"The House of a Friend" & other drabbles by Himring

After careful planning, Narvi takes a piece of chalk and begins to mark up the rock face, while Celebrimbor stands well back, checking the position of the marks against the sketch. Finally, Narvi moves to the lower centre of the design and positions his first stroke…
‘Narvi, wait!’ cries Celebrimbor.
‘Too far to the left?’ Narvi asks.
There is silence behind his back—and he realizes this is not about a flaw in execution.
‘It is the sign of your House; it belongs on the Doors,’ Narvi says.
And between moon-shaped tree branches, he chalks out the Star of Feanor.

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‘Shale, schist, slate!’ sings Narvi in his deep gravelly voice.  ‘Shale, schist, slate! Shale for the roads of Elven Town, slate for its roofs!’
Meticulously, he positions his chisel and splits the foliated rock, again and again.
‘Slate for the roof: duchesses for the Gwaith-i-Mirdain, narrow ladies for Celebrimbor…’
He trims leaves of rock into flat, thin squares: larger ones, smaller ones…
‘Narvi, my friend,’ says Celebrimbor, ‘you have the strength of ten dwarves, but I see your apprentices failing on their feet. How about a brief rest and a glass of the red wine I just received from Edhellond?’

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For Galadriel, Celebrimbor insists on marble. Narvi presents samples and, unsurprised, watches his friend choose a delicately blue-veined, near-translucent white reminiscent of the Lady’s shell-like complexion. Another gift for the woman Celebrimbor fervently admires but simply cannot get along with! Never, not in a thousand years, even if she weren’t married already. Even a dwarf can see that but Narvi knows better than to say anything.
But after work, as he watches Celebrimbor crouching on the floor and playing marbles with the children of the Khazad, laughing uproariously at being beaten by Narvi’s great-niece, Narvi sighs, thinking: What a waste!

Chapter End Notes

From Gimli's rhapsody about Aglarond: "folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hands of Queen Galadriel"

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‘I saw the Father of Dragons, Glaurung—twice’, says Celebrimbor. ‘I saw Gothmog, the Lord of Balrogs. They carried the dark flame of Morgoth inside their hearts. When it was strongest in them, it was as hot as a volcano, as hot as fabled Mount Orodruin in the Southlands!  Where they went, the rocks beneath them melted into a trail of black glass... They were terrible, Narvi.’
The hearth-fire flickers, throwing an abrupt shadow on the cave wall. Narvi shudders inwardly. Nightmares of the First Age!
‘There are no balrogs here,’ he murmurs, soothingly, ‘and no dragons. We have peace.’

Chapter End Notes

Alluding to the fact that obsidian consists of volcanic glass (with thanks to Huinare for a bit of geological background information)

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‘I would quite like to revert to rock,’ grumbles Narvi. ‘Granite doesn’t hurt as much as I do!’
‘What would Arda Unmarred be without Dwarves!’ protests Celebrimbor. ‘It would be Marred by that very lack!’
He is rubbing something elvish into Narvi’s back. He says he begged it off Celeborn! It even works on dwarvish swollen joints.
‘Elves claim Mahal was at fault in making us!’ remarks Narvi provocatively.
But Celebrimbor’s ageless face is sad.
‘It is an elvish fault-—not to want to say goodbye forever.’
Oh Mahal!
Narvi clears his throat.
‘Ah—we’ll have to wait and see.’

Chapter End Notes

Allegedly, Elves are supposed to believe that Dwarves have no role in Arda Unmarred and revert to the stone they were made of after death. Dwarves believe that their creator, Aule or Mahal, has set halls aside for them in Mandos.

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'Look', said Narvi urgently. 'Do you see?'

Celebrimbor stooped further down over the still surface of the water and gazed intently.

He saw the mountain peaks appear--the gleaming white of Celebdil, the Silvertine, mirrored perfectly in deep blue--and in the space beyond, a crown of seven stars. Small and distant as they seemed, their brightness pierced his heart, almost as if a Silmaril had swum suddenly into his sight across the wide reaches of Ilmen.

He straightened, then bowed low before Narvi.

'I thank you, Narvi, for showing me this--but I doubt I can reproduce even a pale shadow of such beauty--even in ithildin...'

'You can't', said Narvi. 'But the lake will always be here--and now you know, at least, what the Crown of Durin truly looks like.'

Chapter End Notes

Written for Huinare's "Sorry, Celebrimbor" month on LiveJournal.

Also, I think I may have read a version of this scene before but, if so, I don't remember who it was by.

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"Do you know we do not all see rainbows the same way?" asked Celebrimbor. "We elves see seven colours in the rainbow, but many Men see only five. And I have been told that Dwarves see six, but one of them is beyond red and not visible to other peoples. So Telchar said, in days of old."

"Ha," said Narvi, determined not to be impressed by any talk of dwarven heroes of the First Age today. "Aren't you rather missing the point?"

"Which is?"

"It's there, and it's quite something", said Narvi, pointing skywards above the Sirannon.

"Magnificent!" Celebrimbor agreed.

Chapter End Notes

"The Heavenly Arch" is the name of a House of Gondolin. It may be intended to be ultimately the same word as "Ilweran", said to be the Quenya name of the rainbow, although this apparently means literally "bridge of heaven". The name of the house is said to refer to the rainbow, and the members of the house bore a boss on their shields made up of seven gems, probably in allusion to the seven colours of the rainbow, suggesting that the elves distinguish seven colours in it.

Wikipedia says that there is some indication that people tend to see as many colours in the rainbow as they distinguish basic colour terms in their language and that Newton saw five, then revised his account to seven.

(And it might be useful to dwarves to be able to see infrared. I think someone has suggested this in fan fiction before, but I don't remember who. Celebrimbor might have learned of it from Telchar at some point during Curufin's negotiations with him.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the prompt for this was "rainbow".

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And there was the time Celebrimbor and Narvi climbed the Endless Stair together. Although they did not start from the bottom, from the lowest dungeon, it was a long, long climb, requiring several rests. Up, up and up went Narvi, until even his tireless dwarven legs ached with thousands of steps, and up and up went Celebrimbor after him, until even his elven head threatened to spin with the spiralling of the stair.

At last, they reached the pinnacle of Zirakzigil and looked out through the window on that dizzy eyrie in the snow above the mists of the world.

‘So, what did you think of my tower?’ King Durin asked, when they were down again.

Celebrimbor said little in reply, so lost was he still in wonder of the sight.

He returned to Ost-in-Edhil and, shortly thereafter, crafted a tall pair of goblets, of milky glass, translucent and opaque and shot through with silver, intricately patterned and whorled. These he sent to Durin as a gift, by way of thanks that the King had permitted Narvi to take him up the Stair.

‘Look,’ said Celebrimbor. ‘Remember?’

Narvi, gazing upwards, saw an eagle wheeling about the peak.

‘Yes,’ he said.

Chapter End Notes

Written for the Spiralling challenge at Tolkien100.

2 x 100 words according to MS Word

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