I own only the main characters, not the places, situations, or main villains in this story. Those are all Tolkien's.

Celuant bent over the stone. He sat on the shore of a river that flowed out of the mountains in which he had found plenty of obsidian stones he could fashion into weapons for the people of Ossiriand. The Green elves had stood and stared open-mouthed at him as he explained to them about different kinds of stones, their uses, and the best types for weapon making. He had told them of how obsidian was hard like metal, yet could be fashioned without fire, and came in many colors. He now found the demand for green and brown obsidian taxing. True warriors among them, knowing they'd be fighting almost entirely at night, asked for black. Some who expected to fight in winter were fascinated with the black obsidian with white marks like fat snowflakes seen from far away and had asked for knives made of them. He had attempted to please them all with his efforts. They had been amazed and pleased and had begun to call him by a new name, Sarnhael, for he was Stone wise.

Sarnin had often stood nearby as he gave these lessons and listened. Sometimes, she drew near as he worked by himself and asked if she might have pieces of stone he had found were no good for weapon-making to use in her own projects. Perhaps that was why she was there now.

"Come, ask your questions, lovely elleth. Why do you stand staring at me without speaking?"

The Green elleth came forth but watched his hands at work rather than looked him in the face. Her voice was soft and slow. "Why do you use such lovely stones only to form instruments of death?"

"Because, other instruments of death will soon be used against us not as lovely, but still cruel."

"You do not know that will be so. Perhaps your own people will stop them before they reach us, or the Valar will, or perhaps even the one who created us, will come back and remake the world before the enemy strikes."

Sarnhael huffed deep in his throat but did not reply. She watched him a little while longer before speaking again, "It frightens me, Celuant, your obsession with our enemy and his plans."

Sarnhael looked up and glared at her. "He 'is' your enemy too. Perhaps I am obsessed with protecting you."

Sarnin sat up at that, but then narrowed her eyes as her voice grew harder and her hands clenched her knees. "Are you sure? You stare at stones far more than you look at me, or this wood, or this family."

He stopped, and turned to stare at her indeed, raising an eyebrow. "'This 'family?'"

She crossed her arms and stared back. "Who seeks you out to feed you when you fail to eat as you obsess about your work? Who pulls you from it to look at something in the woods? Who continues to seek after you at all after you have finished making them the weapons they requested from you?"

Celuant finally gave her a soft smile, though he also looked back to and began his work again. "I admit, your niece and nephews trouble me at my work far more often than any other in this wood, particularly Lathwinn. I think her brothers mostly do so at her request, or yours."

Sarnin smiled at him. "And is that not 'family?'"

Celuant kept working in silence as her question lingered in the air. Finally, he replied. "Perhaps that is … 'family.'"

Sarnin stared at him her face going lax with sadness. "You once said 'Your people are my people. I belong to no other people, but yours.'"

Sarnhael lifted the stone he'd chipped away at and blew upon it before replying. "I did."

"Does that include 'family' too?"

He nodded as he lowered the stone again and lifted his tool to chip at it again. "It does."

"Then why don't you treat us like family, Celuant?"

The ellon sighed. He stilled his hands, looked up, and stared at her his eyes wide and face long. "I … once … belonged to another family. I loved them with everything I had. We joked together, talked together, worked together, much as the members of yours do together, but they betrayed me. My heart is too raw to draw near to those things again."

Sarnin winced. Celuant went on. "I can no longer … stand … to behave like a family member, even with the members of yours, because doing so, reminds me of those in my old one …"

Sarnin's eyes went wide and her mouth opened slightly. "Even when everything else is so different? Your old home was nothing like this." Sarnin tilted her head and raised her arm to gesture at the wood.

Celuant smiled at her. "This wood is not so different from my home city, or even from Valinor as it may first seem. True the Valar are seldom here, but this is still elvish country! It is still elvish air, sweetened as such that I breath in here, elvish light helping me see, and the clear and bright waters I drink are from springs guarded by my people. If anything, your trees and beasts are better off than those in the city my friend helped build. I am at home."

. . .

Erestor moved slightly. He had been lying in perfect, still repose as he listened to the story until that moment. He pulled Mellolaes mind from the tale she weaved as he spoke. The elleth looked up into narrowed eyes and listened to a slightly raspy and tight voice ask, "What … what was that last line?"

Mellolaes blinked. "'I am at home?'"

"No." He shook his head. "The one before that."

Mellolaes blinked and thought back. "'If anything … your trees and beasts are better off than those in the city my friend helped build.'"

Erestor remained propped up on an elbow as he stared at her. His voice grew stronger, yet tighter still, like a pulled bowstring. "You are certain of those final nine words belonging to you story?"

Mellolaes thought for a moment. "Yes. I believe so."

Erestor dropped back into the pillows. "Fascinating."

Mellolaes sat up and stared at him a moment. Thinking of his rasping voice she asked. "Would you like me to hand you your water goblet before I continue?"

He raised and waved a hand. "No, no go on."

Mellolaes lowered her brows and huffed a sigh, but continued.

. . .

Sarnin stared at Sarnhael. He stared back. As his words praising her land homeland sunk in, the lines of her form relaxed. She gave a soft smile. He smiled back.

Celuant believed he had not seen her so happy since his sparring matches with one of her nephews and then her niece. If fact, Sanin looked happier than she had since that first day he'd wandered her land and decided to live.

He looked away. His eyes focused on his work again, but he spoke to her ears. "Anyway, now every member of your family has a knife good enough to meet the metal of any of Morgoth's orcs."

"Thank you for mine, by the way."

"I could not have you be the only one unarmed." Still, he nodded in acceptance of her thanks.

She smiled again and continued in an even softer, sweeter tone. "It was very beautiful work."

He smiled slightly again. "I thought you would enjoy it so."

She nodded. "I did."

Sarnin then rose from her seat on a boulder and approached him even as he continued working. She bent and picked up a shard of obsidian near him. "Is this one big enough to make a blade of?"

He shook his head, "No, you may have it for your own work if you wish."

"Thank you." Sarnin settled herself right next to him and began to rub at the rock. Celuant glanced over at her hands but did not stop nor move his own work away from hers."

She rubbed at the stone until the hour of night the stars shine brightest before the sun rises enough to dim their light. He looked up at her, when he heard her hands stop. His gaze fixed on what she held.

It was a pendent. One hand left it to pull out a string of woven, elven hair from her dress. She moved it through a hole drilled into the stone. "Here." She held it out on the string to him while staring into his eyes. "This is our hair, Lastanann's, Ranthalion's, Lathwinn's, Melarbeth's, Manpalan's, and mine. A shining, polished stone such as you use in your work now hangs from it. Wear it and think of my family and you together here in this wood you love now too."

She put the string over his head. Instead of fighting it, Sarnhael bowed his head to help her. She touched the pendant after it came to rest over his chest. "This is to remind you, wherever you end up going, that you belong here with us, Sarnhael Celuant …"

He looked up at her. Their gazes met. There faces not a hand-span apart. He did not kiss her, but neither did he look away from her gaze nor she his until the sun had risen high in the sky.

. . .

Some days after, Sarnhael continued his work on the bank of the river while wearing his new pendant. Then a sound tore through his soul. His hands stilled. He rose from where he knelt. The cry broke over the woods again. He gazed in its direction with an open mouth.

He turned to look at the place he knew Melarbeth was watching him work from in the cover of branches. There was always a member of his new family watching him work as if they feared for him still. He was usually somewhat annoyed and somewhat amused by this. Now he was glad. They always hid out of his view, but he always knew where they were and who it was.

He now demanded of the younger ellon, "What is that frightful sound?!"

Melarbeth leaned out into view from the tree branch he squatted on and stared in the direction the cry had come from. He replied without hesitation. "It is one of your people. One has wandered into our woods yet again."

Celuant, also known now as Sarnhael, allowed his mouth to fall open before he thought enough to close it. "One of my people … Again?"

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes