As Cildorian rounded the last smooth bluff in these distant highlands, his cottage appeared. It was almost magical the way he saw nothing at first, then suddenly the structure emerged into sight. But it wasn't magic, just the craft of elves applied to a careful reading of the natural landscape and an equally careful choosing of their style of construction. Why hide something with song when you could just carefully select a spot where no one from the plains below could easily see the structure? In much the same way, the settlement of Coiameth had been carefully hidden from the eyes of random wanderers set back from the gorgeside and scattered among the hillocks on either side, with only a few narrow bridges, carefully concealed as natural rock formations, to connect each side.

While not exactly a secret, it was better for everyone if the village's location was protected from the eyes of anyone who happened to be walking below. The name was right there in plain sight: Coiameth, the Last Stand. Designed not as a fortress, but a hiding-place, where the careful craft of the elves had been preserved, crafts that had even been forgotten by the elves themselves. Where Eluriand had forgotten, Coiameth had remembered.

One of the arts they remembered here was song, and a different kind of song than the ones traditionally proclaimed by bards. No, this was the song in the air, the song of reality itself. As he opened the cottage door, he could hear the basso continuo of crickets thrumming in the brush, different kinds and orders of the arthropodal chorus singing at different rhythms and tenors and pitches to together create a wordless universal thrum. On top was layered the birdsongs and the calls, punctuated by the occasional cry of a distant panther or the wild yips of a fox.

That song was not just produced by the wildlife. That song was the creak of the door as Cildorian shouldered it open. It was his own heartbeat, his own breath, the sound of apples falling from his fingertips, the lap of water against the ladle as he splashed a bit from his rain-catchment cistern into a deep cooking pot. The song was everywhere and in all things, in the scrape of his knife against the core of the old apples as he carved off the soft spots and broke them down into chunks, the papery rasp of onion skins as he peeled them off and tossed them into a small wooden bin, the tchuk tchuk tchuk as he split carrots into chunks.

And the longer an elf committed to the slow songs that the people of Coiameth listened to, the more he could hear. Tonight, for instance, Cildorian could hear the notes of the breeze wafting down from the cold mountain. He could hear the tongue of the old whipsnake who lived in his cottage rafters as it tasted the air for its next meal. He could hear the sun as it finally dropped below the horizon. He could hear the stars as their chorus of voices came alive.

That was the true glory of this place, this sanctuary of the elves. It was here that those who listened, those who tuned their ears to the living song, could hear most clearly the voices of the stars singing the night into its glory.

He opened up a small wooden box, and a blast of chill came out. A useful trick, that; his friend from Coiameth, an accomplished bard named Lomal, had shown him that trick. The bard had woven a simple song of Ostalin right into a charm in the woodwork. As long as Cildorian recharged the box a few times a week with his own repetition of the song, and took it back to Lomal a few times a year for tune-up, the box would keep a package or two of meat cold enough to resist spoilage. Pulling out about a pound of goat he'd butchered, cubed, and seasoned the week before, sharing the surplus amongst the villagers, he unwrapped the twine from the parcel and tossed it into the pot.

Setting the simple stew to boil with a sprinkle of the precious salt he purchased dearly every time a Kachuck trader was in town, and a few pinches of herbs from his pouch. As each one entered the pot, he could hear their sighing songs create a chorus of new thanksgiving. They were exulting with the glory would now transform in this simmering into a new form and find new purpose in improving and enriching the savory reality known as life itself.

Crossing to a nearby bookshelf, he shifted a simple silver statue of a fox to the side, where it had been holding a few books upright. As they leaned over, he scanned them quickly, selecting a thick volume and pulling it out. He'd read it before, The Collected Songs of Linwë, but it always rewarded a careful re-reading. Pushing the books back up and pressing the fox back in place, he sat down in a sturdy rocking chair near the stoked fire and the stew, and set about to reading.

Around him, the song grew and fell, crackled with the fire, bubbled with the stew, creaked with the wood chair rocking against the cottage floor, as the stars and the night and the world around him sang the nighttime song. As he read, he listened.

It was the only way to learn.