Taking Readings I by Himring

Nan Elmoth

For the B2MeM 2011 prompt: Nan Elmoth [Seduction]

Written as a birthday gift for S.

Read Nan Elmoth

This is a wood to get lost in. Consider what you do before you step under its dark boughs. Consider it well if you have a ship to catch and an ocean to cross. Consider it well if you want to be back at your cousin’s by suppertime or dine with your brother the week after.

This is not a wood for those who love the sun. Here, there is only fitful starlight and green dusk and deep, deep shadows among the tree boles. Follow the voice of unseen nightingales along the winding path, farther in, farther in. There is enchantment at the heart of the wood, but it is ambiguous.

If love is found here, it is the unexpected kind. Exogamy: a word for binding yourself to somebody fundamentally unlike you--the opposite of marrying your cousin or childhood friend, so to speak. Received wisdom warns against it, and often it is right. You could end up imprisoned, poisoned, even killed by rules you neither subscribe to nor understand.

Only, if nobody ever succumbed to the seduction of the unknown, how would we discover miracles? If nobody ever tried to learn a new language, where would we go for translators? It may be safer to sit still, fenced in by high mountains, but in the long run loss will find you wherever you are. If you are one of the lucky ones, you might emerge and find you have grown taller.

---

Chapter End Notes

(1) Thingol didn't have a ship to catch, strictly speaking, but "an island to catch" doesn't really work.

(2) In human societies that practice ritual exogamy, it may of course be quite possible to marry your cousin or childhood friend, as long as he or she belongs to a different moiety.

In Defence of Vana, the Ever-Young

On LiveJournal, Dwimordene had challenged me to come up with a defence for the importance of Vana the Ever-Young, who she felt was the most uninteresting of the Valier. So I tried...

Read In Defence of Vana, the Ever-Young

 

At first she might seem pale and rather uninteresting: merely someone’s sister, someone-or-other’s wife. For is not everyone young? Is not everyone rushing around doing new things, creating things never seen or heard of before? During the Spring of the World, what need is there for Spring?

But still there are so many things…

Then Arda begins to age and scar. Everyone makes mistakes and becomes so much sadder and wiser—and so much more tired.

…that I have never seen…

‘No, I don’t want to go back to Valinor, not yet’, says Galadriel. ‘Let’s cross those mountains. We haven’t seen what is on the other side.’

…in every wood…

Treebeard wakes up to hear hobbit voices. Those don’t sound like orcs! And he adds a new name to the long list of living creatures.

…in every spring…

The White Tree blooms. It is true, its lineage is magnificent and awe-inspiring, but is that really the most important thing about it?

…there is a different green.

That is why Sam plants and plants his garden unstintingly, each year, all over again.

For in time, Varda’s stars grow dim and Nienna’s tears run dry and even Nessa’s dance slows to a stately pavane.

‘But we haven’t tried this way yet’, says Vana, brightly. ‘Shall we? Because you never know…’

And Bilbo runs out of the door without a handkerchief.

---

Chapter End Notes

Yes, the bits in italics are a couplet from one of Bilbo's songs.

 

Dwimordene was kind enough to say that I had convinced her of Vana's importance. I'm hoping we will see a piece by her on Vana some day.

The Earth, Singing

Aule designs Durin's brain.

B2MeM 2012 prompt: O-72: In what furnace was thy brain? (W. Blake) [card: Snippets of Verse)

Characters: Aule, Durin, Feanor

Warnings: none

Read The Earth, Singing

In his longing for students to teach the unbounded wealth of the minerals of Arda, Aule takes great pains to calibrate the brains of his dwarves exactly to their task. The dwarven bodies he designs are sturdy and solid, thoroughly functional like a well-balanced hammer or a mattock; later ages will—mistakenly—call them crude. But Durin’s brain is an intricately damascened blade. It is a fine instrument attuned to the tectonic rhythms of Arda. It is a set of chimes that resonates with the song of granite and gneiss, quartz and malachite, jasper and basalt. Aule is proud of Durin’s brain. Even after suffering Eru’s reproof, he still considers it his best piece of work.

Until the day Feanor walks into his forge—and Aule discovers that the triumph of the teacher cannot be complete until he is taught a lesson by his student. Feanor does not resonate, not for long. Feanor rewrites the song.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written in gratitude to Elleth and Lyra for their B2MeM ficlets on Aule and Durin: Out of the Dust and Birth.

The Girl from Doriath

Earendil and Elwing--at the Havens and later on.

Drabble for the Homophone Challenge at Tolkien Weekly.
Prompt: beech/beach

Rating: PG (themes of displacement)

Read The Girl from Doriath

He saw her wandering barefoot along the beach. Seagulls called overhead. The seashore was new to him, then, rich and strange, and she seemed to belong entirely to that brave new world.

But he found that, just as inside him there was a boy who had never left the encircling mountains, she too was part astray, an earlier self never dislodged from oak, beech and elm.

They had been forced to learn departure too early. He went on practicing it, making it his own, while she clung.

In the end, she was all that remained to him of any shore.

---

Chapter End Notes

Earendil ought not to be quoting Shakespeare, but there was no stopping him.

Dwarven Ale

Four First Age encounters involving dwarven ale:
Finrod Felagund and Cirdan at Mereth Aderthad (before Finrod learned much about dwarves!);
Curufin and Caranthir, sons of Feanor, in Thargelion;
Telchar, Maeglin and his father Eol in Nogrod;
Andreth and her teacher Adanel in Dorthonion.

Triple drabble written for the Homophone Challenge at Tolkien Weekly on Livejournal.
Prompt was: Ail/Ale

Read Dwarven Ale

At first, on waking, Finrod was convinced he had been struck down by some hitherto unknown but catastrophic ailment endemic to Middle-earth, but then he realized it was just the vilest hangover he had ever experienced. Water—he needed water, badly. He staggered out of his tent towards Ivrin’s pools and encountered Cirdan, who, unfairly, seemed fresh as a daisy.

'Why didn't you warn me about that hazardous brew from Ossiriand?' Finrod asked. 'It has the kick of an irate mule!'

Cirdan laughed, too loudly. Finrod winced.

'Ealc’s elderberry wine?’ Cirdan said. ‘That's nothing. Wait until you've tried dwarven ale!'

 

'You seem to be ailing somewhat this morning,' Curufin commented, amused.

Caranthir eyed his brother darkly.

'Just for that, I shouldn't warn you. You seem to be convinced you can handle them so much better than I can. But, I tell you, praise their skills. Learn their language. Bargain. Whatever you do, just don't touch their ale!'

 

‘Why so glum, lad?’ boomed Telchar. ‘Have a little drink! Good for what ails you!’

Maeglin wished he dared glance at his father for help.

The dwarf had just placed before him, large as a child’s bathtub, a tankard brimming with foaming ale.

 

Andreth looked at the jotted notes before her.

Against ailing insides, she copied carefully.

Dig up roots of the plant called gallock. Dry and pound to powder. Mix with an eggshell of dwarven ale and honey. Give to drink early in the morning.

She stopped and looked uncertainly over at Adanel by the stove.

Adanel went on stirring, but asked over her shoulder: ‘You have a question?’

‘Many questions,’ admitted Andreth. ‘How can I find gallock? How much of the powdered root should I use? Am I supposed to add water? And why has it got to be dwarven ale?’

---

Chapter End Notes

"Ealc" is a Nandorin (Ossiriandic) word for "swan", here used as a name for a Green Elf.

The remedy in the third drabble draws on an early medieval (Anglo-Saxon) source.

On Ezellohar

After the trial of Feanor, two princes of the Noldor are forced to reconsider their desire to leave Valinor.

Fingon & Aegnor

Teens, no warnings

Read On Ezellohar

Her foliage is of a fresh green like newly opened beech leaves, but the edges glitter, and each of the flowers drooping from Laurelin’s branches in shining clusters is shaped like a small bright horn that spills a golden rain from its mouth, dripping into the vats set on the ground all about the tree in which the glowing liquid is collected. As Laurelin, waxing towards noon, comes into full bloom, the light and warmth of her grows until it seems almost too great. The air is drenched with it to overflowing. It fills their eyes and nose and mouth.

Fingon sighs and breaks the silence, turning to Aegnor, who accompanied him on today’s unplanned ride with surprisingly little hesitation and is now standing beside him unquestioningly, straight and still as a darker flame.
‘Aiko,’ Fingon says, ‘all this light—how can it not be enough? Is it perverse to desire more and risk losing what we have?  That longing for the wide untrodden lands of Middle-earth—it seemed so much my own, part of me! Was I merely deceived? Had I spent too much time listening to Feanaro—or Melkor? Were they so very crooked, my dreams of reigning?’

‘I cannot say,’ Aegnor answers. ‘But it is not only Feanaro who is restless—or his sons—or those that follow them. Even my father—it was hatred of strife and love for my mother that took him roaming to Alqualonde and beyond but was it these only? And the Vanyar—they may not long for Middle-earth, but are they less restless? They abandoned Tirion and now they leave Valmar, heading higher and higher up Taniquetil… As if we all felt confined—reined in?’
‘You, too, Aiko?’
‘Yes, still. But just what I hope for from Middle-earth I cannot say.’

---

Chapter End Notes

Triple drabble written for the Homophones Challenge at Tolkien Weekly on Live Journal.
Prompt: Rain - reign - rein

"Aiko" is a nickname based on Aegnor's  name in Quenya: "Aikanaro".

Finarfin's preference for Alqualonde and the coast over Tirion, alluded to by Aegnor, is canonical but usually interpreted differently.

The Red Thread of History

An observer who is not at all impartial is set to record the Doom of the Noldor.

Character: Miriel

Rating: Teens

Read The Red Thread of History

And fate unspools like a ball of yarn rolling across the floor.

Miriel records it. Sometimes it makes her so angry she would like to rise and raise her balled fist, shaking it against Taniquetil. Sometimes it makes her so sad that she would like to roll up in a ball on the floor in front of her loom and cease to move. She does neither.

Is Miriel’s stubborn subversive streak all done then? Yet she is a subversion herself, neither living nor dead, an elf among Ainur.

With steady hand she selects another ball of wool. It is red.

---

Chapter End Notes

100 words according to MS Word.

Written for the Ball challenge at Tolkien Weekly on LiveJournal.
Prompts: ball of wool, ball your fist, roll into a ball

Voronwe comes to Nan-tathren a second time

The survivors of the Fall of Gondolin escape southwards

Written for Fandom Stocking 2014 for Lingwiloke

Characters: Voronwe, Tuor

Rating: General

Read Voronwe comes to Nan-tathren a second time

Like all those who had survived that false dawn, Voronwe struggled to escape the memory of fire and smoke. The world seemed veiled in darkness shot through with red flame, long after they had left the mountains behind.

But in that darkness there came to him, all of a sudden, the soft gurgling sound of water, the sight of pale green willow leaves shimmering in the breeze and butterflies fluttering among the branches, the feel of moist soil yielding under his feet--as if the Shadow behind them had finally lifted enough to let him perceive what was ahead.

'I have been here before,' he told Tuor. 'I journeyed here, once.'

'Did you?' answered Tuor and raised his head. 'Then lead on, Voronwe!' Although Tuor looked bone-weary and grey, his voice grew stronger even as he spoke: 'Lead on and I will follow, as I did once before, when you showed me the way from Nevrast.'

And so, by the guidance of Voronwe, the survivors of Gondolin arrived safely in Nan-tathren.

 

The Unnamed Dead

Sindar that were killed by Morgoth and his armies in Beleriand stream into the Halls of Mandos.

Warning for multiple character death (see title and summary), but no explicit gore.

Read The Unnamed Dead

I was washing clothes in the shallows of the Thalos when the orcs came. How the starlight glittered on the water! After, it was stained with red.

I had only just re-potted a rose. They broke, rose and pot.

They flocked to my inn to discuss the news. Hard times, they said. Then the inn burned.

I won't finish the cloak I was making nor get a carpenter to repair the shattered loom.

I was apprenticed to a smith, but he did not teach me to make swords or shields. I taught myself that, quickly.

We were halfway through the field reaping barley, the Noldo and I. The orcs trampled the rest.

I made the best fish soup in Brithombar! Now fish only eat in Brithombar.

We have all heard of the Prophecy of the North and the Doom of the Noldor. But, Namo, tell us, why are we here?

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for the Unsung Heroes prompts at Tolkien Weekly: Gardener, Farmer, Innkeeper, Carpenter, Cook, Blacksmith, Weaver, Laundry-maid

These were drabble prompts, but this is 150 words by the word count tool I was using.

The Foresaken

There are those who leave and those who stay.
Celeborn is one who stays, from the beginning.

No warnings, except for some angst

Read The Foresaken

He had barely reached Olwe in time for a last farewell--just in time to tell him that Elwe still had not been found, time for Olwe to ask again: 'Won't you abandon this fruitless search and come with us?' and for Celeborn to reply, again: 'I can't give up yet. Won't you stay--wait a little longer?'

He had stood beside Cirdan and watched half his family, half his people being towed away out to sea westward, out of reach.

Somewhere out there was the light of the Trees that Elwe had spoken of, but not for them. Not without Elwe.

He left Cirdan staring out across the waves and returned to the shadowed woods where Elwe had vanished, intending to resume his search. But his steps were slow--no need for haste now--and he veered from his course.

He heard the roar of falling water far off and, threading his path among pools, came, the first of his kind, to the place where Sirion fell deep down into the earth, plunging below hills--the same broad river, surely, he had seen flow into the bay majestically below? So many unseen wonders Middle-earth held, so many mysterious transformations! So Elwe might yet re-emerge...

---

Chapter End Notes

Note on the title: "The Forsaken People" (Eglath) is a name the Sindar gave themselves because they were left behind in Middle-earth, seeking Elu Thingol (Elwe).

Written for the prompts "fall" and "reach" for the "(Not) a river" challenge at Tolkien Weekly.

According to the word count tool I was using, this is a pair of true drabbles (2 x 100 words).

 The summary sort of echoes a line from "Still Here" by Caitlin Canty.
At first, I thought I had (accidentally) quoted the exact wording, but on hearing the song again, I realized that the line is apparently: "There are those who go and those who stay." (It's a favourite song of mine and it fits the theme to some extent, but not entirely so.)

Grey Ship's Cargo

A company of Elves leaves Middle-earth on a ship from the Grey Havens at the End of the Third Age. (The Ring-bearers are not mentioned; nevertheless it could be the same ship.)

Written for the  November drabble challenge at the LOTR community (theme: nostalgia; element: memories).

Rating: PG (on the General side of Teens); no specific warnings except those to do with the theme itself

Read Grey Ship's Cargo

For some it is the sweet waters of Cuivienen to which there is no returning; for some it is that white city on a green hill, Tirion on Tuna. For some it is Gondolin, cupped in its encircling mountains, for some the thousand caves of Menegroth; but all that lies under the wave.
For some it is Mithlond in its days of glory, for some Hollin, built high before its fall, for some Imladris, sheltered in its cleft, for some the Golden Wood, before the gold faded.
Home is where the heart was. Home is where the heart will be.

The Grey Ship is so laden with memories it is almost ready to sink. Even those who are going home are not going home, although it is the long home of the Elves they are going to. They lean into the wind. They listen to the waves and sail on.

---

Chapter End Notes

 

Also written for the Tolkien Weekly Challenge: Peoples of Middle-earth: Noldor & Sindar

The first element of the word nostalgia is a Greek word meaning "homecoming, return home" (the second element refers to pain). That is not what the word means in English, obviously, but my drabble takes off from this idea.

The names of the elven peoples are not actually mentioned, but represented by "Tirion" (Noldor), "Menegroth" (Sindar).

Some of these Elves are clearly very old, as the reference to Cuivienen shows (that first sentence is adapted from  Feanor's speech in Tirion).

 A drabble and a half, according to MS Word

 

Voronwe Decides To Dwell at the Havens

After the fall of Gondolin, Cirdan invites Voronwe to Balar.

Gen.

Read Voronwe Decides To Dwell at the Havens

Then Cirdan said to Voronwe: 'Welcome, kinsman! Twice I had given you up for lost and twice you have returned unlooked-for! My heart rejoices, even as it grieves greatly to hear of the fall of the city of Gondolin--albeit I had long feared it could not endure undiscovered, so harsh blow the winds from the North.

Will you come with me now and remove to Balar and complete the study of sea-craft you began?'

And Voronwe was sore tempted at this for, if his thirst for the lore of ships and the sea had been somewhat dimmed and slaked at the time of his ship-wreck, with the bitter loss of his ship-mates, it had re-awakened in full as he stood once again upon the sea's margin: in short, he had found his sea-heart again. And what better teacher could there be of the sea and its lore than Cirdan?

But nevertheless he moved closer to Tuor's side, answering with as much courtesy as he could: 'You are most gracious, my lord Cirdan, and gladly would I accept your offer. But I came here with friends, through fire and much danger, and I would not now abandon them in their need.'

And he remained in Lisgardh, sharing with the survivors of Gondolin what lore he had, for there were many among them who had no memory at all of Nevrast nor any life beyond the Encircling Mountains.

And so in time he taught Earendil.

---

Chapter End Notes

Written for Lingwiloke for Fandom Stocking 2015.

Intended as sequel to  "Voronwe Comes to Nan-tathren for the Second Time", although I believe it can also be read independently.

Changing of the Guard

The Valar have withdrawn to Aman, but Orome and Yavanna are still concerned for Middle-earth.

Inspired by Oshun's bio of Nahar, Orome's horse, posted to the Silmarillion Writers Guild archive in the newsletter of February 2016

(Gen)

Read Changing of the Guard

 

‘Well, I’m back,’ said Orome, sliding out of Nahar’s saddle.

‘How are they doing?’ asked Yavanna.

Orome snorted. ‘How do you expect?’ Then he replied more soberly: ‘I passed like a wind over the mountains, and before the sound of my horn and Nahar’s onrush the earth trembled and all evil things fled far away—for a while—but they will come creeping back. You know they always do.’

‘My turn to go, then’, said Yavanna and began steadily walking east.

Nahar turned his head and whinnied.

‘Never fear, Nahar!’ Orome assured him. ‘We’ll not leave Middle-earth uncontested for long!’

---

Chapter End Notes

100 Words according to MS Word.
Written for the prompt "Well, I'm Back" in the "Endings & Beginnings" challenge at Tolkien Weekly

Without Forethought She Sang

After it's all over, Indis returns to where their courtship began, on the western slope of Taniquetil.

Teens for hints of dysfunctional family relationships and reference to canonical character deaths (Finwe's implied)

Read Without Forethought She Sang

 

She enters the garden by herself, with faltering steps, like an invalid’s after long sickness. She stands where she once stood, opens her mouth… Her voice sticks in her throat.  Less resolute than she believed, how can she sing, now?

She remembers too well how love coloured the world, once—hopeless, but complete in itself, unflawed. Now, first unexpectedly fulfilled and then shattered, it sits heavy in her bones, leaving her heart frail and empty. Dare she sing again, here where it all started?

A has-been, is she not? No longer a queen, no longer a wife, no longer a...

No, she still retains a tenuous grip on motherhood! But dare she sing again as she sang then, in her simplicity, not knowing the consequences? Now that she knows: how love breaks and law breaks, death and darkness and war. And although this garden seems untouched, high on the mountain, nothing is the same.

Time to stop singing? Here alone in the garden where it all began, all that is left to her is her voice. But is this the time to give in? She stands proud like a queen before an audience of thousands and launches again into song.

---

Chapter End Notes

The title is a quotation from "Morgoth's Ring", from one of the versions of the story of Finwe and Miriel. It is described there how Indis, an accomplished singer, who has secretly and hopelessly loved Finwe for a long time, sees him approaching and bursts into song. However, their marriage, being Finwe's second marriage, caused dissension and ill feeling among the Elves, which was later exploited by Melkor.
Perhaps unnecessary to say--by the title, I don't mean to imply in the least that Indis could have foreseen how things would eventually play out. But the hindsight must have been rather overwhelming to her.

B2MeM prompts covered: B2MeM 2016 Memories. B2MeM 2012 BINGO. Women of The Silmarillion: (I23) Women of Valinor;
Women of Arda: (N36) Indis; Talents and Skills: (I26) singing; Canon Couples: (B3) Finwë/Indis.

Also written for the Female Protagonist Challenge prompt Elf at Tolkien Weekly.

A Commission for Nerdanel

Nerdanel, resident artist, meets an unusual challenge with her usual flair.
But who was it who issued that challenge, really?

Characters: Nerdanel, Varda, Ilmare

Teens for some sort of sexual innuendo.
(Femslash, if you squint. You might have to squint quite hard, though.)

Read A Commission for Nerdanel

 

It was so very feminine a teapot, Varda mused. Those curves! Such an air of suggestiveness… She almost blushed to be following them with her eyes.

‘Admirable, as ever, my dear Nerdanel!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who else but you could have created a female teapot? Who except you could have come up with the idea?’ She hesitated briefly but curiosity won out over politeness. ‘Why exactly would you want to?’

‘But… You asked me to, Tintalle! Ilmare said…’

‘Ilmare!’

The Valie and the elf turned to the handmaiden, who visibly flinched.

‘Ilmare, have you been at the vats of silindrin again?’

---

Chapter End Notes

I'm applying "silindrin" here to the contents of Silindrin (the silver dew of Telperion); it seems a suitably illicit substance for a Maia to be getting into.

B2MeM Challenge: B2MeM 2016: Memories. B2MeM 2012: Talents and skills (card): I30: pottery
Tolkien Weekly Challenge: Female protagonist: Anything female (Vala, Maia, teapot, anything...)

Across the Wide Seas of Time

In "The Two Towers", Gandalf says he would like to test his will on the Palantir and see whether he could make it show Feanor at work during the Years of the Trees to him.
This is just a small riff on that...

Gen, no warnings

Read Across the Wide Seas of Time

Who would not wish, wrenching the Palantir from the Dark Lord's power, to look on Tirion the Fair and perceive the unimaginable hand of Feanor at work in his forge, in that legendary past when both the White Tree and the Golden were in flower and Feanor shaped both far-seeing Palantir and star-bright Silmaril? Who could not wish to see it? 

But almost I would rather see Feanor in his study, bent over the desk where he perfected the letters that make up the words: Silmaril and Palantir, Tirion and Feanor. For thus he made all these imaginable to us.

---

Chapter End Notes

Title and drabble allude to Gandalf's words to Pippin in the chapter "The Palantir" (The Two Towers, Lord of the Rings).

For the prompt "study" at Tolkien Weekly on LiveJournal.

Fugitives at the Gate

Finduilas saves Gwindor (and Turin).

Written for Isilloth for Fandom Gift Box 2016.

Isilloth asked for a strong Finduilas and for her helping to run Nargothrond in Finrod's absence, if possible.

While I'm in favour of the idea, I couldn't come up with anything to write about the running of Nargothrond, at that point.

So this little piece just picks out that Finduilas would have needed to be strong to get Gwindor accepted in Nargothrond, not just perceptive.

Read Fugitives at the Gate

Not so frail was Finduilas when her voice cut through the crowd, quelling the tumult--clear as a bell, sharp as a blade--she saved the lives of the fugitives asking admittance. The hunters of the Guarded Plain downed poisoned darts, ashamed of the mistrust and fear that had goaded them into precipitate slaughter. Nargothrond, recalled to itself by the voice of the princess, recalled kinder times.

But she, Finduilas, faltered. The semblance of age and weakness had not deceived her quick eye; she had named Gwindor at a glance. But looking deeper, she found change went deeper than that. Yet she named him again, in memory, in hope, where before she had been certain, seized both his hands and pulled him in through the gate.

---

Chapter End Notes

This is influenced by the tone of the scene in the Lay of the Children of Hurin in HoME, without being closely based on it.

Forward and Back

Sometimes to heal you need to forget, sometimes to heal you need to remember.
A brief conversation between Celebrian and Elrond in Tol Eressea.
Elrond has just arrived from Middle-earth--he has found Celebrian recovered, but also learned that her recovery was slow.

Written for the current "Companies, Clubs and Cliques" challenge at the SWG Archive.

Teens for hints of darker (canonical) background

Read Forward and Back

'There will be a meeting of the Rememberers in a couple of days,' remarked Celebrian. 'I'm surprised Edhellos hasn't sent you an invitation yet.'

'The Rememberers?' asked Elrond. 'Who are they? A committee of historians? I had not heard that Edhellos specialized in history.'

'No--not historians--although there are historians among them. It is more informal than that. It seems that when, after the War of Wrath, the first refugees from Beleriand arrived in Tol Eressea, some wished to forget all about Middle-earth. They wished to get on with whatever penance was required of them, gain readmission to Valinor and never look back.

Others, however, looked back as much as forward and sought a slow healing of regrets and past loss. These wished to speak of Middle-earth but only--in understanding and sympathy--with those who also wished to speak of it. And so the Rememberers were founded.

They have changed over time, of course. The original group has shrunk, but new members have joined, almost every time a ship arrived. Now those who fled the drowning of Beleriand at the end of the First Age rub shoulders with those who fled the wars against Sauron...'

Celebrian's voice trailed away.

'And you?' asked Elrond.

'I?' Celebrian replied, almost sharply. 'I never went there, of course--not when I first arrived. But then--well, I've been there now and again, since. And now...'

She looked at him and he saw--the little they had discussed concerning Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen and so much they had not said.

'Now,' said Celebrian quietly, 'I think I might become a regular attendant at those meetings and I hope you will come with me.'

---

Chapter End Notes

Celebrian now knows Arwen will not be coming--and it is not certain Elrohir and Elladan will be coming either. Her only way to get closer to the experience of her children is to learn all about the Middle-earth she at first had to work so hard to forget in order to recover.

In Himring 'verse, Edhellos (Eldalote), Angrod's wife, escapes the Dagor Bragollach and all subsequent disasters and makes it to Tol Eressea. As you see here, she is the company secretary of the Rememberers (or has a similar role, if not the title).

Shadowy Cloak

After Luthien has freed Beren from the dungeons and the Isle of Werewolves, he lays eyes on her shadow cloak of enchantment for the first time.

Warnings: allusions to past imprisonment and canonical character death (Finrod's)

Read Shadowy Cloak

He picked up the cloak.

‘Put that down’, said Luthien, sharply. Beren dropped it in haste, even as she added: ‘Unless you want to take a nap right where you stand…’

He was indeed feeling an unnatural drowsiness—as if it had crept up through his arm. He looked at her wonderingly. This was all a different kind of power—he thought---than the kind he had seen in her in Doriath, dancing.

It had become difficult to remember Doriath, in the darkness, imprisoned with Finrod. Dorthonion had been easier to remember—and Nan Dungortheb.

But now Luthien was here.

---

Chapter End Notes

The prompt was: He/she picked up the cloak.
100 words according to MS Word.