Challenge:  Written for the Livejournal Lotr_Community challenge “Waiting”.

ONE SHINING MOMENT

He had wished only to use his skill to help his people; to craft a means for them to preserve what they had, and enhance what they made. But by the time his Great Work was at last complete, it was too late. There could be only furtive use, power carefully shrouded, secret, and hidden, a small fraction of what could have been. Through life and death and life again he had come, waiting, hoping, wondering if all he had wrought would fade and be forgotten before ever his vision could blaze forth unsullied and unShadowed.

One day, called by he knew not what impulse, he felt an urge to climb the highest hill atop the Lonely Isle. He gazed eastward, wondering what had called him out from his humble workshop. Then from over the Sea he felt it, a rushing, buoyant pulse of brilliant colors and unlimited potential. He cried out in exultation, pierced by bright Music and searing joy. Celebrimbor fell to his knees, his head bowed in gladness that the Three had at last been freed from the watchful Shadow. They had reached out and found one another, and had found him, and as one, they sang.