I have tried to do the research necessary to get this section right. I did most of it with "Tokien Gateway" for it was J. R. R Tolkien who wrote of the events and characters spoken of by the herald first. The herald and specific listeners though are mine, but the people groups and places they are in are, again, J. R. R. Tolkien's. If I get something wrong, please tell me.

Sarnhael Cleuant sat in the clearing and waited. He was not running from this. He would never run from this. He would not turn away, turn his back, and flee from the consequences of his choices.

This was "just." This was what he'd asked for. Maybe the river had taken him to these people for this reason. He would now receive from them what he had not from others he had hurt.

Lathwinn turned her gaze to him. Her expression was uncommonly hard for her. Her eyes pierced, but did not challenge. She was searching not enraged. He did not look away from her search. He was not entirely certain of what she'd see. He was unwilling to hide what she might.

Her face and eyes became gentler. She remained focused on him. Her head soon tilted in thought.

Soon the air itself became harder to breath. Their surroundings lacked the usual bird and insect sounds as well as those of other creatures. Elves pressed close against each other looking like blades of grass forming a lawn. All gazed at Lathwinn and their guest without speaking a word or singing a note. The stranger in white and blue, shone out like a star among those whose own appearances were more like sunlight shining off a glossy leaf.

Celuant flinched as Mîrgolodh was thrown to the ground at his side. Sarnhael closed his eyes and bowed his head. Mîrgolodh … If there was any reason he would have wanted this to remain hidden, it was his well-being. He had been so happy, so free here … No more.

Sarnhael looked up from the trembling elf's form to see who had treated the young gem-lover so. The wildest brother of Lathwinn the Great glared down at the ellon lying before him. Sarnin and Lathwinn strode up to them. The elleth began to point to Ranthalion speaking sharply to him, but Celuant could not hear the words, or rather he could hear, but not understand them. He was busy looking at Mîrgolodh on the ground, meeting his fellow once-Noldo's gaze, as the latter looked back as him with sickness and despair written on his face, shaking. They both knew why this was happening. They both knew their lives as they had been here were over.

Eventually, Lathwinn and Sarnin both strode back toward the center of the clearing and their guest. Lathwinn came to stand beside him, turned her gaze out to her people, and spoke. Both guilty parties, and everyone else, looked to her. Mîrgolodh got up on his hands and knees.

The Great spoke thus, "I have received this guest who gave me word of a new order, a new command given by Thingol himself as to the conduct he demands of those in his kingdom and the reasons behind this new law."

Already, there was muttering. Celuant had come to learn most here, as everywhere in Arda, were enamored with Melian. They loved, praised, and delighted in her. Most here also seemed to love Thingol, her husband. Yet, they felt far removed from him and his commands. He did not often send them orders to follow. One more reason, Celuant would not fight whatever punishment came down from him who'd been King of the brightest kingdom in Arda before he and the other Noldo had come to these shores with blood on their hands.

Lathwinn cut through the muttering she'd let go on a while with a louder voice. "This law did not seem gravely odious or even inconvenient to me, not at least as much as the reasons behind it. We may only speak in Sindarin from now on not the tongue of the elves who came to this land from over the western sea."

Now there were not mutterings, but exclamations. Not speak the high tongue of the high elves, but why? They had not really spoken it much anyway, but it was a pretty language, one influenced by the presence if not direct guidance of the Valar themselves. Why would Thingol ask this of them?

Lathwinn went on her body slumping and hardening, voice lowering and hardening as well, which gained her people's full attention. "The reason is this … the Noldo who sailed across the sea to us, to our land, to Arda did not do so by the Valar's command, or even with their blessing, but with their curse …"

Now voices did rise. Lathwinn paused. Celuant wondered if she had continued speaking if she would have been heard. Voices rose and rose, not in harmony, but in fear and discordance. A shiver went up Celuant's back. He was reminded by it of times beyond the sea when Melkor roamed free there …

A shrill whistle high, bold, and commanding cut through the noise. The elves stopped, blinked, and turned their stare to the one with fingers still to her lips. Lathwinn pulled her hand away from her face and placed both on her hips. Her eyes narrowed and brows drew together. She looked back at her people right before her. Her very presence and air of authority spoke to them all. "We have more to say and it will be said! All will be explained! We must hear it thoroughly that we might understand. We may or may not have more actions to take as a result of this news! There will also be actions we should not to take, but how can we judge well without truth and how might we judge what is true without listening?"

She looked back to the visitor in blue and white. "I will let the herald from Doriath speak to all of you." She motioned him forward with a swinging arm. "Come forward and tell us what Thingol, Melian, and we here to listen, bid thee speak to us, the truth we must now hear."

Even as he knew his doom neared, Sarnhael Celuant stared upon Lathwinn the Great wondering at her fair speech and the hard poise she displayed. He had known the people of this land listened to her and had assumed it was because she was stubborn and well-loved and a great warrior. For the first time, he realized she could put on authority like she could her quiver and knife-sheath. But now another stepped forward to further his own coming doom.

Celuant looked to the herald. The ellon was raising his head while throwing back his shoulders and straightening his back. He spoke with a grave tone. "Let it be known that Galadriel, confident of Queen Melian, and more newly come to these shores with others, who call themselves the Noldo, did admit that certain gems made by one Feonor were stolen from his house at the same time his father Finwe was killed by our shared enemy. Finwe was friends with Thingol our king, also known as Elwe. Both had traveled over the sea to behold the place offered to us and our ancestors by the Valar to live with them in and then did return to speak to and bear witness to these things to us. This same Finwe was murdered by Melkor, who has made war on us. Your own people heeded Thingol's call to arms to fight against this joint foe's forces, and by them your own king was slain. Thus, we did all, together, consider the Noldo under Feonor's arrival a great blessing to us sent by the Valar themselves at the behest of Iluvatar Himself when they joined the fight and drove Melkor Morgoth's forces back. But my kin, it was not so."

The listening elves eyes' widened and forms straightened and stiffened. They began to chatter among themselves. Lathwinn raised and swept her arms out as though cutting through something while scowling at them, and they fell silent again. She looked to the herald and nodded. He looked back out to his audience and continued.

"Let it be known that in response to this murder and theft, Feonor did gather to himself many elves in the west, mostly his father's people, whose place he now took as their king, and against the counsel of the Valar, did lead them to the seashore. There, he had to gain ships to sail after his foe.

The people of Aman did not wish to give their ships to him nor join his journey and rejection of the Valar's counsel being as fond, protective, and proud of their home and their ships as Feonor was of his stolen gems. They could not make their like again. And in response, Feonor did lead certain elves already with him against them and did slay many on their very ships before leaving on the same."

The herald fell silent a moment. Celuant could see without turning his head the response to this. No words. No sound. Just silence. The information seemed to turn the elves who usually sang to stone. Only Lathwinn, her brother, and the elves flanking them had no surprise in their faces, though their heads were bowed, shoulders fallen, and eyes shut. One tear wound down Lathwinn's face. However, a particular note in the song of pain, great, deep, and not blunted by shock, caused Celuant to turn his head and see Sarnin.

She looked up, straight ahead with the gaze of the wounded innocent. Tears rushed from her eyes and wound through the crevices of her pinched face like overflowing rivers through canyons fed swollen by melted snow. Celuant felt his own shock blunt his emotions. He barely noticed as the herald went on.

"This same Feonor and the original attackers were joined later, by others who had been slower to leave their shores and follow him. They also seemed to have slain kin, though were most morose and distressed to learn later the reason for the slaughter. A third group also came when the battle or slaughter was over and thus their hands were clean, but they got aboard ships thus taken from their kin anyway. Part of the journey over the sea, another warned them what would become of them for the things they had done and words of warning they had spurned. At this, the third wave of journeyers returned west, but the other two went on. Yet they were also parted, when Feonor deliberately left those under command of his half-brother Fingolfin behind. They later came to our shores anyway, by way of the ice that lies atop the sea in the north."

The herald bowed his head, and continued, "Our king feels it is not right either to attack or to trust these who have treated our kin, their kin, so. Feonor is now dead due to a battle against his and our foe's forces soon after their arrival here. First his son, and now his half-brother rule there in the north, but other than obeying the rules already stated, Thingol will allow you elves of Ossriand, you Green Elves, to do with this information as you please."

What do you think will happen now?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes