A/N: This is just something I came up with when I read about a Tolkien fan's love for the Dwarves and what they did for creation. It's a very short one-shot.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Silmarillion or any of its related writings.
Telchar the Broadbeam Dwarf smith looked up from his forge. He had just finished forging another of his great creations, the sword that was named Narsil. It was a mighty blade made of the strongest steel ever in any blade. He held it up to the lamps of his smith's room in Nogrod and announced that, "This sword shall, in time, be hallowed as a blade wielded by the greatest Kings of Men. It shall never wholly die."
Another younger Dwarf was standing nearby watching the scene. He then asked, "Will there ever be anyone who shall surpass you in skill, my lord Telchar?"
Telchar looked at him. "That is not for me to say, my friend, but the Dwarf race, indeed, all seven houses as well as the Petty-dwarves, shall always do their duty to Eru and Mahal to work with the natural world and be creatively industrious with it. We must all be ready to help Mahal rebuild Arda Healed after the prophesied Last Battle."
"Yes," said the other Broadbeam Dwarf, "but what we do with industrializing the creations of Eru and the shaping of Mahal are things that apparently mar the world like Morgoth does with his jealousy and his Orcs. I am not sure if we are doing the right thing by doing that."
Telchar put down Narsil. "Listen, my friend," he said, "We do not spoil or mar anything that Eru made or Mahal shaped; we craft it into things of great beauty. Nature is something beautiful, and by crafting things out of it, we increase that beauty, not quarry it. And this is what I do; as a smith, I make things of great strength and of a hallowed nature that will help the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, as well as our own, fight against the poisons of Morgoth and his slaves. This sword, Narsil, is one of my greatest creations, and so are the knife Angrist and the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin. We Dwarves all work for the good of the material, though we must be careful not to become materialistic, for that can ruin a perfectly good relationship with the value of nature. I, myself, am a single-minded 'monk' of Nogrod, because my life is devoted solely to forging armor and weapons of powerful and individual properties for combat against evil; that is my vocation. And soon, you must find your own, young one. No Dwarf should be slothful in his service to Mahal our Maker."
"I understand, my lord," said the young Dwarf, bowing low, "I shall look hard for my path in life, and I will leave you to continue fulfilling yours."
"I know, my good friend," Telchar smiled as the younger Dwarf left the chamber. "I know."
Tolkien believed that he had not devised his magnificent mythical world so much as he had found it-indeed, that it had been revealed to him by God. Once when asked what a certain passage in The Lord of the Rings meant, he replied: "I don't know; I'll try to find out." "Always I had the sense," he declared, "of recording what was already 'there,' somewhere: not of 'inventing'". The tales arose in his mind, he confessed, "as 'given' things, and as they came, so too the links grew." Tolkien thus came to regard his characters and their realm not as fictional but as historical persons and places! Venice, he confessed, was like "a dream of old Gondor." - excerpt from The Gospel According To Tolkien
Because of my love for fantasy, science fiction, and an unseen world that can be better (and happier) than the stoic real world, I agree with J.R.R. Tolkien; if you believe in God, then He will give you inspiration and knowledge to write fanfics or other stories that are just as real and maybe even historical to you as Tolkien's stories were to him.