Work Text:
Maglor found the body washed up on the greying sand of the beach he had come to. Her dress was fine and lustrous but soaked through with saltwater. It clung to her in grey folds of dampened silk. Drying emerald seaweed tangled round her arms and torso. Her face, though likely once fair as ivory, was reddened and peeling from the sun. Sand clung to her brow and her cheeks.
As he approached the woman, she wretched. Pale water streamed from her mouth. Another weak wave pooled over her. She coughed again; her hands pressed into the sand, and she struggled to raise herself. She fell. A wave crashed over her. Again, she tried to rise, hands digging uselessly into the wet, darkened sand. Yet still, she failed in her movement. Seafoam caught in her dark, unbound hair like a net of pearls.
He moved to her swiftly, gripped her arms and raised her, another moment and he had lifted her entirely. She was icy to his touch and limp with weakness. Her legs swung over one firm arm and the other raised to support her back. He carried her away, and she let him; her eyes were dim and unseeing and fluttering.
…
She did not speak for days. Nor was she well. The waters had chilled and diminished her. Much water she had expelled, yet death had pressed closely towards her.
He tended to her well as he could. A fire he built as soon as he could. His own cloak he wrapped around her shoulders to warm her. He cooked salted fish over the hot flame and pressed thin shreds of it to her mouth. He rubbed healing liniment on her face scented with the pale yarrow flowers ground into the mixture.
She slept fitfully, arms thrashing, whimper rising in her throat till he soothed her with a touch or with a song.
On the third day she rose, more conscious and aware then all the others. Her eyes were bright and almost focused and when he approached her that evening; she was able to speak and sit up without much strain.
He sat beside her with his harp drawn near as was his habit as the stars rose.
“Have I died?” she whispered to him as she clung to his sleeve. “Is this where mortals souls flee to?”
“You have survived. I found you on the shore. Did something happen to your ship?”
“My ship?” Her eyes wandered upwards to the stars.
“Where may I return you? Have you a husband or a home?”
She shook her head. Her voice was hoarse, dried by salt and harshened for it. “You cannot return me. Nothing remains of my homeland.”
“From whence did you come, good lady?” he asked, his hands tuning his harp with greater consideration as he spoke. He pulled a string and it rung discordantly. He tightened it slightly, and the note this time rang sweeter from his attentions.
The campfire flickered and sparked.
“Númenor. It has sunk.”
He paused. Silent and watchful.
Her eyes were distant now, remembering. “I climbed the sacred peak, my heart and lungs filled with my prayers.” Her hands gripped the fabric of the skirt with whitened knuckles, and her voice cracked like an oyster pried apart, softened insides exposed. “I did not ascend high enough, and yet the Valar allowed my survival.”
“A song I could write of such things.”
And already the song seemed to tease him. Pearls and ivory and silver. Sea foam, iced waters, and delicate, crumbling stone. A sole survivor of a lost kingdom. All of it had the makings of a mournful lament. Fragility. Nobility. Tragedy. Beauty, too.
“If you do, say nothing of my life. A new one I should like to craft.”
“Your life?” And there was the truest question. Who was this woman? And why did such sorrow touch her elegant brow? A noble perhaps? Her dress shone richly enough, embroidered as it was with pools of silver thread.
“Once, I should have been queen there. I am Tar-Míriel, though more regularly I was addressed as Ar-Zimraphel.” Her eyes were dark. She stared deeply into the flames that seemed to pulse and shift as though waves.
She was grim, though he warmed at the confession, eyes grazing over her with delight. A smile graced his lips. “I did think there was some familiarity of your eyes; they have the same brightness and warmth as the one who fathered your line.”
Her eyes widened, she turned to him with wonder. “You knew him? Elros?”
“He was like a son to me, and I am glad his family still survives.”
“All of the writings of such things were banned. My father spoke of him only by memory; such things are fallible and uncertain, and in truth I know only his name. You must be old to have known him.”
He laughed. “Yes, but I could not forget those days. Travel with me for a time, and I shall tell you all I remember.”
“I would not dare impose upon you.” Her response was immediate, avoidant, too much like Elros when he disguised his own wounds and fears.
It would help her to share what burdened her and with time she would. He would ensure it; he had stories enough to distract her, while she let her mind rest and heal.
“Truly, fair Míriel, it would lesson my own loneliness. You are family, and I have little of that remaining. Your home is gone, and I would not leave you friendless and unguarded in some unknown place.”