In me thou seest the Twilight by maglor-my-beloved  

Tinúviel, Tinúviel…

Arwen knows. Knows that she looks just like her ancestress, fair Lúthien, beloved Lúthien, tragic, tragic Lúthien…

Arwen does not think herself particularly fair. She certainly does not think herself tragic. She wonders if Lúthien thought herself any of those things.

She wonders many things. Imladris’ libraries, for once, provide no answers. She asks those few among the valley’s people who lived in Doriath of old, hoping to learn from them more than fairy-tales and sickly-sweet love stories, and again she is disappointed.

She knows that Tinúviel was the fairest maiden among all the children of Illúvatar, that her hair was dark as shadow and her eyes grey as evening, that flowers grew when she danced and birds sang when she laughed, that she looked just like her…

She still knows nothing at all about Lúthien.

She turns to seeking answers in the mirror instead, studies her reflection in the still pools of Imladris, traces the features of her face with forge-calloused fingers, seeks constellations in the stars glimmering in her hair, tries to find Lúthien within herself, find that living, breathing girl there whom history seems to have lost amidst the hemlock and the nightingale-song.

She never finds what she seeks, and she does not think on it for many, many years.

She does not think on it until a cold, grey winter day in Lórien, and there, as she lies down upon the hill where she had long ago made her choice, though answers still elude her, the sweet scent of niphredil is a comfort to her.

The first time Arwen picks up a hammer, before she can even pronounce the word smith, she knows that she has found her craft. Pride and warmth light up her father’s face as she beams at him, brandishing the lightweight toy hammer she later learns had been a gift from Celebrimbor to her mother, and she does not see the troubled look that has come into Glorfindel’s eyes.

It is only much later that she sees it, and later still that she understands what it is that troubles him so.

“You remind me of someone I knew long ago,” he had told her, when she’d asked. “A smith by the name of Maeglin, though his mother called him Lómion. He…” here he had faltered. “He did something bad. Something that… caused much harm, to many people.”

“Why did he do that?” she had asked, and Glorfindel had only smiled sadly.

“I have been asking myself that question for a long time, little star.”

More years still pass before she learns the full tale of Maeglin Lómion, and she finds her thoughts return to him again and again without quite knowing why.

Is it because of his name, so nearly like hers? Because he, too, was a smith in a hidden valley? Because she looks like him, according to Glorfindel?

She isn’t sure. She never finds the answer to her question either, why did he do that?

Somehow she cannot bring herself to believe that he was evil.

She thinks of him when she forges Narsil into Anduril, her hammer falling in steady, even strokes, and hopes that, wherever he may be now, he has found peace.

Cousin,

I write this letter long before you are born; I will be dead long before you read it. Still I could not help but reach out to you across the centuries that lie between us, and extend you my fondest greetings.

I know you only a little yet, and only through dreams of foresight; but I know, though I am not certain how, that one day we will meet in truth, and then you can tell me all about yourself.

I think we will find that we have much in common.

For now, be happy, Undómiel! What time is given to you, use it well!

From the morning star of Men to the evenstar of Elves, boundless love and farewell, until we meet at last!

Your cousin,
Tindómiel

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