Tengwar Acrostics by Himring

Mahtan was carefully, unhurriedly, twisting gold wire into a delicate coronet.

All eyes in the workshop were on him but he was not distracted, being entirely focused on his work.

Little Lalwen laughed delightedly to see the promised ornament taking shape and clapped her hands.

Tall, golden-haired Indis smiled down at Mahtan’s daughter, lurking in a corner and watching, and asked: ‘Would you like one, too?’

‘A coronet—no, thank you, I just want to learn how to make them!’

Chapter End Notes

These two were friends, despite the tension between Indis and Nerdanel's future husband. Perhaps they already liked each other before all that? 

Almarian sang:

‘Hush!
West wind
eases.
South wind
teases.
All good children sleep.’

Sadly, neither of her children showed the desire to be good. That is, Anardil was looking outright mulish, probably considering himself to be too old and above such things as lullabies. Ailinel was just lying quietly among her pillows, but her eyes were wide open.

Almarian sighed softly. It was no surprise really. It had been such a hot day, even in the Forostar, that the evening breeze revived rather than soothed.

Chapter End Notes

Almarian canonically has three children, but Almiel is not born yet. Before Almarian's husband ascended the throne, he chose to live in the north of Numenor (Forostar). 

Tink-Tink—Telchar pounds away, deep in his cave.

In the meantime, outside, the world changes.

Now he is making a sword; now he is pouring flame; now flickering fire first runs along its edge.

Choose who the original owner is, who commissioned it—we do not know.

Oblivious, Telchar is not thinking of them, only of making Narsil the best of blades.

Chapter End Notes

A bit of influence here from Mim's Klage (Mim's Complaint) and The Hoard.

Celebrimbor put the finishing touches on the simple filigree and lit the small lantern for the first time to test the effect.

Amethyst and rose, light filtered through delicate runes etched into its five panes.

Lights a-plenty Khazad-dum had already, certainly, magnificent dwarf-made ones, in shining lamps of crystal hewn!

More were not needed, especially no contributions from elves, some grumpy elder might mutter, but Narvi would disagree, Celebrimbor hoped.

An anniversary like theirs—twenty years since their first meeting—deserved to be celebrated with a gift and Celebrimbor had just the right nook in Narvi’s favourite cave in mind.

Chapter End Notes

The title alludes to Gimli's speech about the Glittering Caves; apart from referring to the lamps of Moria, this part also gave me the idea that Celebrimbor's lamp is intended to light a particular location in a favourite cave. 

The text of this drabble also contains a quotation from Gimli's "Song of Durin".

The five initial letters bolded in the text spell out "calma", the Quenya word for lamp and also the name of the Tengwa. However, I deliberately made Celebrimbor etch dwarvish runes into those glass panes, not tengwar. The word "calma" has five letters but, for the number of the panes, it is more important that the name "Narvi" also has five.

Glasswork was one of the themes for Ekphrasis Week 1. The idea that this might be a glass lamp was suggested to me for the Tengwar prompt fill for calma by Tehta, but as Tehta herself pointed out, when we talked about it, glass lamps do exist. Indeed, they are much more common than Feanorian lamps...

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