Moon-letters by Himring

Moon-letters

'Is there any more writing?' asked Gandalf.

Elrond turned the map around carefully in the moonlight to see whether there might be any more moon-letters besides the ones he had just discovered. As he did so, he remembered his cousin Celebrimbor showing him moon-letters for the first time. He had already heard of them, but not seen them before. Celebrimbor had known all about them, of course, friends as he was with the dwarves of Khazad-dum, and one evening he had taken Elrond on a walk with him to a dell some way up on the slope of Silvertine to watch Narvi write moon-letters on a new map of Eregion with a silver pen under a crescent moon. Elrond had not always agreed entirely with Celebrimbor or gotten on as well with him as that evening when they walked companionably up the Silvertine together, but that had been a good evening. So long ago, now--he sighed inwardly.

'None to be seen by this moon,' he answered Gandalf's question and gave the map back to Thorin.

Chapter End Notes

The beginning and the end are quoted directly from the scene in The Hobbit.

I'm using the term "cousin" loosely here. Technically, the family relationship between Elrond and Celebrimbor is quite complicated (second cousins twice-removed, apparently, according to a comment on this ficlet by Anna Wing).