When Celebrimbor first met Annatar, he was first drawn not to the other's promises of knowledge in smithery, but instead to the sparkling pendant that lay bound to a necklace at the other's throat. It was bright - so bright that he thought it might be a flame jewel salvaged from the caskets of Feanor. So bright that he wondered if it was a torch with a hidden source of oil. So bright that he thought it must be blisteringly hot in spite of the fact that Annatar was in no apparent pain.
When he had conveyed his admiration of the gem to Annatar, the jewelsmith had laughed pleasantly. "Then I shall make one for you," he said, raising his hand to cup the shining jewel at his throat. "Though let me make it clear to you now, my friend, that for no price will I reveal the secret behind the making of this treasure."
A week later, Annatar had moved into Celebrimbor's house and had become the Lord of Eregion's favourite guest. However, not all in the realm were happy to embrace Celebrimbor's new friend. Most prominent of these elves was Lindir, the head minstrel of Eregion - one of the most renown and influential elven minstrels of Middle-earth.
"I do not like him," Lindir said shortly and simply, when Celebrimbor ventured to ask the minstrel as to why Lindir had refused to speak to, much less sing at the previous night's supper at which Annatar had been the guest of honour. "He makes me feel cold."
Celebrimbor frowned at the minstrel, who sat curled at his feet, his harp in his hands - silent. "Annatar is likeable in his own way," he said. "Perhaps if you spent more time with him, you would learn to like him." His tone did not phrase his words as a request.
Lindir's lips pursed slightly, almost imperceptibly. "Are you sure that it is not your love of jewels that is clouding your perception of him?"
There was a pause. "Perhaps," Celebrimbor finally conceded. "But I still wish for you to try to befriend him. For me."
Lindir looked at him without expression. Then he inclined his head. "As you wish, my lord."
That was the last time Celebrimbor heard Lindir's voice. It was also the last time he would see Lindir as an elf who could think and move and laugh and love. By the time night had arrived, the elf's spirit had fled and his body had slipped into a coma from which Celebrimbor, in his first life, would never see the minstrel recover.
The day afterwards, when Annatar came to see him in the healing rooms and convey his condolences, the jewelsmith took him aside and gave him the promised necklace. "I made it yesterday night," he said softly, as he clasped the chain around Celebrimbor's neck, "may it give you much joy."
Celebrimbor stared at the fire that was dancing inside the pendant at the end of the chain - it fluttered and flashed softly, almost like a tiny, beating heart. And he smiled. In a strange way, he felt comforted by the pendant's presence and his grief felt somehow lightened.
Years later, when he discovered Annatar's betrayal and faced the Maia before the doors of his house, he ripped the necklace from his throat and threw it down, whereupon he crushed it beneath his foot. It shattered and the light within it died. Moments later and he had been slain, his dying breath a prayer for those who had suffered at Annatar's hand in his house. Had he lived, had he accepted Elrond's beseeching and fled and followed the half-elf miles north to shelter, he would have seen Lindir's body, on a carrier borne by his servants, suddenly swell with life and the elf shudder awake, his spirit home at last.