Young Bucks of Cuiviénen by heget

Three Crones Meet on a Rock

The first of two follow-ups to Dreadful Wind/Rushing Wind

The Dowager High Queen of All Elves, Mahtamë of the White Arms, Mother of High King Ingwë, of the First Generation of the First Tribe of the First Children, sat on a rock. It wasn’t an impressive rock. Mahtamë was in the middle of a rapidly drowning Beleriand ravaged by the final year of centuries of war -one that was rather swiftly going to end thanks mostly to the efforts of her people- and she was not alone. A mother of a High King should not be alone, especially not in the middle of a nearly desolate wasteland only a few miles away from an active battlefield (it was a really nice rock). Her company, however, was not ladies-in-waiting or attentive soldiers, not even elven. They were a pair of old mortal women. One was far older than the other, a stooped figure with bleary cataract-blinded eyes and toothless mouth who needed the other gray-haired woman to hold her upright. Mahtamë had greeted them cordially and offered to share her rock (it was a lovely rock). The women introduced themselves, fumbling over language and the fact that the older of the two mortal women was almost deaf in one ear and loosing hearing in the other. The one with gray instead of patchy-balding white hair explained that the woman was her mother’s sister, and they had been separated from their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Mahtamë delighted to learn the new vocabulary. “I too am a grandmother’s mother. And at least one more generation down.”

“But you look so young!” the gray-haired mortal woman said, pointed at the unwrinkled face and golden hair of Mahtamë, and the elf woman laughed.

“I am as old as is possible for my kind.” 

“We couldn’t tell,” said the woman as she helped her aged aunt get comfortable on the rocky seat, rubbing the arthritic knees to try to return feeling to the swollen flesh. The toothless woman smiled.

“Sounds like,” the older of the two mortals croaked, “young woman.” 

Her companion laughed, “Indeed, Prababa-a.” She turned back to her fellow companion on this (nice and wide, quite fortuitous) rock. “The elves are fortunate to escape these ravages of time that cripple us. Are we the first you have met, Lady Elf, mortals afflicted by what age does to us? Turns us into to feeble old crones, the pair of us!” the woman said these disparaging words, but for her all her bitterness, she held her companion tenderly.

Mahtamë, who was but lately come to this war in Beleriand, answered truthfully. “Mortals, yes, those who are thus by the mere advancement of age.” She pulled back her sleeve to uncover the white scars of her arm, the limb that once hung dead and useless at her side.

The older of the two mortal women mumbled something to her companion in the whispery, creaky voice of a centenarian. Her caretaker turned back to Mahtamë, “Gracious Lady, why-”

“Why am I out here, all alone in this wilderness?” Mahtamë interrupted. “I am searching for my husband.”

“Your husband?”

“He’s dead,” Mahtamë answered briskly. “Oh, don’t fret. You know by now that elves can be killed same as mortals, and he has been dead for a very long time. Even for us elves.” Mahtamë chuckled. “But elven souls stay instead of going off like mortal do, so his is still here. Somewhere here,” Mahtamë stressed, slapping her hand firmly against the rock (a really nice guiltless rock who did nothing to deserve that). “So I mean to call him back to me, by singing.”

Unsaid was how her husband died, or why, or how familiar to her was that clutch of loved one’s arm so that they may stand upright, to be their eyes and balance when in need of such assistance oneself.

“I heard a story like that!” the gray-haired woman said brightly. “T’was another elven lady, sang her love back from the grave.”

“Were you abandoned by your people?” Mahtamë asked delicately, looking with pity at the old mortals.

“Oh, not intentionally,” the old women laughed. “They’ll be quite worried for us, our grandchildren.”

Mahtamë read deeper into the causal dismissal, placed these old women against the wounds of her personal history, saw the difference made when every member of a people knew that eventually they too would become infirm and reliant on another’s care. As if it would be unusual, unnatural for a tribe to otherwise. Deep rage welled up through her body, shaking her like prey in a cat’s mouth, but to the mortal women observing her, she was as still as the rock that she sat on.

“Yes, well, until your people find you, I shall keep you company, if that pleases you. And tell you stories about my kin. That lady that sang her husband from Mandos wasn’t one of mine, but her-” here Mahtamë paused and did some quick calculations, “granddaughter married the grandson of one of my grandsons.”

The old women agreed that would be nice. (The rock would have agreed, if it weren’t a rock).