Míriel was back at the palace again after less than twenty Days, carrying a piece of embroidery, about three feet square, rolled up and wrapped in a cloth, under her arm. It depicted the Two Trees.

"Entirely my own work, lord!"

"I'm sure it is," Finwë said earnestly. "I suppose you want me to buy this too, do you?"

Míriel did not directly answer the question. Instead, she said this:

"What a comfortable room you have here, my king!"

"I find it answers my purposes."

"Don't you think it would be even more comfortable if you were to commission me to adorn it with embroideries?"

"Would it really?"

"Oh, yes! After that I could branch out into the atrium. You have such a lovely big atrium here, with that beautiful mosaic floor. I'm sure I could design some embroideries with matching themes. Matching the themes of the mosaic, I mean. And then of course there are all the other rooms - 144, isn't it?"

"Oh, ah?" Finwë managed. He was hypnotised by the spectacle of the girl's glowing eyes and rapid speech. She was not thinking of pecuniary gain: that he could see. Here was a craftswoman - no, an artist - who lived for her work. Even on her first visit, she must have seen the walls of his palace as a blank canvas to be filled. Perhaps that was what all walls were to her.

Finwë appreciated this little woman's remarkable gift the more as a craftsman himself. Rather than an embroiderer, he was a maker and an arranger of words. He did not see words in quite the same way as later rhetoricians. They were a solid reality to him. He had personally invented very many now in common use; but this was only the beginning. The world was a place of near-limitless potential. Finwë could imagine no end to the things in need of names, or to his delight in the exercise of this power.

"Well? What do you think?" she said.

He laughed.

"How could I refuse?"

Finwë celebrated the birth of this arrangement by inviting Míriel to take a glass of wine with him a few Days later. He also invited his neighbours of the House of Ingwë:

"What a lovely opportunity for you to meet someone of your own age, dear!" Ingië cried when she received the invitation.

This was one of her more infuriating obsessions. As a child on the Great March, Indis had learned from Ingwë how to think like an adult, that is rationally. Naturally, she did not mix well with other children, most of whom, even among the Vanyar, had been carefully shielded from rational thinking by their loving parents. She was perfectly content and fulfilled in the company of adults. It was only Ingië who yearned to place her among the heavy breathers and slow thinkers.

It was something of a relief to Indis when Míriel turned out to be late. It meant that she could sit quietly and watch Finwë, untroubled by the overtures of some strange girl with whom she was expected to be friendly, merely because, by a pure chronological accident, they happened to be of a similar age. At least Finwë did not patronise her. He rarely showed any signs of being conscious of her existence; but when he did, he never treated her like a toddler.

When Míriel eventually came, she did not apologise for her lateness. (Finwë had learned better than to expect anything of the sort.) She only went over and sat down on the empty chair beside Indis.

"Hello," she said. "Do you like embroidery?"