“[While forging,] would the metal of a blade cry out as it is shaped, if it had a tongue? If it could speak, would it understand the transformation it was undergoing, appreciate the lethal beauty of its final form? [He] doubtless meant to break me, and perhaps in the end he would have, if he'd been given enough time. […] Could it be that, far from breaking my mind, he merely succeeded in tempering it? […]
"But you don't see the pattern until all the work is done, after the blade is cooled..." My old life is no more; I have not yet fully emerged into this new one. My painful forging is still incomplete. How will I appear when it is over? Will I glitter like the sword my brother held in his hands? Or is my lost hand a sign that I will not survive my quenching, that I am already irreparably shattered? Useless? I do not yet know. But copper is far more malleable than steel, so I will hope.
I know now what name I wish to bear.”

- Ithilwen