Title: A Decision Long Made
Author: Rey
Beta-Reader: None
Story Type: Fanfiction
Book/Fandom: The Silmarillion
Language Used: English
Challenge: Back to Middle-earth 2011
Summary: It was a decision long made, a choice that had been chosen. It was another matter if the said decision could be carried out to its completion, especially when the life of the chooser was suddenly, tangibly, at stake. – What was Míriel Serindë thinking?
Credit: the B2MeM 2011 team
Rating: PG
Warnings: First Draft, Moderate Sensitive Content
Genres: Character Study, Family, Ficlet, Horror
Characters: Míriel Serindë
Place: Tirion: unknown
Timeline: Year of Trees: birth of Fëanor
Point of View: single: third person limited
Word Count: 304
Disclaimers: The challenge belongs to the B2MeM 2011 team. The patanted characters and settings belong to Tolkien Estate and its associates. The original characters and ideas belong to Rey as the author of this story. No infringement is intended to the copyright holders of Arda Legendarium, and no profit is intentionally made by writing and publishing this story.
Story Notes:
The content of this ficlet might not be what you have expected. It came to me suddenly, and I did not expect it myself. I am not satisfied with how this ficlet came out. (Actually, I hoped to create just a drabble at first.) But then, it is this or nothing; and since I also hope to answer every challenge in this set while it was a current thing, I have to content myself with this. I hope you will like it – perhaps more than I do.
If you would like to know more about Míriel's background in Rey-verse, please visit the story titled "Stay With Me" on or Faerie Archive. It also sheds much light on why her and Finwë's relationship came to the point covered in this piece. But unlike in the companion piece, here I adhere to Lore and Customs of the Eldar, which says that the parents know – choose, debateably – the gender of their unborn child.
A Decision Long Made
Her belly became rounder each day, each week. People congratulated her heartily, complimenting her increasing beauty as the effect of the pregnancy.
But the growing fetus took much from her, leeching her life force slowly but surely. She could not fault him though. She had called it upon herself, wanting to please her spouse, wanting to make him proud of her and their child, the fruit of their union. Her body had simply complied.
It had been the only thing that had come to her mind, really; because otherwise Finwë's attention was as fleeting and ever-changing like a bee hunting for honey, with all the discoveries and explorations that enticed him so much, even here in the land of the Powers. She could not bear it.
But now she wondered if she had erred. It seemed so much an effort now, too much. She wanted it to stop…
She was afraid, afraid for her life and her child's. Death was looming on the horizon, it seemed, each day. Would she live to birth him – her first and most likely also last son? Would she live to care for him? Would she just stop now, fleeing, perhaps together with her son?
Her spouse passed by on his way to who-knew-where, an excited grin lighting up his whole countenance. She quickly busied herself knitting again, completing the blanket that would be her son's birthing cloth. But she did not miss the flash of smile Finwë gave her, nor the desirous gaze in his eyes, reserved just for her – and the things of his making.
It had been her undoing, back then in the Great Journey. And it was, now. She had to survive, somehow, just to see him thus for the last time; for her, for her child. For the last time, then she could rest…