Fragments of a Letter by Himring

Discovery

It is not the kind of book that you would expect to yield new information about a heroic woman of the First Age--and yet it does.

Double drabble featuring Erestor.

He picked up the knife. He considered the contents of the volume. His lip curled.

“The Proper Role of Women”! Lady Celebrian had snorted with laughter when he showed her the treatise he had pulled from the back of a bottom shelf. Erestor was glad Celebrian had been able to see the funny side. He, too, had, at first. However, on second thought...

Whatever the opinions contained in it, the book was old. Its pages were intact but the dilapidated binding was a disgrace. He would see it rebound properly; he owed it to himself, if not to the author.

With precision, he sliced into the spine. It had been reinforced with strips of parchment: waste material, perhaps cut from pages of obsolete accounts. But, no, it looked more like...bits of a letter?

Carefully now! Curse the glue and those stains!

He laid the fragments out like a puzzle on his desk, began to move them cautiously around...

The names! The names! It was clearly written by a scribe, not the author, probably was a copy, but even so...!

‘Elrond! My lady Celebrian! I've found a letter written by Emeldir! Emeldir, the valiant Lady of Ladros--Beren's mother, your great-great-grandmother…’

Chapter End Notes

This was 2 x 100 words in Word. (AO3 disagreed.)

The prompt  (at Tolkien Weekly on LJ) was: He picked up the knife.