Tokens
Still deliberating Elrond's tale of bloodlines and kingdoms, he rises in the night to look again at those things with which he has been gifted.
These are the appointed tokens of his manhood. He sees a shattered blade that should have been taken for its metal long since. A ring that remembers an alliance of dead men. A claim to a throne already occupied, passed from father to son like some useless curio: a bankrupt coat of arms, an empty sheath.
He wonders if such antiquities will ever gain new meaning, and senses that it will only be in violence.