memento mori by Fernstrike

memento mori

Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving
Then you better start swimmin' or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

The first time Míriel was present for an embalming, she was still short enough for her father’s hand to rest on her shoulder with scarcely a bend of his arm. They were in the final stage of burying a lord, whose name she did not remember, and had refused to remember in the tiniest act of rebellion. Nearly meaningless such memory was, when it was writ in stone, and his likeness carved into an eternal effigy. Even then, she knew that remembrance in itself, not the manner of remembrance, was what these men most craved. It was a seductive thought, building great tombs and memorials. It was equally painful to think she’d spend her whole life living to die, in Númenor as it was now.

Her eyes tracked the linen wrappings in the hands of the priests, carefully following every curve of the cured, dried skin, the cheeks filled out by stuffed linen in some imitation of life, glassy eyes beneath the lids so they could look into darkness ever after. She had long tried to convince herself against the fear of death in the depths of night, at her father’s knee, asking vain questions of the vastness of stars and sea. “It is not our lot to seek such answers,” he had told her. “Remember, it is a Gift, not a curse. Don’t let the contagion of their terror touch you, my daughter.”

“How can I?” she had asked him, tearfully. “After all this time. After everything everyone says. They speak of engulfing waters and crumbling walls and no memory. They speak of thankless gods.”

“If reverence of the Powers are beyond you know, I shall not force it upon you,” he had said firmly, his eyes clear-sighted, seeing beyond to some truth she could not yet grasp “Do not condemn what you cannot understand. Merely move with it. When I am gone, this will be your world. Have faith in living a good life and nothing more.”

It was his duty to attend the funerals of those within his council, and her duty to attend him, but she knew he took no pleasure in it. Every futile argument she had overheard, every laboured sigh as he watched the decadence of their table at gatherings, every barely swallowed curse towards his immediate forefathers. All he tried seemed too little too late.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The last time Míriel was present for an embalming, it was that of her chambermaid. Her tears had long since dried on her cheeks, and her mantle, a gift from the man who had decided to make himself her husband and her lord, lay heavy on her shoulders though it was made of the finest silk. 

The girl had been caught in Rómenna, attending a meeting of an underground, radical den aligned with the Faithful. It had taken every painful, self-preserving wile to separate Míriel from her, and no considerable anger and legwork from Pharazôn. She knew the Zigûr had his eye on her, every hour of every day. It was well likely he knew the true place of her loyalties. Yet she owed it to Amandil and the others to stay in her place, to fight for it, to try and be the change her father tried and yet could never be. It was ever like climbing an endless slope, striving to reach the top, and always the solution was just out of reach, and the way steeper, and more of Númenor was fallen into the terrible grave they had long since dug themselves into.

Míriel watched the linen cover the girls’ eyes that had sparkled and laughed and told illicit jokes with her in snatched moments of mornings and in the overgrown gardens. She stepped forward and helped the priests draw the final shroud over the girl. No servant would ever have the honour of such a grand burial. It was the Zigûr’s final insult to her. 

She glanced into the eyes of the nearest priest, wrapped in blue, and he gave the most imperceptible nod. They conveyed the body away, and down, an effigy in its place. But the girl they burned deep beneath the earth, in the old dungeons. She deserved living memory, not the coldness of a tomb. For her and all the others they had lost, Míriel would live, and live, and live. 

She would neither need nor want embalmers when her time came, of that she was sure.

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'