Lessons

Olorion had left on the second day. It was as if this was an initial meeting and he was not going to invade her privacy any longer. But she had the feeling that she would see him again, and she did. In those visits he told her many things. But one thing that stuck into her head was the story of Maglor. The more she thought about it the more she believed that she had seen him, and had even met him. For once on her travels as she neared the sea, she has seen a lone elf on the beach walking back and forth, and singing. The song he sang was filled with so much sorrow and regret that she had wanted to cry. She had taken two steps toward him and then stopped herself for she did not wish to intrude, but she was not quick enough, he spotted her. He stood there looking at her, and there was a probing in her mind but she did not stop him. This was an elf that was dangerous but not she felt to her. There was also a part of her that did not believe that Elf would kill Elf.  Though she knew that it was a thing that happened in the past, she sensed that she need not fear him. He gestured for her to come to him, and then he started to walk toward her as she walked toward him. When they were close Finafyr looked into his eyes, and it was as if there was a mirror there to her sorrow, though his was the greater.

" I heard you, and your sorrow drew me, I would that I could play the harp in such a way" He gazed at her and read the mirror to his sorrow in her eyes and "I will teach you if you wish, I think you would not mind the company" She nodded her assent.

She spent days with him, all of those days filled with his teaching and in that he was a master. But in all that time he asked no questions about her and she asked none about him. It was as if realizing the depth of the sorrow each one held, that they had each did not wish to add to the burden each was already carrying. So he called her child and she called him Master.  Then the day came for them to part one another's company, for neither wished to linger too long in one spot, forming stronger bonds than those of teacher and student. On that Day he gave her a harp that he had made in their days together, one that he had made from the wood of fallen trees. And from the first time that she had plucked its chords she realized that in this also, he was a master. Who he was, she had never known. Just that they were two people that for a time had shared music and understanding. And though few true words passed from her to him, they shared their voices and they souls joined together in song, the universal language. When he had given her the harp, he turned and walked up the beach. He sang the song that he was singing on the day she met him, a song that continued in the same place as when he had stopped it days before. But as she listened she heard there was in it, a new element. A tiny bit of joy that she knew had come from her.

Long she traveled when she had left her teacher. She was not quite so alone anymore for there was in the harp, a companion. Her Master had put a life in that Harp, it was almost alive. When she sang she could share all of her life and pain and sorrow and it would come out in the music that she and the harp made. There were those on occasion who heard the far off song. But the ones that heard the singer and the harp were never quite the same. And there were those that heard it that tried to find who it was that sang, but they never could. And the legends of the singer in the woods became entangled with the legends of the people.

So when Olorion told her the story of Maglor and how he wandered, and how he had been one of the greatest of the elven harpers and singers. She knew her heart that her Master and Maglor were one in the same.

She named her Harp Clairsa and they were each of them, the harp and elf, an eternal part of the soul of a long ago elf that walked upon the beach, Locked in sorrow of ages past.

How was it that she could meet two different people and each of them giving her teachings, pieces of a personal puzzle? It was as if even in her solitary world the Valar made sure she would have the teachers that she needed. That she would not ever truly walk alone. 

**TBC