Aurthiel opened the door to her forge and workshop. It was dark, gloomy, and had all kinds of clutter, supplies, and half finished projects lying around. She passed the cooling pool, her finished lantern, and collection of raw white crystals. She approached the shop, the forges and work bench. Above the forges, a map of Eregion hung on the wall in valiant display. Oh, Eregion...
She sighed, tugging her black scarf off and walking over to a wooden rack. She hung the scarf over it and pulled off an apron. Wrapping the apron across her body, she already was bouncing around the shop collecting this and that. She had briefly gone to the Rivendell market to get any materials she would be lacking here - as well as more wine, of course. As she set all the materials and equipment down, Aurthiel thought of the people she was making these for.
Nautiel.
The mute elf she barely knew anything about. Yet, Nautiel has proven to be an inspiration and amusing companion. She had patted Aurthiel's shoulder in an amusing fashion, and through Silwe's translations had brought a spec of light to her dark world. She was making this circlet to thank her.
The bronze, swirling bands would imitate twigs intertwining into a crown. She chose bronze, as it looked somewhat like natural wood. Somewhat. The circlet would be adorned with small, green stones called maw sit sits. Aside the amusing name, bound to make Nautiel silently laugh, these stones were earthy and cool with small specs of black. Nautiel seemed to enjoy black and green together, these gems were perfect! The crowned jewel was a polished black onyx. All the jewels were rounded and smooth.
Silwe.
Aurthiel wanted to make something for Silwe as well, despite him being a renown jewelsmith as well. Even better than her! Yet, she really did not know how else to thank him. She had one design on her mind, however. Cats. The band was a more simplistic silver, wide with clear surfaces. On the surfaces would be little engravings, Tengwar writings of the word "Cat." Of course, the difficult part was in the centerpiece, the grey agate gemstone carved into a plumb grey cat. Er... How did cats look? Aurthiel had spent hours musing over pictures and practicing on spare gems. Many, many lifetimes of hand eye coordination and masterful jewelry smithing made it quick to learn, yet Aurthiel still kicked herself for spending almost an entire day on this. Still, as she carefully worked on the true grey agate carving, she was nervous about the final results.
Eventually, Aurthiel had finished both crafts. Golodhmiriel of Ost-in-Edhil still had it! Then again, when did she lose it? With a tired yawn, she gently placed both items aside and went to work on the custom jewelry cases.
Yes, custom cases. For Silwe, she made a round silver case with gold etchings, with side displays of more cat carvings. The cats were the longest parts of this thing. The top was made of grey tinted glass. She placed the bracelet in the case, then went onto Nautiel's case.
Aurthiel in fact had experience with wooden jewelry. She had only learned this in Eregion to round out her arsenal of skill sets. She then improved on the craft in her millenniums wandering Rhovanion. The square case was a smooth yet rustic mahogany. The glass top made it easy to see into the case, to the circlet within.
Almost immediately after finishing the projects, Aurthiel started cleaning the materials - then stopped halfway through. She instead opted to trudge up the steps to the overhead, gulp down dwarvern mead straight from the keg, and flop onto the bed she kept in her shop. She would get these gifts to Nautiel and Silwe... sometime...
Zzzzzzzz...
