A Wild Heart Tamed? by Libby

[burning-night.livejournal.com]

B2MeM Challenge: Four Words; “core, vulture, stratus, maim” Artefacts and Weapons; "Narsil" Botany; "Sage" Canon Couples; "Imrazor/Mithrellas" Song Lyrics; "Now the light is slowly beckoning you to the shore" Deep Thoughts; "love" Love; "Love mingled with grief, still grows" Horror; "mazes and labyrinths" 

Format: Short story?

Genre: General

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Characters: Imrazor, Mithrellas, King of Gondor

Pairings: Imrazor/Mithrellas

Summary: Mithrellas comes to Belfalas; and after she has made her choice, considers leaving again.



~~~

The dark of the woods had been her constant companion these past nights, and the screeches of the forest creatures reverberated in her tired head. She could not bring herself to lie upon the grass and sleep; there was no one to watch her back, no one to warn her of danger. The forests drew in around her, a dark and tangled labyrinth, the same that had ensnared her before and led her away from her lady. Thorns cut her bare feet, brambles and sharp branches had carved long gouges on her arms, her dress was in tatters and she had been crying for so long now she had no tears left. It could only have been a few days since she lost the main party, but it felt like weeks. She could not come to anywhere that felt familiar; each corner or turn she took in the ever-increasing maze of the forest seemed to entangle her deeper within its depths.

At last she sat down in defeat under an old sycamore tree, a small sweet-smelling stand of sage spreading soft perfume next to her. Yawning and feeling her eyelids droop, she knew she could fight sleep no longer. Hopefully no harm would come to her, if she hid here under the branches…

She awoke to voices, shivering and chilled to her core. There were people all around her; someone wrapped a cloak around her shoulders. He was male, she could tell from his voice, and he was commanding someone to bring him a horse. She felt weak, and her eyelids were so heavy again…

When she woke this time she woke fully. White sheets covered her body and the pillow her head rested on smelt softly of lavender. A woman was sitting by her bedside; she smiled as Mithrellas slowly took in her surroundings. “It is alright, my lady,” she said kindly, “You are safe now.”

She was not an elf, Mithrellas noticed with a start, but one of the Secondborn. “Where am I?” she asked, her voice shaking slightly.

“In the house of Lord Imrazôr, the Prince of Belfalas, my lady. He and his men found you alone in the forest on a hunting trip.” The woman got up and went over to the other side of the room, where she began to mix some substance in a bottle together with stringy leaves and a viscous paste. When her work was done she returned to Mithrellas’ bedside. “Drink this, my lady,” she said, holding out the bottle, “It will help you recover.”

Mithrellas had never known much about medicine or healing, so she took the woman’s word as truth and drank the potion. It prompted her to slip back into another deep, healing sleep.

When she next awoke, a man sat in place of the woman. He smiled when he saw she was awake. “Greetings, my lady,” he said warmly, “It pleases me to see that the care of my household has brought the colour back into your cheeks.”

She sat up slowly, her neck aching a little. “You are the lord of the house. Prince Imrazôr.”

He nodded. “Though I do not have the pleasure of your name, lady.”

“Mithrellas,” she said quietly. “Tell me, lord, why am I here?”

He looked surprised. “You were alone, injured and exhausted in the forest. I brought you back for safety and healing.”

She studied his eyes; he seemed genuine to her. She relaxed back onto the pillow. “Just so. My lord, have you had word of any of my people crossing the area? I was separated from my lady in the forests.”

A look of woe came into the man’s face. “We have heard terrible news, my lady,” he said gravely, “The ship of elves that planned to leave this autumn was swept away by the tide. Your lady must be the one the elf prince was waiting for, no? He drowned, my lady, in the bay. I can say nothing of her, though.”

Mithrellas’ heart was clutched by fear. Her lady, dead? Nay, he had said only Amroth…

Imrazôr looked troubled. “Forgive me for bringing you this sad news, lady.”

She shook her head. “I would rather have known. And please call me Mithrellas; I am no lady, nor have I ever been.”

He bowed his head. “As you wish…Mithrellas.”

~~~

Years later, Mithrellas stood on the shore, watching the slim white ship come around the point of the harbour. Imrazôr had escorted the King back home after his stay here in Belfalas. Mithrellas had had misgivings about the man; though he was tall and noble as the greatest men of old Númenor, there was nothing she liked about him as a person. He and his people moved in a different stratus to herself, and the alienation she felt in their presence was palpable. Imrazôr had apologized profusely at their having to stay so long.

One night she had been walking alone in the gardens when she had come across the King, alone himself, staring out to sea. “Do you think about your people often, my lady?” he had asked her.

She had stiffened. Yes, she thought about her people; she had thought about returning to her people at many points in this strange turn of life fate had led her to. She had gotten as far as the stables on her wedding day before guilt and indecision led her back. “At times,” was all she answered the King, however.

He grunted once. Shifting his weight to his left foot, he slowly drew the great sword that was strapped to his waist from its sheath. Mithrellas took a step back; she had not noticed that he was wearing it. He held the hilt in his right hand and laid the blade flat in his left. “This blade could be older even than you, you know,” he said conversationally, inspecting the cold steel. “Telchar made this sword in the First Age, when the heroes of old still walked the earth.”

Mithrellas’ face hardened. “The Noldor were not heroes,” she said angrily. “They brought death and fire and destruction.”

The King looked at her sidelong from the corner of his eye. “Now that is a view I’ve never heard before,” he mused.

“It is truth.”

He shrugged once and sheathed Narsil once more. “You must be lonely here, without your people,” he said quietly. “And you must love Imrazôr much, to stay with him.”

Mithrellas thought on that. The question plagued her; did she love him? She had great affection for him, and he treated her like a queen, but she had never felt that heart-stopping, gut-rending cataclysm within her described in so many songs. Perhaps she loved him in her own, quiet, non-dramatic way. “That is so,” she said to the King, trying not to make her short answers sound rude. She added, “Though all love is tempered by grief in this age, I think.”

“And does it not grow the stronger for that?” he had asked. When she was silent, he chuckled to himself. “Forgive the musings of a silly man, my lady,” he had said, snorting. “I will leave you in peace.” And he had melted away into the dark of the bushes, leaving her tangled in a maze of her thoughts as she had once been tangled in trees.

Now she stood, the wind tugging at her hair and her dress, her feet bare and freezing in the rough sand. Imrazôr had not been away long; the pirates would descend like vultures come to pick clean a carcass if they knew the strength of Belfalas was to be weakened for a considerable length of time.

Mithrellas had been considering leaving lately. The pull to slip away and find her own folk once again was grown stronger within her now, and she felt it night and day, even with her children by the fire, even resting in her husband’s arms. She wanted the wildness and the freedom of the wandering peoples, not the captivity of the maimed animal she had become.

But not today. Today she gathered her skirts and made her way to the dock in time to meet her lord husband off his ship. He came smiling and windswept to meet her, drawing her into his arms and laughing into her tangled hair. “A light beckoned us into shore!” her beamed at her. “We spotted you waiting on the beach. Come, you must be chilled to the bone, standing out here so long!”

She allowed him to lead her inside, allowed him to engulf her in his world once again. But the song of the wilds that roamed and danced in eternal freedom called to her from beyond the safe and comfortable walls of the buildings of men, and she longed for the torchlight to be replaced by the cold glow of the stars, and for hearth fire and mead and old jokes to vanish in place of crystal clear miruvor and the evening hymn to Elbereth sung soft and lilting under the sky, and the tales of her people sung with sorrow for ages of glory long past. The cold fierce beauty of the wild trees and rivers scared the men in their endless clinging to life; they shut the song of the land from their hearts and pretended they didn’t hear it.

Or maybe they had never heard it in the first place. Mithrellas sat surrounded by the men who had tried to give her a home, and had never felt so different. The King’s words rang in her ears; ‘You must love Imrazôr much, to stay with him’.

She did love him. She did.

That just wasn’t enough. Tomorrow, the voice of the wilds called to her, and her heart agreed. 

Comments

[engarian.livejournal.com]

Those who joined across the races were always doomed, the only question was what the doom consisted of. For Dol Amroth, the doom was in being the ones left behind when Mithrellas finally obeyed her heart and returned to her own people again. This was quite lovely, and it was wonderful to examine the different aspects of the word 'love' as used by the characters of the tale.

- Erulisse (one L)

[blslarner.livejournal.com]

Bittersweet in its tone, this is a thoughtful piece. Thank you.