XV

So come one, come all!
Hold hands in joyful reunion! Eat! Drink!


Be merry.


And converge, Elves, around the fell Fire,
as you would in a harvest dance. Prettily.
Close in, close in, set your siege.
How glorious the Noldor are!


to redraw Beleriand with Finwë's bloodlines.


The evil one is cowered, and Day
is come! Ah, princes. Ah, Fingolfin.
The war trump is glorious indeed.


Shall we name you, then,
just to drive home the point
of how many lords
a single family can produce
(and how many times over Morgoth will laugh
at future meetings,
their poison-kissed soirées
of bloodlust and pride)?


Turgon of Nevrast, sea-lover, from whom
shall spring forth the star of the world,
and people like that. Turgon, you who can
bear to be alone. You of the intense eyes,
and immense cleverness.
Your sister Aredhel goes where you go.


Eventually, her ladyship will rule
one square patch of dark garden and a
shadowed child's mind.
Lovely, mannish Aredhel.


Our youngest great lord, sun-like Finrod,
who brooks the enmity of not one sapient creature
in the world, takes his light to the mines.
You finds a jewel for a city.


Now you are Felagund,
Lord of Caves. (A pleasant irrelevance, of course.
Finrod could be Lord of anything he liked.)


Your sister, lithe, golden,
with thoughts like knives, goes visiting, discovering
the family proclivity for kissing cousins
within herself. For Galadriel loves
distant Celeborn, he who learns her speech, and mayhap
her mind. Both, for the most, in secret.


There were once two trees like them.


From the northern slopes of Dorthonion, Angrod and Aegnor
pass the time by looking to the plains
of Ard-Galen, counting heads in their fiefdom,
and falling in love with utterly unsuitable,
argumentative mortal maidens.


One of their sons holds Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard.
His name is Orodreth,
and he is weak.


Eldest great lord, the High King Fingolfin, holds Hithlum
of the hardy, hated by orcs, the fair land of
silence and snow, gem of white brows,
gleaming Hisilómë.


Now, East Beleriand. That
is hunted upon
by five magnificent young warriors,
Amrod, Amras, alike in mood and face,
Celegorm the Hasty in Himlad, aided
all in all by Curufin, called Crafty, though
the gold flows in truth from Thargelion, where dwells
Caranthir, their dark-tempered brother.


The bard Maglor, golden of voice,
sounds the hills alive
from a gap in Gelion's arms,
Maglor, gentlest spirit ever to dwell in the body
of a kinslayer.


Eight princes, two ladies, two great overlords,
yet two remain untold, commanders and princes -
why so?


Simple. For as we speak, Lord Fingon
of Dor-lómin, and Lord Maedhros of mighty Himring,
in a rare moment of irresponsibility,
have forgotten the council, forgotten dinner, forgotten
their very names,


as each reads his fate all over again,
shining in the other's eyes.