Later, many ages later, he held again the stone he’d etched with golden flowers so long ago. It was marred now: there were still red jewels and white ones glittering, but few of them had come from that beach at Alqualondë. He turned it over carefully in his hands. Here was one: the gleam was unmistakable. Someone had repaired the flowers with a metal that was not silver, for all its silver sheen.

“These scratches...” he said. “I could smooth –”

“No.”

“It could be good as new.”

His son shook his head. “You can’t smooth the past away,” he said.