Dreams are not things to look past, silence is not meant for truths.
Even by the reckoning of the wicked, he was monstrous. His eyes were fires unabated, his maw a bleeding vice, his clouded breath carried the ghosts of a final sigh rent from throats, but above all else, it was his cleverness that set him apart. In life, he hunted for sport and laid terror to the edges of the woodland realm, and slaughtered whole herds, taking no meat or blood. In death, he grew tiresome of cloven creatures and simple beasts and thus, began to learn the tongues of Men and Elves, and recognized their movements.
It did not matter how, or why, he came into being, for whatever means by which such horror was conceived, its will was that of hatred.
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The path was long, arduous, and the very nature of Forochel did not allow concessions for its hardships; move too quickly and risk the cold, or make camp and wager your time against the snowfall. Even for elf-kind, this place made promises of a slow demise.
Annuviel tread the mountains with careful grace, avoiding the trails of Men where she may and costing herself several days by following footpaths hidden amidst the trees. She did not know who first carved these secret roads, but they were old, and moved in ways that the land no longer did. It was for the better, she knew, to remain unseen, as the Snowmen were oft curious and distrustful, and none who now dwelled in their northern camps would remember what laid in the hills as she did.
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The dwarves had worked tirelessly for three days and four nights, their chisels but blunt stubs by the end, and for their diligence they were rewarded with two striking statues carved from the rockface, bearing a likeness to that of the Great Worms. And in the hollow spaces of their eyes were laid gemstones inscribed with runes of warding. Two rubies, two emeralds, endeavors wrought by a master jeweller who had lent his skill to their task. Their purpose imposed a sense of foreboding into their appearance, but Annuviel could not help but look upon them in splendour for their terrible beauty.
In lieu of a door being fashioned, the entrance of the mine had been collapsed, intending to entomb that which lay inside. Annuviel stood with her companions in the biting northern wind, watching until the light was shut away from the cavern, until the dust and snow settled upon the rocks, until she was the last remaining to look upon the guardians and she hoped with a heaviness in her chest, as she finally turned away, that she would forevermore remain the last.
And for near half an age, she was.
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Annuviel stared into the harrowing depths of the mine, an icy gale swirling her hair in a storm of sable wisps across her face, but she did not care to tuck it away. The mine lay open. The watchers stood with their toothed jowls agape and their gazes turned blind, jewelless. Was this the folly of Man? Did they come with picks and shovels seeking treasures beyond their sums? No dwarf would ignore such warnings as were placed here, she had to believe, nor any of her kin.
It was then that a glimmer of crimson caught her eye and there in the snow she saw it, a ruby whose brilliance had not diminished. And then another made itself known, red against the pale bed beneath it, followed by the unearthly veridian of the emeralds that lay strewn and uncovered by the snow that seemed to fall around them, but not upon them.
"No," she muttered into the frigid air, "this was not the work of greed."
