Disclaimer: If I owned The Lord of The Rings, I would be rich. If I had read the books, everything I said would be correct. As it is, youÕll have to make do with this.

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My elders ask me, How can you stand to be among them? Men are animals, worse than animals. They live in their own filth. They stink of death and their touch is corruption. Their women bleed like sows, breed like rats. Treachery is their bread, and greed their wine. Their lives are short, brutish, nasty, and when they are done they are laid in the ground for the worms to feed on.

My elders are wrong.

I have lived many lifetimes of men. Some I have seen born, live, and die, all within a moment's time to my reckoning. To the span of my people their lives are as mayflies, extinguished with a breath of wind.

My people know the length of their years, and live accordingly. Why love today when tomorrow will wait for you, a thousand years if need be? Why fight, when your enemies will perish in time, and their names be erased from history?

We do fight, in our way. In the most Elvish way imaginable. Pick for yourself a scenic hill, a treetop to give you the best view of the landscape. Then, while the battle rages below, you need only let go your arrows, send out your violence to the enemy. And all without getting your hands dirty.

Men do not do this. True, some copy our ways, but the arrow takes too long to learn for most. Men are not patient creatures. Their lives are short, and accordingly their weapons have a short reach. They fight with swords, with clubs, with axes and spears. Down in the dark, they can feel their opponent's heart beating, feel it slow and stop when they are victorious. They know so much more than we ever can, by our cold observations.

Tonight I fight with swords. Tonight I am down there, in the filth, in the muck, down in the blood and heat of the battle. Tonight I feel alive. When I am so close to death, only then will I be immortal. When I am covered in the blood of my friends and enemies, only then will I be clean.

I just need to feel something.