Dreams of Nimewen

Emmeline saw:
 
Emmeline tried several times to reach that deep memory. Eventually she felt something. A calling in her dream took her away from the Vale. She felt she was falling back, back, back into a place she did not know. Through what seemed like a deep fog she saw an unfocused form of a woman, an elf maid with fiery red hair talking to another one who was very old for an elf. Still beautiful, but definitely aged, her copper hair faded with wisps grey.
 
Their voices echoed and were not clear but soon Emmeline could make out words. She could not understand the language but felt the meaning of them. “Agranna Nim, what is it they meant by the Old Ones?” the younger one asked in a curious tone. The elder one answered, “My mother and grandmother and their foremothers were them. As was I long ago.” They continued to walk, passing toward Emmeline’s observing form. “You were not of the speakers?” the younger ones asked, adding, “why have you never told me this?”
 
The one called Nim said, “Little one. That was a thousand years and a lifetime ago. After the sundering, the Old Ones as the umanikin say, were trapped here. We could fade away, or we and our kin could stay. Ours was but a small family, far from the Shadow, but affected by it. You know the story, the arrogance, the pride we felt in victory,,,and loss.”
 
She sat the young woman on a rock and she then sat down besides her. “We are spirit you and I. Not this flesh. Our people come from the stars and beyond, but we cannot return. For the worlds are sundered. You, me, and all of this is the binding of spirit to earth. Consciousness to animal form. By becoming flesh, we and our kin of all shapes and sizes joined this place. Far from here our kin are building great realms. Ours is but a little place, but my grandmother…”
 
“You mean the Great Tree!!” the younger one said. “Yes, your insight serves you well,” said the older one, “indeed she is of my spirit. My words of prayer to her make sense to you now do they not? She did not want the second war, when children of Umani rose up. I blamed them for a long time. My whole family died in that war. It took a long time to move past the hate. Generations of the mortals had to pass between the dusk of Mabrilith and the dawn of Niméwen. I did horrible things and made a vow so complete in its character that only when I gave birth to your grandmother did the drive fade.”
 
“They said you were a great warrior. That you had no father or mother nor childhood. That that you emerged from the great river fully adult,” she said. Nim answered, “I did. I was reborn fully bound to the earth. The spirit I once was destroyed by vengeance. And I took it. I avenged my people. I avenged my lover. I avenged until there was no one left to kill. And I was done I cried. All I had done was end the brief lives of poor beings that simply did not wish to be servants.”
 
“You are crying Agranna?” the younger one said. “Yes,” she nodded. “It was the reason I existed. I searched far and wide for the creature that killed my mother casting her into the stars. That one,” she pointed. Emmeline noted the star in the constellation of The Crown. “I never found the killer who worked such magics. And I never save my mother. I only created emptiness in my soul. For hundreds of years I’ve tried to teach them like we once did and bind old wounds. With such short lives they forget that once I culled them like so much wheat. I put aside my old name until the day my mother calls it again. And I took up the name my adopted family called me, but the powers still give me no rest. I cannot find her and I cannot punish her killer.”
 
"Do we have to," the young one asked? "Certainly the umami sorcerer is aged and died."
 
"Maybe - if it was umani," Nim said, "I thought so myself, but around a century ago, shortly before you were born, some followers of the Shadow came to poison the Great Mother and our Holt. They brought a serpent who bit into the great mother and poisoned her. She recovered but without our tending she may fade. That is why I am talking to you today.
 
I know you love telling stories. I know you love our Umani neighbors and they you. Tend to them and help them as I cannot, but your first duty is to tend to the Great Mother so she will not fade and that her promise and sacrifice and that of Old Ones continues in this world that is now our home."
 
"What do you mean?" the younger one asked.
 
"I intend to seek out the followers who attacked the Tree, for I believe they are descended from those who attacked long ago. Not the Umani, they only wanted freedom. No, those that poisoned their minds. I for one do not fear such things, but I must continue the quest until I die, else they will attack again. If I destroy them, perhaps my mother, the great Maryswinifar, will be reborn as I was. Someday, someone of your line yet unborn will take up the mantle should I fail and maybe, just maybe, save my true mother and hers, the great Mother Tree we worship to this day.
 
You my great-grandchild will be the Warden and the Keeper of Tales after me. I have spoken." She spoke with great solemnness.
 
"I'm honored," the younger one said overwhelmed with the moment.
 
"The umani will see you as me Miriann, the fire-haired alfar elder," Nim said. Our tribe is small but we have a sacred duty for last thousand years. You will do us honor."
 
Mother of Nim is Maryswinifar.
A long time passed between the dusk of Mabrilith and the dawn of Nimewen.
Miriann the Fair is Nim’s great-granddaughter.