Back to Middle-earth Month

B2MeM Challenge: O72, Occupations, cook; B10: Colors, sky-blue; B10/I22: Botany, rowan, barley; I21/N31/O65 Tolkien's Trees, oak, pine, and chestnut; I18, Artifacts and Weapons, palantír; I22, Colors, lavender.
Format: Novella; currently 2 chapters out of potentially 8 or thereabouts.
Genre: General, i.e., drama leavened with humo(u)r mixed with scientifiction (hopefully not ham-handed)
Rating: Adult (soft-R at most; erring on the side of caution)
Warnings: Expletive Language, Mature Themes, Sexual Content--Moderate; Alternative History (familiarity of the Pandë!verse helpful, not strictly necessary); OFC-centric.
Characters: Celeborn, Celebrimbor, Dwarves, Elrond, Erestor, Galadriel, Glorfindel, Original Characters, Sauron (characters in italics will appear in forthcoming chapters).
Pairings: A nice Chianti with fava beans. In other words, I don't go in for classification of my ficcery by "pairings."
Summary: When the Istyari of Second Age Ost-in-Edhil deny a young master smith a place in an important — and guarded — new initiative to be taken up by the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, she struggles to make her mark in the man's realm of the forges. An opportunity arrives when the smith is offered a commission that will present challenges of both the mind and heart.

Link to the story on the Silmarillion Writers' Guild

And just for fun, here's a relevant to the story (yes, relevant!) selection (one of my favorites) from The Symphony of Science. Hint: "Featuring Morgan Freeman, Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, Brian Cox, Richard Feynman, and Frank Close." ;^)