Authors Note-
Not to be unkind, but please stop PM-ing me about doing art if you arecommissionbased.
Or, if you do, I won't be responding to your messages. I'm thankful that many of you like my stories enough to offer, but it gets exhausting when you're inbox is full of requests to do art only to find out that they arecommissionedbased and therefore you are unable to collaborate. I understand that you probably make yourliving off of your art, but I don't make money off of my "art" or "writing" here on . I'm writing it for my own enjoyment, and for others to enjoy, for free.
I know it might seem harsh, but I'm a broke mom of two kids who can't afford to pay for art.
If you'dliketo do art for free, I'd love to collaborate.
Rant over, lol.
"WE'VE FOUND HER!" Came the cry, echoing off the palace walls amid shouts of joy, then cries of sorrow. The three females leapt from their respective seats and hurried from the room only to be caught up in the crowd that surrounded Prince Imrahil as he carried his sopping limp bundle through the halls. A healer was called, who started ordering for more logs, a blazing fire, and lots of blankets. Mariel's head whirled as she turned every which way, servants running here and there with piles of blankets, warm broth, dry clothes and the like. Finally she was ushered into the room and seated in a chair next to her mother's bed.
She looked frail. Her damp greying hair plastered to her face and neck, an unhealthy flush blooming on her cheeks. Fluffy blankets had been piled on top of her, and a wet cloth rested upon her brow. One hand had slipped out from under the blankets, and Mariel grasped it with her hand. It felt clammy, and was slightly slick. Her mother moaned, shifting in the bed.
"I'm here, Naneth," she whispered, laying her head down on the pillow, her thumb stroking back and forth across the limp hand.
The invalid didn't stir.
The next seven days were a living hell of back and forth. One day they would think progress was made, then the fever would return. The next they were certain that they would lose her and she would bounce back. Mariel spent all her time at her mother's bedside, singing lullabies, happy tunes, and sad dirges. She read her mother's favorite books, then poetry, and finally resorted to talking about anything that came to her mind. Most of all she kept telling her mother how much she loved her and needed her still.
Ivriniel only moaned, or cried the name of her husband, voice filled with anguish. Her body grew thinner and thinner, wasting away beneath the fever that came and went, then a wet cough that wracked her entire body. She would have fits, convulsing beneath the hand of the healer and his helpers, a piece of leather between her teeth so she wouldn't bite her tongue off. Mariel was rushed from the room each time it occurred, the door slammed in her face. She could only weep, praying that her only parent would be spared.
She had never thought that she would come this close to losing a parent so soon after her father's death. Her heart felt like someone was gripping it tightly, slowly squeezing out all remnant of hope that she had as the days went by. She wondered, why? Why would her mother randomly start walking down the road that led out of the city, dressed in only her day dress and a light cloak, her soft slippers soaking up the rainwater like sponges? Was she not important enough to live for? Her mother had rarely spoken of her father since his death, but she would often get a faraway look in her eyes that Mariel had come to associate with her father's name being on her mother's lips and mind. But he was gone, and there was no way to bring him back.
She was here. She needed her mother. Everything that she had done to try and cheer her mother up seemed like it was for naught. All the books she had read to her and discussed, all the flowers she had found in the meadows that were bright and cheerful, all the time spent on that blasted swan tapestry. Did it mean nothing?
Leaning back against the wall outside her mother's room, she wept. What had she done wrong? Should she have kept quiet more? Or brought her concerns to her uncle and grandfather when her mother seemed to be struggling more and more? She should have seen something like this happening. She should have known.
But she hadn't, and nothing would change what had happened. She just prayed that her mother would fight, that she would fight to be alive, to be with her.
The morning of the eighth day dawned with a light crispness to the air. The leaves on some of the trees had started to turn a bright shade of yellow-gold. A breeze blew softly along the beach that ran to the north of the palace, playing along the tops of the waves, tossing the spray back and forth. The honking of geese could be heard in the distance, a "v" moving across the sky. The sunlight filtered through the clouds, turning them a rosy peach as it pierced through.
That cheerful light pierced through the curtains of the window, landing on the white coverlet, a ray of warmth in the otherwise cool room. Mariel's head rested upon her arm, mouth open as she breathed in and out, headband and veil askew, her hair strewn out around her thin shoulders. Her hand was clasped tightly around another, paler one, as if she could hold onto the life that remained within her mother.
Slowly, the healer woke, waddled over to the sickbed, and laid the back of his hand against the Princess's forehead. A tear slipped out as he covered his mouth, more tears joining the ones that slipped down his thin face. He hurried from the room, shutting the door with a rather loud click.
"Naneth, you must live," Mariel whispered, kissing her mother's now cool cheek. "The fever is gone, you've fought it, now live. Wake up and be with us all. We miss you."
Ivriniel did wake up eventually, but when she did, she was not the same. She didn't speak, and stared off into space vacantly. Most days she didn't acknowledge anyone at all. Maids were assigned to care for her, from washing and bathing her to spoon feeding her each meal. Sometimes she would seem to come out of it, commenting on the weather, or a beautiful flower that had been set in a vase beside her seat, but she would slip back into nothingness after those moments of lucidness. It grieved her family even more, and to most, it felt as if she had died after her fever, her soul fleeing her body.
Mariel struggled with this change in her mother even more. At least before she had been willing to converse, slipping away into nothingness only once in a long while, even if those seemed often it was nothing compared to the continual spacelessness that she encountered now. There were days that she almost wishes that her mother had died from the fever, that way she didn't have to see her mother but knowing that she could never reach her mind. After weeks of trying to converse or even just get some sort of reaction, she finally decided that she could handle no more. She vowed to visit her mother, but she would not spend her entire future trying to find a way to slip past the nothingness and come close to the person that she had been.
"I feel so guilty, Grandfather," she told him one evening in Narbeleth. "I feel like I am ignoring her. That I'm being a good daughter, not spending so much time with her. But it hurts, it hurts so much to see her living but unable to come out of her shell, or respond."
"I know, child," he said with a sigh. "I don't blame you, it is hard for us all to see her like this, to see that she can't, or is unwilling to respond. The healer says that some minds are just unable to cope with the amount of grief, and they break. Sometimes there are ways to heal that type of hurt, but your mother is not such a case. It's not just her mind that is broken, it is her heart."
"But why? I'm still here? I love her, so very much," she cried in frustration. "I've tried so hard to understand the way she is and how she could have let it all overwhelm her, but I just can't. She had so much to live for."
"Perhaps you might understand when you fall in love, true love."
"If it makes me so melancholy and sad when something bad happens I never want to fall in love. I want to live my life and experience everything that the world has to offer, but not at the expense of my mind." She stated, sounding very grown up to her ears, or so she thought.
"Sometimes we have no control over who we love, little one. It just appears all of a sudden and to our surprise there are very few things that can change that."
"Still, isn't it possible to marry without being in love? Most of the marriages that I've read about in history tended to be political alliances between powerful families."
He shook his head, "If I had my way, you would marry for love, Mariel. Life can be so hard without it. So very empty."
"But from everything I've experienced it just brings pain," she argued.
"Because nothing is worth experiencing or doing if there isn't a little pain involved," he assured, drawing her back into the circle of his arms.
"I don't think I understand, all the books I've ever read make it sound like love is bliss and nothing ever happens that it bad, or if it happens, it's always to pull two people together, then they live happily ever after."
"That's why they're called fairytales, happily ever after never describes the challenges and difficulties that come after the two lovers get together. Life is so much more than just falling in love and ending up married. It's more than just one day. It's a lifetime of commitment, sacrifice, and compromise. Your books never talk about that, but that is the reality of life." He kissed her hand. "Not that all the sweet romancing isn't worth something, but it shouldn't just be in the beginning stages of a relationship."
"Grandfather, how are you so wise?" she asked sleepily.
"A lifetime of experience, child."
"Hmmmmm…."
"I'll take you to bed," he whispered, lifting her, he bid goodnight to those still seated in different corners of the large sitting room and carried her up the stairs. His steps were sure and steady, but in her sluggish state she wondered how he could still be so strong, even at ninety-three he acted as if he was still in his early seventies. Settling her on a chair, he looked up as her maid came out of the dressing room, beckoning to her mistress to come and dress.
"I wish that I did't have to go in there," she whispered, eyeing the room. "It's mother's room, and all I can think of when I'm in there is that she should be here, with me, laughing or chatting about something that happened at court."
"Here, I'll step out, you can dress before the fire, then I'll return when you call me." He slipped out, shutting the door quietly behind him, ignoring her comment. He wished that his daughter could have continued to parent her child, and was just as puzzled as to why, out of all his children Ivriniel had slipped into such lethargy. An ache in his heart grew as he realized that she was more like his late wife than he had thought. His darling Melian had been so strong, and full of love, but her health which had already been delicate, had failed after the passing of Finduilas. It had grieved him deeply to lose her so soon, her having only been in her late seventies. Too soon, too quick.
Alene quickly helped her out of her dark colored clothes, dropping a soft white nightgown over her head. She quickly brushed through Mariel's hair before braiding it in two simple braids, tying them off with a ribbon each. She turned down the coverlet and helped the exhausted girl into her bed. After that she called out to the Prince before slipping out the way she had entered.
When her grandfather had reentered the room, she held out a book to him. "Would you read to me from the 'Arabian Nights?'" she asked.
"Of course," then settling down in a chair beside her, he began to read from the marked chapter. As the pages turned and the story twisted and turned filled with mystery Mariel's eyes slowly closed. When she finally slipped into a deep sleep, the fire had burned lower in the grate, and Adrahil sighed. He stroked the strands of hair that had already escaped from the confines of her braids, her dark eyelashes standing out against her young pale face. He smiled sadly. "Parents should never have to experience the loss of their children, be it by death or disease of the mind. And yet I have lost two of mine long before their time. I pray that the youth of our line endure longer than their predecessors'."
He pulled the coverlet up further around Mariel's shoulders before snuffing out the candles that burned in the sconces. He laid the book down on her bedside table and slipped out of the room, his feet leading him out and onto the balcony at the end of the hall. Settling himself onto one of the benches there he looked up into the night sky. He spotted many of the constellations floating in the darkness of the heavens, their light bringing some comfort to his tired soul.
He carried the blood of the elves, however little, in his veins and starlight had always seemed to bring about a calm in his mind. It also made his separation from his beloved Melian seem all the harder as each year passed. She had lived a full life, having seen their children grow to maturity, then four out of the six come into the world before passing on into the next world. It was said that his line lived long lives compared to the average man, but that made it all the harder when those you loved passed long before you. He was so tired.
"I miss her, getting to hear her laugh, seeing her smile, the way she would say my name when I was being bullheaded," he whispered to the night air. "I miss the way she would play with our children, teaching them, and guiding them as they became adults."
He longed to be with her especially now that he felt that Imrahil was settled into the duties that were required of the Prince of Dol Amroth. The world was growing darker, the enemies forces popping up more often; evil was increasing. It would be time, soon.
Narbeleth-October