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People ask me, “Why do you work so late?” and it’s exhausting having to lie. But if I say, “So I can sleep late,” they always ask, “Why?” and when I say, “So I do not see the sunrise,” they do not understand.
I have feared the red dawn since the Two Trees swaddled us in their silver-gold radiance. I dreamed of it before I understood darkness. When my youngest was born with that dawn-colored red-gold hair—brighter than Maitimo’s copper, lighter than Minyarussa’s auburn—I knew who he was: Umbarto, the canary in Aulë’s jewel-mine. If that red ate him it would eat them all.
I despise foresight. I tried to swallow down the visions of my sons. There are things you must not say. I should never have let that foul-tasting name fall from my lips. My last baby, my meekest, who grew up in the shadow of a red dawn. I could not gift him the ignorance I granted his brothers.
I don’t remember seeing the red glow of Losgar with my waking eyes, although I know I did. My parents had to take me to Lórien. Irmo was so kind to me that I might have had the heart to forgive the Valar, had they not made the sun.
So, I work at midnight and wake at midday and shut my eyes and my curtains before the sky begins to go grey. It is still Losgar, it is always Losgar, that glows red in the east. I have seen it. I have seen that the flames will not cease until they have claimed all my sons one by one: my last first, and my first last.
I tell people that marble looks best when carved under starlight. Nonsense, of course, but what else can I say?