Chapter one: Nim enters the world
The day I was born, there was a bright Blue Moon. They said it was sign, they claimed I would be a great and wise child of my race.
Though signs are easily forgotten.
I don't know if I ever was a good leader. Mother always said I was wonderful – I know that she loved every aspect of my being, and Father, on his rare visits, seemed to love me just as much.
Though this made it all harder to forget.
Children, of course, were not raised solely by their parents, as a rule. The whole city brought me up, with the two other young elves of the time. So really, everyone I came in contact with was like a parent to me.
So remembering was all but too painful.
I don't think I ever stood out as special. That is one thing about elves – they are all so "superior", so special, that people see them as all being the same.
I hated being the same.
I was given the blessing of my people, and named, "Moonaminiskiale," after some long-forgotten tribe my father had belonged to, millenniums ago. But I was affectionately nick-named,
"Min."
Mother and father never really loved each other, after I was born. They had loved, briefly, and that was where I came in, but after that they drifted apart. It is hard for elves to love deeply. It happens very rarely.
But then father was called away to a great council with the Dwarfs of the misty mountains, what few there were. He was always chosen as a sort of emissary, and, this time, they needed someone from Rivendell as well as Mirkwood, since this was the first real contact with the dwarfs for a long time.
We never did care for the dwarfs much, did we? I suppose all that has changed now. But back then, it was terribly important, and Mother had to go, so I was left alone for a few months.
I didn't mind. I was quite capable of independence at the age of five hundred or so: it felt good to put myself to the tested. I always tested myself, never feeling I was good enough, always having to prove myself, strain myself to the limit.
When they returned, something was different between them. The feel of new ground under their feet and the taste of travel must have renewed an old urge, for Mother was decidedly heavy and round about the waist. I was to have a new brother or sister!
But now that fleeting love must be gone to my parents, for they seemed even more distant then usual. Elves have no need for marriage or bonds, of course, and I could see that this was the last time my Mother and Father would ever be called "partners." Their love, which might have been strong in their youth, was gone, for good.
But mother had something else to love: her new child.
The night my sister was born, there was a cold storm. My sister should not have entered this land that night. She was born far too early, premature, months before she was due, the healer said, and that, she explained, was why she was so small.
When she came, she was tiny, and half-blue. She didn't breath, she looked dead in fact, but for a faint heart-beat. They said she would never last more then a few days, even if she did awaken, and that it would be kinder to kill her now.
But Mother wouldn't let them. She clutched her child to her chest, and breathed on her, and hugged her, and whispered forgotten spells to her.
And the baby breathed. She started crying: loud and clear and crisp as morning frost. I had never heard a baby cry: I had never heard anyone cry before. It sounded harsh and cruel. And beautiful.
I loved my sister from the first moment I heard that cry.
The next day, she laughed. She was so tiny – small enough to fit into my palm – but her laugh was so big it made Mother, and the healers, and relatives, and even Elrond, who had come to see the new babe, even I, it made us all laugh.
So she was called "Elijakoriowayei," the "Little laughing one who is a gift from the stars." That was a silly name, in an old language no one remembers how to speak. But I was Min, so my new baby sister was called Nim instead, which was much easier to remember.
Nim grew just as she was supposed to. She didn't die, like they had said she would. But even over twenty years she was still no bigger then a human child of nine or ten, and after that it was obvious she would grow no bigger.
Father came to see us, every few years. Nim would come rushing out to meet him when she was little, and climb up onto the horse to talk to him about everything that had happened while he had been away, which wasn't very much. Father would nod and hold her. But I could see in his eyes that he wanted her to grow, to be tall and wise like she was supposed to.
As she got older and more mature she changed. She wasn't a little child any more. But sometimes she still seemed so. She was just to innocently curious and happy and brave to be anything but a child. All was all that she could be.
The day I was born, there was a bright Blue Moon. They said it was sign, they claimed I would be a great and wise child of my race.
Though signs are easily forgotten.
I don't know if I ever was a good leader. Mother always said I was wonderful – I know that she loved every aspect of my being, and Father, on his rare visits, seemed to love me just as much.
Though this made it all harder to forget.
Children, of course, were not raised solely by their parents, as a rule. The whole city brought me up, with the two other young elves of the time. So really, everyone I came in contact with was like a parent to me.
So remembering was all but too painful.
I don't think I ever stood out as special. That is one thing about elves – they are all so "superior", so special, that people see them as all being the same.
I hated being the same.
I was given the blessing of my people, and named, "Moonaminiskiale," after some long-forgotten tribe my father had belonged to, millenniums ago. But I was affectionately nick-named,
"Min."
Mother and father never really loved each other, after I was born. They had loved, briefly, and that was where I came in, but after that they drifted apart. It is hard for elves to love deeply. It happens very rarely.
But then father was called away to a great council with the Dwarfs of the misty mountains, what few there were. He was always chosen as a sort of emissary, and, this time, they needed someone from Rivendell as well as Mirkwood, since this was the first real contact with the dwarfs for a long time.
We never did care for the dwarfs much, did we? I suppose all that has changed now. But back then, it was terribly important, and Mother had to go, so I was left alone for a few months.
I didn't mind. I was quite capable of independence at the age of five hundred or so: it felt good to put myself to the tested. I always tested myself, never feeling I was good enough, always having to prove myself, strain myself to the limit.
When they returned, something was different between them. The feel of new ground under their feet and the taste of travel must have renewed an old urge, for Mother was decidedly heavy and round about the waist. I was to have a new brother or sister!
But now that fleeting love must be gone to my parents, for they seemed even more distant then usual. Elves have no need for marriage or bonds, of course, and I could see that this was the last time my Mother and Father would ever be called "partners." Their love, which might have been strong in their youth, was gone, for good.
But mother had something else to love: her new child.
The night my sister was born, there was a cold storm. My sister should not have entered this land that night. She was born far too early, premature, months before she was due, the healer said, and that, she explained, was why she was so small.
When she came, she was tiny, and half-blue. She didn't breath, she looked dead in fact, but for a faint heart-beat. They said she would never last more then a few days, even if she did awaken, and that it would be kinder to kill her now.
But Mother wouldn't let them. She clutched her child to her chest, and breathed on her, and hugged her, and whispered forgotten spells to her.
And the baby breathed. She started crying: loud and clear and crisp as morning frost. I had never heard a baby cry: I had never heard anyone cry before. It sounded harsh and cruel. And beautiful.
I loved my sister from the first moment I heard that cry.
The next day, she laughed. She was so tiny – small enough to fit into my palm – but her laugh was so big it made Mother, and the healers, and relatives, and even Elrond, who had come to see the new babe, even I, it made us all laugh.
So she was called "Elijakoriowayei," the "Little laughing one who is a gift from the stars." That was a silly name, in an old language no one remembers how to speak. But I was Min, so my new baby sister was called Nim instead, which was much easier to remember.
Nim grew just as she was supposed to. She didn't die, like they had said she would. But even over twenty years she was still no bigger then a human child of nine or ten, and after that it was obvious she would grow no bigger.
Father came to see us, every few years. Nim would come rushing out to meet him when she was little, and climb up onto the horse to talk to him about everything that had happened while he had been away, which wasn't very much. Father would nod and hold her. But I could see in his eyes that he wanted her to grow, to be tall and wise like she was supposed to.
As she got older and more mature she changed. She wasn't a little child any more. But sometimes she still seemed so. She was just to innocently curious and happy and brave to be anything but a child. All was all that she could be.