Written as a birthday present for Elena Tiriel. March 14, 2005.
The wastes of Araman, icy slopes glittering in our torchlight, are hushed as we forge back. I glance at my wife, breath creating a chilly cloud before her face. Silver-grey braids of hair are bound tightly about her head, and her eyes are grim and distant.
Kin for kin.
An implacable threat.
Blood for blood.
She would have gone after them, with oath of revenge unbreakable.
I pull the cloak tighter, and force my feet to move faster across the jagged ice.
Vengeance will do no good, love. I will not have blood on your hands. Not like my brothers.
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But in that hour Finarfin forsook the march, and turned back, being filled with grief…
~The Silmarillion (Of the Flight of the Noldor)