To Remember by Raiyana

Chapter 1

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

Looking at the words, shaped in stark black footprints of what once was, Nyarnien hugged herself, longing for the heat that had once rested beside her, there to reach for during sleepy mornings, to tug closer, listening to a steady heartbeat as her fingers played across soft skin.

Her name had been different then, and her soul had been sweeter, less hardened by grief.

Her body, too.

This body had never felt those hands, callused with the work of many tools, igniting fire in their wake or soothing troubled hearts with familiar comfort.

In her dreams, though, he lived. In memory.

Memories she clung to, half-mist and dream-like as they were, but still, she had no wish to forget what she had once known, like so many others.

Even dying, she did not wish to forget: the stunning blow, the desperate struggle to breathe, the darkness closing around her, or the gentle welcome of Uinen. The shifting Halls of Mandos, the grey robes of the Maiar who served there – the raw scratch of grey fabric against her own new flesh – mist-like, dream-like to most, but she would remember.

She would bear witness.

She wrote it all down, stories of the world that seemed so far removed from the one she now lived in, the Sun and Moon still new in the sky, and the beloved Trees lost forever.

Her hair had been more silvery by Treelight, she was sure, chiding herself for mourning such an insignificant thing – and yet it had been her hair that he considered so beautiful, spending hours combing the long strands and weaving flowers into her locks – when there were so many things more worthy of her grief.

And still she wrote it down, the memory of a surprised laugh that clung to a wooden toy, left behind and forgotten in Formenos, toddling steps and a plaintive cry of ‘Ammë!’ that made tears run down her cheeks.

This body had not borne her son, lost beyond the Sea.

But it remembered the solid weight of him, the one who was so precious to her, resting under her heart and, later, in her arms, remembered the tug of a small fist on her hair, dangled over him by his amused father.

A name.

Tyelperinquar.

As her brush glided over the pages, it left behind stories of years filled with such happiness yet marred by darkness she saw clearly only in the telling, memories of places she had seen, stories she had told, of words shared and shouted, of kisses and more, of – of- of…

Of him… Curufinwë.

Of her family, her brothers and father by law.

Of her son.

And Nyarnien wept.

But then she kept writing.

Looking up from the volume she held, Nerdanel smiled. “All this happened, more or less.”

“I had the story,” Nyarnien shrugged, “bit by bit, from various people.” Looking at her mother by law – her only mother, now, as Fananis had never forgiven her marrying her Prince, nor would forgive the betrayal of loving him, still, after everything that had passed – she shrugged. “As generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.”

“But this one is yours,” Nerdanel said, reaching out to squeeze her ink-stained hand. “And I am glad of it…” She did not say, but Nyarnien knew she had worried that she was alone in her love for her sons and her husband.

“I did not mean to follow him,” she murmured, “yet I feel that had I lived, I should have regretted it in time, no matter that Tyelpë was too young – I did not want my son to be raised in war…” A wry smile bloomed on her face. “But they do say that Vairë laughs at the plans of Children.”

“You will see them again,” Nerdanel promised, so fiercely that Nyarnien did not doubt her – and just for a moment, the prospect took her breath away, so real was the vision that she could almost feel strong arms close around her.

“From your lips to Manwë’s ears, Emil,” she murmured, closing her eyes as she tried to hold on to the feeling. May you live till we meet again, most beloveds.