NOTE: So this is an OC-avatar (yes the hated Mary Sue) but I can't help it I just love writing them anyway (in this case to fulfill my wish of going on a hero's journey in First Age Middle-earth). When I started this I wasn't entirely sure where I was goin' with it but decided to try and see how many of the stories I could weave her into (ended up with more than expected)... As Tuor's is probably my personal favorite story in the anthology I decided to insert her there (though I do have her promptly veer off from it). And being a fan of using sister characters, I decided to do it by giving him one. I did my best to make her as plausible to the Tolkien-verse as I could, but I also let myself have some fun with it. I also took some artistic license, especially toward the end, just because I wanted to give her something important to do… ;)

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The Messenger

The Adventures of Mírian Anufiniel

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Prologue

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A flurry of snowflakes drifted down from the overcast sky of a late winter afternoon. Two figures cloaked in gray were weaving through the woodlands in the hills above their great lake, happy to pass the halfway point of their roving watch and head back to pass off their duties to the next guards, for winter had been quite cold that year, even for the elves. Suddenly one halted.

"Did you hear something?" he asked quietly.

The other had indeed heard something, and paused to listen. "Likely a marmot," he replied. "They begin to stir this time of year."

They turned back onto their path and resumed their march toward home. But just then they heard more - crackling branches and leaves not far behind them. Footsteps in the woods. Not those of an elf from the sound of them. They spun around, searching the maze of trees behind them, arrows already pulled to their bows.

"Look, Galathin!" exclaimed the first in a whisper. "Someone is there."

"Careful then, Telasor," replied his companion.

They saw a curious figure in a deep blue cloak, and approached silently with their soft elven steps, holding their bow strings taught. But the figure kept lumbering on, and suddenly collapsed into a heap on the ground. Telasor loosened his string and tucked away his arrow, but Galathin held on, taking no chances. When they reached the stranger they pulled back the hood to inspect, and the two comrades saw to their surprise a lady of gray eyes and deep bronze hair. She stirred, lifting her head but saying no words, seeming exhausted and out of wits. She was fair enough to blend in among their people, the woodland elves, but they held her gaze and perceived clearly that before them was a mortal.

Now Galathin calmed and put away his weapon. They gave her what water and food they had, and were able to stand her up, discovering then to their even greater surprise that she was also heavy with child.

"What should we do?" asked Galathin, "it would be unwise to bring such a strange wanderer to our caves."

"I would agree," replied Telasor. "But she has a wholesome air about her, and clearly she is alone here. It would be cruel to leave her. Besides, she has wandered too close to our hidden dwellings, and is easy prey for less welcome strangers. It may in truth be wiser to bring her back with us."

His comrade then agreed with his reasoning, and so in wonder and concern each took an arm and led her back to their leader Annael in the caves. He bid them set her down in comfort as they could, and send for his kinswoman Lothaelin.

There the lady rested, yet was still silent, and he saw great fear and deep grief in her eyes. Suddenly she wrenched forward moaning in pain, clutching her belly. Lothaelin went to fetch what women were available to help her, which were few in the northern lands in those days. But together they labored to help the stranger bring her child into the world. This continued into the night, leaving the elves alarmed in distress, for elf women did not know such hardship in childbearing. But at last they heard the cries of a babe ring out through the halls of the cave.

"Meet your new son, lady," Lothaelin said to her happily.

The lady received the child, and at last was heartened enough to speak, and declared his name Tuor, which his father had chosen for him. But as she held and fed the child, Lothaelin's mother Gilduriel who was helping looked up at them and said, "I think she is not finished, my friends."

They all looked over at her confused, then the patient began to wrench and scream again. Lothaelin swiftly picked the child back up and handed him tenderly to Annael, who held him in a sudden sense of awe and love, marveling that mortals may experience the joy of bearing new life so soon and so frequently, yet in return for losing their own so quickly. Lothaelin turned back to tend to the lady in her pains, and shortly Gilduriel indeed brought forth another babe.

"A daughter you now have also!" said the elf woman, and they set a child in each of her arms. The lady looked down at the second astonished, at a loss for a name.

"They will both be tall and fair I foretell," said Lothaelin. "With bright hair and eyes that shine like jewels in the sun."

"A wondrous gift from Eru himself!" said Annael softly.

The lady smiled amazed at the unexpected arrival, and chose a name after herself: "Mírian," she said.

"The Gift Jewel," Lothaelin said. "A fitting name indeed."

Finally the elves began to ask her questions, but for long the lady would only give her name: Rían, daughter of Belegund. She remained there with the elves in the caves above the lake for a time as she recovered and tended her new children, and they did not press her any further. But shortly her grief grew to erode her joy, for her mind became occupied with thoughts of her lost husband. At last she revealed that she had left her home in search of her lord Huor, son of Galdor, who had not returned home, though the battle was long rumored to be over.

"Please, good sir," she said to Annael, "will you keep them here and care for them, so I may go and seek out news of my lord? They will be safe here. For they both will be important threads in the fates of the world, I deem, and they will need your help and guidance, if anything should happen to me," she said.

"Indeed I remember Huor the fearless," said Annael. "But I can give no news to comfort you, Lady. For he is known to have fallen in that battle, and would have been buried with his comrades on the great hill of the slain back on the field."

Then at last the lady's grief loosed from within her, and she began to weep inconsolably. After a while she quieted, sitting sullenly for a long time. But then suddenly she stood, and resumed her preparations to leave. Annael, surprised and worried, came up and begged with her.

"Must you go?" he asked. "The family of Huor is most welcome to stay and avail of what protection we can provide. Yes, we will care for them, but your children will need their mother, do you not agree?"

"That may be so," Rían replied sad and weary, "but I cannot be a mother, not fully as they might need, not with a heart so fully broken. I must go, and see first for myself, and know with my own eyes, before I can hope to be otherwise. I will only stay perforce."

Annael saw she would not be waylaid, and so he agreed to supply her well to make the journey. He also sent with her Galathin and Telasor, and his distant kinsman Cúdolin, their stoutest and most farsighted archer, to guide her. Cúdolin had not gone to that battle with Annael, agreeing to stay behind to help guard the remnant of his people in the caves. But he knew the way, having once tread the paths over western Beleriand at ease, long ago when the land was safer.

Their journey took them far through the winter nights, but she walked on nearly unceasing, unheeding of peril from either enemy servants or the bitter cold. But they reached the battlefield undisturbed, where the river plain before the pass lay quiet and abandoned. There they found the great burial mound covered in the helmets of the fallen. The travelers all strode around it looking around for some time, until at last Cúdolin spotted something high upon it, and leapt lightly up the side of the gruesome hill. Fetching one helmet, he brought it to her, and there she saw her lord's name engraved on the sallet.

Rían stood there a long time holding it in silence. The elves wandered around the mound for a good while to let her grieve, reading the names and inspecting the other gear and remnants that remained. She no longer wept, and they held hope that she would at last be satisfied to return and take solace in her newborn children. But she knelt down where she stood, then laid down and slept. Cúdolin waited for a while, thinking she was but resting in her weariness after such a hard journey. Eventually he began to grow anxious to leave that forsaken place and have more heed for safety. But when he at last came back around the mound and went to stir her, he discovered to his horror that she had grown still and cold, and he could not wake her, and he realized that her grief had weakened her too heavily, and she indeed had already died.

"May she find him again," he said sadly, as he pulled her cloak to cover her, "in whatever place The One sends the spirits of Men." But Cúdolin still would not tarry long, and had them swiftly build a cairn over her with the helmet in her arms. Then at last they left, and hurried with heavy hearts and all speed back to their lord in the hill caves over Lake Mithrim.