"This is an unhappy chance, beloved! Our son will soon tread the green grass of Tuna and laugh in the light of Laurelin. You should be with him."
"Unhappy it is indeed, and I would weep, if I were not so weary. But hold me blameless in this, as in all that may come after. Rest now I must. Farewell, dear lord!"
Some seventy Days having passed without any improvement in her condition, Finwë's beloved was going, on the advice of Manwë, to seek healing in the gardens of Lórien. She would be travelling slowly, by cart, with many pauses. Her mother was going with her. The journey had been planned in some detail. Now there was only the ritual ordeal of parting to go through.
"You do want to go, Míriel?"
Given half a chance, he would beg her to stay. Finwë had known other partings; had lost his dearest friend to the shadows of Middle-earth's trees. This separation sent cold fingers of uneasiness along his spine.
But Míriel did not intend to give him a chance.
"Yes. I must get away, don't you see, Finwë?"
"You will return in good health."
The words were almost a prayer.
"Yes. Of course."
No good wife lies to her spouse, even by omission or default. Míriel was aware of this, as a fact around which lives were organised in some parallel dimension far away; but all thought was consumed in the agonised mist of her exhaustion. Her mind was focused upon a single point: the prospect of escaping the burden that weighed upon her.
Míriel lay asleep upon the soft grass of Lórien, beneath a silver willow that watched its reflection in a silver pool. Her dark eyes were open; she had allowed some of the maidens among the Vanyar who served Lórien to put flowers in her hair. Lying there, she looked lovely beyond words, Ulwë thought.
Ulwë was Míriel's mother, a widow of the Great March. She was not a bad woman; she was merely a very ordinary one, such as are found in every community of the Teleri. She did love her daughter, but Míriel's beauty and brilliance and stubbornness were a great mystery to her and always had been.
In fact, Ulwë had never understood the people whom she had taken for herself, nor even her husband. Him she had loved for his curiosity and his passion for the new; but a creature of Melkor had taken him in the passes of the Misty Mountains. Now she watched over the recumbent form of their only child with the attentiveness of a mother bird.
All the same, in the pervading stillness and dreaminess, it was quite a long time before she became aware that Míriel's chest was no longer rising and falling.
