I feel so sorry for Tar-Míriel; her life since her father died seems to have been nothing but having every dream she's ever had die right in front of her. And then you've got the character filter on this site, that chooses to refer to her only by a name that was given to her against her will, a symbol of a coerced marriage and a stolen throne. That said, this probably isn't going to be the only piece I do on her.

I own nothing.

The world is shaking. The world is ending. The sky is darkening, and the people are screaming, and she does not hear, for their voices are lost in the water. Though her hair is still dark and other tell her that her beauty remains undimmed, years lie heavily on the shoulders of Míriel, and she must devote all her effort to her flight up the steep paths of the Meneltarma, lest she lose her strength. What she hopes to accomplish with this, whether to live or to die among the tombs of her forefathers, she can not say.

For more than sixty years, Tar-Míriel, would-be Queen of Númenor, has lived as though in a pale, twilight world. She has been known only as the Queen who was too weak to keep a tyrant from usurping her throne, only as the passive wife who couldn't keep her husband from ruining the kingdom. A pale, distant figure not to be hated or loved, but only to be pitied. For more than sixty years, Tar-Míriel has not once been referred to by her own name.

Ar-Zimraphel.

That name has been a symbol of so much pain to her ever since it was given to her against her own will. A stolen throne. A forced marriage, with all the bad days and worse nights that went along with it. Her father's dreams, crushed. Her own dreams, crushed. The kingdom of Númenor, lost, ruined, currently drowning.

What has she done? What has she done, either to prevent this end, or to deserve death? Nothing in either case, Míriel knows. She has not worshipped in Morgoth's blackened temple. She has not bloodied her hands with sacrifices. She has not spoken out against Pharazôn's policies, against his great heresy. She has not attempted to stop his leaving for Aman. She has never attempted to win back her throne. She can be neither praised nor condemned, no matter how many would wish to do either, for none can know what they would do in her place. So Míriel feels.

However, the sea has come for Númenor. It has not just come for the unjust, but for the just, and those who fall between the two lines.

She navigates the steep, winding paths of the Meneltarma, the water swift on her heels, the screams of her people silenced, extinguished like a guttering candle. She runs, hoping to do what she has not been permitted to, to pay obeisance He who has so long been denied here, but then stops, when she hears the whispering of her name.

The water, the great green wave climbing over the hills, it calls out to her. Not by the name given to her unhappily, but by her true name. Míriel, the water cries out to her, bearing the voice of her father. Tar-Míriel.

Her great cloak blowing about her in the wind, Míriel stops, calm washing over her, the serene acceptance of death. In the water, she sees the reflection of her, of what she could have been, had she kept her throne, before the green wave claims Tar-Míriel, last Queen of Númenor, fairer than any jewel or blossom on that isle, and drags her down to her death.

She lifts her voice up in a cry at the last, but only the water knows what she said.