The Magic of the Loom by eris_of_imladris

Chapter 1

The loom sat in a wide room with three large windows open to the west, with sunlight pouring on its wood and streaming through the strings as nimble fingers wove in and out, creating a certain kind of magic.

The floor was littered with bits of string of all colors and fabrics, but when they came in contact with her fingers, they turned scraps into stories, tales of the vast lands before the elves came home, and the simple wonder of life after. Leaf-laden trees sprouted from her fingertips, and animals poured forth, the grass beneath their feet as real as the garden outside the windows.

Pure joy is woven into the tapestries that stretch across the room, and as one leaves, another is quick to take its place. “The stars,” says a tall man in deep blue robes and a golden circlet as he runs his fingers down blues and violets dotted with shimmering silver stars. “This one for the dining hall,” he comes back and lifts a cloth filled with juicy oranges and ripe purple berries.

“Our valley,” says the same voice, later, deeper, and the next time he enters, he speaks of “something peaceful, of course, he will be born into a time of perfect peace.”

But the fingers are not at peace at the loom. The projects are smaller, quicker, flying out of her fingers. They start as handkerchiefs and progress to garments, small at first but getting larger, until the seamstress brings the tall man in so she can measure him with her hands, and over his protests she weaves until she falls asleep, and his hands pick her up and carry her away.

One night, the footsteps are uneven, the breathing is hard, but the fingers summon a leaping wildfire of gold running through rivers of red and deep valleys of maroon.

The loom sits idly for several months before a few of the skeins are carried away. The tall man returns later with the circlet in his hands, his eyes roving over the space for a very long time before he sighs and shuts the door.

The years began to pass, slow at first with the teetering steps of a child outside the windows, but the curtains are drawn and the loom shrinks from the darkness, remembering those magic hands and wondering where they were, and why. The garden is soon filled with women’s voices, but none of them are her voice, and when visitors behold her words of art, they touch the fading scenes with sadness.

The door opens again after an unfathomable amount of time. “She used to work in here,” says a voice, unknown and familiar at once. The sound was like the loom knew all too well – a strong, steady thread, with tiny fibers broken at the seams.

“Your mother’s studio,” another new voice breathes reverently. Small, hesitant fingers brush the wood, the whorls of his fingerprints disrupting the ancient dust.

“It is yours now,” the first voice says before a cloth is run up and down the wood – no, two cloths, in two hands, one large and one small brushing away the dust without a word. It seems like forever before the creak of a stool, the unfurling of a spool, the first weave between the lines.

The hands are small and clumsy, but they catch on, and soon, they fly.

Carnistir is not sure if he imagines it, or if a breeze makes the loom strings dance with joy. He shrugs, leans over his work, and the magic is back.