A Star Shines by cuarthol

You were so small when I took you in my arms - smaller than I remembered.  My thoughts were a tempest of worries.  But I leaned in and brushed my cheek to yours, soft as peach skin, and you fresh as a spring bud escaping the snow.  All the smoke was blown away, and your fire, new kindled, filled you with light and warmth.

Still, fear lodged in my throat, clenched my heart, pooled in my stomach: would I be ready this time?  Would my strength suffice?  I knew I would not face this alone and yet I felt the lack of those I desperately wished to be near me, to see me through.

Your little yawn, so big for your lungs, could not but make me smile.  For a moment I thought you might wake.  But though you fussed, your eyes did not open and sleep reclaimed you, swaddled safe in your simple blanket.

I imagined what the past might have been had it started now, had I been there for you through it all.  I find I cannot feel regret for what came after, only sorrow.  Longing for the impossible.  But this is not then, and a new future spreads out before me, new histories to record.

Laying you in the cradle takes all my strength for I do not want to ever let you out of my arms.  But you sleep, and the threads call to me.  I weave with joy this new tapestry for this new world.

Chapter End Notes

Inspired by one of Tolkien's concepts of Elven rebirth as children (or infants).  I thought of what that would mean in terms of giving Míriel a 'second chance' at being Fëanor's mother.

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