I had gazed upon them from afar, too excited upon hearing the news to wait, but the foretaste only made me wistful. I remembered the vision, taken away just at the instant wonderment blossomed like Yavanna’s  trees within me. My admiration, my adoration of Eru’s complexity, of his intellect in imagining such beings had nearly caused me to falter within the music, but instead the vision lifted my voice for a time above all others, swelling with joy in its beauty, joy in its perfection. Never had I thought to feel this way again after the discord, after the destruction and reshaping of the lands we had made so fair, according to His thought.

Now they are here. No longer a mere glimpse of vision, a hint of distant possibility; and oh, but they are beautiful, sacred above all imagining! Yet how small they appear, how fragile do their bodies seem: too fragile to contain the divine light that emanates from them. They stand with Oromë, reluctant to leave his side, their eyes wide with astonishment. They are three, three males, their forms constrained to one aspect. I feel the questing energy of this aspect and it delights me to feel it in these Elves, their strength a reflection of that of my kinsmen.

I step forward, hoping the form in which they see me will put them at ease, and they look upon me for the first time. Oromë introduces them, Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë and they speak their greeting. I hear their language, so pleasing from the lips of these children of Eru who have created each word, of greater strength than any craft Aulë’s skill can fashion. Oromë tells them of my labors, how I set the stars alight for their coming, and their faces brighten with reverence. Elentári, the one called Finwë named me then, and ever after have I been proud to bear the title.

The memory of that first encounter now wrings my heart as I look upon the Silmarils wrought of the light of the Two Trees by Curufinwë Fëanáro. Our children are children no longer and my heart grieves for innocence lost as a new vision rises, a vision of darkness no star can illuminate.

end