Haleth aimlessly wandered the halls of Lady Anairë’s home; although home seemed an overly modest term to describe the palatial residence.  It wasn’t so much the size of the place, although it was impressively large, as the richness of the materials with which is was built and decorated.  The walls and floor were a polished marble that glowed in the starlight.  There were many windows, and each seemed to open onto the garden or a wonderful view of the streets.  Soft breezes scented with flowers wafted through the corridors, keeping the building pleasantly cool even on the warmest of days.  The place was filled with priceless treasures; sculptures and tapestries and paintings that had been fashioned by the greatest craftsmen of the Noldor before they had marched to Middle-earth, all of them displayed to their best advantage and arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner. 

As well, the Lady Anairë was routinely accompanied by a dozen well-born ladies, all of whom were beautiful, graceful and ageless. 

Haleth felt shabby and hopelessly out of place among such wondrous company.  She had taken to roaming the halls to avoid people.  It still left the priceless artifacts, but those were somewhat easier to ignore.  When she stopped moving, all of the ages of purposeless existence hung before her.

Haleth’s inability to sit still contrasted starkly to Lady Anairë, who could remain motionless for hours. Haleth often wondered if Anairë’s stillness was related to her great age.  It begged the question: would Haleth would be as calm and still after several thousand years.  The prospect alone was enough to fuel hours of prowling through the large home and all of its memories.

To add to her unease, her sleep was troubled by nightmares.  One particularly disconcerting set of dreams featured a bad-tempered individual with a ruddy complexion.  She would awaken from these dreams in a cold sweat, unsure whether it was a flight of unpleasant fancy or a memory.  Somehow, she knew, her association with this individual had been Inglor’s fault.

In fact, everything was Inglor’s fault.  If he had let nature take its course, she wouldn’t be here, wondering what to do with herself for the rest of eternity.

Haleth was so full of self-pity that she did not hear Lady Anairë and her entourage until it was too late to hide or run in the other direction.  They swept around the corner in a tide of silk and lace while Haleth scuttled out of their way.

‘Silmariën, I am so pleased to see you.  My ladies and I were going to weave.  Perhaps you would care to join us?’ 

Haleth had to admire Lady Anairë’s diplomatic skills; she sounded genuinely happy to have chanced upon her mangy foundling. 

‘I…would…be…delighted,’ said Haleth, extremely slowly. She had not yet attained full mastery of Quenya. In fact, she could barely express herself. 

She planned to ease her way to the back of the crowd, hoping to escape when no one was paying attention.  Lady Anairë must have guessed her intentions for she took Haleth by the arm, forcing her to walk by her side.  Behind them, the women whispered and giggled among themselves.  Haleth felt the blush rising from the base of her throat. 

‘They do not speak ill of you,’ Lady Anairë whispered in Sindarin.

Haleth stared straight ahead. The heat upon her face intensified; had her thoughts been that obvious? ‘I never said…’ she began.

‘Here we are.’  They stepped into the room where the weaving was done.  The space was filled with looms of various sizes and design.  Shelves groaning with yarn and bolts of fabric ran along three walls.  Large, open windows overlooking Lady Anairë’s private garden dominated the fourth side of the room. 

The ladies quickly arranged themselves and commenced work, either weaving or embroidery while Haleth edged towards the door.

‘Do you weave, Silmariën?’ Lady Anairë asked before Haleth could make good her escape.

‘I did,’ Haleth replied in halting Quenya.  ‘But it has been many years.’

‘A skill, once mastered, never fades.  I myself did not weave for decades, yet when I sat at the loom once more, all of the knowledge returned,’ said Lady Anairë. ‘Histëalë did not approach a loom for centuries, yet her weaving is the most sought after in all of the Tirion. Is that not true, Histëalë?’ 

The woman seated next to Anairë shrugged dismissively.  With her dark hair pulled into a severe bun, she looked out of place amid the women with long, flowing locks and artfully arranged curls.  A pang of kinship assailed Haleth; here was someone who did not take pains to be beautiful.  Haleth was no longer utterly careless of her appearance but she would never approach the beauty of the Elves.  Here at last was someone who did not aspire to be the fairest of them all.

The sense of affinity remained until she got a good look at the loom upon which Histëalë worked.  Haleth had seem looms of many shapes, sizes and design, but nothing could match the complexity of Histëalë’s loom.  There had to be thousands of multi-coloured warp threads stretched horizontally across it.  A good proportion of the threads glittered; they had to be metallic.  The loom itself was a bewildering arrangement of heddles, harnesses and pedals, yet Histëalë operated it with grace and speed, her hands a blur as she passed the shuttle back and forth through the sheds in an even rhythm.  

As Haleth watched, the tapestry seemed to stretch; soon it filled the room, enveloping her within its silken and metallic threads.  A deep thrumming passed over her head.  She winced and reflexively looked up to discover herself staring at the ceiling of Anairë’s workshop.

‘Would you care to work my loom?’ Anairë asked her.

Shaking her head to dispel the illusion, Haleth examined her benefactor’s weaving.  It was a fraction less complex in design than Histëalë’s.  The warp threads were the gleaming silver of the stars and the deep blue of the ocean.  An elaborate brocade glittered on the take up beam.  It was easy to imagine ruining the entire piece of material.

‘Maybe I could start with something simpler?’ Haleth suggested hesitantly.

‘Very well,’ said Anairë after a slight pause.  Haleth had the impression her ancestress was wondering what could be simpler than a brocade of blue silk and threads of sterling silver.  ‘Did you have anything in mind?’

‘What about a potholder?’ Haleth suggested.  Her Quenya must have been good enough to be comprehensible for several women laughed.  Anairë hushed them with a disapproving glance.

‘Perhaps you would be more comfortable using a vertical loom?’ she asked.

‘Perhaps,’ agreed Haleth, who would have felt more comfortable wandering the streets of Umbar dressed in a dancing girl’s outfit. 

‘There are several over there,’ said Anairë, pointing to the opposite end of the room.  ‘Sárawen will help you to find the threads and the tools you will need.’

A woman dressed in deep red leapt to her feet and indicated for Haleth to follow her. Haleth, taking care to not drag her feet overly much, followed her. 

‘Will this one do?’ asked Sárawen as she pointed to a vertical loom of refreshingly simple design. 

‘It should,’ said Haleth, determined to keep her communication as short and to the point as possible.

‘Good.  Now we shall need yarn.’  Sárawen led Haleth to the shelves of supplies. 

Haleth perused the spools.  There were delicate shades of every colour of the rainbow in various weights of wool, linen and silk as well as a wide variety of silver, gold and copper threads.  She ignored the metallic threads and searched up and down the shelves for something plain and relatively coarse so that no one would mind when it was wasted. 

‘This would be nice,’ said Sárawen, holding out a silken yarn dyed forest green. 

‘I was hoping for something a little less…’ Haleth groped for the proper word.  There were too many to chose from.  Thin sprang to mind, for the yarn was as fine as silk.  Pretty was another appropriate description. 

‘It will be fine.  It will contrast well with your hair,’ said Sárawen, brushing aside Haleth’s objections.  ‘Now for something that will bring out the highlights; gold or, perhaps copper,’ she said as she thoughtfully examined Haleth’s hair.

‘I was thinking of something plainer and coarser.  Iron would do.  The grey and rust would match my hair perfectly,’ Haleth snapped in Westron.

‘Silmariën,’ said Anairë. 

Haleth glanced at her ancestress.  She doubted Anairë had understood what she had said but the tone of her voice had left little doubt to her mood.  Sárawen looked from Anairë to Haleth and back again.

‘The threads do not match her eyes,’ offered Histëalë, not bothering to look up from her work.

‘Something the colour of rotting meat should do,’ snapped Haleth, still in her own language.

‘She should find her own plants, make her own dyes and spin her own yarn,’ Histëalë continued.

‘This is simply for practice,’ said Anairë, ending the debate.  ‘Silmariën, choose whichever threads that catch your eye.  There will be more than enough time for you to learn the rest later.’

Haleth turned away, disappointed.  The idea of roaming the countryside in search of plants had sounded very appealing, and not only because it would get her away from the looms.  It chafed at her spirit to be confined indoors, even in a place as grand of Lady Anairë’s home in the fair city of Tirion.  ‘The green yarn is fine.’

Sárawen led her to one of the empty upright looms.  Haleth examined it with a sigh.  The warp threads would still be too numerous and close together for her liking, but at least the operation of the thing would be fairly straightforward.  With another deep sigh, she began stringing the loom with the green yarn. 

The distance between the top and bottom of the frame seemed to grow longer as she worked.  Her arms were aching by the time she was done.  She paused for a moment before threading the shuttle and plucked at the warp threads. 

As she had suspected, some were too tight while others were too loose. Sighing in frustration, she began the slow process of adjusting the threads to make the tension even.   Once finished, she plucked at the yarn to test her work. Much to her disgust, the threads, although uniform, were now all too tight.  Face burning, she glanced around the room to see if anyone was watching the debacle.  Fortunately, the others were entirely focused upon their own work.  Except for an occasional, muted comments, the only sound was the clacking of the moving heddles, the whisper of the shuttles and the thud as the reeds battened the growing bolts of fabric. 

The room had grown oppressively hot.  Droplets of sweat formed on Haleth’s forehead and upper lip.  She wiped them away as she loosened the warp threads.  It was embarrassing enough that she couldn’t string a loom; she was the only one in the room who perspired. 

After what seemed like an age, she finally had the warp strings adjusted to her liking.  The tension was not perfect, but she deemed it was adequate.  She stood up, placed both hands on her back and stretched.  Hours of alternating between squatting and standing had left her back and legs very, very stiff.

‘I think that should be enough for one day,’ Lady Anairë said.

Haleth looked around in surprise.  Except for her formidable ancestress, there was no one else in the room.

‘The others left hours ago,’ Anairë said to her questioning expression. ‘You seemed so engrossed in your work that I deemed it unnecessary to disturb you. You may continue another day.’

Haleth bit her tongue to keep it still.  ‘Yes, Lady Anairë,’ she said, while silently wishing she could throw the loom out of a window.  The room, she was surprised to note, was quite dim.  The evening light lingered in Valinor, but even that was fading to twilight.

It was even darker in the corridor.  The crystals that lit the hallways had been uncovered.  Haleth’s stomach reminded her that it had not been fed since early in the morning.

‘You are not happy at the loom,’ said Lady Anairë as she glided soundlessly up the hall.

Haleth opened her mouth to deny it, then thought better of it, worried that she might be set to work at one of the truly complex looms.  ‘It is not my favourite activity,’ she said dryly.

‘Isfin never enjoyed it, either.  She much preferred to be out of doors, to ride and hunt with her cousins,’ said Anairë.  There was a hint of wistfulness in her voice that Haleth had never heard before.  ‘I indulged her.  Perhaps it would have been better if I had insisted on keeping her closer to me.’  She trailed off. 

For an instant her calm mask slipped aside and Haleth saw the mother and wife who, after millennia of separation, still grieved for her family.  Not knowing how the gesture would be accepted, she placed her hand upon Anairë’s shoulder.  ‘If I could, I would find her for you,’ she said gruffly.

‘Find her? I know where she is, child.  She is in Mandos along with her brothers and father.  In time, she will return to me, as will the others, once their hurts have been healed.’  She squeezed Haleth’s hand.  ‘In the meantime, at least one of my family has returned to the Blessed Realm.’

Feeling utterly inadequate, Haleth swallowed hard and nodded.  ‘You should visit with Master Elrond.  His blood is much closer to yours than mine.’

‘I shall, in time,’ said Anairë. 

‘I could go with you,’ Haleth said eagerly.

‘You are restless,’ said Anairë. 

Haleth was unsure if it was meant as an observation or an accusation.  ‘It is the way of the Secondborn,’ she said with a shrug.  ‘Our time here is limited.’

‘But that is no longer true not for you,’ said Anairë.

Haleth winced and looked away.

‘This does not please you?’ Anairë sounded puzzled. 

Haleth could not blame Anairë for being bewildered; the entire situation made no sense to Haleth and she was deeply and personally involved.  The confusion did nothing to improve her mood.  All of her buried resentment bubbled to the surface.

‘It is done.  It cannot be undone,’ she said with a shrug.

‘And you are not pleased by this turn of events?’

Haleth had no answer.  To agree would be tantamount to saying she wanted to die and this was not the case.  Yet the prospect of living amid the perfection of Valinor for all of the ages of Arda held no appeal, either.  She did not want to exist in a place where she would never belong, especially when she was so much the Elves’ inferior.  ‘No one asked my opinion. It hardly matters whether it pleases me or not,’ she finally said.