Forging the Dream

He was so concerned about binding me to one whose future he believed was unavoidable. Of that bond of spirit and body that would last until Arda was remade, that meant neither of us could seek another. But I still thought he was unable to fully understand. What was another to me? I had made my choice, and that the only one I would have. I thought then that some of my determination came from my father telling me Estarfin was slain, when in truth he was as alive as I. The initial pain and disbelief wore at me, that my hopes and dreams were extinguished. Oh, never totally extinguished I realise. But had I known he lived I would have searched for him, however long it took. I thought him dead, and wasted over six thousand years pursuing my craft to fill the void. I would not be so easily deceived again. Though marriage alone could not guarantee always knowing where the other was, if they were alive, it was a link that endured. I needed that. No prison to me, but the nearest I could get to avoiding what had happened before. I would not lose him again.

So it was that I sat by my work table, with tools, metals and gems before me, and pondered the creating of the most important thing I would ever make, save hopefully one. It had to be right. Mirdan trained was I, yet I was not totally at ease. Although I had most of what I required, one piece was missing. 

A silver and mithril alloy would make the band, and most willingly would I use the last I had of that most precious metal from my days in Eregion. On the inner surface I would inscribe a Feanorian star, of course, and a ‘name’ I hoped he would accept from me. I had small slivers of diamonds I had taken from a circlet I had worn as a child. It was again one of the few things of value to me I had managed to keep in my possession, being carried with a very few other items from the burning Thargelion. Then I intended to wind a small strand of my hair round the outer surface…and….

There came my problem. In my mind I saw a surface or gem as of amber. Something flat, that would not chaff against glove or gauntlet. Though not among the most valuable of gems, amber had this property, that other things could be embedded in it. And my thought was to embed something of our home… of Thargelion.

Now I believed that a little of the much reduced Mount Rerir still stood proud of the sea. Not a larger island of the size of Himring, but maybe enough to find something? Had I not spoken with Estarfin awhile ago of us maybe taking ship along the coast, my unsaid purpose being to find that very place?

He would not set foot on any ship, he said. Now, after my recent experience, I knew why. How safe would it be  for me to set out to the islands? It was something I would not ask him to do, accompany me. But thankfully there was another who I thought might be willing.

And later that day I asked him. Parnard had no issue with my thought, save that he would turn me away from the sea at the first sign of Sea- Longing. I found that more than acceptable. 

(With thanks to Estarfin for the picture.)