Order of the Pillar

Manadhlaer sighed, not for the first time that day, or that hour. She dipped her quill and made another attempt:

It has been widely known since the Elder Days that the sap of an unopened poppy...

Instantly she stopped and put a line through her words. "If it has been widely known," she said aloud, "why write it at all?" One of her delicate silken slippers, as light as an Elfling's first breath, had already gone. She kicked the other against the far wall of her office and began again.

A letter arrives at the desk of the Lady of the Pillar [*], written in Doriathren of old. The flowing Tengwar handwriting of Ealendil is quite distinguishable.

With the letter follows a small package containing score sheets carefully tied together with golden ribbons [**].

To the Lady of the Pillar

Dear Lady Manadhlaer

It was a few of days after Vanimar’s meeting at the Pillar, a meeting that saw Lady Manadhlaer bestowed with the responsibility and office of Lady of the Pillar, an order no longer leadership. It had been heart-warming to see Manadhaler, humble and almost moved to tears, receive the insignia of her new office from the Lady Ambassador Tingruviel, acting upon Lord Anglachelm’s directive. Ealendil felt so proud and happy for her friend.

The weather was turning colder outside. As the door to her office slowly shut, the chill breeze weezled its way inside, perhaps to find warmth where there was little. Though the crackling fire had just been restoked by one of the servants of the house, the house of the Pillar seemed to keep its inhabitants fresh. Tingruviel insisted that she should do it herself, but the attempt had been refuted by Sorontar. A lady and an ambassador tending to her own fire? Unheard of, he had said.