* Maladil lurched into the Private Sitting Room off the Great Hall. The master of the Castle found himself standing in the middle of a small mahogany table with legs carven as of winding vine tendrils encircling slender tree stems. He backed away, ethereal fingers curling about an unadorned white porcelain vase ... But no, he would not smash this. For it still contained, alive and freshly blooming, the last flowers Adela had ever seen. Lilacs of kingly purple, sprightly magenta, purest white. Their aroma shone out ten times stronger than what mere nature had given them. *
* Calimiel had picked the lilacs that evening, just before dinner. Adela had hugged her daughter in thanks, smiled, set the vase down, proceeded to the dining room, alone, just before dinner. Minutes before dinner. *
* And had Adela died a respectable death? A death majestic in its tragedy? A death nobly becoming of her beauty and grace? A death consoling to the memory in any way? But no. She had not aged into any peaceful passage from a long life, nor lapsed into mournful illness, nor died heroically in childbirth, nor even been attacked by Orcs envious of her worth, nor of anything remotely worthy of song. *
* Nay, but the Valar had seen to it that Adela's fate be so ludicrous and humiliating as to not even be worthy of the stately sound conjured up by the very name of "fate." The Lady Maladil had simply met her end by choking on a bit of meat and bone, unable to even cry out. By the time Maladil, unawares of what transpired, arrived to join his wife for dinner, Adela had already slumped over into her final earthly pose. There'd been a wine glass smashed on the floor under her chair, staining the carpet. *
* Kenelm entered the Sitting Room to find his father carefully replacing the vase onto its table, then launching into a recital of curses against the Valar. Maladil cursed them all. From Eru, for being, to Mandos, for doom's cruelty, to Ulmo, who would offer Adela no friendly passage across the Western Sea to the shores of Aman, to Manwë, who withheld the living winds of air and breath from Adela's throat, to Elbereth, whose brightest starlight could not replace the light of Adela's spirit... the list went on as always, ... to Yavanna, for growing the lilacs that now outlasted his wife. *
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