29 Yavië (Anarya)
Sometimes it is difficult to not feel our age, I had said to him. We are not young anymore… I suddenly felt the enormity of the time we have spent accustomed to each other’s company since childhood. I think he understood, because he took my arm as he always does, but as we left Lord Elrond’s library, he turned, and squeezed my hand. “We are not. But you make an old Noldo very happy.”
I think about this all the time, perhaps I am sentimental since my companion has gone into the south for the summer, and whilst he is away I have managed to enjoy the quiet of my archives, late nights eating dinner with Atar under the stars, and knowing that my best friend is doing what he loves most in all the world.
It is a different kind of quiet, that which is not shared with another whose silence has become warmth.
On the next page there is a full-page ink sketch of a tree, and then the next entry begins.
30 Yavië (Isilya)
All summer, as I mention nearly daily, Hir Argollon has been away, in the south wilds of Ithilien, and at study in Minas Tirith. I am happy for him – the way he reverently whispered, eyes sparkling, “they have RARE PLANTS,” made my heart hurt with how very much like this Laechendir has always been and how fond of it I am.
… it is not as though we have not spent time apart. There is something fragile about me of late, and I do not know what it is.
“You make an old Noldo very happy."
Oh, you make me happy, too, Laechendir.
I hope you know.
