Rewind... by Nienna

Uinen

Uinen watched her waters rise, betraying her, breaking through her defenses. She seethed, white foam filling in the rising-wall waves, and to her horror it only became worse. All these times, all the joy and secrecy bubbling within her finally burst, spreading, polemic and vast.

Uinen flung herself out of the water, elongating into a hroa that was reddish and voluptuous. She was in no mood for being gentle or small, and so her appearance reflected this state. She was fierce, (whirling dervish, in some other time) rushing to save the only one that had ever made her care, the one who made her feel thrillingly alive.

”Tar-Míriel! Tar-Míriel!” On what little land was left, she ran. She ran to the mountain, the high sputtering tower, and grabbed the one she loved who had been left to rot by fate. (By choice, she now realized. The choices of many, and the choice of the One. How could any live with such a choice?) She understood, of course, in some dimly lit understanding. How many times had she let lives be destroyed by the unfeeling waves in the name of progress or necessity. Towards perfection, perhaps, if such a thing could truly exist, if she could even want it to exist. “You must find Tar-Míriel!”, interrupted her mind. And there she was. Uinen swooped Tar-Míriel in her arms and, through no small task, forced Tar-Míriel’s body to conform to hers. Becoming water, strong and burning as a mountain, pushing back, to create a pocket of air surrounding Tar-Míriel. Uinen couldn’t hold it up for long.

Down they swam, she didn’t even know where anymore, in these waters that had once been her dominion. Away from the land that she didn’t used to care about. But now it was not just land. It was living (dying) memories of the particular feeling of so many precious times. Suffusing into the wind and rain in secret, catching Tar-Míriel by surprise, alone in her garden of yellow flowers…

The way Tar-Míriel grew to expect her when it rained, and ran far away from the palace to places that were all their own.

When Tar-Míriel proposed, neither one of them caring about her marriage to Pharazon, for of course they both knew it was political only.

The horrified bitterness in her throat whenever she thought of Tar-Míriel’s mortality, and yet the strange comfort and poignancy in staving it off together, in forcing it out of their minds.

As they drew near to a coral reef, Uinen stopped as her strength to hold the water back was fading. She was struggling to think. Through the fog, she saw that her wavering wall of water hadn’t been enough to hold back the sea. Tar-Míriel was unconscious and dying. Uinen panicked. Tar-Míriel was dying by the moment, because of her!  How could she have been so stupid? She let go of her pocket of air, unable to even try to hold it up. She held Tar-Míriel’s slumped body close, sobbing. Just adding to the flood, she thought bitterly.

Then she kissed her lips, and Tar-Míriel’s eyes opened for just a moment. Suddenly, she knew what to do. She may not be able to change the future, for it was not within the power of Maiar to rewrite the Music, but she could stay in the past. She had never done it before, but Ulmo had told her it was a skill the Maiar possessed. She might be able to keep Tar-Míriel alive by reliving memories. If nothing else, it would buy some time.

Rewind…

Uinen lifted every recess of strength she had left to take Tar-Míriel with her. To go back, together.

She let her subconscious find the moment that was right, too exhausted for anything more.