The wrath of the Valar has been unleashed in a furious tempest. In vain I try to ignore the rumble of the fearsome wave that looms closer to me. It torments me so, for it is the sound of my fate: the sound that surely heralds my imminent doom.

Through blindness I struggle ever onwards, my vision impaired by tears long since left unnoticed. I cannot turn back. The great deathly wave is chasing me onwards. If I can just reach the summit, perhaps Illuvatar will hear my prayers. I know too well that I am beyond all hope of redemption, but surely there is still hope for the innocent of this once proud and beautiful land. Something, something must be saved! Even if it is only the merest echo of what was.

Perhaps it is too late. We tarried too long, turned our backs and passed into shadow.

How bitterly I mourn for my home, my life, my people; all destroyed by the man to whom I am so intolerably bound –husband, cousin, captor. A marriage in name only, built on the foundation of immorality. The shame alone at wedding such close kin was enough to make me hate him, though the cruelty and greed in his heart had ever been repugnant to me.
For what is a wife forcibly taken? A lover or companion? Someone fated to be treasured and loved? No, she is a tool; a supplicant vessel for her husband’s desires, lingering in shadows and left to waste in the silence.

Even now, I cannot regret the loss of the tiny babes that my womb prematurely expelled. Better they were taken by Illuvatar then suffer being born to such insidious hate.

Once, I considered myself to be fair. Some still regard me as beautiful, in both face and temperance, though the years have fairly taken their toll. My reflection deceives me with lies, showing only the ghost of the girl that once was.

Miriel.

What mockery it is to loathe the sound of one’s own name. A name that once belonged to a pretty, carefree maid, now framed only on the lips of the man I detest. Not content with changing my name to one of his own choosing, still he would taunt me further by using the name I once held dear.

Oh, Father! You, so fair and noble, how you would weep to see us now! How ashamed you would be of me, your only child. You worked so hard to repent for the neglect of our forefathers –this is what you feared. The land you loved burns, its people fall and I know that I must share the blame. I alone was the chosen heir. I alone was meant to protect them: I failed. Forgive me.

I struggle onwards as the howling wind forces me back, unyielding in its anger and fury. The rain lashes at my skin; a painful numbing of everything but the bitter despair in my soul. The elements will not let me continue and I know that all is lost. Hope has failed. Numenor is destroyed. Valar willing, whatever may be in ages to come, history will not remember Ar-Zimraphel the wretched queen of Ar-Pharazôn.

The wave is upon me. Hopelessly I cry out to the creator, the sound devoured by the merciless storm, carried away on the wind –lost. As the fierce wave engulfs my last breath, I pray I find relief in my watery grave.

May Illuvatar take me quickly.

One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey
Or racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,

Paradise Lost: Book II – John Milton