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The gods cried tears that Míriel could not summon, her eyes as dry as bone, her heart even more so. She listened to the evening rain as it danced along the stained glass panes of her drawing hall, the echoes of scurrying feet muddling its tune as her serving maids ran in and out of the parlour, adhering to the commands of the court’s physician.
Her cheeks were still red from the afternoon’s attack, her skin so raw with its memory that the scars underneath her blindfold prickled and burned. She pinched her fingers along her prayer beads as if to ease her discomfort, the star of Eärendil cold and numb within her grasp as she continued around the rosary, her lips silent to the words of worship that the Faithful often recited.
It was under their creed that she had fallen ill, a sickness that had only weakened her will and crippled her mind. The funeral procession was hard enough, her father’s soul now resting in the company of the Valar, where he had always wished to be. Many nobles from far and wide came to pay their respects, others with more vile intentions in mind. The Queen of old would have never allowed such disrespect to go unpunished, and yet, in the midst of the entire court she stood with her arms embraced around the culprit, her grief pushed to the side as she cared for someone’s own.
The voices in the room did nothing to quell the storm that had begun to rage inside of her, their attention elsewhere as they spoke of her condition, careful and delicate as if she was a fragile relic that might break without care. She clutched the beads a little tighter as they ignored her inner pleas for silence. If only they could feel the pain she felt, her skin hot with its anguish, her cheeks bearing the weight as it sustained the mark of the women who dared to touch her.
“Get out.” Míriel's voice dipped like rocks upon an open shore, barely heard nor strong enough to reach the ears of her minders. The star of Eärendil burned hot in her hands, the sharp edges piercing her reddened flesh as she took its tortured agony as her source of strength. “Get out!”
A deafening silence befell the room, the Queen’s roar stretched across all four corners, rooting the feet of her companions to a standstill. Her hands grabbed onto the closest thing she could find: the sheets on top of the daybed, the satin pillows that lay at the edge of the headrest — her prayer beads. She had not meant to let it go but it flew nonetheless, scattering amongst the mess she had created.
“Get out!”
Chaos ensued as she listened to the sudden rush, the presence of her attendants dwindling as they fled at her command. She was on her feet now, her screams turning her into a panting dog as she sought for breath, her hair like muddled heaps of hay clinging to the sweaty patches of her face.
For a moment, she surrendered herself to the silence, the flood of rain beckoning her soul forth as the gods wept. Her father’s voice called from behind the ether, a ghostly plea that she knew not to be real. And yet—
“My Queen?”
Míriel tore herself from the glass, the whispers of the dead fading along with it as she sought the one from the living. But before she could even question the newfound company of her guardsman, the scars from her burns began to prickle once more, the pain much greater as something oozed from the lesion, dampening the cloth around her eyes.
A sharp cry fell from her lips as she collapsed back onto the daybed, her fingers treading carefully along her blindfold.
“The physician—”
“No!”
“Your Grace!”
“I said, no.” Míriel grimaced, her sudden agony bringing her much irritation as she tried her best to remain poise in front of Elendil, who seemed rather annoyed with her stubbornness.
The screeching sound of a moving table soon pierced her ears, the scent of her guardsman strong as he stood before her. She heard his groan as he kneeled, the age of time wearing out his body as well as his patience. Fate had dealt him a bad hand, the cards of youth all but spent. There was no jar that could replenish it, and yet, here he was when all others had gone, wasting what little purpose he had underneath her roof.
“May I?” he asked.
Míriel hesitated for a moment before nodding, her lungs tight as she realised what it was that he was requesting. The weight of his hands were soft upon her neck, his fingers weaving through her mop of hair before untying the knot from her blindfold. A hiss escaped her lips as he peeled it away, the weeping fluid sticky and firm as it tugged at her skin.
She scrunched her nose at the sudden smell of vinegar, drops of water echoing in a bowl as Elendil wrung the excess from the towel. Her teeth lay bear as it touched her face, her wounds stinging from its foul and sour bite. She creased his tunic within her grip, her fingers curled tightly as she wrestled with the pain.
“Iston.” His hand touched her own, his thumb forming slow circles across the back. It was warm, his voice even more so — a lilac dream amongst the deep evergreen. The meaning was entirely unknown to her, its tongue all the more distant. She had heard it once before in passing, an intimate moment shared between Elendil and his horse, away from the prying gaze of the unfaithful. Back then she had eyes to see for herself, the glimpse of the Eldar’s magic invisible and yet so clear in front of her. The horse calmed as he spoke, their pain gone as if it had not been there at all. She felt the same even now, a strange sense of relief, the throbbing still present but somewhat dulled and forgotten.
Elendil rubbed a thick paste along her burns, smearing it around her eyes like a mask. It was oily and sticky against her skin, similar to that of honey or melted candle wax. It was no doubt another one of her physician's strange remedies; his cure for her blindness, an ailment that she found herself laughing at as the days passed with the nights. At least now she shared the company of a much more sapient man, his elven touch a regard she wished to keep.
“Goheno nin.” He was finished before she could even grasp it, her skin marked with nothing more than treacle and the fingerprints left behind from his care. She heard the bowl ripple as he washed his hands, the smell of his body fading as he pushed the table back to its original place. He was gone, his presence still in the room but so far away from her vicinity. How bittersweet to miss something so trivial, to yearn for something so small.
It made her think of her father, his company a pleasure that she did not cherish while he was alive. Perhaps that was why she was being punished so hard, her spoiled and selfish nature remnants of a queen in her formative years.
“Will you be in need of anything else, Your Grace?”
Míriel pondered for a moment, her mind not entirely in the right frame to speak of things so close and dear to her heart. She was vulnerable. Too vulnerable. “No, captain. No, I…that will be all.”
Elendil’s silence told her all she needed to know in regards to his confidence in her words, he seemed to believe none of it, his deep and familiar sigh returning to the surface.
“Send…send for my maids.” she continued on, her voice slightly shaken, her composure diminishing by the second. “I wish to retire.”
Elendil pressed forth. “I am at your behest.”
“And I am grateful,” Míriel answered quickly, trying her best to fake a smile, the waxy oil only allowing her to move so much. “But you have done more than enough. Anymore so, and you would be no more than a lady within my court.”
A slight scoff escaped from his lips, his deep chuckle a heartfelt thread that sung against her ears. “I always looked better in white.”
“Let us agree to disagree.” She gave herself this one joy, a moment of reprieve from her grief and rage, something she found herself returning to nonetheless. “Now, captain, if you will.”
Elendil could do nothing but succumb to her wish, her torment finally over. “My Queen.”
And with a slight nod of hesitation he was gone, his footsteps trailing off into the distance, her last strand of dignity fading along with him. It did not take long for her to break, the tears that had hung on the edge of her eyes streaming down her face, wetting the mask that had begun to dry her skin to the bone. She only had a few seconds before her attendants flooded the room, what decorum she had left summoned forth before they presented themselves to her.
She counted: the rain on the glass window, the pearls on her prayer beads, time passing with each tally. The elves, her father, the noblewomen — Elendil. Her cheeks grew wetter, her mind even more fragile as she struggled with the weight of their memories. She could hear the nearing footsteps of her maids growing closer and closer, her tears falling faster and faster. It was too late, she could hide no longer. And so, she did not.