Miriel Hath My Love by Rocky41_7

Miriel Hath My Love

Read Miriel Hath My Love

            The Noldor had a saying, that a craft object remembered the hand of its builder. This was said often about homes, which were no less a craft than anything else the Noldor built. Indis had found it a charming saying in her earlier sojourns into Tirion—the thought of a building holding its own care and memory for the hands that had brought it to being—but it was slightly less endearing to see it from this angle.

            For the house of Finwë remembered its builder well. Míriel Serinde breathed in the walls of the royal palace, not least because her tapestries still hung there, themselves the most wondrous memorial to the departed queen the Noldor could have contrived; because her son glared at Indis from doorways Míriel herself had erected. Those first few weeks she spent in that house she expected to round a corner and come upon that imperious look on Míriel’s round little face (She had held herself like a queen long before she wore the crown of the Noldor.)

            But of course, Míriel was gone. She had been gone for years. Her son was more than half-grown (He had all of Míriel’s haughtiness and pride with none of the temperance of age). She was gone, but not gone:

            When Indis commented on some decorative little pots Finwë had in his study: From Míriel’s foray into ceramics…it did not last long.

            When she complimented a rice pudding from the royal kitchens: It was Queen Míriel’s favorite desert.

            When the people came before her to speak to the queen: We hoped you would lend your favor to the Fiber Arts Guild; Queen Míriel always supported us most generously.

            Even where none meant to offend, the hand of Míriel Serinde seemed to hang over her husband and her son—and now Indis too. She had stepped into the shadow of this woman and it seemed there was no edging out of it.

             But of course, there were other, more concrete problems for her to attend to—for one, that the palace of the Noldor had been running without anyone to truly manage it since Míriel’s departure (and truthfully, since Fëanor’s birth). There were countless things for Indis to review, restore, and in some cases, rework, and there were varying degrees of resistance to each of them.

She made a point of leaving Míriel’s tapestries in place (though she made sure they were all given a good dusting), hoping this might placate Fëanor, but it did not seem to do much good. He still needed time to adjust, she thought (It was why she had talked to Finwë about putting off having any children of their own, so as not to overwhelm Fëanor with too much too soon).

            Indis found even her own thoughts trending towards the former queen. She had given Míriel little enough thought before, except to admire her from a distance and be admittedly envious of Míriel’s fortune. She remembered being in Tirion once for a formal appearance of the king and queen—how radiant and powerful she had looked, bedecked in all the Noldor’s finery, glittering in jewels beside her comely, noble husband. How Indis had wished to be in her place, even as she celebrated Míriel’s joy! What a childish wish, she thought as she knelt among the orchids, carefully plucking away the weedy ingrowths. Now she had it—Míriel’s husband, Míriel’s house, Míriel’s son—and yet it all still belonged to Míriel, didn’t it? Míriel’s handprints were all over it, just as her fingerprints were impressed into the porcelain pots. These things remembered their builder.

            It was in the spirit of these thoughts that Indis first lied to Finwë. Not that she had never told him an untruth before—though she tried not to, for she did not think much of lying—but it was the first time she had ever planned to lie about a thing, and carried it out. If she told the truth, she worried he would discourage her, by word or even only a dip in his dark brow, and Indis would acquiesce. He would not stop her, but Indis would stop herself, and she did not want that.

            “I thought I would go walking out of the city today,” she said at breakfast. Finwë smiled at her over the congee with the besotted look of a new husband.

            “Ah, yes? This day promises to be a lovely one. Shall we go together?” For a moment, Indis almost accepted. Wouldn’t it be nice, to go walking with her beloved, and enjoy the peaceful scenery, perhaps take some food with them for a picnic…perhaps even Fëanor would join them, and she would not do what she meant to do.

            But no. That would not do, not that day.

            “I had wished for a quiet time to think over some things,” she demurred, offering a little smile so he might not think anything amiss.

            “Do I talk so terribly much?” Finwë teased, and Indis’ smile grew.

            “Nay, my lord, only I am so easily distracted!” Finwë made a small gesture with his hand.

            “Trouble yourself not, wife. Míriel preferred her time alone as well; I understand.” This mention of her made Indis all the more determined to that day’s course (Although she had told him before she did not mind if he spoke of Míriel, for she had lived and been a part of his life and it seemed unfair to relegate her only to the past. Little had she known how unnecessary that concern was!)

            She dressed warmly, for spring was still early, and a chill still in the air, and stepped out into the golden light of Laurelin. Her gray palfrey she took at a relaxed pace up to the gardens of Lórien, fretting once she was on the path that someone might see her.

            Míriel was still there, of course. Privately, though Indis had never dared say it out loud, she had thought that once Míriel had made her choice to remain in Mandos, that her body would begin to decay, but no such thing had happened. She lay there as smooth and fresh as the day she had first laid down; when Indis knelt at her side, she half-expected Míriel to sit up and complain about her rest being disturbed.

            The queen was as lovely in death as she had been in life—or at least the last months of it. The full-cheeked, glossy-haired, strong-armed beauty in which she had existed before childbearing had robbed her of it had never completely returned. She was dressed in a simple robe, yet one whose soft fabric and delicately embroidered hem showed the time and care that had gone into it. A thin garment, off-white underlaid with blue; she would have been chilly in it that morning, if she had been awake to feel it.

Finwë had confided to Indis, during their courtship, of what it had been like with Míriel in the end. How the childbed crippled her; how the light went out of her eyes, how her warm tawny cheeks grew thin and sallow, her hair dull and lank. At times she seemed almost to be around a bend, he said, but each peak left her only worse off than before. By the time she went away to Lórien, she was nearly entirely bedbound, and even little Fëanor’s weeping and wailing could not stir her to more than dispassionate pity.

Finwë had been so sure that she could find the rest she needed in Lórien, and for a time it even it seemed she might. She gained back some of the weight she had shed, her eyes lost a touch of the glassiness they had acquired since Fëanor’s birth, and at times she even tolerated visits from her young son, though she avoided always any mention of when she might return home. Yet as with her other false starts, this brief healing seemed to leave her spirit only more drained in the end, and one day she simply laid down and closed her eyes, and never again opened them.

“Your son does not much care for me, I think.” There were so many things Indis could have started with, but it seemed somehow easier than all the rest to speak of Míriel’s boy. “I suppose I cannot much blame him. It is quite a lot of change, and we Elves do not always brook it well, do we?” She smiled thinly. A few wisps of silver hair stuck to Míriel’s lower lip.

The Maiar of the gardens tended to Míriel regularly, so that no animals disturbed her, and any debris from the dove-tree above her was promptly cleared away, so that the former (?) queen of the Noldor should not become covered in leaves or fallen buds. Yet she had worn the same hair and the same gown since she chose that hillock for her resting place, and somehow, abruptly, this seemed terribly sad to Indis. Clothes had been one of Míriel’s delights. (Indis would not admit it, but she had been through the storage room to where Fëanor had removed his mother’s wardrobe—she had seen the great variety of Míriel’s things and she could almost imagine the quick-fingered queen paging through her robes, the care with which she might construct each day’s outfits.)

“Finwë thinks of you still,” said Indis. She meant to say more on this theme, but found the words would not come, so she left it aside and moved back to the easier topic.

“He’s quite a clever boy, Fëanáro. You would be proud, I think. He has a mind as suits the crown prince of the Noldor. He’s a very beautiful boy too; I have no doubt that in a few years he will have all the young Elves of Tirion falling at his feet, if they have not already begun! He has a great deal of Finwë in his looks, but something else too, something just his. Yet Finwë says he is most like you in temperament.” Indis’ hands fidgeted in her lap.

“Your tapestries…in the palace…they are truly remarkable. I wish I could have spoken with you of them. I have some small crafts myself, but nothing so fine as that. I am trying to care for the gardens. Finwë says you did not pay overmuch attention to such things. Not as a criticism! Only a preference. I think your staff are unused to a queen’s meddling in them! I wonder if you would like the way they look now? Did you have a favorite flower? Was it the dove-tree? I could plant one for you,” she blurted out, as if she were seeking to appease some ill-content spirit.

She bunched her robe up in her hands against her thighs. She had not yet become used to the Noldor fashion and she found it at times awkward to move in; she thought again of Míriel’s aloof grace on the day Indis had seen her in Tirion. She moved like even the crown upon her head—which must have been considerable in weight given that it constituted possibly an entire mine’s worth of metal and gemstone—was simply a part of her.

“The Noldor remember you quite fondly,” she murmured. She reached out now, and brushed those strands of hair away from Míriel’s mouth. “I blame them not; by all accounts, you were remarkable beyond compare. If Fëanáro is anything on which to base a comparison, I believe it.” Míriel’s skin felt cool beneath her fingertips, yet it seemed to Indis not quite the same as the ice-cold frigidity of any other corpse. But perhaps it was only in her mind.

The gray lashes of Míriel’s wide, almond-shaped eyes lay delicately against her cheek. Her silver hair mingled with the spring green grass beneath her. Had she once rested so in the yards of the palace, Indis wondered? Napped in the afternoon light, enjoyed the rest of Aman, where no beasts or shadows preyed upon them?

“It seems unfair to me,” Indis said, feeling her throat tighten, “that you alone should be denied peace here, when all the rest of us have found it. I hope you have it now, my lady.” She touched her fingers to her lips in a gesture of respect. It was not a thing done among the Noldor, but it felt appropriate, and Indis thought Míriel would not mind one small Vanyarin tradition.

“I will let you rest,” she said, rising to her feet. In the end, she had stayed some two hours with Míriel, and could think of nothing more to say but the litany of her fears, doubtless uninteresting to anyone but herself. “I will do my best to care for them in your stead,” she concluded, offering a proper Noldor bow. “I hope this pleases you.”

She did not expect to visit Míriel again.

***

But she couldn’t stop thinking about Míriel’s hair. Specifically, that she had been wearing it in the same style for nearly twenty years now. It wasn’t at all how Míriel would have wanted it, was it?

How had Míriel worn her hair, Indis asked Finwë?

He was obviously surprised by the question, but he explained a few of the hairstyles she had preferred, which were relatively common among the Noldor—high, tight buns pierced with jeweled hair sticks and hung with combs, charms, and clips of all sorts. They still had much of it, he said, in the storeroom. Others, Fëanor had taken for himself. (Generally, Finwë allowed the boy whatever he wanted of his mother’s possessions, and there was a particularly soft look that came over his face when Fëanor entered the room wearing something of Míriel’s.)

Finwë said she was welcome to have a look, but Indis waited until Fëanor was out of the house. He disliked her giving any attention to Míriel’s things, and she did not wish to start a fight with him. There were chests of them, glimmering gilded hills of polished wood and jewels and filigreed metal. Indis spent some time sifting through them just to look. The Vanyar style tended towards something much simpler and far less inclusive of gemstone, which made Míriel’s cache of treasures particularly overwhelming to Indis.

Then, she selected a few things—more than she would need—including a lovely jade comb carved into the shape of koi, to stow into her bag. These things she took up to the gardens of Lórien.

Finwë had visited her often, in the beginning, both before and after her death, but Míriel had little desire for company in those days. Even at the height of her health, she had often wandered alone and preferred her own companionship to that of others, he had said. But after childbirth, it had seemed to weary her, having to converse with or even observe others.

Perhaps she would be irritated, if she knew that Indis was visiting her. (The Noldor had loved their queen, but few outside the most obsequious would claim she was a patient woman when it came to others.)

“I shan’t impose long,” Indis assured the queen when she knelt down beside her, setting her bag in the grass. “I thought only you might wish for a bit of change.” It seemed a silly thing to say to a woman who had chosen the constancy of death. Nevertheless, Indis called over one of the Maiar.

“Would you hold the queen upright for me?” she asked. “I desire to fix her hair.”

“Is there something amiss with it?” The Maia spoke softly, but her words seemed to resonate inside Indis’ head, as if she spoke at once with voice and with ósanwe, creating a faint echo.

“No, but it has been the same for such a long time. Do you not think she might like it changed?” The Maia might have shrugged, if she were an Elf; as it were, she only stared blankly at Indis, then moved forward to do as she had been asked.

She had to hold the queen’s body up, and her chin as well, as if she were a rag doll in the hands of a pair of children, so that Indis could undo the braiding already there, slightly mussed where the back of her skull rested against the ground. With her own comb, Indis carefully brushed out Míriel’s hair until it hung in a sleek silver curtain down her back.

It occurred to her as she brushed through small knots and tamed fly-aways, that Fëanor still regularly visited his mother, and might notice if her hair was different. It left her with some unease; Fëanor still had not reconciled himself to his father’s remarriage, and while Indis had much hope on that account, the boy was still quite sensitive about it, and was unlikely to respond well to Indis meddling with Míriel. Perhaps he would think one of the Maiar had done it, she hoped.

“She has such fine hair, doesn’t she?” Indis murmured as she swept it back behind Míriel’s cold ears.

“She is a very beautiful Elf,” agreed the Maiar.

“She must have been proud of it,” Indis thought aloud. Onto her fingers she dripped some of the osmanthus oil she had brought, and this she combed through Míriel’s hair to make it smell fresh and pleasant. “This is mine,” she murmured. “I hope that does not trouble you. I could not find any of yours left; I imagine Finwë has used it or given it away. This one is rather popular among the Noldor; perhaps you used it as well?”

She began to twist Míriel’s hair into the bun which she had planned for her, and then realized it would put her neck at an awkward angle when she lay back on the ground. Indis had failed to plan appropriately for a dead woman. So she let Míriel’s hair fall loose again, and instead began to weave it into a fresh set of braids.

“He took your pots down from the study,” said Indis as her fingers worked through Míriel’s hair. “But I told him to leave them be. Why should I need to erase the memory of you to be comfortable here? Can we not live together, you and I? In peace?” She combed the small, frail hairs behind Míriel’s ears into the braid. A few of the strands had come loose in Indis’ hands, and she wondered about that. Míriel would not regrow them now, would she?

“I wish I had known you more in life,” Indis sighed. “Perhaps then I would know better what to do, what to say. Fëanáro seems so certain I bear you ill will, but it isn’t so. I should never desire to have benefit of another’s unhappiness.” She almost blurted out that she had taken Míriel’s hair accessories without Fëanor’s knowledge, but at the last second remembered the Maia, and held her tongue. Instead, she quietly worked the jade comb into Míriel’s hair and clipped the hair along her forehead back with a small clasp on either side.

“There,” she said. “I’ll take her.” Gently, she took Míriel’s body from the Maia, and cradling the back of the former queen’s head, laid her back down in the grass. Míriel weighed but little to Indis; she thought she could have lifted her without much effort. “That will please her some, don’t you think?”

***

It was in the soft dark of early morning that Indis jolted awake, breath stopped up from a dream of something chasing her. The terror of being hunted was not pleasant, but it was the sickening feeling of only being able to move her feet at a snail’s pace that shoved her heart up into her throat. It was a familiar nightmare to her—perhaps because she was a runner, her mind focused excessively on situations where she was not able to do something which came naturally to her.

She threw herself out of bed (Finwë had offered to take Míriel’s side and give Indis his own, but Indis had waved this off as an unnecessary accommodation, and so she slept in the space where once Míriel had lain, where she had slept and stayed awake whispering to her husband and where she had made Fëanor) and padded quickly into the adjoining dressing room, which had blessedly been cleared of Míriel’s clothing before Indis’ arrival. Into the washbasin she poured a measure of water to splash against her face. She pressed her hands against her too-warm cheeks and looked up to the mirror to calm her heart.

But in the glass she saw only Míriel’s face; Míriel’s hands; Míriel’s long, silver hair; Míriel’s embroidered nightdress.

The scream that left her throat was still hers, at least.

Thankfully when she woke in truth it was silently, a chill sweat prickling along her spine and beneath her breasts. She turned onto her side and grasped weakly at Finwë’s back. He stirred, still mostly asleep, but rolled over and flung an arm over her. And yet, Indis could not shake the feeling of another body at her back, and she was not sure it troubled her as much as it ought to do.

***

Indis could have taken the dream as a sign Míriel was displeased about the changes to her hair, but she did not think dead Elves had that much power. Still, she kept to her work and her gardens in the days after. Finwë seemed to sense something amiss, but when he inquired, Indis put him off. He suggested they go for a ride, and the fresh air did seem to clear Indis’ head. Fëanor refused to go with them, and stalked off in disgust when Indis invited him. Finwë made to go after him, but Indis waved this off as well.

“He is upset,” she sighed.

“He need not take it out on you,” Finwë said with a frown.

“Give him time,” she said, reminding herself as well as Finwë. Fëanor was clever enough to be quite cutting, and young enough not to have the grace to restrain himself, but he was still a youth, and he had taken the news of his mother’s refusal to return to life quite hard. It would be difficult, she thought, for any child not to feel that a dearth of his mother’s love had caused her choice, even if it were not so. She was not surprised that the years since had not yet been enough to move him past it.

So they went out just the two of them, and Indis had not realized how much she had cooped herself up in the house with chores until they were out past the city limits with the breeze in her hair and Finwë’s laughter beside her. They alternated riding and walking alongside their mounts, and the vibrance of Laurelin was glorious to see.

It was in this relaxed, ebullient spirit that she blurted out to her husband that she had visited the body of his dead wife.

That brought the morning to a swift halt.

“Oh?” said Finwë, in the voice of someone very much attempting to remain casual about something they certainly did not feel was a casual topic. “Is that what took you away the other day?”

“I only wished to see her,” Indis said, somewhat breathless. “To pay my respects. I…we share so much now, she and I. It seems only right that I…offer some…” She fumbled for the right word.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Finwë said quickly, when Indis did not presently come to a decision on how to describe whatever offerings she had made to Míriel. “Only I…” He hesitated, and drew his horse nearer to hers. “I know it has been difficult for you,” he said softly. “There are many who have not forgotten that Míriel was queen. Yet you should not feel now that you live in her shadow. She would not wish that.”

“How can you say?” Indis asked, locking her eyes on his.

“Because I knew her,” he said. “She was not sentimental. A touch possessive, perhaps, but not sentimental. She would not blame you for taking a place offered to you. If she were wroth with any, it would be with myself! So.” He reached out and placed a hand over Indis’. “Do not feel you must placate her, or make some obeisance because you now sit on a throne that was hers. It would not be just to invite you into my home only to ask you to leave space for one who came before.”

“I’m being rather foolish, aren’t I?” Indis gave a breathless smile. “You have given me more than enough reassurance. Still, she was here, and I wish to give due respect to that.” She paused, considered, and then felt it not inappropriate to say: “She looked so…”

“Live?” Finwë said grimly, his hand tightening over Indis’. “’tis a trick of the gardens. I have almost though to ask them to release her body from their spells, yet…I believe it comforts Fëanáro, to visit her. This I would not take from him.”

“No, neither would I,” Indis agreed at once. “It was only stranger than I imagined it would be. It was not like death in Endor.”

“Praise Ilúvatar for that!” Finwë said fervently. On this, they agreed whole-heartedly, and Indis let the matter drop, and even Fëanor’s sour scowls when they returned that afternoon did not unsettle the peace she felt after their outing.

The unsettling Indis did herself.

Too many times that night she almost turned to Finwë to say that she agreed with what he said about not fixating too much on Míriel, but—surely someone should do something about her clothes! Surely Míriel Serinde would not be happy wearing the same gown for years on end! She had enough presence of mind to realize she would be returning this conversation to an uncomfortable place, yet the thought persisted.

Surely someone ought to change Míriel’s clothes.

Indis timed her visit in and out of the storage room quite early in the morning, when neither Finwë nor Fëanor was likely to be about. It took her two and a half hours of sorting through Míriel’s clothes to choose something. Her first had been a vibrant red robe accented with gold, but she realized what a shocking change this would make for anyone visiting Míriel’s body, so she forced herself to put it back (despite knowing how its colors would flatter Míriel’s complexion, its cut her shape), and choose a pale green with a pearly white complement. She stuffed it into a sack and put the sack in her own wardrobe to be retrieved later.

Only by the barest margin could she convince herself she wasn’t intentionally deceiving both her husband and his son, but she assured herself that even if it were so, this was necessary, and once it was done she would feel better, and she could let the matter rest.

Míriel lay undisturbed where Indis had last left her. No one had commented on the change in her hair style, so Indis could only assume that no one was bothered, or no one had traced it back to her.

“I brought you something,” she announced to Míriel as she knelt beside the former queen. “I thought you might enjoy a change of dress.” She patted the sack she’d brought with her. “It shan’t take long. I know not which were your favorites, so I picked one rather similar to what you have now.”

She reached for the close of Míriel’s robe and then hesitated. In her mind, the change had been perfunctory and painless, but now beside Míriel’s limp and lifeless body, Indis was forced to concede it would likely be rather difficult, and involve quite a lot of intimate touching.

“Allow me, Your Grace,” she murmured, casting her eyes down as she loosened the ties of Míriel’s outer robe and spread the creamy fabric open. It occurred to her she could have brought Míriel a fresh interior robe as well—but did she really need such things? Her body secreted no oils nor fluids anymore; she didn’t move to dirty it.

Shaking herself out of these thoughts, Indis moved her attention to carefully working Míriel’s arms out of the robe. It was hard to do, and she had to bend the queen’s arms and shoulders at awkward angles to slide them out, which spiked her anxiety.

“Finwë and I went for a ride the other day,” she said quietly. “How lovely it is to go riding here, knowing nothing will trouble us…he seems content now, but I wonder if he still misses you. He must, mustn’t he? How could he not? Could one ever cease to yearn for a lost partner? None can truly replace another person.” When she had Míriel lying flat on her robe, she worked her slippers off (she had brought a fresh pair of these as well) and then frowned. It seemed to her inappropriate to be manhandling a body this way, and she hoped none of the Maiar were watching her, but she was committed to the course at this point.

“Forgive me, Your Grace,” she said, and hooked an arm around Míriel’s chest, under her arm, to lift her up. Míriel had always been lean of figure, with skinny hips even after childbirth (it had given her great pains then) and small, neat breasts. Quite different, Indis thought, from her own body, thick around the thigh from the hours she spent running, and much taller than Míriel, who had stood more than a foot below Finwë in height. 

Slowly, Indis eased the old robe out from underneath the queen’s body and as she folded it to set aside, felt that she had broken out into a nervous sweat. Several times she looked around her, worried someone else might have come into the gardens and observed this act, but it remained empty of other Elves that she could see.

“This will make you feel better,” she asserted as she started to shrug Míriel into the new robe.

“Recently I mentioned to Finwë about that face he makes when focused on something in particular—I do think it’s a rather charming look—and he said that you told him often of how ridiculous it looked.” Indis gave a high, girlish laugh. “I thought it terribly amusing, that we both had noticed the same thing. It is rather silly-looking, isn’t it?” She hooked an arm under Míriel’s legs to lift the lower part of her body off the ground so she could smooth out the new robe underneath her. “Perhaps I should have told him I agree with you.”

She wrung her hands a little, and then started to pull the new robe closed, feeling her heartbeat in her ears as her fingers skimmed over Míriel’s chest. No warmth came from her now, and Indis felt acutely aware of the stillness of Míriel’s ribcage.

“I told him I had been to see you,” she said quietly, almost in a whisper. “But only the first time did I mention. I think he worries…he worries because we share so much. But I see it another way. It makes us sisters of a kind, do you not think?” She took great care in tying the close of the robe, to make sure it looked nice and sat well and wasn’t too tight or too loose. “I am happy to share things with you, Míriel Serinde,” she said. “It is an honor.”

She slipped the new shoes onto Míriel’s little feet, making sure the heel was tucked neatly inside.

“There,” she said cheerfully, almost panting. “Is that not more comfortable, my lady? Although, as we are both queens, perhaps I should call you by name. Do you think we might have been friends?” For a moment she fidgeted, then stuffed Míriel’s old robe and slippers into the sack. “I had best be gone,” she said. “The house will wonder where I am.”

For dessert that night, she made a special request: rice pudding.

***

At the party, Fëanor was the perfect young host. He was gracious with their guests and smiled charmingly at all who greeted him by name (although little of his bearing came from his father, he could at times sport Finwë’s heart-meltingly winning smile). He was present and talkative which was certainly not always the case, and even toured them around the house, expounding on the histories and techniques of Míriel’s tapestries and Míriel’s looms and Míriel’s inventions-that-did-not-come-to-be. It all would have been terribly laudable, and Indis might’ve even been proud, if he hadn’t done it all to humiliate her.

He made sure throughout the night that she was watching, and that sharp-eyed gray glare with which he caught her gaze left no doubt that his praise of Míriel was meant to show how unaccomplished and feeble-minded Indis was by comparison. But how could she or Finwë chastise him for honoring his mother in front of their guests? Clever boy, Fëanor.

He wasn’t wrong, either. Indis did not have great deeds or a fearsome temperament or a history of leadership to her name. At times, admittedly, his words stung, but she couldn’t truly be angry.  It was not even worthwhile to suggest to Finwë that it had all been done as a petty jab at her. Certainly it would improve nothing in her relationship with Fëanor to be seen as tattling on him to his father.

So she said nothing to either of them, and when she woke later that night and eased out of bed, there was a pleasant ache between her legs. Wrapping a dressing robe around herself, Indis slid open the bedroom door and entered the hall.

The path to the storage room was relatively undisturbed at that hour. Indis let herself in and then leaned back lightly against the door, exhaling quietly. The impulse that had driven her had not died down, but standing then among Míriel’s things, she could feel the shame of knowing she was doing something of which others would not approve trying to force its way into her consciousness.

It did not overcome the thrill of being there.

Alone amidst Míriel’s wardrobe, Indis shed her dressing robe and stood only in her underwear, the gooseflesh over her arms not a marker of any chill in the room. Her inner thighs were still tacky with Finwë’s release from earlier in the night; as he had pressed tender kisses to her throat, she could not help but wonder: Was it like this? With her? Was it like this when you made Fëanor?

Indis walked among the rows of fabric, running her fingers over Míriel’s tiny, meticulous stitches. Clearly the queen had favored warm, bold colors, and Indis could see at least some of the places where she had tried things that were not typical for Noldor fashion. Others she knew where styles or methods of Míriel’s own invention which were now commonplace among them.

Indis pulled a salmon-pink robe down from the rack and held it up to herself. Did Míriel’s friends try her things on, she wondered? Did Míriel make things for them? Did Míriel have friends? She must have! Certainly there were many among the artists’ guilds who held her in great respect. She put the robe back and continued, selecting next a sapphire blue gown, which she twirled about with herself, and then something which appeared to be an underrobe, but which was made almost entirely out of lacework, painstakingly hand-done. It would have obscured very little.

“For what did you wear this?” Indis murmured, rubbing the delicate lacing between her thumb and forefinger. That it was fitted quite well to Míriel’s size Indis guessed even from her limited knowledge, and judging by how short it was on Indis, could not possibly have reached below Míriel’s knee. (Nothing of Míriel’s was sized in a way that would fit Indis; even the queen’s bracelets were too small to clasp around Indis’ wrists.) With some reluctance, Indis replaced it and went on digging.

Next, she pulled down a bright yellow robe and its cut was so loose she couldn’t resist sliding it off the hanger to see if it would fit on her. It was pulled taut across her shoulders, and she could only just tie it off in the front—and it seemed somehow more obscene than simple nudity in regards to her breasts—but she did get it on, and the color wasn’t a bad look on her. There was a mirror which Indis had brought in before, when she was selecting a replacement outfit for Míriel, and she went up to it now, and turned this way and that to see how she looked in Míriel’s robe.

“What do you think?” she murmured. “I carry so much else of yours. I may as well wear your clothes. Who else will?”

For a moment, she fantasized about returning to the bedroom in this, about climbing on top of Finwë, and feeling their bodies join, about rocking on top of him in that robe and feeling it come undone around her as she moved and watching him look at her in this robe.

Biting her lip, she turned her head to sniff at the shoulder of the robe, but it smelled only of dust, and the powder with which Indis dusted her skin at night. When she took the robe off, the smell of the powder remained and when it went back on the rack among Míriel’s other things, this touch of Indis lingered. Now there was another thing they shared.

No, Indis could not be truly angry with Fëanor, for at the end of the day, Indis was queen just as Míriel had been, and she pitied him.

***

There was not much more that Indis could do for Míriel, but the notion of ceasing to visit Lórien made her stomach twist unpleasantly. Surely she could think of some other task for the former queen that might bring her again to Míriel’s side. It crossed her mind to wonder if the Maiar who tended the garden bathed Míriel’s body. She might require it less than a living body, but it must still need care! But this seemed a task perhaps to leave to them.

So it was without any clear motive that Indis went next to Lórien, and perhaps it was fitting that as she had no purpose, this was the visit she was interrupted.

The air always seemed to still when one stepped into Lórien: not in a stuporous way, more akin to the quiet lulling of laying about in the warmth of late afternoon, not dozing, yet neither waking, and feeling ever so content with all the world. (Had Míriel believed that Lórien would fix her, when she came?) The trees seemed to stir their leaves only lazily, and the heady scent of jasmine filled the air. Sound seemed softened in the slow air, and Indis did not see until she had rounded a clutch of glossy-leafed bushes playing host to a gossiping quartet of white-faced plovers that Míriel already had a visitor.

Fëanor sat by his mother’s side, reading something open on his lap to her. Indis came to a halt and the sound of his voice reached her when she turned her attention to it; from the tone and tenor, she guessed he was reading an academic text to Míriel.

He made some inquiry, and paused for several long seconds, looking down at Míriel, before continuing.

Indis felt her throat tighten and her eyes grow hot at the sight. She wanted to go over and pull Fëanor away, for a child did not deserve to call out so plaintively to one who would not answer. Yet she knew he would not listen; indeed, he would be in a fury to see her there at all, and she had best get herself gone before he turned and saw her.

Míriel had not wept when she left her husband, nor her son, and no Maiar reported she had shed any tears when she lay down to die, so Indis wept for her as she left Lórien, shed bitter tears for the grief of Míriel’s family, and all of the love of her that now had nowhere to go.

***

The Vanyar were the only ones in Aman to make regular use of public baths. Naturally-occurring steam vents and hot springs in their territory made such things easier, perhaps, and ease had paved the road for cultural norms. Indis found herself missing those days, of joining friends in great pools of steaming water to catch up on the day’s happenings. Tirion’s palace had a bathing room, of course, but it was for the private use of the family, and as she sat in the cooling water, she thought of the baths of Valmar, and wondered if Míriel would have ever joined her there. Finwë, she was certain she could convince, unless some need for dignity of office held him back, but what of Míriel?

As Indis rubbed a bar of sweet-smelling honey soap over her shoulder, her mind drifted back to Míriel lying in the garden of Lórien, still and cold and alone, and she wondered if she had company in the halls of Mandos, at least. Was it lonely there, she wondered? Did she ever yearn for her life in the treelight? Or was she as indifferent to her separation from the living as she had been when first she refused to return?

Indis had never gotten to make her final trip to see Míriel, and she had not gone back since nearly running into Fëanor there. Perhaps it was only right to close things out officially, she thought. It wasn’t that she thought the Maiar of Lórien were doing a poor job taking care of Míriel—only wasn’t it different, coming from another Elf? One who knew what it was to have a hröa?

And shouldn’t it be Indis? Míriel’s spiritual successor? Would Míriel not do the same for her?

Indis gathered the necessary supplies and hauled it all up to Lórien. As usual, no one stopped her or even inquired into what she was doing. The Maiar did not have Elves’ natural sense of curiosity, nor an innate understanding of what was or was not typical Elven behavior.

“The water is cold, I’m afraid,” said Indis as she squeezed one of the waterskins into the small wood basin she had brought with her.

This was the difficult part—once more she had to strip the queen, but this time, to the skin.

“It is too soon now, of course, and I have told Finwë as much,” Indis began as she made the most business-like approach she could to undoing Míriel’s robe, “but I was thinking of children last night.” A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Perhaps it would be nice, don’t you think, for Fëanáro to have a little sibling? I sometimes wonder if it was lonely for him in the palace, without a mother, and with no brothers or sisters to play with.” She first removed Míriel’s outer robe before attending at all to the inner. “There are many things he could teach one.”

Her fingers trailed down Míriel’s breast, over the cold, bare skin before reaching the close of the robe, and she swallowed with difficulty.

“Do you—did you—would you have had more, do you think? It is lovely, is it not, to have such fruit of a marriage? Something made of both of you?” Her fingers trembled lightly at the tie of Míriel’s inner robe. “Finwë makes at least the start of the job quite easy.” She gave a tittering laugh, shifting so that her thighs rubbed together. “Was it so easy for you?” she asked unevenly, tugging at the tie until it came loose, and then gently easing Míriel’s inner robe open to bare her from throat to ankle. “I wonder about this. I would think it improper, but…well, it is something we both share, is it not? I wonder if he touches me as he touched you,” she said softly. “If it felt to you as it does me.” Her trembling fingers skimmed over Míriel’s exposed sides, pushing the fabric away until Indis could ease her arms out from it. To keep her clothes dry, she lifted the slight queen of the Noldor in her arms, her heart thudding against her burden, and laid her down in the grass nearby.

“I have not decided if I would name a baby something Noldorin or Vanyarin. I know her primary name must be Noldorin, of course, but I know the Noldor give also a mother-name, and perhaps it would be alright for this to be a little Vanyarin. It will be in their blood, after all.” She dipped a small cloth into the basin and began at Míriel’s collarbones, wiping her down with all the care of tending an invalid.

“How long did it take you to decide on Fëanáro’s name? Do you know he prefers your name? He’s almost never called Finwë.” Indis worked the cloth down each of Míriel’s arms, between her delicate, calloused fingers, over her palms softened by years of idleness. “Perhaps I should name my child something to match.” She sat facing Míriel and pulled her upright, leaning against Indis’ shoulder, so that she could wash her back, and then laid her down once more. Míriel’s breasts were still soft under Indis’ hand through the cloth, and Indis’ breath caught in her throat as she washed them, her hand trailing halfheartedly down to Míriel’s belly button. Indis removed the former queen’s shoes and thoroughly washed her feet, moving studiously up each leg. She had meant to wash between her legs as well, but courage fled her then, and instead she moved away to wipe Míriel’s face, her fingers moving carefully around Míriel’s heavily-lidded eyes and broad nose.

When this was done, Indis let out a long exhale. Her cheeks were hot to the touch; she nibbled at her lower lip, and had to jerk herself into action to redress Míriel and get her back into her usual position.

“Is this not more comfortable?” she murmured as she situated Míriel back onto her discarded robes. “’tis a far cry from what I would give you were you still here, but…alas, I cannot presently take you back to Valmar with me, even if I were to take such a trip. The baths there are quite wonderful though; always hot, and one almost always runs into a friend there.” She smiled. “Ah, and this, too—” She took some of the powder she herself liked to use and dabbed some of it under Míriel’s arms and beneath the curve of her breasts. A satisfied look passed over her face as she neatened the front of Míriel’s inner robe and secured it around her. “I am sure the Maiar here think not of everything.”

It often felt like stealing time with Míriel, so when her task was done, Indis did not linger much, and quickly packed her things to go.

Back in the palace, when she had put the bathing supplies away and left her horse in the stables, she sought out Finwë in his study, where she greeted him with warm kisses and pulled his hands away from his work.

“Had a nice ride?” he asked with a smile.

“Mhm,” Indis mumbled, leaning in for more kisses. “But I am not weary,” she added.

“Ah?” He finally grasped her insistence and it took little enough cajoling and groping for him to hoist her up onto the desk; she exhaled with mingled relief and pleasure as he entered her. She wound her fingers into his thick, dark hair, tugging and gasping quietly as his hips struck against her.

Was it like this with Míriel? Here? In this room? On this desk?

It was not the first time she had envisioned herself overlayed with the ghost of Míriel, but that afternoon it was different. Míriel was not a shadow over her, nor alone with Finwë, but rather besides Indis—or even alone with Indis. For a moment, it was not Finwë but Míriel she pictured thrusting between her legs, and then it was both, and she moaned, tipping her head back. Her stomach felt knotted with desire to feel Míriel’s stone lips against hers as Finwë drove her up to the heights of pleasure; she thought of Míriel’s stomach under her hands that morning, of Míriel’s shoulders and her fine fingers and her well-shaped calves and reached down to rub herself furiously, choking on a cry as she and Finwë finished her together.

Was it like this for you? she thought as she fell backwards against the desk, her toes curling, spots in her vision. Oh Míriel, Míriel, was it like this?

***

The ghost of Míriel haunted her son, and to a lesser degree her husband, and now she haunted Indis too, but Indis could not regret it. Míriel’s presence in her mind was not an unwelcome intrusion, but rather a warm companionship. It assured her there was nothing wrong with being compared to Míriel, for they were two of a kind, and they understood each other as outsiders did not. Even Fëanor’s most vitriolic words slid off of Indis after just a moment. He did not understand, but he could not be expected to understand.

If Finwë and Míriel’s marriage bond could never be fully severed, did it not stand to reason Indis had espoused herself to Míriel as well?

She lay in the divot in the bed where once Míriel had lain, and Míriel’s husband kissed her goodnight and good morning, and she bid Míriel’s son goodbye when he left for the day, and she sat upon Míriel’s throne—how could they not be bonded?

The light of Telperien shone gleaming silver above the rooftops of Tirion when Indis swung her feet out of bed. She smiled as she braided her hair back simply and dressed in something comfortable. The ride up to Lórien was quiet, though she passed some acquaintances on her way to the edge of the city and gave them a cheerful wave.

Lórien seemed cast in blue in the night light, and Indis felt almost that she walked in another world, some place removed from the rest of Aman, from the rest of Arda. She left her shoes with the horse and let the blue-green grass poke up between her toes as she made her way through the carefully-tended plants to where Míriel lay beneath her sepulchral tree.

“Think you of me now?” she whispered, laying down alongside the former queen. “You must; you are in my thoughts day after day.” She lay quite close, and rested a hand on Míriel’s chest. “Do you send me these dreams? Am I here with you now, or at home in bed?” She lifted her head and pressed her lips to Míriel’s; they were still and cold, yet soft, not how a corpse would be, not like the kisses Indis had left on their lost compatriots on the journey from the east.

Her hand fumbled at the front of Míriel’s robe and she slid her hand in until she could grasp and stroke Míriel’s thigh.

“Have you watched us, Finwë and I? Does it please you? I hope you are pleased. I think of you then, too,” she confided. “It would please me if we were seen by you, as you cannot join us.” She made little circles on Míriel’s inner thigh with her index finger. “I think he has great pleasure in lying with me…but I would give it to you as well.” She leaned over Míriel, her breasts flattening against Míriel’s body, and kissed her again. “Would you have it from me?” she whispered, her hand moving up to the juncture of Míriel’s legs. The nest of coarse silver-gray hair brushed against the first knuckles of her fingers. “Would you permit me, Míriel?” She turned her face into the crook of Míriel’s neck, where there remained traces of the scent of her own powder beneath the smell of grass that embraced Míriel. Her fingers lingered at the apex of Míriel’s thigh.

“I would have it from you,” she breathed, and plunged her fingers into Míriel’s cold sex.

Indis shuddered against her, pressing nearer, and moaned softly against Míriel’s shoulder. She bent her head down and closed her mouth around one of Míriel’s breasts, sucking and laving her tongue over the nipple until the clammy flesh glistened in the white treelight.

“So much already do we share, we should have this too,” Indis breathed, working her fingers in and out of Míriel. The flesh was not slick as it would have been were she alive; there was not the looseness of her muscles that would have come with arousal, yet neither was she a desiccated corpse. She was a dormant body; a thing in suspension; an almost, a maybe, a should-have-been. “I know our husband in his pleasure; I should know you the same.” Indis’ hand went on, but it was only she who reacted, flushing, whining, arching her body towards Míriel as she stroked the dead queen’s sex until her hand cramped.

“I shall care for them,” she whispered to Míriel, spreading her fingers and pressing her thumb against Míriel’s pearl. “I shall care for them.” She gasped at the aching throbbing between her legs and fought the urge to rut against Míriel’s leg like a beast. “Will you care for me too?”

When she could bear no more, she took her hand from between Míriel’s legs and lay beside her, staring up at the sky, panting, overheated.

“I wish you had lived, but if you had, I would never have met you,” she said. “What paradox is this?” She turned her head to look at her companion. “You have this feeling as well, do you not? This connection? There is a point of the thread of fate which weaves us together…and I am glad to know it.”

Míriel, of course, said nothing, and Indis looked back up at the star-strewn sky. For a long while then she lay in silence. So they might criticize her for wedding one already wed—but what did they know? Did they think Míriel was no longer a part of this marriage? Did they think her gone away? Gone in body perhaps, but not in spirit!

Indis rolled over and pressed a kiss to Míriel’s lifeless cheek. “Fear not. I will return to see you again soon,” she whispered.

---

Chapter End Notes

Personally I think Miriel is a whole entire freak and would have her ego stroked to think of Indis jacking off to her corpse. She wants to know why Finwe isn't doing this. Doesn't he love her?

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