New Leader
Author's note: I have a headcanon that some of the earlier Elves may not view marriage as monogamy, aka one single partner during their lives as later in Valinor after meeting the Valar. As such, it could have been a custom among some smaller tribes to actually have more than one spouse if the first one dies or they goes though a version of divorce. However, I do NOT think they would use polygamy unless there is a serious imbalance between the genders in the tribe.
~X~X~X~X~X~X~
From his earliest years, it became clear that little Mirwë—or "son of fire" as he was nicknamed until his twelfth year where during the naming ceremony he would earn his true name—stood out from his peers and the rest of the children in the tribe. That he was a quiet child was nothing unusual, they learnt early on to not scream too loudly in fear or joy unless they wanted to draw the attention of an adult for something.
"Mother? Mother, where are you?" Mirwë called at seeing a group of She-elves sitting together to make new clothes from the herd of deer killed in the latest hunt.
"I am here, son. Do you want to help out?" Nordis asked her son. Elflings of both sexes were encouraged to help out in different chores; the more skills they knew the better they helped their tribe when adults.
"Can I try to scrape clean the skin?"
Getting the skin clean from animal fat and dried blood was not easy for a small child, and the flint scrapers were very sharp, so everyone had to be careful in order to not cut the fingers or hands by mistake. Nordis gave him the skin and started a new task as he worked.
"This skin is cleaned; can I get some of the twigs used to stretch them out?" Mirwë asked later, and received them.
With the skins stretched out as wide as they could be, smooth stones were used to make them soft on the inside. This was a good task for the children, who had small hands and could use it as a kind of competition in getting his or her animal skin as soft as possible.
"It would be pleasant if we could find a way to keep the clothes on, without needing to tie them around our bodies… ai!" Beril complained slightly, her point proven when her well-worn leather belt around her upper body suddenly broke in two and her skin top fell down; she held it back with one arm, her face slightly red. It was extremely embarrassing because she had just finished growing into her adult height and started to mature into an adult She-elf. Luckily, no one commented on it as it tended to happen to nearly everyone who had worn out their clothing.
"We should be able to make a new belt for you, dear, we have a good length of it over here," one of the other mothers commented. Mirwë, who had seen his sister's troubles and understood the problem, looked away at the small pile of bones, and a smaller pile of tendons neatly seated beside the meat from the deer which was to be boiled into a nice soup later at the camp fires. Standing up, he walked over to sit down there.
During the next coming hours, Mirwë was sitting cross legged at a camp fire, a smaller amount of broken bones around him alongside an older deerskin his family had not yet used from an earlier hunt. He seemed to have a goal in mind, given how careful he did hit on the animal bones with a flint stone. Finally, he got a bone piece of the same size and shape as he had envisioned in his mind.
"Yes! Now I only need to make a hole…"
Using the thinnest flint stone he had been able to find, Mirwë made a hole in one end of the bone piece before slowly drawing a long thin tendon through the hole. Then, using one of the many stone awls they used to stretch out the animal skins, he made small holes along the edges of the deerskin. Once he thought it was enough, he took the bone piece with tendon.
~X~X~X~X~X~X~
With all his chores to do during the day, Mirwë could not just sit down and finish the new clothing he planned to surprise his sister with. He needed to help his family in finding firewood, bringing home water from the river in one of his father Camaen's bigger clay pots and gathering edible roots, berries, nuts and seeds.
"What are you doing, little brother?" Beril wondered sometimes in the evenings, to which he simply smiled over his shoulder, not allowing her to see what he was doing.
"A secret, sister."
Beril did not ask anymore, but instead focused on combing her hair before braiding it. She was still a little too young for romance, but it was not unheard of that the young Elves around her age had started to look at one another differently than before when they were younger.
"Mother, what was it you said about our leader possibly finding a mate?"
Nordis looked up from the stew of vegetables which was being cooked over the fire in one of the bigger pots her husband had made. Camaen himself was busy with making a new clay pot in a different shape than before.
"He is looking for a new female to share his bed furs and hut as his mate, as a possible mother to his own Elflings. He have been mourning his first one long enough, he says, and recalls that it would be her wish for him to move on with a new one. And his young twin daughters are in that age when a female mentor is needed about for the coming change in their bodies."
Beril almost shivered at the indirect mention of that embarrassing talk she and her mother had been having a couple of months earlier, once it had became clear that she would not be growing in height anymore.
"What changes of the bodies?" Mirwë wondered in honest confusion, looking up for a moment from what he was doing. His father chuckled for himself at the question.
"I will explain that for you when you are older, son. You are a little too young for that kind of talk between a father and son yet." Camaen promised without looking up from the newest clay shape he was forming into a pot. Mirwë rolled his eyes, but did not comment. He knew that there was details about life that could only be shared between a child and a parent of the same gender, so he refused to complain. Besides, a part of his mind was still that of a Maia, watching how the Children of Eru was living without the protection of the Valar.
"Well, it is time for dinner and then bed for all four of us, my children. So please put aside whatever you are doing for now," Nordis called after tasting on the vegetable stew. They used empty zigzag scallop and other kind of big flat shells to pick up the food to their mouths, Camaen had talked about using his skills with clay to make a different kind of items to eat the food on, but he needed to figure out a good shape.
Finally, after a couple of more days, Mirwë was finished with the new clothing for his sister. It had taken some time, for the thread of tendons was not always as long as he would have liked and often needed to add a new one.
"Sister Beril, come and look what I have made for you!" he called from the hut opening, waving a hand to get her attention from the training she was doing with a big stick, the top end carved into a pointed edge to become a simple spear. Finishing off with throwing the spear into a outworn animal skin placed over a tree stump, Beril walked over to where her little brother was sitting.
"What is it… oh?"
Beril was not surprised over that Mirwë often helped to make new clothes for the tribe, but this was something totally new. The animal skins was not held together in the manner she was used to, they were held together in the sides by something…
"Holes in the tendons? Mirwë, how did you do this?"
In response, Mirwë held up the bone needle and thread of tendon he had used so she could see.
"I think I have found out a new way to keep our clothes together, I am calling it sewing," he smiled at her while Beril pulled the new tunic over her head to test how it would fit on.
~X~X~X~X~X~X~
Life went on for the couple of more years in the camp. In terms of age, Mirwë was now the equivalent of a Elf in his 24th year of living. By now, almost everyone in the tribe had caught on the sewing he had invented and prefered to use it to make clothing of the animal skins. So he was still young, but old enough to start helping out with some more tasks than before. Like starting to catch smaller prey in traps hidden inside the bushes around the camp.
"You made a good catch of that rabbit, Mirwë. Our parents will be proud," Beril said in pride as they walked back home to the camp, him holding a dead rabbit by the ears while Beril had managed to get a good shot on a pheasant with her spear.
"I am happy to be able to help with getting food for the leader's new mating ceremony this evening to his new mate… wait, what was that? Surely that is just the wedding drums… right?"
Beril pushed him closer to herself, her black eyes scanning over the area around them and her ears searching for any odd sound. Then, she spotted a pair of slant yellow-coloured eyes among the bushes. She did not waste a moment, but quickly picked up her brother under one arm to start running and screamed in alarm:
"YELLOW EYES! Yellow Eyes!"
The warning was only barely enough to warn the camp just before anything happened. The fanged monsters, called orcs, were short in statue compared to the Elves and looked like nightmares incarnate for those who had never seen them before—squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, bow-legged, with wide mouths and slanted eyes, long arms and dark skin.
"Keep your claws off my baby brother!" Beril hissed as she kicked an orc away from herself and threw her spear into the throat of another, just as she ran into the camp.
There, the leader and the rest of the adults had picked up whatever they could use for weapons.
"Infants and children up in the protection trees! You youngsters, keep the Yellow Eyes away from the trees!"
A small group of cedar trees was in the middle of camp, high in height far above the ground and with thick trunks, ideal for climbing up into in case of danger. Mirwë was tossed up upon one of the lowest branches by Beril, then given a infant to keep with him on his back as he climbed upwards the top. The adults, who had survived similar attacks before, was now only too grateful of the defensive wall they had built around the camp of branches with sharpened points outwards and blackberry bushes with thorns added to cause extra injury. The wall forced the attackers towards the single opening, where the adult Elves were ready. True, they had only simple spears and flint stones of different shapes to use, but it was better than no weapons at all.
"Keep them out of camp and away from the vulnerable tribe members!"
Meaning the children and pregnant mothers who was in their last months before birth. Among them, was Mirwë's mother Nordis, heavy with her fourth child in the nine month. A injury to her at this time in the pregnancy would risk things going wrong for either herself or the unborn daughter under her heart when it was time for the birth in three months' time.
"Mother, please hurry over here!" Mirwë screamed from the branch he was up in, hoping that by standing at the cedar trees she would be better protected. Taking up a leather sling from a pocket in his belt, Mirwë used it to send away a stone as weapon against the monsters, the stone landing in a deadly hit on a head.
"Good hit, son!"
As Beril also used a sling to turn simple stones into deadly weapons, Camaen sacrificed many of his newly made clay pots as similar weapons to throw, after all, it was easily to create new ones later. And hits in the head tended to be an effective way of killing foes.
"Beril, watch out!"
Seeing the incoming danger which a orc was about to cause, their mother Nordis pushed her adolescent daughter out of the way, only to take the fatal hit to the head by the wooden club herself. She collapsed on the ground, the blood from the deadly wound on her head straining her silver hair.
"MOTHER!"
The horrified screams from both of his children caused Camaen to look over his shoulder to see his beloved Nordis fall to the ground, a mistake which nearly cost his own life when a orc grabbed his loose hair from behind and forced him down on the ground.
"Father!"
With Beril trying to protect her mother's body, Mirwë acted without thinking first. Quickly sliding down to the ground, he grabbed a large branch where one end had two pointed smaller branches in a Y-shaped form.
"Mirwë?! What are you doing, get back up in the tree!" Camaen screamed in panic, fighting to keep the sharp stone dagger from entering his throat.
"Mother would not want you both to leave us, father!"
Using a stone from his sling to break the orc's focus on his struggling father, Mirwë threw the branch with all his strength. Granted, he was too small and slender to have the needed strength, but getting the throat caught in the Y-shaped branch still forced the orc off Camaen, who kicked the orc away from him.
"Stand back, son!"
His now late wife may have been the better hunter and warrior of the family, but Camaen still had a couple of tricks of his own. In this case, a long leather sling with two stones tied in each end, which he threw around the legs of the orc to prevent it from moving. Drawing his own flint dagger, he knew that his coming action likely was a very selfish one, but the sight of his dead wife had left a quickly-growing void in his heart. If he lost his children as well…
It was a mutual kill, Camaen not managing to avoid the blade from entering deep into his gut in time. He fell to the ground with the screams of his children echoing in his ears, the shock of the injury causing him to not really feel like he was present.
"Father! Father!"
He tried to look at them through a mist covering his sight, his beloved daughter and son who he always had been so proud over since their births. Neither he or Nordis had any siblings or parents themselves, who would look after them? Beril was not of age yet, she was too young to be living alone with only her younger brother in a family hut. He tried to say something to them, anything, to soothe their tears in this very moment, but the great blood loss from the wound in his gut claimed his life under the sound of crying from his two now orphaned children.
Several more of the adult Elves had fallen once the last of the Yellow Eyes had been killed or driven out of the camp, either already dead or injured in a manner which would make death claim them soon. Among them was the tribe leader Ruiven who tried to stop the fatal bleeding wound across his chest.
"How many?" he asked between gasps of pain, no doubt wondering the number of tribe members which they had lost in the attack. His intended mate, who knew that she now would never go through the mating ceremony with him, desperately tried to keep her tears under control as she looked around to count the fallen tribe members.
"W—We have l—lost ten adult males and four adult females… one with her child still under her heart…"
Ruiven looked disheartened at hearing that, looking away so his black hair almost covered his face. Being blind in one eye from an earlier battle, he looked around with his good eye on the Elves who had gathered around their fallen family members.
"Father, please, please… do not die! We do not have a planned leader if this would happen!" his oldest daughter pleaded, knowing that neither herself or her younger sisters were leader types, they would be unable to lead the tribe.
"Beril… get me over to Beril, quickly!" he panted in pain, both of his twin daughters obeying that order by helping him up on his feet so he could slowly walk between them. Once they came over to where Beril and Mirwë was beside their dead father, Ruiven took off his necklace made of the tusks from a boar and the fangs of a wolf fasted around a leather string. His hand was trembling when he placed it around Beril's neck, yet his voice was strong and clear when he spoke his final orders, the request to his chosen successor:
"Lead the tribe to a new place, far from here. The Yellow Eyes may come back here to either kill us or bring us away to the hands of the Dark Rider. Perhaps one day the tribe could return here, but now this place is no longer safe. For the sake of those who live now and those who will be born in the future, leave this place where so many of in this tribe were born! One day, bring your own descendants here…"
He gasped for breath, unable to say anything more, but Beril understood the untold meaning and showed her respect for the leader by going down on one knee despite the silent tears in her face.
"I hear and obey your words, Leader Ruiven."
Smiling faintly in pride and relief at knowing that the tribe would be in good hands with Beril as the new leader despite her young age, Ruiven drew a final breath before his spirit left his body. A high wail in grief echoed though the camp.
Allowing herself to cry for a few minutes in grief over her parents and everyone else who had died in the attack, Beril gave her first order:
"We need to ensure that the Yellow Eyes or wild animals will not destroy their bodies. Help we wash the blood of them, dress them in their best clothes and add ocher on their bodies." This was a burial custom for the tribe. "Prepare one of the huts as their grave."
Her voice was thick from all the raw grief, but everyone obeyed. They could not carry their dead with them on the coming journey; the scent of decay would only draw predators to the tribe. Once all the dead had been placed side by side in a hut, their own parents in a pose as if they were hugging each other in sleep to keep their unborn child safe, Beril nodded to her brother.
"Mirwë."
Together, Beril and Mirwë held the burning tree branch which was used to set the hut on fire. Being the new leader and her only family member, this was their task in burials. As the fire rose high to star-filled sky, she commanded once more:
"Gather everything we can carry and find the hollowed tree trunks we use in fishing on the deeper parts of the river. We need to leave as fast as possible."
She and Mirwë had only a few items left of their parents, items they would treasure above everything else in their lives. It would be something they planned to give to their own children, the importance of a family staying together even if something forced them apart for a long time. Perhaps one day they would meet their parents again, and the little sister they had lost before birth.
"The Yellow Eyes… I will never forgive them for taking our parents and unborn sister from us, Beril. As long as I draw breath, as long as I can fight… I will kill them. And I will teach my own descendants to do so as well, should I ever marry and father children." Mirwë whispered as tears fell anew from his silver eyes, his words far too seriously for a child of his young age. Yet Beril knew that he spoke the truth.
"Then, I promise to teach my children that as well. Relatives need to stay together, and help each others."
Brother and sister held the hand of each other, silently supporting the other in a manner which they eventually would grow famous for once they were fully grown adults.
~X~X~X~X~X~X~
Author's note: Nordis is a female Sindarin name meaning Runner, seemed to fit for a female hunter-gatherer Elf. Camaen is a genderless Sindarin name meaning Skilled Hand, which was a good match for someone who could be among the first Elves to make clay pots. Ruiven means Hunting Husband in Sindarin. And yes, Mirwë is gonna be more than just unsurpassed in weaving and needlework like Miriel in canon, I plan to make him a warrior as well.