[piosenniel]

Amanaduial the archer's post

Seated gracefully on the banks of the river, Ost-in-Edhil spread it’s elegant almost lotus-shaped leaves out over the River Glanduin. Bordered on one side by mountains and surrounded by rivers on all others – the Glanduin and smaller Siranon, glancing off the larger river, the tributaries of Nin-in-Eilph, and the majestic Mitheithel – it sat harmlessly in the South of Eregion. In the capital of the ‘holly region’, all was hustle and bustle as always: the year was drawing on yet above the heads of the elven inhabitants the holly leaves still swung gently in the winds, and the sound of the elvensmiths in their forges, always, always sang out among their evergreen leaves. From a birdseye view, little could the eagles that circled regally overhead have guessed what busy little bees had been working on inside those forges – and what evil their creations would bring from over the mountains of Mordor…

As Maegisil was rushing hastily down the stairs of Celebrimbor’s regal dwelling from his master’s rooms on his master’s errand, one of the Lord of Eregion’s other advisors was also working hard, but far away from the finery of Celebrimbor’s rooms, where her lordship played games of strategy. Hers was another type of work indeed: the work that Ost-in-Edhil’s Mirdain were famous for.

The clang of Nerisiel’s hammer rang out again and again on the anvil, the flat-ended instrument chiming out almost musically. The elf took careful aim each time before she clashed iron against steel, but the force with which she smashed down her tool seemed to convey anger more than anything else. Eventually, her pale face glinting in the firelight of the forge, the elvensmith set her hammer down, with a pair of tongs, lifted the object of her attentions from the anvil; and after close inspection, she nodded slightly, her delicate features satisfied, and took the item over to her workbench. Setting the article – a new sword blade – carefully down on the bench, Nerisiel seated herself beside it, her feet curling up around the chair leg in an almost lady like manner that was somewhat contradicted by the loose, dark workman’s trousers that they were clad in, overlaid with the shin-length leather apron common to working smiths. Not that any who came to see the Master Smith would have commented on it – or not out loud anyway. After all, in Ost-in-Edhil, female smiths were not entirely uncommon – but for one to reach her standard of craftsmanship: that was.

Humming softly to herself, the elf studied the blade she had made closely, holding it almost delicately in the tongs although it had now cooled sufficiently to be touched. It was a commissioned blade from one of her husband’s colleagues, a Captain in Eregion’s army, as a gift for his son, and would therefore be rather more ornamental before she had finished with it. After all, her own blade, which hung proudly over her forge as an example of her work, was testimony to the fact that simply because a weapon is a tool of violence, it cannot also be a thing of beauty – and having known the boy to whom the sword would be bestowed since be was a small child no more than about ten summers, she intended to make this article just such. Nothing less would do for Nerisiel, for she was after all a jewel smith above all else. A profession which had come back recently to haunt her… The elf pursed her lips grimly and turned back to the task in hand. Yes, the blade would have to take another heating before the engravings that she planned were carved on it, but not too much: she could begin them today, it was not too late in the day…

“Who is that for?”

The voice came from the entrance to the forge and was one so familiar to the smith that it did not make her jump but instead prompted a smile on her pretty features. She turned, smiling, to face the young elf who leant with his arms nonchalantly crossed against the door post of her workshop, the leaves of the holly that was trained around her doorway lightly brushing hair as dark as his own. Her finest work of art: her son.

“It is for a friend of yours actually, Artamir – Leneslath, Captain Rimborien’s son. A gift from his parents, a reward for his recent promotion?” Artamir nodded, coming slowly forward into the dim of the forge, the light glinting mischievously in his eyes, lighter than those of his mother, as he examined the blade from behind his mother’s shoulder. She turned to watch her son proudly: he would be fifty summers this year and had truly grown into a beautiful young man, a son who both she and her husband were proud of.

Artamir smiled at his mother, stepping back slightly, and then nodded towards the beginnings of a hilt that lay further down the bench. “For the same?” When his mother nodded, Artamir raised his eyebrows. “Silver? Will you be using rubies with it?”

She smiled and shook her head. Although he was bound to be a soldier, as his father was, she was glad that her son nonetheless did not dismiss his mother’s art and had come to appreciate her craft – even to the point of knowing some of her designs. “Emerald. His previous sword was made of the same, Rimborien informs me, and besides, they will suit his nature more: he is a far less fierce young man than yourself, Artamir!” she chided teasingly.

“And where did I get such a trait, I wonder, mother? Not from my father I think…” the younger elf grinned and raised a sardonic eyebrow at his mother. “Am I then to have rubies?”

Nerisiel kept a straight face as she replied, “What makes you think you shall receive such gems in your sword, my son? Why, I had intended simply a plain design for you – nay, in fact, your current training sword shall do just fine, I shall model my design on that!” she teased, referring to the sword that Artamir used for sword training, a plain, blockish instrument that the smith’s trained elf regarded critically as the bare essentials – that is, it had a blade, a hilt, and not much else. Her son’s eyes widened – he still had the innocence of youth enough to be surprised – then he put on a mock sad face. “As you wish, mother…”

Nerisiel laughed and embraced her son fondly before sending him on his way out of her workshop – he had come by on his way home from training with a few of his friends, and he proudly informed her that Rimborien’s son – a boy no few years older than himself – had complimented him on his style. Nerisiel smiled at the doorway that her son had just left. Style, they said? And style his gift would most certainly have, once his coming of age was reached next summer – as Sirithlonnior, his father, would certainly have been able to tell him, had Nerisiel not sworn him to secrecy, for a light came into her eyes whenever she spoke of the sword’s details. The blade she made as her son’s first sword would be one of her finest weaponry creations yet…

Her finest creations yet…

Nerisiel sighed heavily and rubbed her tired eyes with the back of one hand. The thought of those rings, those finest of all pieces ever created, and her part in their making had returned more and more often to her mind of late. Pushing away the sword blade she had been working on, the smith walked across her workshop and stepped out into the street outside to behold the view from the city walls. Although she had the privilege to work for and with Celebrimbor in the innermost forges, she had not wishes to give up her own workshop at the East side of the city, for the memories it had of her earliest days with her mentor, and for the view it held over the Sirannon and the mountains to the East. Maybe this siting was no longer such an advantage: every day, Nerisiel was reminded of the darkness that was growing in the East, over those mountains in Mordor…

Sighing, the elvensmith returned to her desk and, after a slight hesitation, she put aside the soft cloth that she had her hand on with a mind to wrapping it up. No: she had people to see but what use would it be to brood on the dark thoughts on her mind? After all, Leneslath’s blade would not get done itself… Picking up the tongs again and resuming her humming as she tried to lighten her heart, Nerisiel returned to her forge to heat the blade – the engraving would be next. As her humming continued, the elvensmith’s heart lifted as she turned once again to the business in hand – weaponry, rather than those three, beautiful pieces of jewellery…