Act I, Part XIII: The Sting of Mortality
For near to fifty years, Tinnurion wandered throughout Eriador, never staying anywhere for long. But still a great love he harboured for the Dwarven realms of Nogrod and Belegost, and often he would travel there and was greeted as an honoured guest. And such numerous friends he made in those wide halls, bringing them gifts and praising their work above all else, that his name became known to them, and they called him Naugrimdil. But in his counsel towards their relations with the Noldor he was not heeded, for full of hate and jealousy it was.
It was in these days that Tinnurion, having made such friends among the Dwarves, learned the sting of mortality. For often he had heard that Dwarves were of short life-span, but he had never begun to understand, nor wholly believe that they just ceased to be. Therefore, one day upon one of his visits to their halls, he sought for one of his friends (whose true name I will not divulge here but who I shall name Bári), but he could not find him. When he asked the Dwarves after Bári, they hid their faces in their beards and wept and Tinnurion was none the wiser. When at last they had overcome their grief they told him Bári had been laid to eternal rest alongside his fathers, and compassion gripped Tinnurion's heart, though he did not know why.
'What has befallen him?' , he asked them. To which the Dwarves replied:
'Death came some time during the night.'
Though their answer puzzled him greatly, Tinnurion saw the tomb they had built for Bári and he asked once more:
'Why would death come to one unbid if not by blade or dart forced therein? I say, I do not understand. Why should some linger to see that others do not? What vile design this is.'
And then the Dwarves said:
'Vile it may appear to you, Naugrimdil, but to us it is the way of the world. So it was with our fathers and their fathers before them and so it shall ever be. Its design lies secret even to us and none here possess the skill to make it anew, though we would if we could.'
And to those words Tinnurion wept and he stood before the tomb of Bári for many days, lamenting his passing. And none of the friends he would lose in his long life burdened him so as the death of Bári.
