Her needle flashed quicksilver far from the Hall of Fire: one stitch set for each dream that woke her atremble, each frustrated sob she swallowed, each longing sigh she dared not breathe, each month and hour she waited still.
"We came to say good-bye, again. I know not when -- or if -- Elladan and I will return..."
A stitch for uncertainty, blinded by the gemmed stars she set into her pattern.
"Have a care for your hroa, my brother. 'Tis dear to me."
A stitch for the questions she wished she could bring herself to ask Glorfindel: of Valinor and Mandos and the ages of eld. Of what death was like.
"My lady? Wakeful yet? You should rest, for the days to come may require all your strength, and though that be vast..."
A stitch for warnings, the mysterious errands, and the darkness she felt more than saw when she rode yet between Rivendell and the Golden Wood. For the arrows a'nocked by marchwardens and the wary eyes of her escort.
"Come sit by my side, daughter. Share a twilight with me, ere night comes."
A stitch for mortal wounds that had nothing to do with hroar.
She wove a purpose and future in to the mithril thread and fine fabric. This banner would herald a king and inspire armies. It would float aloft a field of gore, chasing the darkness before it. It would signal an end, one way or 'tother. Most of all, it would bear reassurance of her love. And for him she stitched a secret into the fabric, a message only he would read.
Elves did not feel impatience. Elves had the full tapestry of Arda on which to draw their long lives. Elves did not fear the passage of time.
'But I am not an elf,' she thought, and dropped a desperate stitch. 'I am peredhel. And I miss you.'
------
DED: For cruelandunusual.
AN: "Hroa" is the body of an elf (as opposed to "fea," which is the spirit). "Hroar" is the plural of "hroa." Tolkien uses diacriticals on the vowels, but I've left them out here.