries. And the Lady was high-born, a distant relative of Lord Amandil. She was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. She would be safe, someone like her--the Zigur would not dare to touch her.

Meanwhile, Inzilmith was making presents for the Queen! The Lady had gifted a scarf she had embroidered to Tar-Miriel and even relayed back compliments. Inzilmith fed better. She was working shorter hours and she was beginning to dare to say no to her other employers when it came to that little bit extra.

She had not said no to the Lady. It would have been stupid to say no. And besides... But that was where that thought stopped, always.

Until that night came, when she went to deliver the sky-blue gown and the house seemed darker and emptier than she was accustomed to. Something must have upset the household. The servant who had admitted her clearly had his mind on other things; he almost turned her away before she reminded him that she was expected.

The Lady's room was as bright as usual--glittering with mirrors and silver that reflected the light of many scented candles. But the Lady stood in the middle of the room, facing the door, when it opened, as if she had been waiting--and not for the sky-blue gown.

'Close the door, Inzilmith, please,' she said.

Inzilmith did. She was suddenly afraid, realizing that she should have been all along.

'I've had warning today, Inzilmith. Not a very definite warning--but the most I'm likely to get and lucky to get that. The Zigur--he's coming for me. Perhaps not quite yet, but soon. A matter of days now, I think.'

'The Queen...', Inzilmith whispered, in shock.

The Lady shook her head. 'She would protect me if she could. In any case...'

The Lady picked up a heavy purse from an elaborately-carved three-legged table.

'Inzilmith, I'm afraid you're too closely associated with me. Take this and go hide. Stay out of sight. And if they should catch you, say you stole the money and ran. I will say that, too...'

But you don't even love me, thought Inzilmith. You love the Valar--and the Queen.

It was an entirely stupid thought to be thinking, at that point. But she just stood there, clutching the parcel with the sky-blue gown to her chest, gaping at the Lady--and maybe the stupid thought--the one she had been trying not to think, the one that had already been hurting, even before this--showed clearly on her face, because the Lady came toward her and--for the last time--there was the cloud of her dusky hair and the smell of sandalwood and the gentle touch.

'I'm so very sorry, my Flower,' said the Lady.

She kissed her on the mouth and took the parcel from her and put the purse in her hand.

'Go now,' she said. 'Quickly. Be safe.'

 

***

 

Tar-Miriel stood calm and impassive. She had trained herself some time ago not to flinch at the screams and the smell of burning flesh--for all the good it did her.

She met the Zigur's gaze, for a moment. Then she looked away and straight at the pyre, willing her eyes not to focus.

Oh yes, you've got me well and truly trapped, she thought. I cannot hope to trust anybody around me again--now you've demonstrated so effectively that I can't protect even those closest to me...

As she turned away, she became aware again, with a sharp pang, of the feel of embroidered silk against her skin. She had tied the scarf she had been given around her middle, underneath all her finery, like a sash.

 

***

 

'Go and hide,' the Lady had said. 'Stay out of sight.' She had not said: 'Go to Romenna and ask Lord Elendil for help.'

Inzilmith, weeping and cursing on the road to Romenna, knew that it was no use, that it was already too late, that it was foolish and dangerous, that she was wasting the Lady's money... She guessed she had found her Faith on the road to Romenna, although she would find it hard to say, even later, what that Faith consisted in.

It was foolish and dangerous and useless. By the time she managed to reach Elendil and speak to him, the Lady was burned and dead.

But it got her a place on one of the Nine Ships--and so ultimately survival.

---

Chapter End Notes

Whatever kind of feelings the Queen and the Lady  had for each other, in this story, my background assumption is that under the circumstances nothing physical had happened between them, because Sauron could have used it against them (except unfortunately that didn't stop him). But this would not have made Tar-Miriel's loss less intense.

This piece was a late entry for the International Day of Slash challenge at the Library of Moria.
I had a prompt, but did not follow it closely.
The prompt was the following (wonderful) poem by Li Yu:
Beneath the moon, before the steps, all cherry blossom has fallen,
Enwreathed in smoke, she looks sorrowful lying in bed.
She feels the same regret today as one long year ago.
Both braids like cloud in disarray, her face is wan and sallow,
The crimson corset wet from wiping tears.
But what's the reason why she suffers so?
She lies in a drunken dream before the window.

(I read up on Li Yu's biography, which is fascinating and also may have influenced me in tone, but not in any particular detail.)

Also taking inspiration from several prompts from Tolkien Femslash Week (but not as a valid entry for the TFSW Bingo) and a drabbletag prompt by Zdenka

King's Sister, Pretender's Mother

Tar-Aldarion changes the laws of succession with the purpose of allowing his daughter Ancalime to succeed.
But this also foments the ambitions of Soronto, son of the king's sister Ailinel.

As Oshun has recently pointed out, we do not learn what Ailinel thought about this...

Here's Oshun's bio of Ailinel, written for the April newsletter, in honour of Legendarium Ladies April.

Rated Teens on AO3, just for the politics.

Read King's Sister, Pretender's Mother

The message arrived during breakfast, which she took alone in the arbour.

A brief scrawl in Adunaic: Sister, can you not control your son?

Clearly, Soronto had made himself unpopular last evening. No need to worry her husband. She drained her teacup and adjourned to her desk.

There she wrote in neat Tengwar: Anardilya, if you change the laws of succession to suit your private preferences, you must not be surprised if it gives people ideas. Be glad you only have my unruly son to deal with, not our cousin Malantur, who could justifiably resent being robbed of his rights!

 

***

 

Soronto stormed into her parlour.

‘She is going to marry Hallacar, after all!’

‘What a surprise,’ commented Ailinel. ‘Have I not told you time after time that Ancalime would not easily let go of power or allow herself to be pushed? If you wished to gain influence, you should have got on a good footing with her, as your father was with mine.’

‘But she cannot rule!’ cried Soronto. ‘She is a mere girl!’

‘Take care to whom you speak!’ said Ailinel sharply. And when Soronto stared at her uncomprehendingly: ‘I may be your mother but I’m also a woman.’

 

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for the drabble prompts "message" (Tolkien Weekly) and "time after time" (Tolkien100).
2 x100 words in MS Word.

Some of Tolkien's comments about the laws of succession and how they changed are contradictory. I've gone with the version in which Soronto would not have inherited before Tar-Aldarion changed the law in favour of the female line, because Malantur was heir through the male line.

Anardilya is Tar-Aldarion's canonical nick-name (Tar-Aldarion is his regnal name, Anardil his birth name).

Cloud Studies

Aldarion's change to the Numenorean law of succession disinherits a distant cousin of the King, Malantur. How does he react? 

Sequel to the drabble of Ailinel, Aldarion's sister.

Warnings: reference to canonical dysfunctional family (PG)

Read Cloud Studies

Malantur spent that year, sketchbook in hand, studying the clouds, how they formed and how the wind, coming from the Sea, chased them east or west across Numenor. He was often in the Forostar, where Meneldur still had his tower, much relieved that now, whatever happened, he could not inherit the crown and deeming himself free to follow his interests.

Erendis’s scorn, although not aimed at him, reached his ears and struck home.

‘Am I neglectful?’ he asked his cousin Ailinel.

‘How? When your art yields both beauty and an accurate record of weather?’ Ailinel said, admiring his meticulous drawings.

---

Chapter End Notes

1 x 100 words on MS Word, for the Tolkien Weekly prompt "Cloud".

Inspired by the surviving cloud studies by the painter Constable, which are both true art and meteorologically accurate.

The scorn of Erendis is mostly aimed at her errant husband, Aldarion, but is canonically later extended to men, and especially male Numenorean aristocrats, as a whole.

Not Waving But Drowning

Miriel, Queen of fated Numenor, near drowns in images of water long before she drowns.

Warning for major character death, suicidal ideation, and implied non-con

Teens

Read Not Waving But Drowning

The heavy tiara made a dent in her forehead. The tiered necklace dragged on her neck and shoulders. The train of her brocaded dress slowed her feet. Miriel the Golden, made to bear the evidence of Pharazon’s conquests like a pack mule rather than his unwilling wife. Each step seemed to threaten to sink her into the ground, as if she were walking through a swamp rather than across the smooth flagstones paving the main thoroughfare in Armenelos. She pulled herself up, raising her arm. She must be seen to be waving, not drowning. So little remained even of the pretence of a lawful state, a civil community. If she failed to uphold the pretence herself, Sauron would begin openly hunting the Faithful in the streets.

 

‘You cannot fight against the tide,’ Gimilkhad had snarled at her father. An apt metaphor for a nation of seafarers, perhaps. He had thought himself in tune with the times, her uncle, but time had run out for him. A frustrated man, in a discontented society—a dangerous legacy, opening the door to worse. So much worse.

 

Tide going out, the irresistible pull, turning and finding oneself too far out, the safety of the shore out of reach.

Wandering among the tombs of Noirinan, she had known that she had little of the simplicity or certainties of her distant ancestors.

‘Yet are our struggles of so little account?’ she had asked the effigy of Elros. ‘Could we not deserve one elven ship? Not one?’

 

Tide coming in, the inexorable advance, the cold reaching higher and higher.

Had there been a moment when she should have called the Faithful to arms? If so, she had missed it. Perhaps she was brought up too much in the tradition of Andunie.  She had gone on sending secret messages to Romenna, to Pelargir, as her networks unravelled, brutally torn apart by Sauron and his minions. Now she had few secrets left to keep…

 

When, after all the waiting, after the terror of the thunder and the eagles, the wave finally broke, there was the animal fear that drove her to flight, the guilt of having failed her people, the searing anger at the death of innocents. All that. And also, in a very brief, very quiet moment, among all that violence and noise, the relief of letting go.

She rose and fell.

---

Chapter End Notes

Text of Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith at the Poetry Foundation.

A Future Queen

The future queen Tar-Telperien asks her aunt about her refusal of the Sceptre.

Originally written for Isilloth, for Fandom Giftbox 2018, who had requested  fanfiction on the subject of how Telperien coped with sexism in Numenorean society.

This piece also features her aunt, Tar-Ancalime's granddaughter, who refused the Sceptre, like her sister.  In my 'verse, she left her husband, who had treated her very badly, and went to live with her brother in Tar-Armenelos. 

Rating: Teens.

Minor warning for references to children getting into a fight despite an age difference.

Read A Future Queen

Telperien usually got on well with her aunt Culurien. Some people at court disapproved of her aunt, because she lived separately from her husband, but to Telperien this was rather a point in her favour. Why allow yourself to be forced by the opinion of others to live together with someone if you did not want to? She had met her aunt’s husband once, taken an instant dislike to him and stubbornly refused to call him ‘Uncle’ when it was suggested to her.

But today Telperien was wearing an unaccustomed scowl. Her aunt, who had risen from her seat to greet her with her usual welcoming smile was clearly startled at this behaviour and Telperien felt she was being ungracious and perhaps unfair. After all her aunt had not said anything to her on the subject yet! She had even agreed to see her immediately when she was probably really busy; she often was. It was just the others…

‘Whatever is the matter, Telperien?’ her aunt asked. Then, looking more closely, she noticed the state of her dress and asked: ‘Have you been in a fight?’

Telperien plucked uncomfortably at her torn sleeve.

‘With Isilmo,’ she admitted, a little sulkily. She was not proud of having slapped her younger brother but, in her current mood, would resent anyone who would try to make her apologize.

‘With Isilmo?! But why? That’s not like you, Telperien!’

‘He expects me to renounce the Sceptre in his favour,’ said Telperien stiffly.

‘Isilmo? The Sceptre? At his age?’ said Culurien, her voice rising in real surprise and puzzlement. ‘Did anyone put him up to it?’

‘That nursemaid of his, I think,’ said Telperien, cautiously relieved at her reaction, but still wary. ‘But she is not the only one.’

They looked at each other for a moment. Telperien, for the first time, consciously noticed the lines about her aunt’s eyes and mouth and wondered whether she was as content with her life at court as she had always seemed to be.

Well, thought Telperien, she needed to know what the answer was, regardless.

‘She said, that maid—and Isilmo had been parroting her, but she was obviously repeating what she had overheard from others—that renouncing the Sceptre was clearly the proper thing to do, for princesses, and that you yourself had shown the way.’ She paused. ‘That Ancalime ought to have resigned the sceptre to Soronto, and it’s no wonder she was a bad queen.’

Her aunt took a deep breath, then let it out again.

‘Telperien, come, sit down. Sit down beside me and let’s talk about this.’

She led the way to a couch at the other side of the room. Telperien, still rather stiffly, perched beside her among the embroidered cushions.

‘It’s true,’ said Culurien, ‘I did renounce the sceptre and so did my sister. We had our reasons, Telperien, and although some things may have been said in heat at the time, as for me, it was certainly not my intention to declare that women were unfit to rule Numenor in general or that all princesses must renounce the sceptre when it is offered to them.’

She added reluctantly: ‘My sister did feel a little differently about this. I have to mention that to you because you may find her words quoted at you. But she, too, was caught up in that moment, at that time. Neither of us got along at all well with our grandmother; I fought her and my sister feared her.’

‘Your grandmother—that was Ancalime. Was she a bad queen?’ asked Telperien.

‘I’d say she was a good queen in some respects, a bad queen in others, and as for the rest, there are matters people disagreed about then and disagree about still, so it would depend entirely on who you ask,’ said Culurien carefully. ‘We should talk about this again, when you’ve advanced a bit more in your studies in history. But’, she went on more decisively, ‘I knew Soronto. He was in his old age, by then, but I very strongly doubt he would have made a better king.’

She took Telperien’s hand.

‘They did not make it easy for Ancalime, Telperien. You should keep that in mind, too, when you judge her rule.’

She squeezed Telperien’s hand a little.

‘You should also keep it in mind when you make your own decision. And it will be your decision. My brother, your father, he and I have talked about it—he will not push you to decide, not for a long time yet. I will tell him about Isilmo and his maid. Meanwhile, stay out of fights with Isilmo over this. He’s not old enough. How bad was it? He didn’t get hurt, did he?’

‘Not much,’ said Telperien. ‘He was yelling, but that was because I scared him. I’ll make it up to him.’

Because he was smaller than her. Not because she was a girl and girls do not hit boys, regardless what the nursemaid had said.

Culurien shook her head, ruefully.

Telperien eyed her sideways, noticing a hint of white among her red-gold hair.

‘Did you ever regret it? Renouncing the Sceptre?’ she asked.

For a moment, she thought Culurien would refuse to answer.

‘This is not something you should be talking to your father about, even now’, she warned.

‘Of course I won’t!’ said Telperien indignantly.

‘Occasionally I did. Not often and not for a long time now. I have made my life, here. I have other regrets, some of them much stronger, and it is not an easy path, taking up the Sceptre. But you will have my full support if you should choose to walk it, Telperien.’

Telperien nodded.

She already knew that she would.

---

Chapter End Notes

For previous stories featuring Telperien's aunt, see "A Missed Catch" and "What she said".

This is the first story in which she is explicitly named. Culurien is canonically a by-name of Laurelin and she is named for her red-gold hair.

Became Estranged from the Eldar

The Shadow has fallen on Numenor, but there are still embassies from Tol Eressea to the court at Armenelos. One of these messengers has a decision to make.

Rating: Teens (warning for reference to character death)

Read Became Estranged from the Eldar

The ambassador from Tol Eressea was facing a diplomatic challenge. If she attended the King’s funeral, she would be perceived as flaunting her unlimited life span in the face of everyone in Numenor. If she failed to attend, she would surely be perceived as showing disrespect to the House of Elros. It did not help that this quandary had proved impossible to explain to the Maia Manwe had sent when she tried to ask for advice.

In the end, she only consulted her heart and went to Noirinan. She would never forsake that old friendship, unless they forsook it first.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for one of the SWG Instadrabbling sessions for the prompts: funeral, ambassador, Maia, forsake