Summary: When the Noldor left Valinor, not all of them took their dearest treasures with them to Middle-earth.

Written for the ALEC "Remembrance" challenge where it won 3rd place.

Many thanks to Fiondil for the beta.

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When first I heard you, I heard sweetness and tales of far away and the lilt of the lirulin and the hum of life in the trees and grass. I felt the Two Trees delight in the power of your voice and I reveled in drops of starlight as they fell from the strings of your harp like dew on the grass at the waning of Telperion.

Your music and song ensnared me from the beginning while your strength and beauty and gentle grace kept me by your side.  I followed you into an exile you did not deserve along with your brothers and their wives. I labored along with you in making a new home out of the nothingness that became the greatness of Formenos. 

When the Trees died, you kept me close, guarding me against the unending Night.  In spite of the darkness which surrounded us, I felt safe and secure in your presence, in your warm embrace. Our return to Tirion brought me such hope that we could live in familiar surroundings again in a place where the very buildings still echoed with music you created.  You felt that hope, too, and together we created a hope, a promise for the future.

 But then came the oath. Before we could tell anyone of our joy of our new little song intended to change the laments around us to dancing, you swore the oath. You followed an atar who cared only for the creations of his hand and not for the creations of the love of his heart. You followed him into exile taking with you the works of your hands, leaving behind the works of your heart. You followed him in the curse he laid upon himself, and cursed our love echoing his vile words.

You forgot the joy we once had. You forgot the music we made together. You forgot the song I carried.

Now you are gone, and I linger here in a faint resonance of the joy that once was between us. Maitimo’s wife and I dwell with Nerdanel in her atar’s house for you took our families with you in your desperation to follow your atar and fulfill your oath. Together we will raise the little son and daughter you left in my care.

Every day they will play in the garden of music you and your ammë created behind her atar’s house. Every time the wind blows, our little ones will hear echoes of your great works in the wind harps and the statues you sculpted to make music in their own right – creations which will forever remember the touch of your hand and the sound of your voice.  My beloved Macalaurë, how it grieves me that the creations of your heart will never know either.

oOoOo

Enyálë - Remembrance