Okay, I know my time-line is all messed up, and things are occurring out of order. Bear with me anyway and follow the tale if you can, for it is really more of a musing on the events of the First Age rather than a chronology. Forgive the license that I taken and enjoy this chapter.

Chapter Four, Durin's Forge

Days past as the work continued. Now that the forging of the metal was complete, Celebrimbor was permitted to assist the Dwarf-smith Durin as he wrought the rings that were to be woven. I was not allowed in the workroom, being both a strange elf and unskilled. I remained in the chamber alone with my thoughts. I wondered how much longer it would take for this article to be made, and how many more cycles of the moon would pass before I saw my Lord again.

Celebrimbor left occasionally to fetch supplies and news from Nargothrond, and so it was one day when he was away, I heard bellowing from down the tunnel that was out of my bounds. Durin was calling roughly for Celebrimbor's aid, and he not being on hand I crept down the tunnel to answer.

Heat and light blasted my face, and my eyes shrank from the sight of glowing coils of thick metal, hotter than coals, that cooled slowly into a thin spiral of metal. A fire burned in the forge that seemed to be filled with angry elements, spitting ash and sparks at the cursing dwarf that toiled nearby.

Durin looked at me with an unfriendly eye as always, but instead of chasing me away, he pointed to the bellows pump that stood idle. "Blasted fire's cooling! Get ye over there and man that pump! How am I to work in these conditions? You want a working of art, but I am given nothing to work with. Foolishness and folly!"

I hasten to lend a hand, and lifted and lowered the pump heartily to his direction. The heat increased and I felt as though I were baking like a lump of bread. Durin ignored the heat as if he could not feel it.

Finally he shouted for me to cease, then filled my hands with a strange tool like a rough knife. I was set to smoothing the edges of a mountain of tiny metal rings like polished silver. I did as he instructed, and the pile of rings melted away for as I completed each, he wove it into the garment of steel he was making.

Even half complete it was a thing of beauty. Each ring was not bigger around than the tip of my smallest finger, and so closely woven were they that not even a shaft of an arrow could pierce or thread the web. It shone like the surface of a windy lake in the bright sun, like a field of stars in a morning sky, impossibly fair and no heavier than silk. When my eyes came to linger on it, Durin shouted and turned me back to my task, but he was grinning when he thought I was not looking at him.

"No pearls," he grumbled, pawing through a box of precious stones and gems that sat on his worktable. "It ought to be wrought with pearl, like those that you lot brought back from the West." To Durin the Fatherless, every elf was from Valinor and the argument that I had never seen the Fair Shores drifted past his ears unheard. "Diamonds will have to do, but it should be pearl. Curse this shambles of a workplace! I need decent materials!"

He worked carefully, now not even noticing my attention. Beneath his hands the shirt grew, and he attached gems of white light and faceted stones that threw all colours like a fountain. My heart was gladdened that Eärendil would wear so fine a thing, but also my face darkened as other thoughts assailed me. It must be coming soon, this time that Idril feared, when her son would need protection that none could give. A thin barrier, however beautiful and seeming magic, between a young man with a destiny and an arrow or a sword.

Now time pressed upon me, as days past and Celebrimbor did not return. Durin prepared a food he called 'earth-bread' in the cooler corner of his forge, and it sustained us for all it was rather bland. I preferred eating the raw root, but he took the tuber from me and baked it, calling me a savage minx.

At last noise of Celebrimbor returning came, but it was an alarm to hear his running feet, normally silent as a whisper. He came into the chamber and his face was white as though he were but a ghost.

I leapt to my feet wondering if he was well, but he cried out his message all in a sob, "Nargothrond is no more! Orodreth is slain and a Dragon sits on the fortress of Felegund!" He covered his face and wept.

And so my wroth for that people did flow away to nothing, and my heart was bent, remembering the fair delving of Finrod. The time for fear had arrived.

Celebrimbor, smith of Nargothrond, and Durin the Fatherless flee the ruins of the fortress of Finrod with the precious mithril coat that Idril has asked to be made for her son. Morgoth wreaks havoc about the lands that was once fair Taur-en-Faroth as the Dark Elf helps her friends to escape the net that Turin led Orodreth into.