To Whatever End by Grundy

Lost in memory

The house is so quiet. At least, it is quiet when his son is asleep. When Curufinwë is awake, there is noise of necessity.

But when he sleeps, and the house falls silent, Finwë has nothing to keep the thoughts at bay, the questions about how it had gone so wrong.

Míriel’s spirit has fled her body and will not return. She cannot speak to them directly, not from the Halls, but Indis had come to him not long after her death and told him of the terrible, shapeless fear Míriel had been unable to weave words around.

He isn’t sure who is to blame, him for bringing them here, or the Valar for parting them from each other. If they had known that the High Ones held that an elf could have only one mate, ner with nis, they would not have come. Nor would they have been the only ones who would have chosen otherwise.

But at the same time, once they were here, had he known the results of obeying, of Indis sacrificing herself, knowing that she had close kin to help her bear the separation as they did not…

If Indis had been there while Míriel had been bearing, as they would have wanted, she would have been strong enough. Her spirit would not have been so drained had they both been supporting her. And then the fears couldn’t have crept in, tormenting first her sleep and then her waking hours until eventually she fled first to Lórien and thence to Mandos to find sanctuary.

Finwë seeks his own refuge now, fleeing both grief and solitude as best he can, spending as much time as he dares in memories. He tries to avoid the guilty thought that so many of the best ones are from the far side of the Sea. But that is when they were all together and the world had seemed right.

Indis cannot be here for him now, any more than she could be here for Míriel. Marriage is for the life of Arda, not merely for the life of elves. Having, in the eyes of the Valar, chosen his mate, he cannot change the choice now.

Were it not for their son, he might sink into memory entirely and not emerge.

Míriel will return, someday. The Valar have decreed that eventually those who have died will return, each in their own time.

In the meantime, he must stay alive. He must be enough for little Curufinwë. And he must hold out for Indis’ sake as well, because losing two mates would surely kill her. He has failed one of his mates; he cannot bear the thought of failing the other as well. (Even if some traitorous part of him whispers that at least if they were all in Mandos, they would all be together.)

He must not lose himself in days long gone.

But oh, how seductive the memories, when they danced together beneath the trees with no light but the stars…