Winterlights by Elleth

Remembrance

For prompt #14: Holiday traditions. Míriel and Indis recall a festivity from Cuiviénen.

Even though they dwell in Aman now, the Elves have a long memory, and while there is yet starlight on the sea visible from all the towers of Tirion, they will also remember Cuiviénen.

Undoubtedly some scoff at their past as primitive, but others gather in Aman’s would-be midwinter, once the harshest time, the time to remember the dead and the taken, and walk in slow procession, bearing simple gifts – a loaf of bread, a jar of wine, a length of cloth, a song. It all goes to the fire blazing in the palace courtyard beneath the Mindon, to follow those that need it to wherever they may be, for these are the Elves that did not go to Mandos’ halls, fearing more than heeding a call from the then-unknown West.

Míriel and Indis have their own ceremony after all others have departed and the light begins to silver; they walk together after all other sacrifices are gone, holding their joined hands above the flame.

"She is well cared-for," says Míriel to someone long-departed and well-missed in many sleepless nights, a woman Indis loved and lost, and still takes with her like a shadow.

"Sleep," says Míriel. "Worry not."

Chapter End Notes

Ties into my The Beautiful Ones 'verse.