human disaster

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Isildur x Art ➤ insp • insp

...I've felt bound. To try and do something singular. Something special. To try and find a way to earn what she did.

Just a little idea for fleshing out the family life within my fic! For those unacquainted, Manwen is Anárion's wife and Almiel their daughter. Elendur is Isildur's son, obviously, and Cynwen his wife (Elendur's mother...and a healer, hence "home visits"). Almiel is about five years old here, and Elendur seven.

This is set before the Fall (obivously), perhaps a year or so before...in my imaginings, not long after something big happens with Anárion (check out my fic to find out what, at this same handle on A03, called "Over Waves" and part of a trilogy!).

A little Sindarin that's included (per formulations I've found, for some, as Tolkien didn't create all of these words...but we can extrapolate).

~mae: good ("mae govannen")

~atya: father

~emig: momma

~dâtheg: uncle

~nethemel: aunt (mother-sister)

🪻🪻🪻

“Good, very good…mae, my dears,” Manwen noted as she looked over Elendur and Almiel's work.

They were studying numbers and basic addition today. The spring day allowed them to work outside in the garden: full of newly growing vegetables, vibrant young flowers, and Cynwen’s healing herbs.

Manwen reflected on how mathematics came more easily to her daughter than to her nephew. Even at their tender ages, five and seven, their temperaments were clear: Elendur, lyrical and driven to dreamy fancies, like his father…versus Almiel, logical and analytical, like her father.

She was learning how to teach them basic skills, before they were old enough to take charge of their own studies – becoming a more effective teacher to them both, in their individual abilities and needs, all the time.

Manwen didn’t have a clear guild trajectory before meeting and marrying Anárion, unlike everyone else in the family at that point – so it fell on her to watch them while the other family members worked.

Cynwen would often remind her that she still did need something for herself…and her art was that.The children’s exclamations interrupted these scattered thoughts.

“YAY, we did it!,” Elendur rejoiced.

“Emig, so we can play now?” Almiel asked. “I have a new game to teach Elen…dâtheg taught it to me after dinner last night!”

Manwen giggled – she loved the unique connection between her brother-in-law and daughter – then affirmed yes, that was indeed the last of their work for the day, so they were free to play a game.

“Ok, ok, Elen, it’s called ‘I spy’...you have to pick something and then say ‘I spy with my little eye…’ and then tell me what color it is, then you have to find it!,” Almiel instructed her cousin.

“FUN!” Elendur responded, “....can I go first?” Almiel rolled her eyes and sighed…“fine, but I get to go first next time!”

Elendur seemed to not care either way; he was hopping around and looking for something to have his cousin find. His eyes popped when he seemed to have found it.

“I spy with my little eye…somethiiiing….purple!”

Almiel guessed a couple of purple plants, but it turned out it was a smaller purple flower around a bend in the small garden path.Almiel’s turn – she picked yellow, not any plant but the yellow in her mother’s hair, its sun-shined highlights.

They went back and forth a few times, becoming energized and immersed in the game enough to be running and pointing all around the garden – Manwen keeping watch from the garden bench. Afternoon sun shone her daughter’s curls, the same color as hers, and the hazel in Elendur’s eyes, those of his father.

Manwen laughed and felt her face sore from smiling, grinning simply at the children’s joy. After what her husband had recently been through, after she observed her child’s quiet worry about it…after everything that was happening around them all the time, evidence of their land’s encroaching darkness accumulating by the day…this childlike wonder was food for her very soul.

Cynwen had told her it felt like the same for her. Less joyful and heartening were the clouds in the distance, seeming to move towards them faster and faster. Moreover, those clouds were connected with that same encroaching darkness; the more this island’s shadow grew, the more frequent and severe these storms became. Whatever they were, Manwen knew she’d have to get the children inside before they all got wet.

She also heard, in mind’s ear, Cynwen asking her when the last time she painted was. Sighing to herself, she acknowledged her sister’s wisdom and appreciated her care.

It came to her, a good plan for the rest of the afternoon, before the men would come home from the docks and they’d all prepare dinner: the children could draw in the playroom while she painted (it was also her small studio).

“Elen, my little luck, let’s go to the playroom…let’s not stay outside until those clouds give us a shower.”

“No, no, we wouldn’t want that!” Almiel agreed.

“Uggggh, but this game is so fun!” Elendur protested – but stopped when his aunt gave him a look speaking that they’d be going inside and that was final.

They were soon settled in the little room off the main hall, full of the children’s toys and books – as well as Manwen’s easel, paints, and accompanying supplies, tucked in a little corner with good lighting.

Manwen got the children parchment paper and drawing tools, then decided what she wanted to paint: purple flowers, with sunlit-yellow hair curving over them, a face sniffing the flowers’ fragrance.

As she worked – blending, spreading, scraping, wiping – she watched, out of the corner of one eye, the children drawing.

“I’m drawing stars…emig calls me starlight! Atya told me that my name means ‘servant of the stars’!”, Elendur proudly proclaimed to his cousin, his voice holding wonder.

Almiel looked at his drawing, nodded, and confidently showed him hers.

“I like it, I like stars! I’m drawing sparkles! Atya and emig call me ‘little luck’, and sparkles make me think of luck, of good and pretty things,” she asserted. “And hearts. Because they’re good and pretty and I like them!”

Elendur’s eyes and smile widened as he looked at Almiel’s drawing.

Manwen continued working, but grinned at this exchange between cousins – how they were sharing parts of themselves through their drawings.

That’s what art is for, after all, she thought: shining light on parts of ourselves. How lovely to just enjoy creating before we learn to so harshly judge ourselves and what we make, she also pondered.

Mid-these musings, the door creaked open just a crack. Manwen saw Cynwen peeking through – a finger to her lips. She must have recently gotten in from the day’s home visits. Manwen winked at her and kept painting.

Again out of the corner of her eye, through that little crack in the door, Manwen saw Cynwen watch the children for a moment. Her face filled with joy to see the children’s, immersed in the bliss of their own creation.

Then Cynwen jumped forward into the room, the door swinging open – smiling wide and reaching her arms akimbo.

“EMIG!” Elendur cried out, running towards her. “My boy!!” Cynwen answered, laughing as she dropped to his level and wrapped those arms around him. “How are you, how was your day?”

“It was so good! We did writing and then numbers and then Almiel taught me a new game! I will teach you soon!” the boy answered, jumping in excitement away from his mother’s embrace.

“I can’t wait, my starlight,” she assured him, tenderly holding his hands.

“Hi hi nethemel!” interrupted Almiel, running to Cynwen for her own hug.

“I hope that you had just as good a day, my dear,” Cynwen said, dropping her son’s hands to hug her niece.

“Very very good! And now I’m hungry, is dinner soon?,” Almiel answered. Cynwen and Manwen laughed…the appetite of a quickly growing girl.

“I think so, little dear. Let’s go wash up and start preparing, shall we?”

“YAY!” the cousins said in unison – making both women chuckle again. Cynwen took them each by the hand and led them towards the door.

“I’ll start on dinner with them…you take a moment, Manwen my dear,” she noted to her chosen sister. “That painting is looking gorgeous, isn’t it?” she then asked the children.

“So pretty!!” agreed Elendur. “So so nice!!” added Almiel.

“Let’s let her make it even better while we start on dinner, shall we?,” Cynwen said to them.

Walking them out, she winked at Manwen once again and then asked Elendur to close the door behind him.

Manwen took a deep breath….aaah, silence. Another day with the children completed. She absolutely loved time with them, but that all to herself was its own treasure – a necessary one, she was increasingly recognizing. (Cynwen was so right about it, she remembered – and modeled it through her solo time in nature, that amongst her plants.)

She scanned her painting and planned out next steps a bit more. She’d add a bit more color and shading to the purple flowers, then join the family for dinner prep. The men would soon be home from their own work.

Dipping her brush in the shade of purple she’d blended, taking another deep breath, she focused herself back on the creative moment. One more stroke, the canvas slowly filling.

One more day moving forward as a family, united in the face of shadow before and around them. They were their own light.

but

i just can't get over the description "only a mortal man, a small creature lost and abandoned in the wilds of Middle-earth"

like there's just something utterly heartbreaking about those words. I guess it's the contrast to all other descriptions of Isildur we get - Isildur the king, Isildur who is proud and strong-willed and brave. Isildur who has done so many feats of strength and heroism, who rescued a fruit of the White Tree from right under Sauron's nose in Númenor, who survived the Fall of Númenor, who founded and ruled a kingdom with his brother, who led armies and survived the War of the Last Alliance, even survived coming face to face with Sauron. Isildur, a mighty king, one of the last sons of Númenor. Even to the orcs waiting in hiding on the banks of the river, even in those last desperate moments of his life, he seems big and strong and terrifying, like a monster out of some nightmare

and still. still. he's only a small creature, lost in the night, vulnerable and alone. as mighty as any mortal could be, maybe, but still as fragile as anyone other mortal, too. exhausted, climbing out of the river, probably never even seeing or registering the threat before the arrows hit

only a mortal man, a small creature lost and abandoned in the wilds