Passion to Make by StarSpray

Chapter 1

The world was dark and full of dread and terror and grief. Nerdanel went into her workroom and shut the door behind. The windows she shuttered also, to keep out the darkness, and brought out many lamps to fill the room with soft golden light. They were the lamps Telperinquar had been making in the days before Curufinwë had taken him away to Formenos with the rest, when he had just been learning to put light into crystal.

Once the room was lit she knelt and pulled crates and boxes from beneath the benches and tables, all filled with bits and scraps of metal and broken crockery and odds and ends that she had fancied and thought she might use in a piece someday. Now she dumped them all on to the floor and sat with debris strewn around her.

Usually her sculptures were carefully planned, with dozens of sketches and notes, sometimes made years in advance, because her mind raced ahead of what she was capable of doing. But she was not in the mood now for careful planning, only for doing something, focusing on making with her hands so that she did not have to think about what lay beyond the shutters.

The result of many days' work was not like anything else Nerdanel had made. It was all the things she felt made real and solid, and if there were words for the jumble of emotions in her chest she did not know them. Part of it was burnished copper bent into twisting flames leaping up out of braids and webs of red embroidery thread wound around jagged bits of broken pottery in many colors. She had glued pieces of broken glass to wood to make mosaics of many colors, in patterns strange and not always lovely.

Opposite the copper fire she had twisted silver and gold wire into shapes that might have been trees and might have been dancers. Or perhaps they were hunters with spears held above their heads. Even Nerdanel saw something different with each glance. They were shot through with dark thread, on which hung a scattering of silver beads.

Taken all together it was a jumble of broken things. There were no smooth lines, no grace. Taken all together it almost hurt to look at, as though Nerdanel had taken all that she had felt and thought since the Trees died and made it solid. Though she felt lighter for it, this was not a sculpture she wished to share. She turned away and reached for a hammer, but a cool soft hand on her own stopped her as she grasped the handle. Startled, she looked up to find a tall woman clad in ever-shifting shades of grey, a hood over her hair and a sheer veil covering the lower half of her face. From her eyes ever flowed tears, clear as raindrops.

"Do not destroy your work," Nienna said, her voice quiet and sad.

"What else am I to do with it?" Nerdanel asked.

"Let it be." The answer was simple and softly spoken, but it rang like a hammer on an anvil in the still workroom. "It does not need to be beautiful to be worth the making or the keeping. It is truth, and that is enough."

"It does not feel enough," said Nerdanel, as she released the hammer. Nienna, however, did not release her hand. "It is not in me to only be. I must be doing. What can I do?"

Nienna looked at the sculpture over Nerdanel's shoulder, and then at Nerdanel's face. "There is a great work just beginning, to restore the light of Laurelin and Telperion to the world. Come to Aulë's halls. There will be much for your hands to do there." And with nothing more than the sound of a soft sigh, she was gone.

Nerdanel gathered up the lamps that her grandson had made and tucked them away, except for one that flickered like a star in the palm of her hand. This she slipped into her pocket as she left the workroom, and did not look back. The sculpture would be there when she returned, and she would decide what to do with it then, under new light.