Words of Wisdom by AdmirableMonster

“What kind of fate is waiting for us, Salgant?  Do you think the Lord Turgon will really found a city?”

Lendalwed’s eyes shone, glittering as bright as any of the Tree-touched.  

Salgant laughed and ruffled their hair.  “I am certain he has thought of a role especially for you, holinke.”

* * *

The city is burning, again. Pengolodh sheds a single despairing tear over the memory of the person who was, to him, the kindest Elf he had ever known, before he turns to the flaming lore-house, smelling bitter ashes on the wind.  “Will my fate, like yours, be fire?” he whispers.

“Look!” Lendalwed holds out a scrap of what looks like fine woven thread.  Dew is beaded along it like diamonds.  Somehow, they have managed not to disturb the delicate lacework pattern.

“Where did you find that?” Salgant asks.

“I was walking home—it was stretched between two twigs.”

“Did you check for spiders?”

Lendalwed bridles, indignant. “There weren’t any.”

Salgant hides a smile.  “There are many Elves who do not like them, but you remember the old songs I sang to you?” Woven patterns, hidden in the fabric of the world.

The child nods seriously.  “Real spiders are our friends.”

The host of the Valar comes from the West.  Pengolodh sees them approach, like a storm upon the ocean.  The air is filled with jubilation, but it leaves him cold.  He is faithful, he tells himself.  He has not questioned his people’s gods since he was a child, when he questioned everything.  Yet their arrival leaves him cold.  What price their help now, when the continent’s wounds are mortal?  Gondolin is gone.  His friends are gone.  There are only the piles of paper he surrounds himself with, drifts of history smudged with ink like ash.

He turns his face East.

“Can you imagine a rage so all-consuming it could set the entire world aflame in its wake?” 

“Why would I wish to?”

“You’re being deliberately difficult.”

“I’m trying to have tea, Lendalwed.”  But he gentled his words with a self-deprecating gesture.  “You’re trying to write about Fëanor’s death again?”

The young scholar pulled a face, then nodded.  “I just don’t understand it, I suppose.  I mean—he was hurt, I know that, but I can’t imagine being so angry you’d curse all the Valar stood for.”

Salgant’s face closed a little. “That’s for the best, I think,” he said mildly.