Title: What Office This
Fandom: Silmarillion, Original
Rating: G
Length: 115
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zana, Morgynleri & Icka for encouragement & sanity-checking.
Summary: A Sonnet



What office this, that stern makes you, and proud
Robed dark and solemn, hair and beard and hands
Arrayed and bound in metal, yet unbowed
Nor standing less than would a king of lands
Free of all taint of darkness, void or blight;
No crown adorns your brow, no scepter long
But stave of carven silver, catching light
Supports your steps, here solemn, slow and strong?
Unlooked-for kingship, weighing mien and mind
Or bearer of the will of one on high?
I cannot tell, so still your face: benign?
Masking sorrow? Or wishing I would fly
    From fate that duty dire bids you bring
    To bear on me, for that I hold your ring