Atanatari: Of the Three Houses of the Edain by Himring

A knife, just such as you need

Young Turin gave an elf-wrought knife to Sador, passing on his own birthday gift to him, with the promise: "a knife, just such as you need".
He refused to accept it when Sador offered it back to him when he left for Dor-lomin.

From Sador's point of view: a double drabble, two scenes involving that knife, more than twenty years apart.

Warning: canonical character death (not in detail). Rating: teens.

I am the warrior who shunned battle, the woodman who cut his own leg. Yet behold, here I am carving a great chair for the Lord of Dor-lomin himself, no less, with the elf-wrought steel that the Lord’s son gave me. Too great a gift for one such as I, yet feel how smoothly it carves: leaves grow under my fingers, water ripples… I dare to dream of the Lord’s return, victorious from battle, who will sit here in times of peace and grant me leisure to carve at will.

Yet it was not for this that I befriended Turin.

Long beggared, beholden to Lady Aerin for each bowl of broth that she obtains for me at risk—yet under my rags I still hide the elf-wrought knife that the heir in exile gave me. It was mine to give away, if I wished, he said, to anyone except back to him, and there were times when I almost did—to Lady Aerin, to a young thrall who escaped to live as outlaw.

Foolishly clinging to memories…

Turin, today I return your knife to you, in an Easterling’s chest, and my own life. Yet I would rather have carved wood.

Chapter End Notes

2 x 100 words according to MS Word.
The prompt over at Tolkien Weekly was: knife