A letter delivered by an errand runner in the Last Homely House. The hand which has written this note is both quick and fair, and while the paper is unadorned, it is of good quality.
To the Lady Airesarë Celulinda Manadhlaer of the Order of the Pillar, House Bar-en-Vanimar,
My thanks and regards, firstly, for your taking the time to address this to me - I confess, given the ill terms on which we parted, I had not expected nor desired any further correspondence, and welcome this act of peace on your part.
First, perhaps, it is best to disabuse us both of any lingering uncertainties. Never have I believed that the Fair Folk be soft or weak - indeed, I knew little indeed of your people before coming to the Halls of Lord Elrond. I fear you overheard me speaking of the exceeding fairness of your people with the Lady Hravanis, and were perhaps overly zealous in disabusing me of such notions. But I will return to this. For the moment, it is enough to say that I believe we have nothing more than a misunderstanding. In the past, I have believed the Fair Folk to be many things that I slowly grow ashamed of recalling, but never have I believed “soft” to be among your traits.
For this misunderstanding, and my own ill-judged remarks, I ask pardon, as I asked pardon in the moment also. I am well aware that I yet have much to learn of your folk. And so, as I did some days back, I apologise without reserve once more for causing offence to you.
So, it is so that we have dealt with the Eldar, and I fully and willingly admit deference and respect on this matter. Now we come to courtesy.
I have thought oft of what the nature of courtesy be, over these days. It is a strange question, and one I had little considered before. Yet I think I approach near the truth in my musings now. Courtesy is both meaningless and valueless.
Rules of society, rules of who speaks first and who bows last, rules of when to talk and what to say, all of these are useless and bewildering artifacts of bygone eras. A plate of food has meaning, as does a hunter’s arrow or a healer’s herbs. Courtesy possesses none of these tangible virtues, and as a result, is wholly without worth.
Yet courtesy is not without purpose…if one is able to glean the heart of that purpose. Namely, to make those around us at ease. To show all worthy folk due respect and due servility. To ensure that one’s own presence in company does not lead to discomfort or ill-ease of other good folk.
And so we construct and develop these courtesies, these smallest of niceties. We do so in order that the wisdom of the elders be paid respect, and so the youth will learn regard and empathy. These manners, then, attend and wait upon those who would use them for their true purpose, as a tool - a tool to soothe the minds and gladden the spirits of others.
Now, I doubt not that you be wise and learned both - it cannot be that you are unaware that these courtesies be markedly different from people to people. As a stranger in your familial halls, you could not but be aware that I was a visitor, and likely an unlearned one (though not unwilling to learn). For my part, I admit fault in my address and beliefs, as I did so to your face. For you, then, to brush aside my apologies in order to continue demonstrating whatever point you sought to make, is discourtesy of a high degree. Had I not shown deference and respect, then I would grant your words be just. Yet I did, and in so doing betrayed your own failing to understand true courtesy - the laws and rituals perhaps, but not the essence.
That alone would have been grounds enough for me to seek leave of your company, but nay. You were not content with that. You questioned my understanding of grief, and of toil in sorrow. You could not have insulted me better had you studied my life and all its deeds. Truly, you chose unerringly well.
Think not that I am dispassionate to your griefs, this is not so. But you must allow in turn that others of all the Free Folk have suffered griefs likewise, even the simple Men of Dale-land. You asked me, with great prejudice, whether I have tried to save a friend, my hand red with their heartblood. Nay, I am no healer.
But I have seen horrors - perhaps less than you in your long years, yet if that be so, then it be also so that those horrors be nearer for me, removed by months and years rather than by decades and centuries.
I be not dispassionate to your griefs or the griefs of your people. Yet in speaking so, you showed yourself (to my eye, at least) to be exceedingly dispassionate to mine. To approach a guest so, and to seek some twisted sport with them, to prove that your ills have been great indeed and greater than theirs, speaks ill indeed.
I have written harsh words, as I spoke harshly in the Hall of Fire. Now, perhaps, I will seek to make amends for both, if amends be possible. For the words spoken, I am contrite - I confess, I know not what fey spirit overtook me when I spoke them, the Hall moved me most strongly, and in a manner I do not fully understand. I was wrong, though, to address you so, and to do so in so public a manner.
As for the words written, I offer no apology, and any offered would be hollow indeed! I do, however, offer a hope. A hope that your words and mine, and that your manners and mine, be so deeply sundered as to have caused this unhappy quarrel, rather than through any malice or ill-thought on either part. For my side, I have since met enough of the Fair Folk who speak highly of you, and can but hope that this unhappy business be due to a failure on either part to understand the other.
To this end, I have penned this letter, both in order to lay out rationally my own thoughts and perspectives, and to offer the full hope that understanding may thus be reached. Whether that be so or not, though, I have nothing further to say. I can but hope that my apology be known, and my grievances better comprehended.
At the service of your kin,
Angrinc
