Daegond

The note is scrawled in an unusually shaky hand.

My lord,

I have paid this courier a great deal of money to find you, and I hope he does. Lord Tindir is away, and the matter before us is urgent to a degree I felt you must know.

Lothilind of the Pillar, who had become an apprentice at the Houses of Healing, has been murdered in the Vale. We discovered her poor hröa under a bush, downhill from the Markets of Imladris.

Besides the obvious security implications, these things should be known:

Everything about the choice of parchment -- not paper -- for this letter, the unfailing perfection of the calligraphy, and the signet of the Order of the Pillar is presented with ballgown formality.

Angrinc
Guest Quarters, Imladris

My most esteemed mortal comrade:

I see the last black swan
Fly past the sun
I wish I, too, were gone
Back home again

Dear Diary,

I pressed the key to Themodir's house into the wide hand of a very surprised Dwarf fellow named Grunngi. In the course of events, it was decided that we would bring Grunngi back with us from Hrimbarg, for no good could come of the miserable life he was leading there with his perpetually angry cousin. (Some mystery surrounds the cousin, as it does everything lately.)

Diary, it is ridiculous.

Any other order that lost people in such a careless and rapid manner would be disbanded. Himwen at least keeps a tight rein on her soldiers of the Fountain, even if she yells at them a bit much. (Poor Nandutiriel! She probably saved Elloen's life, albeit in a grossly roundabout manner.)

But two Hammerites in five years only -- five turns of the seasons. To face each dawn without my only love is one difficulty, but to face summer this year without Daegond eating my flowers -- that was simply too much on top of the other loss.

Dear Diary,

Yes, yes, it is late. It is one of those white nights. Norlië's cat Eli is making some very odd and unpleasant noises at me because I am not reclining on my bed. I have had some lengthy conversations with that cat. Of course, the chief topic is Norliriel herself. I told Eli that I miss her too, that she will be back when she has finished her business, and I am sure that to buy back her cat's favour, she will bring some sort of fish. Maybe salted, as the traveller prepares it, but fish.

Dear Diary,

Well, it is all done. Daegond of Gondolin lies in a cairn alongside his oath-brother, my husband -- I took a stone from Themodir's to put on Daegond's. No more will he break furniture in what he called the "Hall of Lies." No more will he sniff new recruits to make sure they are sufficiently respecting me. May Lord Namo give him at least the mercy of forgetting all he saw, heard, smelled at the sack of the White City.

Tolmen straightened his ancient styled robe with a critical eye, it would be busy in the hall with many a comrade and mourner to give the hammer hound a good send off. Not that Tolmen had ever met the quendë but he felt he should pay his respects also. Picking up a woven sack as he was leaving his lodging he limped down the road cursing the newish and unworn boots he had bought at the market.

The Captain of the Arrow stood alone before Daegond's fresh cairn, after night had fallen and there was only the silver light of the stars and the rustle of the wind in the valley of Imladris. Unable to bear the crowds, she had watched the ceremony silently from atop a tree, hidden from all sight amidst the branches.

How do you say farewell to an adversary? How do you come to terms with the fact that an enemy has journeyed on to the next life? Sadness and sorrow for the loss of a life? Rejoicing that your own life is now safe and free from further ache and torment? Would you feel nothing?