That's how the light gets in : a double drabble. by bunn

Forget your perfect offering

They sleep in the halls the Maker made for them. Their beards are long and grey; their eyes closed and their busy hands idle. In their dreams, works of their hands shine in the long halls of home after home after home lost, fallen, stolen away.

The Holy Mountain where the first awoke to stars, they remember, and the long bright halls of Khazad-dûm by lamp-light. The Grey Mountains and the Iron Hills, the Lonely Mountain and the palace of Gabilgathol.

Baraz, Zirak, Shathûr stand tall, and beyond them, Gundabad itself shines in the dreamlight, as if it never had been broken, as if the goblin-tunnels and broken axes were only bad dreams.

But listen, Durin’s children, listen well!  For the bell is sounding at last.

Durin shall not take up his crown from the waters. The halls of Tumunzahar are as lost as Nargothrond.

But still the bells call. Awake! Awake!  

The axes are thrown aside: the dead are burned, but still there’s rock to shape, with spells and hammer-falls like ringing bells.

Climb from your beds entombed in stone, and wake!

For the gods and dragons are all silent now, and there is one last home to build.