doomweaver

[doomweaver]

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[doomweaver]

Vairë allowed much of her seeming to unravel once again into a shifting mass of bright thread which wrapped Miriel's fëa like the swaddling of an infant, keeping her close and snug and cradled gently. Her face remained, and her arms, and yet the rest of her was oddly doubled, both the human fana and the truer shape beneath somehow visible at once. To eyes of flesh it would have been dizzying, and yet eyes of spirit could see it all without contradiction or confusion.

Someone watching might have noticed that the raveled ends of the Valië's spirit seemed to move not chaotically, but with purpose. That watcher, if they watched with care, might also have seen that where Vairë touched the snarl of Miriel's spirit the mortal woman smoothed out once more into something shimmering and true, a bright tapestry woven tight and strong. Miriel unraveled herself nearly as quickly as the Weaver wove her back together, however, and the process would be a long one.

But Vairë was nothing if not patient.

"Amandil is here," she murmured. "The children, too, and the mothers, and the elderly, and some of those here are they who would not fight and yet would not leave their homes. No one here is alone, Miriel, and no one here is reviled. All fëar are equal in this place, for all fëar come to this place for the same reason, with hurts all their own and joys, too. My husband gave you his judgment because it is his part to judge. But he does not hate, and nor do I, and nor do any of our Maiar, nor sweet Nienna."

She caught at Miriel's hands with her own and held the woman still. "You are unraveling yourself, Child. You are losing your body's memory. You will become like these, if you do not take care," she answered, gesturing toward a small cluster of bobbing spheres of light, little more than smears of bright color with nothing recognizably human or elven about them. "Some go to this state, and they rest there. None will criticize if that is what you need. But if you wish to see the others of your people, you must hold onto yourself more tightly, Miriel."

Doom-weaver and Downfall

As if she had not only a little while ago fought the Weaver’s embrace with all her heart, Miriel now curled tightly into it, the arms around her the only thing that did not hurt. The fëa folded itself against Vairë though hardly aware of it, fighting instead with the horrific memory - even here, even now, she must endure this?

For she had seen it in her mind in those brief moments before the ground started to shake, seen the Army and its banners and then the crumbling rock. And now she could only see it again and again, with no way to block it out. Now she knew what befell them, so many she had hoped to rescue who now would suffer worse than death, worse than madness, a doom that had never before fallen on any person in this world. Faction or not, they were of Númenor and had deserved better, so much better than what she and Calion had given them!

Miriel wept in the way of disembodied spirits, a sound of lost hope and trembling, shifting electromagnetic colors. 

"A-amandil," she cried despondently at hearing the name, writhing in agony against the Valië who held her. "He was the best of us all, and I failed him. How can I tell him? I have to tell him what has happened! And the others - they must have been so s-scared. All the children, I could hear them.” She heard the words the Weaver spoke, that not all of Númenor was gone, but could not grasp them through the mantle of pain that rested on her.

She looked up at Vairë, shaking as if caught again in the cataclysm. The Valië did not resemble her own beloved grandmother, but she was calm and kind and exuded a sense of capability, of comfort. It made Miriel feel young again, young and helpless, but also as if at last she might not be so alone. She took a sort of strength from it and roused, clinging to what had driven her so strongly in Life, but the fraying parts of her spirit seemed to tangle uselessly as if having finally reached their endpoint.

"They must be so afraid," she repeated, gently catching hold of Vairë with something that might have been hands, and holding on tightly. "Are they, those who came here? I must go to them. If I cannot destroy Calion, then I must not leave them. Oh, my lady. How could this have happened? You must hate me, hate us."

Miriel tried again, harder than before, to gather the ragged edges of herself together. Yet they still would not cooperate, and she sagged against the Weaver, finding that one could be dizzy even without a body. “Damn it,” she cursed weakly. “What is happening?”

[doomweaver]

V A I R Ë

«She weaves all things that have ever been in Time into her storied webs»

‘We cannot probe all the mystery of the nature of the Children… When one of the Queens of the Valar, Varda or Yavanna, or even I, departeth for ever from Arda, and leaventh her spouse, will he or nill he, then let that spouse judge Finwë, if he will, remembering that Finwë cannot follow Míriel without doing wrong to his nature, nor without forsaking the duty and bond of his fatherhood.’

When Vairë had spoke, the Valar sat long in silence.

I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

(FC: Helen Mirren — Quotes: Henry James, J. R. R. Tolkien & Virginia Woolf)

[doomweaver]

“Pharazôn has yet a part to play before the end,” said Vairë calmly. “Even the wicked may, in their way, yet serve the greater good despite themselves.” It was the most she could say to one of the Children, the most she could hint about the destinies of the world and her Children.

“Yes, the Army, too—or at the least, all those who set their feet upon the ground of Aman. Those who did fell under our Ban and met this Doom in the Caverns. They had their chances, their choices—any might have turned back at any point and yet most did not. This punishment is meted out to suit their crime,” she added, a flash of steel in her eyes. Kind though she was, her husband was the Doom Sayer and if his was the judgment, hers was to uphold it.

“In the end, Child, it all comes down to choice,” she murmured, seeing how Miriel flickered and sputtered like a candle touched by breeze, feeling the anger and betrayal that still simmered in the fëa and knowing its source. It was the same anger and betrayal many newly come to the Halls carried in them. “The world we made, this Arda—it does not belong to the Valar, though many of my brethren sometimes forget. We made it for you, and to you belongs its destiny. With every choice you make, the world is further shaped and the ways in which we are allowed to intervene are—limited.”

Misery rose up from Miriel in nearly palpable waves as she fell to her knees, and the Weaver flowed forward, wrapping arms around the fëa this time, for all the world a comforting grandmother in truth and not merely in seeming.

“Your people,” she murmured, rocking Miriel gently. “Your people are not all lost, my dear. Those who remained upon the isle are here, with you, despite what allegiances they may have held in life. And—many survived. Amandil reached us, Miriel. He accepted the due price of our aid, and so he, too, is here in the Halls. But we listened to his pleas, and so when the island fell, the ships of your Faithful did not founder in the torrent but were carried by Ossë’s and Uinen’s care safe to the shores of Middle-earth. Your Númenor will not be forgotten, Child.”

Doom-weaver and Downfall

Vairë. Miriel stilled instantly at the name. In a way she had thought this being a hallucination, having so long had cause to distrust her own perceptions. But where once she would have fallen to her knees, gazed at one of the Powers with love and wonder, offered herself in service, now she felt great confusion and the anger would not let her go even as the Weaver withdrew her own protective, calming grasp. She stood watching her for a long time, she didn’t know how long and supposed it didn’t matter. Then she began shifting slowly, the edges of her fëa roiling again but more gently, a high tide meeting the shore.

"No, not I, my lady. I lived a dangerous life, dancing in the darkness. Death was no stranger to me, nor I to it. There were times when I thought.." But she turned away from that memory. "No, not I. I do not see it as a punishment, not for myself. It is bitter to me that it should have happened this way, but that is not why I demand his death. It is what Pharazô– what Calion feared most, and I would have him greet it. He sought eternity and it is wrong that he found it in any form, that any shred of him ought to remain within the world. That any shred ought to remain at all. He is a poison in the shape of a Man! I cannot help but fear even now something of him will remain to poison others. I hate him as I have hated no one else, save perhaps one. But, then, if it is as you say?”

She flickered uncertainly. Despite her mercurial nature, Miriel had not been an unintelligent woman, nor one who could not face facts. This end Vairë spoke of sounded perhaps awful enough a prison that it was worthy of devouring her cousin. And Eru Ilúvatar had ordered it.

The dead queen struggled again now, but it was only with herself. The Valar had abandoned her – abandoned Númenor – had not come no matter how much she begged and pleaded and prayed. They had let the island drown, they who had raised it and gifted it in the first place. The anger and sense of betrayal within that thought was too large for her to even grasp its edges, and the thought of facing it filled her with despair.

But had she earned her death as one of the Faithful, racing to Meneltarma to beg forgiveness and mercy, only to abandon her beliefs now? Her hatred weakened slightly more as she tentatively wrapped herself in the same familiar resolve that had been second nature to her in life. A resolve to stand true to her father, to the Faithful, to this being in front of her and those like her. That resolve was no longer whole now, tattered and rent as her spirit was. It did not fit as well as it once had. But Vairë was the master Weaver. For the first time Miriel looked upon the Valië with something other than rage.

But then a horrific realization struck her as the dead queen understood what had actually been said and what those tumbling cliffs meant.

“Those who followed him? The Army?” she asked hesitantly, managing to sound hoarse even without a throat to go dry. “He took every man who could lift a sword. Nearly half our entire population, so many thousands of thousands. The biggest Army ever seen..so many ships sailed west.” The fëa wavered unsteadily, and Miriel wished she had a body once more, that she might faint and escape this hellish moment. But there was no running, no dark alleys where she could flee, no muffling draughts, nothing but the inevitable conclusion.

Calion had not only doomed the women and children and elders of Númenor to death in the cataclysm, but brought also ruin beyond ruin to nearly every man of the star-isle.

"Vairë. My people." She choked, buried in a misery that felt so heavy she fell beneath its weight. "My people.”

[doomweaver]

“We have ever been teachers, rightly or wrongly,” Vairë replied briskly. “Though we have, were truth to be told plain, learned as much or more from the Children as you have learned of us. Ëa is not ours, not the Valar’s. It is yours. For all of you did we leave the realms beyond What Is and enter into this place. For all of you did we build it. Some of my brethren forget that sometimes, but truth it is.”

She smiled, seeing Míriel’s face begin to come alive once again, animated by interest and curiosity, the thrill of a challenge laid. “I will teach you, and learn from you at once. Come, Child, let me show you my Loom.”

(noldobroideress) Míriel wandered the Halls listlessly, her weariness following her even into death. She had mourned upon entering them, but now she could not bring herself to care even for the news of the outside world. She turned away from the halls in which tapestries hung, and shunned all other fear who dwelled therein, but yet... there was a spark of loneliness.

Vairë watched the fëa, thin as a wisp of smoke and pale with it. Some in the Halls were like this, forgetting life and light and love and soon, even the memory of flesh would be lost. Those fëar were little more than smears of light, shapeless balls of pure spirit. She understood that some needed this respite, needed this forgetfulness, that it was healing for them, in a way.

And yet it always hurt her to see one of the Children set aside all that made them unique and retreat into unbeing.

Making a decision, she pulled a seeming about her, a fana with silver-bright hair and an unlined face modeled after the Noldor more than any of the other kindreds.

"My greetings, Child," she murmured as the wisp of spirit-stuff, still elven-shaped, would have passed her by unseeing.

[doomweaver]

Women of Tolkien: Vairë of the Valier, Vairë the Weaver

“Threads, she saw. Stitches. Patterns. Stitches to hold fast. Patterns to make boundaries, to cover, to shape. To mimic. Bindings to hold them there. Threads to create. Knots to bind.” - Patricia McKillip

—-

Vairë the Weaver is [Mandos’] spouse, who weaves all things that have ever been in Time into her storied webs, and the halls of Mandos that ever widen as the ages pass are clothed with them.

[doomweaver]

Vairë smiled very slightly. “Were you in your body, you would not even be able to gaze upon these tapestries, nor follow their permutations with your eyes. Flesh is limiting, in its way, and you are stronger far now in this way—and others—now that you are shed of it.”

She led Míriel to another tapestry and let her gaze upon it. This life was longer and more complex than the first the broideress had watched. “This is my work, my meaning,” she murmured, looking about her at the Lives. “I am the Weaver of history and time itself unspools beneath my fingers. My domain is—not so conspicuous, perhaps, as that of my brethren. I have not Varda’s silver brilliance, nor yet Yavanna’s vibrant exuberance. And yet without me, could any of this exist? We all play our parts.”

She trailed her fingers through the shimmering threads of the Tapestries and they glimmered and shone, each one a world in miniature. The Halls of Lives were an orrery of sorts, moving in slow orbit about each other.

She turned back to Míriel. “I will teach you, if you will it. Your hands are nimble and your spirit strong. This work is so vital, and yet so often overlooked. But you, I think, can understand it.”

(noldobroideress) Míriel wandered the Halls listlessly, her weariness following her even into death. She had mourned upon entering them, but now she could not bring herself to care even for the news of the outside world. She turned away from the halls in which tapestries hung, and shunned all other fear who dwelled therein, but yet... there was a spark of loneliness.

Vairë watched the fëa, thin as a wisp of smoke and pale with it. Some in the Halls were like this, forgetting life and light and love and soon, even the memory of flesh would be lost. Those fëar were little more than smears of light, shapeless balls of pure spirit. She understood that some needed this respite, needed this forgetfulness, that it was healing for them, in a way.

And yet it always hurt her to see one of the Children set aside all that made them unique and retreat into unbeing.

Making a decision, she pulled a seeming about her, a fana with silver-bright hair and an unlined face modeled after the Noldor more than any of the other kindreds.

"My greetings, Child," she murmured as the wisp of spirit-stuff, still elven-shaped, would have passed her by unseeing.

[doomweaver]

Miriel fought in the gentle grasp of the Weaver’s threads, thrashing and violent and maddened as a wild thing, screaming in protest and embittered passion. Vaire let her, knowing this, too, was part of healing. She must be cleansed, scoured clean of all which had damaged her, and it would be a long process and an often painful one, too. But healed she would be.

Slowly, slowly, the woman seemed to calm, to relax, testing the boundaries of the woven cradle of the Weaver’s being. Vairë sent what soothing waves of comfort to the fëa as she could, through those places in which they were joined.

“Even you, Child,” she murmured then, as Miriel quieted in the embrace she offered. “Even you see death as a punishment? Have your Faithful not taught you the truth? Death is the Gift of Men, not their Doom. Death is Eru’s dearest treasure. Even such as I will one day come to envy Men their Gift, their ability to leave this place. Bound forever to the world’s fortunes, are Eldar and Ainur, but the Edain—they are free. But Pharazôn and those who followed him, those who dared break the Ban, shall never taste that freedom. They shall endure, as Ages turn and pass, trapped forever in lightless caverns, not truly alive, but never dying. Their bodies and their minds alike shall become as a torment to them, and yet even the respite of madness shall be denied them. Theirs is the punishment most dire—of achieving their deepest desire and finding it a hollow thing and terrible, but being unable ever to rest again. Unquiet shall they be, discontented and unsatisfied and empty.”

She withdrew the threads of her being and re-formed the seeming of a mature woman of the Edain, silver of hair and seamed of face, though still quite obviously strong. “But you, my dear Child, have earned rest. Their Doom is not yours. To you shall come the Gift of Men, Eru’s Gift,” she said, folding her hands before her and regarding the woman, still pulsing with anger and barely restrained passions as she was. “Have you not guessed my name, Tar-Miriel? Very well; I shall tell you. I am Erešuatuṣurāti, called Ušparu, known to the Children as Vairë, and as Gwîr. By any name, I am the Weaver, and you stand now within my husband’s Halls.”

Doom-weaver and Downfall

Things became even more strange as the being before her changed in yet another display of the impossible. The thin appendages shot out and caught Miriel in their grasp before she had time to process that they were there at all. The dead queen startled wildly as the threads arrested her hectic movements. The fëa blazed like a star going nova, bright and fierce and doomed to brevity.

Miriel cried out in protest, giving off waves of heat that shivered like a mirage around her. At last there was something she could fight against, some focus for her anger and regret, though it was not her cousin. The fëa pushed outward, first testing the threads that wrapped around her and then fighting against them with all her strength. She might as well have tried to tear apart iron armor with bare hands for all her efforts earned her.

"He should be dead, as dead as I am!” she snarled. “He earned his unlife at the cost of my people! He should have no single shred of victory, no matter how empty a victory, nor endurance in the circles of this world! When I find him, he will have none!”

The brightness of her Self flared and dimmed in a cycling exhaustion reminiscent of a physical body gasping for air. The outburst and the force of her exertions took their toll and Miriel fell to a reluctant, unhappy stillness. As she quieted, for the first time she sensed with surprise and a relief she was not ready to admit that the weaving that held her did not hurt, in fact felt more like a protective embrace than one meant to trap.

As she examined it more closely, Miriel realized the falling-apart she had borne for so long and the cracks that tore and trembled were being held together by a strength beyond her understanding. With a sense of frightened wonder, she tentatively relaxed just a little, realizing that if she could not break them purposely, the threads would certainly not unravel if she simply let them hold her together. 

Still, even as she ceased her struggling, Miriel glared at Vairë with the same innate challenge the Weaver had first seen within her.

"Who are you and why do you hold me?" she asked, not quite calmly, but with more suspicion than anger in the question.

[doomweaver]

"Come, Child, let me show you something," Vairë said, drawing Míriel back to her feet. She took a step, leading the fëa beside her, and the Halls--changed. Both time and space were flexible in the Halls of Mandos, and one whose will was strong enough might move about them without need of any sham of physical movement.

They stood now in one of the smaller chambers which hung from the long corridors like fringe on a woven shawl; the Halls of Lives, the Weaver called these places. Contained within were the Tapestries of Lives. The larger Halls and echoing chambers contained the Tapestries of History, in which the broad sweeps of time were encoded.

But in these smaller chambers hung representations not of History but of personal histories. Each had been woven in consultation with the fea whose life it represented, and though they were called "tapestries," the word seemed too frail to fully describe the works themselves.

For Vaire had woven them not in two dimensions, as most tapestries appeared, but in four. The threads moved through time and space alike, and every moment of each fëa's life was whole there, as the spirit recalled it. No bodily creature could have looked upon the Lives without dizziness and confusion, but the fëar did not have fleshly eyes and could quite nearly live the Lives as they watched the tapestries.

"You could make these," Vairë said to Míriel. "You are the broideress, the creatrix of fabric arts in Aman. You could learn to weave like this."

(noldobroideress) Míriel wandered the Halls listlessly, her weariness following her even into death. She had mourned upon entering them, but now she could not bring herself to care even for the news of the outside world. She turned away from the halls in which tapestries hung, and shunned all other fear who dwelled therein, but yet... there was a spark of loneliness.

Vairë watched the fëa, thin as a wisp of smoke and pale with it. Some in the Halls were like this, forgetting life and light and love and soon, even the memory of flesh would be lost. Those fëar were little more than smears of light, shapeless balls of pure spirit. She understood that some needed this respite, needed this forgetfulness, that it was healing for them, in a way.

And yet it always hurt her to see one of the Children set aside all that made them unique and retreat into unbeing.

Making a decision, she pulled a seeming about her, a fana with silver-bright hair and an unlined face modeled after the Noldor more than any of the other kindreds.

"My greetings, Child," she murmured as the wisp of spirit-stuff, still elven-shaped, would have passed her by unseeing.

[doomweaver]

Vairë regarded Miriel with pale eyes a moment, then shook her head, stroking the little fëa's hair. "I remember many futures, Miriel. Many choices made. I can see them all, weaving themselves before me, but I cannot say which future will be and which will not. Mandos believes, and it may well be true, that all of these futures are, somewhere else, but regardless--we here have only one. And it will be decided by every action, every choice made by the Children. Who can say what your future will bring? Many things may change. You may not be parted forever. It may not be too late. And even if you do not live once more with husband and son, you may yet find your own happiness apart from them."

(noldobroideress) Míriel wandered the Halls listlessly, her weariness following her even into death. She had mourned upon entering them, but now she could not bring herself to care even for the news of the outside world. She turned away from the halls in which tapestries hung, and shunned all other fear who dwelled therein, but yet... there was a spark of loneliness.

Vairë watched the fëa, thin as a wisp of smoke and pale with it. Some in the Halls were like this, forgetting life and light and love and soon, even the memory of flesh would be lost. Those fëar were little more than smears of light, shapeless balls of pure spirit. She understood that some needed this respite, needed this forgetfulness, that it was healing for them, in a way.

And yet it always hurt her to see one of the Children set aside all that made them unique and retreat into unbeing.

Making a decision, she pulled a seeming about her, a fana with silver-bright hair and an unlined face modeled after the Noldor more than any of the other kindreds.

"My greetings, Child," she murmured as the wisp of spirit-stuff, still elven-shaped, would have passed her by unseeing.

[doomweaver]

Vairë's head tilted calmly to one side as the fëa reacted, unstable and wild. Some of those here in the Halls had gone too far the other direction, retreating entirely and losing all memories of their prior lives. These spirits appeared as shapeless smears of light that bobbled like balls of fox-fire through the endless corridors. Others--she thought now of the Fëanorian wing, and the raging cries which oft echoed there.

Her lips tightened very slightly and she let the edges of her own seeming--not quite a fully-fleshed fana, here in the Halls, but yet somewhat more than her natural, unclothed state--dissolve into long whipping threads which bridged the space between them and wrapped about the fraying, crackling fëa, holding it together tightly.

Her voice, when next she spoke, owed nothing to the mechanics of tongue and teeth but was an echoing, bell-like presence which would be perceived without the intervention of even the remembered ears which the fëar bore here.

"He is not dead, child. But neither does he live. He has met his punishment, and it is the same as his greatest desire--to live, eternal, in Aman. But no great palace has he, but the Caves of the Forgotten, and no life it is at all, but merely an undying," she answered.

Doom-weaver and Downfall

There must be an exit in this place! There? No. There? Still no. Somewhere else, then. She growled to herself and fled in a different direction, then reared back as a woman appeared from nowhere to stand in her way. The dead queen unconsciously puffed up like an agitated sea-bird, the fëa rustling and shifting like a colony of rough-feathered wings balancing against a stiff wind.

She stood her ground before the stranger, assessing her appearance in a glance, not understanding who was before her and too incensed to care. She was dead, and who knew what madness was within these Halls? Of course a woman of the race of Men would appear before her! Why not?

Miriel laughed hysterically. Why not indeed? She was dead. Númenor was drowned! Nothing was impossible! What else was there to hurt her? And if it did, what did it matter? Only one thing mattered now, and she clung to it with all the stubbornness within her.

"Then where is he?!" she demanded. "If he has not the courtesy to be dead as he ought, I will go to him and teach him manners as I should have long ago! More fool, I, that I thought there was hope!”

Miriel spat the last word, no expression formed by Mortal tongue but a warbling cry of despair and fury that sent trails of gangrenous-green sparks bursting through the metaphysical space around her. Unable to keep still, she crackled and fluttered wildly, her path hampered by the one who stood between her and what must be done. 

[doomweaver]

So you ought to know, your Vaire is fabulous. A+++ depiction of Valie. Your posts brighten my day when I see them. <3

((Oh, my! What a lovely message, Nonny dearest! Thank you very much! It is a delicate line to walk, writing a literal goddess. I'm glad you think I've managed it well! <33333

[doomweaver]

Vairë stroked the fëa's hair as she clung there sobbing, making small and meaningless noises of comfort until, at last, the tempest calmed somewhat and speech returned to Míriel's tongue.

It was strange to the Ainur, was death. They themselves were bodiless spirits by nature, taking flesh to themselves only at their own whim and for their own reasons. The Eldar, however, clung to their flesh so tightly, were made to fill it up and found themselves--lost, terrified, without it. Vairë perhaps understood better than most, having spent so much time with the spirits who had come here already, but still it was strange.

"There are many kinds of strength," she said now, quietly. "Strength of body is only one of them, and to the eyes of a Valië, one of the least important. We who put on flesh like you put on clothing see things rather differently. We see the spirit first, and yours is strong, despite what you gave to your son in birthing him."

(noldobroideress) Míriel wandered the Halls listlessly, her weariness following her even into death. She had mourned upon entering them, but now she could not bring herself to care even for the news of the outside world. She turned away from the halls in which tapestries hung, and shunned all other fear who dwelled therein, but yet... there was a spark of loneliness.

Vairë watched the fëa, thin as a wisp of smoke and pale with it. Some in the Halls were like this, forgetting life and light and love and soon, even the memory of flesh would be lost. Those fëar were little more than smears of light, shapeless balls of pure spirit. She understood that some needed this respite, needed this forgetfulness, that it was healing for them, in a way.

And yet it always hurt her to see one of the Children set aside all that made them unique and retreat into unbeing.

Making a decision, she pulled a seeming about her, a fana with silver-bright hair and an unlined face modeled after the Noldor more than any of the other kindreds.

"My greetings, Child," she murmured as the wisp of spirit-stuff, still elven-shaped, would have passed her by unseeing.

[doomweaver]

Vairë sank to her knees, pulling Miriel down with her, allowing the fea to weep against her shoulder. Tears like these were more properly Nienna's domain, but Vairë knew well that they had not been the first she would see, nor would they be the last.

There were some, perhaps, who would call what she had just done cruel. Reminding Miriel of what she'd left behind, both the good and the bad, had been an act carefully weighed and one which had produced, in the end, the effect desired. Miriel felt once more. Sorrow, perhaps, but still--it was emotion, not the numb emptiness of a moment before. In truth, Vairë had expected anger, and perhaps anger would still come, and would perhaps even be deserved.

But for the moment, she had broken through to the woman inside the ghost, the woman the ghost had been and could be again, and for that she was thankful and joyful both.

"All you had is not gone," she said quietly. "It is still there, in you. In your heart, and in your hands."

(noldobroideress) Míriel wandered the Halls listlessly, her weariness following her even into death. She had mourned upon entering them, but now she could not bring herself to care even for the news of the outside world. She turned away from the halls in which tapestries hung, and shunned all other fear who dwelled therein, but yet... there was a spark of loneliness.

Vairë watched the fëa, thin as a wisp of smoke and pale with it. Some in the Halls were like this, forgetting life and light and love and soon, even the memory of flesh would be lost. Those fëar were little more than smears of light, shapeless balls of pure spirit. She understood that some needed this respite, needed this forgetfulness, that it was healing for them, in a way.

And yet it always hurt her to see one of the Children set aside all that made them unique and retreat into unbeing.

Making a decision, she pulled a seeming about her, a fana with silver-bright hair and an unlined face modeled after the Noldor more than any of the other kindreds.

"My greetings, Child," she murmured as the wisp of spirit-stuff, still elven-shaped, would have passed her by unseeing.

[doomweaver]

Vairë reached out and placed on finger in the center of Míriel's forehead lightly. For just that instant, it was as though flesh again sheathed the woman's spirit, blood and breath warming her, and the memory of pain heavy on her. And then the Valië removed her hand and Míriel was but spirit once more, and light with it.

"There is strength in you still," she murmured. "You endure, when so many have chosen otherwise." Her gesture encompassed the featureless smears of light which had once been spirits. "You have set aside flesh, but you need not set aside being."

(noldobroideress) Míriel wandered the Halls listlessly, her weariness following her even into death. She had mourned upon entering them, but now she could not bring herself to care even for the news of the outside world. She turned away from the halls in which tapestries hung, and shunned all other fear who dwelled therein, but yet... there was a spark of loneliness.

Vairë watched the fëa, thin as a wisp of smoke and pale with it. Some in the Halls were like this, forgetting life and light and love and soon, even the memory of flesh would be lost. Those fëar were little more than smears of light, shapeless balls of pure spirit. She understood that some needed this respite, needed this forgetfulness, that it was healing for them, in a way.

And yet it always hurt her to see one of the Children set aside all that made them unique and retreat into unbeing.

Making a decision, she pulled a seeming about her, a fana with silver-bright hair and an unlined face modeled after the Noldor more than any of the other kindreds.

"My greetings, Child," she murmured as the wisp of spirit-stuff, still elven-shaped, would have passed her by unseeing.

[doomweaver]

Vairë's lips thinned just a hair as the other turned away, as she spoke in tones that held no interest, no spark--only a dull acceptance. No, not even that. Not even acceptance. Simply--dull, empty.

"You are more than a wife and a mother, Míriel," she said, and her voice held an edge of sharpness to it, directed not at the fea but at the entirety of the situation, at the foolish Valar who had nigh turned themselves inside-out over this woman's situation, never trying to understand it as the Children themselves would understand. "You are yourself. There is more to life--and yes, this too is a kind of life, the life of the spirit and not of the body--than existing."

(noldobroideress) Míriel wandered the Halls listlessly, her weariness following her even into death. She had mourned upon entering them, but now she could not bring herself to care even for the news of the outside world. She turned away from the halls in which tapestries hung, and shunned all other fear who dwelled therein, but yet... there was a spark of loneliness.

Vairë watched the fëa, thin as a wisp of smoke and pale with it. Some in the Halls were like this, forgetting life and light and love and soon, even the memory of flesh would be lost. Those fëar were little more than smears of light, shapeless balls of pure spirit. She understood that some needed this respite, needed this forgetfulness, that it was healing for them, in a way.

And yet it always hurt her to see one of the Children set aside all that made them unique and retreat into unbeing.

Making a decision, she pulled a seeming about her, a fana with silver-bright hair and an unlined face modeled after the Noldor more than any of the other kindreds.

"My greetings, Child," she murmured as the wisp of spirit-stuff, still elven-shaped, would have passed her by unseeing.

[doomweaver]

Vairë did not quite smile, but her face was neither forbidding. "Something I require of you?" she repeated. "Why, no, there is nothing required of you here, Miriel. This place is for you, for all of you. It is a place for your rest and your healing. There are no duties here save those you choose for yourself, no tasks and no onus, no geas save those you lay upon yourself."

She did smile then, very slightly. "What might you do, if you might do anything?" she asked, tone rhetorical.

(noldobroideress) Míriel wandered the Halls listlessly, her weariness following her even into death. She had mourned upon entering them, but now she could not bring herself to care even for the news of the outside world. She turned away from the halls in which tapestries hung, and shunned all other fear who dwelled therein, but yet... there was a spark of loneliness.

Vairë watched the fëa, thin as a wisp of smoke and pale with it. Some in the Halls were like this, forgetting life and light and love and soon, even the memory of flesh would be lost. Those fëar were little more than smears of light, shapeless balls of pure spirit. She understood that some needed this respite, needed this forgetfulness, that it was healing for them, in a way.

And yet it always hurt her to see one of the Children set aside all that made them unique and retreat into unbeing.

Making a decision, she pulled a seeming about her, a fana with silver-bright hair and an unlined face modeled after the Noldor more than any of the other kindreds.

"My greetings, Child," she murmured as the wisp of spirit-stuff, still elven-shaped, would have passed her by unseeing.