2. Mother Wisdom
Thread uncoils and grows thin as the shuttle sends it out across the warp, gives thought a body. Arwen's voice rises, a thread of another sort, drawing all virtue from darkling strands:
Who am I?
I am that eye of understanding,
mastery that masters not,
I am eye of that revealing
seeing others I am taught
For I am eye that is an other:
making me, the thing is caught.
Thus is cloth formed not to fray nor fade, but that the least of what is made:
"Be grateful, daughter, that songs lie: we never catch the thing desired, but it escapes us, bears an otherness within it," Celebrían had taught, when first she'd permitted Arwen to join her in the winter weaving.
"But why should the songs lie?" Arwen had asked, and Celebrían, gazing critically upon their work, had answered:
"That we might learn that what we make, we must let go, for the sake of another—else we perish in madness, even as does the art of the Enemy."
For the sake of another. Hands tremble, but Arwen casts the shuttle through again:
Seven stars and stones and one white tree
In this making, his eye unmakes me.
This is a work of fan fiction, written because the author has an abiding love for the works of J R R Tolkien. The characters, settings, places, and languages used in this work are the property of the Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Enterprises, and possibly New Line Cinema, except for certain original characters who belong to the author of the said work. The author will not receive any money or other remuneration for presenting the work on this archive site. The work is the intellectual property of the author, is available solely for the enjoyment of Henneth Annûn Story Archive readers, and may not be copied or redistributed by any means without the explicit written consent of the author.
