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Curufinwë Atarinkë, fourth of the seven sons of Fëanáro and Nerdanel - younger than Maitimo and Makalaurë and Tyelkormo, older than Carnistir and Nityo and Telvo -, knelt by the side of his dead grandmother in the grass of Lórien. He did not want to be there; he would have given anything to be with his brother Tyelkormo, who was undoubtedly even now hunting in the fields of Oromë.

Curufinwë's predicament was his father's fault. It had been Fëanáro, discovering that the two were planning an excursion into Valinor, who had asked his favourite son to bring him a vial of the liquid radiance of Telperion for use in his forge.

It had sounded so reasonable that Curufinwë had had no choice but to assent. Besides, he loved his father too much to disappoint him. And he had too much pride of every kind to delegate the duty to a servant, even though entering Lórien meant paying a ceremonial visit to his deceased ancestress. Not to do so would have been cowardice pure and simple, apart from the fact that Nerdanel would certainly ask him about it on his return.

Curufinwë knelt in the moist grass of Lórien, by the side of his dead grandmother. He did not touch her.

For 291 Years Míriel Serindë had rested on the quiet ground beneath a silver willow. Never in these Years had a flicker of life moved in the depths of her grey eyes. Never had a muscle twitched in the once so nimble hands. Míriel was dead. Why then did those cold lips smile into the twilight?

Once a Year, for as long Curufinwë could remember, his mother had dragged her family to Lórien, there to stand about the corpse of Míriel l for an awkward quarter-Hour. As far as he could see, the impulse behind this awkward pilgrimage was all Nerdanel's; Fëanáro appeared to find the sight as discomforting as did any of his sons, save perhaps Curufinwë himself, who did not like darkness.

When his father's spirit of discovery led him into the murky shadows of Araman or Avathar, he would find a reason to be somewhere else, usually in the brightly-lit forges of the house of Aulë, when he could. You knew where you were in the light of the Two Trees.

And yet the gardens of Lórien were undeniably beautiful, in their own way. There were nightingales, whose thin, cool notes fell like water upon the ear, and there were fields of poppies by dark pools that never saw the Tree-light for the coniferous shade about them. There was even a secretive sect among the Vanyar, the Lóriendili, who chose to live there.

As if in a test of his own will, Curufinwë bent forward until he was looking straight into the blank dark eyes of Míriel. It was important that he remain here for just a few more moments, a little more time, to prove his courage. These were the rules that he had set himself.

When the lómelindë began to sing, taking it as the sign for his release, he got up quickly and began to dust himself off. Now there remained only to collect the vial of light from the silver vat of Varda. After that, he could rejoin Tyelkormo in the forests of light.

As he turned to go, he cast a quick glance around the glade. Míriel looked, from even a little distance, to be sleeping beneath her silver tree. A few feet was enough to take all the terror from of her silent form. Curufinwë even felt free to pity her a little. How horrible it was that this child of Ilúvatar should be cut off forever from all the shimmering delights of incarnate life!

It was then that he saw the young woman.

It was no movement of hers that gave her away, for she was motionless and pale and delicate as the little stars of the white flower of Lórien that is called the nieninqe. No, she was more perfect than that bloom. It was the glimmering of her clear skin in some ray of stray light that differentiated her from the dark tree that loomed behind her, enormous in comparison.

There was a thick scent of poppies in the air.