#yes I can't make up my mind between Vaire's stuff being woven (canon) or knitted/crochet (I like it more but hard to draw)

[eri-pl]

Silm Advent Calendar 3: the Wise

"This I cannot tell thee."

Why? Finrod shouldn't have asked, but here — where thinking and asking were the same — he could not help it. He'd lost so many friends, Mannish friends (mostly not even at his own fault, surprisingly) and all what Andreth had told him was so comforting, it fit so well, it did feel like truth, and yet, to have a clear answer, even a small bit of it—

"Tis not a knowledge meant for the Eldar," said Lord Námo.

But why? Because it did not concern them? And yet it did. There was more time until it would matter, but it would. He knew so little. They all knew so little, despite the tomes of philosophy that had been written during the Long Peace, despite having learned from the Valar, despite calling themselves "the Wise" they knew so very little about anything that would matter in the end.

Even on the small scale… Lord Námo had told him that Beren survived. But what about his quest?

"Their quest. They shall go together from now on."

But Lúthien— childish, laughing, precious Lúthien, who had danced in the forest, and tumbled down the hills! Will she— Can she— How terrible shall it be?

"Thou asketh many questions. But this one I can answer. They shall win the Silmaril, and Elu Thingol shall receive his price and his doom."

Doom. So the sons of Feanor would slay them all in the end? Finrod's brave friend, his sweet cousin—an impossible victory only to perish because of it?

"See, this is the trouble with giving you answers. They only lead to more questions. Not by the sons of Feanor shall they perish, but perish they shall indeed. And what comes after—this I do not know." There was a hint of satisfaction in Lord Námo's words.

Finrod should feel sorry for having so many questions, or at least uneasy for frustrating a Vala. And yet, he could not help but pity the poor, sweet Lúthien, who often used to say so many words with so little thought, and yet it would not be true to call her less wise than any of the Noldor. It was simply a different kind of wisdom. Loving every flower, wishing to catch a star and wear it—

The wave of Lord Námo's attention—his thoughts touching Finrod's in common wonder—was bright, but not painful. Everything was silent—a silence of minds pondering half-understood premonitions that can't be yet put to words.

A memory of Lúthien wishing to see world's most beautiful treasure, to catch a star and wear it as a trinket—And she would.

Time passed in strange currents unlike in the lands of the living, and on the edges of Finrod's attention, tapestries grew.

Lúthien wishing to have a love as great as her parent's but somehow greater, a love that songs would be sang about—And she had.

The tapestries became tangled and strange.

No, not tangled. Interwoven with others, and pins of silver and gold kept from unraveling the loops that waited to connect to events yet unwoven.

Lúthien wishing to find something beyond what even her mother could deram of—

Unsaid, half-understood like a Mannish dream and yet more like a waking world seen from within a dream—

Finrod wished that he had eyes so that they could be wet with tears. He wished that his voice could tremble and he would say that (after he had this moment now, after he'd seen Lord Námo (surprised?) listening to him—to him!) he would not question why Men are given (fragments, shadows, tangled threads of) an answer and the Elves nothing.

There was beauty in that, even if lined with sadness.

But he was dead and there was no voice to break, no eyes to tear up. All his thoughts were bare, and many of them did not make him as wise as names would have it.

"Still, you are much less of a fool than most of the wise. But I must go now." Lord Námo did not have Finrod's limitations, and his voice—mind or not—trembled. "She is here, seeking to say farewells to her love."