𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐍𝐄𝐓𝐇: 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 ( lotr. )

Chapter Seven - The Mines of Moria

"NIGHT WAS THE HOUR OF THE WOLF..."

✧ ☫ ✧

THE NEXT MORNING, snow was lying all around them, though not so high as to block their way. Slowly, the Sun wandered across the sky. They travelled southward fast, through Eregion over steppe and prairie reaching Durin's Vale a few hours before sunset. Close to the Walls of Moria, Gandalf called Frodo to him under the pretence of needing help as he was old. Arina exchanged a look with Aragorn. Was it about the Ring? By nightfall they beheld the west-gate of Moria, its great walls carved from the slopes of the Misty Mountains. Gimli seemed to be at a loss for words when he finally them, the entrance to the mines his people had abandoned long ago because of a monster, Durin's Bane.

"The Walls of Moria." The dwarf's voice was hoarse with admiration as he pointed at the walls.

When she looked up, Arina saw a wall of stone, grey in the weak light of the Moon. As they walked further, they were informed about dwarf doors.

"Dwarf doors are invisible when closed."

"Yes Gimli, their own masters cannot find them if their secret is forgotten," Gandalf conceded.

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

Arina gave a quiet snort at Legolas' comment. Gimli retorted with a growl, causing her to roll her eyes at the typical banter between elves and dwarves. This feud would never end, despite the friendships between elves and dwarves that sometimes occurred, even had been established in this very place before Sauron had lain waste to Eregion. Soon, they reached a muddy lake with black water and algae on its shores. In front of her and Aragorn, Frodo slipped in the water.

"Careful," she warned him, not wishing to disturb the water, while they followed Gandalf to wherever he was heading. Not long after it became clear that there had to be some kind of door as there were two trees, though dead, on either side of where Gandalf now stopped. Squinting, Arina thought she could faintly see some traces of outlines on the bare grey rock, but it couldn't be if dwarf doors were truly invisible when closed.

"Well...let's see...Ithildin," Mithrandir murmured while brushing his hand against the stone. "It mirrors only starlight...and moonlight." He turned around where the clouds had clouded the moon but now shifted.

And indeed, a door shimmering with the mirrored light of the Moon appeared on the stone, with several emblems and with white shimmering runes appeared, glowing in the dark. No, not runes. Tengwar. Fëanorian characters in the mode of Beleriand that had been taken by the waves after the War of Wrath. Arina stepped closer to read them, noticing that whoever had inscribed them had used Sindarin mode.

Ennyn Durin Aran Moria: pedo mellon a minno. Im Narvi hain echant: Celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin. The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria: speak, friend, and enter. I, Narvi made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs.

Celebrimbor, son of Curufin the Crafty, most like his father out of the seven sons Nerdanel had given him. Celebrimbor, the lord of Eregion who had fallen when it was laid waste. The Fëanorians had always been a little too eager for knowledge.

"Durin's Emblem!" Gimli recognised the hammer and anvil underneath a crown with seven stars that shone beneath the Tengwar at the top of the Doors.

"And there is the Tree of the High Elves!" Legolas cried out, referring to the two trees wrapped around the pillars that made out the border of the Door. The trees that had stood in Tirion upon Tuna, she assumed.
Most prominently than all else shone an eight-pointed star in the centre of the door. Arina's breath hitched when she recognised it. The Star of the House of Fëanor, the Line of the Dispossessed, shone above the ando near the bottom of Durin's Doors. Celebrimbor had made these doors and she had had a foreshadowing feeling that they would come across Fëanorian material here, yet it still took her by surprise.