Gower:
        The hour nighs, of this our task
        its ending -- and of ye we ask
        but thy patience, lending, till 'tis done --
        --Then to say, if we have won
        or, overbold, must make redress
        that have so forwardly transgressed
        and in this glassy square presumed
        to bound, as 'twere the Ring of Doom,
        the very gods--
                         With eagles' wing
        outmatching falcons royal, venturing
        our fancy's flight doth mount on high
        to pass the bord'ring sea, and sky,
        and withal Time -- for naught of wealth
        nor fame, nor glory, nor by stealth,
        nor war to grasp at deathlessness,
        seeking but mercy's sweet largesse
        we dare the holy shores of Westernesse--
 

    [Note: There are two settings -- this Hall, and elsewhere. Most of the action
    takes place here.]

    [A cozy family room in Aman, even if it is rather vast and all carved stone and
    tall ceilings, decorated in soothing shades of grey with discreet silver-white
    concealed lighting. There is a fountain at one side which is of the kind that
    is a sheet of water running down a shallow wide channel in the wall, almost
    invisible and inaudible, to silently fill a wide, shallow, rectangular basin
    the border of which is almost flush level with the floor.

    [Most of another wall is taken up by an enormous structure that somewhat resembles
    a harness loom, and somewhat resembles a system of barrel vaulting, and mostly
    resembles something built out of raw cosmic energy, and betrays a long history
    of tinkering and loving use. At the moment its main central section is alive
    with an expanse of shimmering light.  A majority of the Powers are seated
    around it watching in rapt attention.]

    [Tulkas (who might be played by Massimo Serato from El Cid, and sundry Italian
    swashbucklers and sword-&-sandal epics) leaps to his feet]

Tulkas: [roaring]
        NO!!! IT CAN'T END THIS WAY!!! THAT'S JUST WRONG!!! THAT'S NOT HOW THE STORY'S
        SUPPOSED TO END!!!

    [The rest of the Powers wince at the volume of his outrage. Across from him Orome
    is watching with a sardonically critical expression, his arms folded, leaning
    slouched way back in his chair with his ankles crossed. Lawrence Olivier from Hamlet
    (or possibly equally Kirk Douglas from Spartacus) might stand in for the Lord
    of the Wild Hunt]

Orome: [bitingly sarcastic patience]
        That's because it's reality, not a story, Tulkas.  Stories can end happily,
        because they're not true. In real life, there's no Power capable of preventing
        people from making idiotic choices and suffering the consequences.

    [from the chair next to him, his wife, the Lady of Spring -- who could be depicted
        by Claudette Colbert in Cleopatra -- reaches up and pats his cheek.]

Vana:
        Don't be obnoxious, Tav' darling. --Nia dear, why do you make us watch these
        depressing stories? All of your favorites turn out this way.

    [to the left of Tulkas, the Lord of Dreams, Visions and Inspirations, (aka Irmo, aka
    Lorien,) sighs deeply and rests his chin on his hands. Leslie Howard (The Scarlet
    Pimpernel, Gone With The Wind) could play the part]

Irmo: [sadly]
        I tried. I did try. I shan't attempt to conceal the fact that I don't care for
        her father at all, but I did my best, for her mother's sake, -- and for hers,
        too -- she really is a sweet child, and not in any way to be blamed for that
        confounded miscreant's actions--

    [On his left the Lord of the Earth shakes his head, grimacing. He is leaning back,
    but not as much in the sullen critic mode as in the thoughtful critic pose, his legs
    crossed and one elbow resting on the arm of his faldstool, ready to lecture. He is
    played, of course, by James Mason from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea]

Aule:
        You couldn't have done anything, he was Doomed from the start. Look at how he
    threw away every opportunity he had for survival. If someone tries that hard to
    destroy themselves, the most that anyone else can do is -- get out of the way and
    look for cover.

    [on the floor, sitting in front of the chairs with her knees drawn up and her arms
    wrapped around them like a child, Nienna (who really should be played by Merle Oberon,
    also of Scarlet Pimpernel renown) looks up at Yavanna, who is seated rigidly on the
    other side of her little sister Vana; the Earthqueen could be well-portrayed by Sophia
    Loren from El Cid.]

Nienna:
        Are you going to be all right?

Yavanna: [biting off the syllable]
        No.

    [At equal distances from the Loom and the fountain is a nook with a sconce, two
    chairs, and a small breakfast table. This is occupied by Namo, Vaire, a pair of
    teacups and a dark, glossy sphere. The Lord and Lady of the Halls should be
    portrayed respectively by Gregory Peck (To Kill A Mockingbird, Captain Horatio
    Hornblower) and Virginia McKenna The Cruel Sea, Waterloo).]

Vaire: [sighing]
        I don't mind your sister inviting everyone over to watch the Loom, but really,
        she could have chosen better timing. But I don't like to say anything because
        she does so much to help.

Namo: [sets down his teacup and takes her hand in his]
        No, it's fine. I just wish they wouldn't be so loud. I come here to get
        away from people shouting at me. --Of course, they're not shouting at me,
        to be fair about it.

    [he lets go of her hand and picks up his cup again -- over it, in a very dry tone:]

        --Not yet.

    [she gives him a wry smile, which turns to a grimace at the next high-volume exchange:]

Orome: [raising his voice and dropping the bored facade for a moment]
        Yes, it WAS his fault. He didn't give her a chance to use her powers again,
        he just flung himself in the way without even the preliminaries of thought
        crossing his brain.

Tulkas: [to Vana]
        --You'd better hope you're never in danger when he's around. Sounds like he'd
        let you fend for yourself if a rampaging demon comes along!

Aule: [patiently]
        My valiant friend, I realize that your generous and sympathetic nature prompts
        you to defend all instances of courage and loyalty, but not every self-sacrifice
        is equally meritorious. When it is unnecessary, as in the situation under debate,
        it is simply at best a mistake and at worst histrionics. --I'm still not entirely
        sure about the next occasion, myself: I'd need to review it before reaching a
        decision.

Irmo: [frowning]
        I really don't think she could have done anything further at that point.
        Binding all the denizens of Thangorodrim within the immediate vicinity,
        not to mention resisting and overcoming the Powerful One in combat, would
        be a severe drain upon even my own abilities--

Tulkas: [all innocence]
        --You mean to say you can take Morgoth out, and you haven't done it yet?
        What's wrong with you!?

Yavanna:     [standing up so suddenly that her chair goes over backwards with a crash]
        Oh, you're all horrible. Horrible, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE!!!

    [Everyone looks up at her, and is very quiet]

Aule: [after a moment]
        Where are you going?

Yavanna: [very tight control]
        Out. For a walk. Someplace where I can break things without hurting anyone--!

    [she strides off into the distant shadows and there is a resounding crash as of
    someone flinging a very heavy door violently open so that it rebounds off the
    wall, with breakages. A moment of utter silence follows.]

Aule: [grimacing]
        Ah. I forgot.

Irmo:
        Oh, that's right -- he's one of hers.

Vana: [rolling her eyes]
        Well, of course! Whose else would he be?

    [silence. Everyone looks at Orome]

Orome:
        Yes, but I am more rational about these things.

Tulkas: [to Aule]
        Go after her and tell her you're sorry, you dolt!

Aule: [shaking his head]
        That would be a very bad idea right now.

    [this builds up into a double argument, as the focus moves back to the tea table]

Namo: [wincing]
        I didn't recall there being a door over there.

Vaire:
        There wasn't.

    [sighs]

        At least--

    [pause -- they look at each other, and say together:]

Namo:
Vaire:
        --"it wasn't a supporting wall--"

    [rueful smiles]

Namo:
        Did you ever get an explanation of all that?

Vaire:
        An explanation? Yes. --One that made sense? I'm afraid the answer is no.

Namo: [scowling]
        You weren't being mocked, dear?

Vaire:
        No, not at all -- it was offered quite sincerely. I just don't believe
        it's possible, but I'm not sure what the real alternative would look like.

    [Her husband shakes his head, snorting]

        I made the mistake of asking one of them to show me how it was done, and I
        forgot it was the one who doesn't want to be noticed, so I had to pretend
        that I didn't realize it, or how nervous he was. --It really is disproportionate,
        isn't it? By comparison, I mean. You wouldn't think, considering who else is
        here, the amount of trouble so few could cause . . .

    [sighs]

        I'm afraid I lost my temper rather the last time someone started in about the
        usual, "Why are they permitted to carry? Why is no one else allowed a retinue?"
        and was very cross about it -- I actually said, in far too short a tone, "Because
        we're capricious and we enjoy playing favorites, that's why." Now I'm rather
        afraid it won't be recognized as sarcasm. What I should have said--

    [another rueful smile]

        --was, "It's an experiment of my sister-in-law's; she's trying to see how many
        idiotic questions it will take to completely destroy all vestiges of my patience."

    [After a  moment Namo lifts his eyebrows and gives a short chuckle, before patting
    her hand.]

        Who knows? It might even be true.

Namo:
        No, I . . . I think she'd mention it, if she were doing anything of the sort.

    [from the other side of the room]

Tulkas: [loud]
        But look, you've got to take into account all the things going against him--

    [the Lord and Lady of the Halls share another wince as the camera shifts back
    to the raging debate by the Loom]

        On the one hand you've got the rebels giving up defending his homeland, so
        does he give up? No, he keeps on trying even though there's nothing in it
        for him any more -- and does a smashing job of it, too, I want to make known.
        And you know I'm hard to impress when it comes to fighting--

Orome: [ironic]
        --Easily impressed when it comes to pretty much everything else, though.

Tulkas: [louder]
        --On the other hand you've got him making a decent go of it with no help,
        and no resources whatsoever -- and sticking to his ideals, too, all the way
        up to when they were betrayed. None of this, "Oh, we're the great Lords of
        the West, here to save you, so give us dinner and why don't you bake us a
        cake while you're at it," Returning nonsense.

Orome: [exasperated]
        You're exaggerating grossly again--

Tulkas: [ignoring him]
        And on the other hand, he's just a Man. Not even an Elf! And look what he did!

Orome: [snippy]
        What other hand? Most people only start out with two.

Tulkas: [ignoring him]
        You'd think we could have managed to give him a little more help, couldn't
        we? Couldn't we? Like something useful, like messages -- and messengers --
        that get there in time--

    [to Irmo]

        -- not that I'm saying it wasn't kind of you to help his friend find him,
        but it's not like it actually made any difference, eh? Or how about something
        specific, like Don't Go On That Hunt, Dummy, -- instead of more nightmares
        about overfed rogue Ainur?

    [as if remembering something unpleasant, Aule shakes his head and snaps his fingers]

Irmo: [angry/upset]
        I told you, don't blame me -- it's hard enough without the Trees, but there's
        nothing I can do with people who simply refuse to sleep. If they won't rest
        long enough for me to reach them, or keep creating so many images of Doom on
        their own that they can't tell them apart -- I can't give them any guidance.

Tulkas:
        So basically, what you're saying is, you can only help people who don't
        really need it.

Irmo:
        That isn't fair--

    [An elegant, confident individual, perhaps played by Sir Alec Guiness from
    Kind Hearts and Coronets, appears discreetly beside Aule's chair and gives
    him a graceful bow]

Aule's Assistant:
        Yes, my lord?

Aule:
        Would you go and make sure all the storm-doors and shutters are closed
        around the place? I don't want the firepits getting flooded out again this time.

Aule's Assistant:
        Of course, sir. --Ah, are you anticipating a recurrence of last year's
        gales this season, or is it merely precautionary, milord?

Aule:
        Anticipating. Very definitely anticipating.

Assistant:
        Oh dear.

    [pause]

        If I may make so bold, my lord, the Lady's temper can be quite trying at times.

Aule: [shaking his head with a gloomy look]
        Eh. It's partly my fault again. --I just hate it when she gets together and
        commiserates with Uinen. They encourage each other in this pointless emotionalism,
        and the electrical storms and the flooding make it so blasted difficult to get
        anything done. --Do you know what that project is they're working on together?

Assistant:
        Something about salt. That's all the information I have, sir -- she asked me
        for information about materials that would combine well with salt.

Aule: [nods]
        --Oh, that's right. They're studying "toxicity levels and self-sustaining
        filtration systems in marginal areas," as I recall. I should ask her how that's
        coming along. That would be a nice thing to do.

Assistant:
        A noble and conciliating gesture, sir.

Aule:
        --Have you seen my wife's secretary around anywhere?

    [his aide gives a derisive laugh]

Assistant:
        He's probably off watching frogs turn into tadpoles or talking to potato-beetles
        or something like that.

Aule: [frowns]
        Isn't it the other way 'round?

    [shaking his head]

        I don't remember. Anyway -- tell him to tell her I'm sorry, all right?

Assistant:
        Very good, sir.

Aule:
        And don't forget the skylights!

Assistant:
        Of course not, my lord.

    [he vanishes as quietly as he came]

Tulkas: [loudly offended]
        Yeah? Well, -- none of my champions have gone over to the other side!

Orome: [ice -- not quiet, either]
        Celegorm Feanorion has NOT been my responsibility since the Rebellion.

Tulkas:
        Good try, but you can't wiggle out that easy. If you'd done your job right
        he wouldn't have rebelled now would he? Huh? Got a snappy comeback for that one?

Orome: [shaking his head]
        What my sister sees in you I will never know.

    [pause]

Tulkas:
        That's pretty good, actually. --I need a drink to clear my mind.

Orome:
        You always need a drink, if that's the case.

Irmo: [raising his voice]
        --Can we please at least endeavor to keep this discussion both civil and to
        the point?

Vana:
        I do hope you didn't mean that as a serious question, Irmo darling.

    [Back at the tea table, the Weaver rests her forehead on her hand, laughing in
    spite of herself, and in dismay]

Vaire:
        Are you sure you don't want me to stay here and you go on the floor? Though
        it won't be any quieter, I'm afraid. I do wish it weren't against the Rules
        to manifest corporeally in several places at the same time. I wonder how one
        would go about doing so . . .?

Namo:
        It -- seems like the sort of thing that would be very inadvisable. Which is
        very likely why there's a Rule about it.

    [frowns still more]

        --Which you would your mind be in? Wouldn't the rest just be puppets then? Or
        would you divide your concentration among all of you? I'm not sure either.

Vaire: [smiles]
        And a divided concentration is just the problem. So do you want me to stay by
        the stone while you take my shift?

        [Her husband shakes his head]

Namo:
        No, I really don't have the patience for any more complaints right now.

    [deep sigh]

        Did I tell you about my last conversation with that fellow, the one who's
        always going on and on -- inaccurately -- about being the First Casualty
        in Beleriand?

Vaire: [interested]
        No, I don't believe you did.

Namo:
        We talked -- and talked, and talked, and he agreed with complete sincerity
        that yes, murder was a terrible thing, and yes, there is a moral responsibility
        as well for actions which, though not directly causing the deaths of specific
        individuals, nevertheless are both freely chosen and known in advance to be
        likely to cause casualties -- such as, for example, shooting fire-arrows into
        adjacent buildings to distract the defenders from their efforts, regardless of
        the fact that people are almost certain to be in those buildings, and not
        necessarily able to get out of them in time. And we talked about how Morgoth
        regards people as chattel in a similar way, and how persons are not things to
        be used and/or discarded for one's own purposes, and about the irony of performing
        such actions in a reaction against the behaviour of the Enemy.

    [odd smile]

        And after all that, he said to me, "But they deserved it."

    [the Weaver sighs, and raises her eyebrows with a wry expression]

Vaire:
        That does sound familiar, doesn't it?

Namo: [pensively]
        You know, it's one thing to know intellectually that this is going to go on --
        and on -- and on, for the foreseeable future, and -- quite another to experience
        it day after day after endless day.

    [his wife smiles sadly at him and gives his hand one last squeeze before getting up
    and leaving the table. The crystal ball on the table begins to glow.]

Namo:
        Oh good, someone's checking in. Perhaps they've got him.

    [He sets down his tea and pulls the palantir over to him eagerly. Vaire walks across
    to the Loom, weaving on mostly unobserved by the debaters]

Vaire:
        Is anyone still watching this?

    [nobody except her sister-in-law even notices her question]

Nienna:
        Please leave it open, would you?

Vaire:
        Not a problem, just fold it up when you're done.

    [she leaves, stopping to patch up the irregular hole in the wall -- which looks rather
    like what happens when a tree grows through a slab, only fast enough that the edges
    are still sharp and not eroded away -- with a wave of her hand, on her way to the
    tall pointed arch that is the actual door.]

Vana:
        Well, I thought he was rather cute, even if he was rather stupid --

    [to her husband]

        --rather like one of the puppies, hm?

Orome:
        My dear, puppies usually don't manage to leave scores of casualties behind them
        as a consequence of their mistakes.

    [she gives him a little swat and makes a face at him]

Tulkas: [roaring]
        CONSEQUENCES?!? If you're going to talk about consequences, what about the
        consequences of us not catching Morgoth? Huh? Huh? Before you start throwing
        big words like "consequences" around, what about the consequences of not
        providing adequate inspiration? In the Song, do I have to do it ALL myself
        to get anything done RIGHT?

    [the Lord of the Hall winces and puts a hand to his temple]

Namo:
        I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. What was that again?

Irmo: [raising his voice too]
    I'm getting tired of hearing you talk about something you don't and can't possibly understand--

Namo:
        A dog? What do you mean, a dog? Kelvar don't belong here, they don't need to
        come here, they can just start right over again -- you know that! Tell it to
        go home. --I don't care what size it is, it still doesn't belong here. Unless
        it's that rogue in disguise. Of course I'm joking. No, we haven't got him yet.
        --Yes, that's why I'm in a bad mood. --Just take care of it, will you?

    [he leans back, closing his eyes and shaking his head]

Aule: [cool voice of reason -- and sarcasm]
        Thank you for letting us know how you feel about it, Lord Astaldo. --Getting
        back to my earlier point -- I don't believe you can legitimately give someone
        credit for what they can't help. If the deed's done under any kind of a
        compulsion, it's invalidated to some extent. Obviously there's a compulsion
        operating here to fling one's self between other individuals -- regardless of
        longevity or depth of personal attachment -- and danger. If one cannot prevent
        one's self from getting in harm's way, the correct response -- and again, I'm
        going on logic here -- isn't admiration, but rather pity.

Tulkas:
        Oh, come on! He practically slaps Morgoth upside the head, and you can't even
        manage a "Good job, what!"

Vana: [mischievous]
        Well, he did hit Morgoth in the head, only it wasn't exactly on purpose . . .

Orome: [innocently]
        Hey, Aule -- what's that you always say about using the right tools for the job?

Tulkas:
        Yeah? Well let me tell you, your fancy tools wouldn't help either of you very
        much out in the Void! You should try it sometime, fighting like real gods with
        nothing but your bare power--

Orome:
        --Speaking of which, don't you get chilly running around in just a skirt?

Tulkas:
        It's not a skirt, it's a kilt, you dimwit! How many times have I told you that?

    [Vana giggles and hides it by snuggling against Orome's shoulder]

Irmo: [sternly and loudly]
        These insults are utterly pointless! Can we have some intellectual discussion, please?!

Namo: [shouting louder than any of them]
        Irmo! Nienna! Everybody!

    [when he has their attention -- normal tone:]

        Would you all please either stop acting like Eldar or go someplace else
        and argue? If you can't keep your voices down I'm going to have to ask you
        to take it to the Mahanaxar. You're not even watching the Loom any more.

    [there are guilty looks among his colleagues and kin -- considering glances are
    exchanged. Consensus -- No, they can't keep it down. They start getting up to leave]

Vana: [rolling her eyes]
        "Acting like Eldar," indeed! --Honestly--

    [they vanish, leaving the chairs behind]

Namo: [muttering to self]
        I suppose there's a certain logic to it, but I hate it when catastrophes
        happen in cascades like this. They seem to bring on unrelated incidents, as
        though chaos has come back into fashion all of the sudden.

    [he gets up and starts pacing up and down restlessly, obviously not happy at not
    being able to do anything -- then notices Nienna still curled up in front of the Loom]

        Nia, I could really use a little help right now. We have a crisis situation
        going on, the trauma department is overwhelmed with new arrivals, there's a
        discorporate rogue Ainu out there it looks like I'm going to have to track
        down personally, now I hear some kind of bizarre bureaucratic foul-up is
        giving my security people fits -- and you're watching the news.

Nienna: [patient annoying-sibling mode]
        -- Don't worry, I'm on it, I've got the situation in hand.

Namo: [flings up his hands and walks back to his chair]
        Fine. I give up. It's not as though anyone ever listens until it's too late.

    [sinking down with a sigh]

        What next . . . ?

    [Elsewhere: outside the Halls of Mandos, in the perpetual twilight at the roots
    of the mountains.  A series of low, shallow, wide stone steps leads up to the
    most imposing doors that have ever been built, or will be. No one is present,
    until Luthien enters (quite literally from the shadows) at the foot of the
    staircase. Like all the shades in the underworld, where everything is in shades
    of grey, she does not look "ghostly", i.e. translucent and out-of-place -- this
    place is made for them, after all; it's the living who would appear not to belong
    properly. She looks neatly but simply dressed, rather as she would have at the
    beginning of the play, but without any jewelry and her face is haggard.]

Luthien:
        Well. Here we are.

    [she looks up at the Doors and gives a huge sigh]

        The end of the journey. Nothing could be easy, could it?

    [she gives an odd laugh, shaking her head]

        The doors are closed -- I could still turn back now, perhaps even go home,
        or not: this isn't horrible, or particularly frightening. I've given up
        everything, for him, or so they'd say -- and it doesn't feel that way at all.
        It seems as if I could reach out my hand and take hold of the very elements
        of the universe like a skein of yarn this way, or see through to the Fire at
        the heart of everything, if I only looked hard enough, as if I could become
        anything I chose -- a tree, or an Eagle, or a Hound like Huan, or even one
        of the stars . . .

    [she wraps her arms around herself and shivers, beginning to walk back and forth
    as she talks to herself, moving up and down the lower terraces of the stairs]

        I don't have to go through with this -- no one is going to take this decision
    away from me -- and that's why I have to.

    [Her appearance shimmers and flickers while she paces, eventually mostly settling
    to the bobbed haircut and shadowcloak of her journeying, the former somewhat
    longer (and wilder) than when last we saw her.]

        Everything seems so distant, small and delicate and quite irrelevant, like
        the city I saw from the air. Not compared with the whole cosmos lying open
        to explore. --But that tiny little flower of a city is full of people, each
        with a life that's important to someone else, too, and things they've done
        and learned and new songs they've made, even if I couldn't see that. And I
        know that Middle-earth is important, even if it seems such a small part of
        the Music I can almost hear now.

    [smiling wryly]

        That's it, isn't it, the Song itself that's calling me to join in it, to be
        like a god myself, to make, and change the world, and once again do one better
        than my mother, even if no one ever knows it. Couldn't I do better than the
        rest of them, since I know how it is out there, since I've lived through it --
        and died -- all of it, the good -- the gloriously good -- as well as the
        unspeakably horrible -- couldn't I move through it and speak through it and
        change it like the Lord of the Sea? And wouldn't that be a better memorial
        to Beren than staying here as a ghost, giving up my endless life and the
        whole wide world outside, to be with him, if only they'll let me?

    [shaking her head]

        I know what he'd say. And then we'd fight.

    [gesturing with her hands]

        If only I'd come straight to the Halls -- it can't be this hard for everyone,
        can it? -- and then I could have just answered when they asked me, and I wouldn't
        have to think about it. But this -- there's no getting away from this, that
        once I cross that threshold, there's no going back -- even if Lord Mandos
        would let me. I can't just keep going on momentum alone, not stopping to think
        about it.

        [pause]

        And I'm afraid. I don't know what will happen, I don't know what I'll say,
        I don't know what they'll say. I might make things worse for him this way,
        though I can't think how. And if they refuse, what happens then? How can I
        stay there forever, knowing that I couldn't save him, and with no place left
        to go -- no action I can take, nothing to do but wait for the world to end to
        put an end to my pain? I thought nothing could be worse than the prospect of
        going home to my parents in failure --

    [checks, looking dismayed]

        --but what if they send me back? I can't stay there with what they did to us,
        dealing with that guilt and sentimentality and trying to make it up to me by
        being kind -- I really would go mad within a year of that. If they'd shown
        Beren some pity at the outset -- or thought at all about me instead of
        themselves -- this wouldn't have happened. But I won't be the victim to
        their consciences.

    [she snorts, starting to get angry]

        I'll go live as a hermit in the Seven Rivers district before that, or maybe
        go to the Havens and see the Ocean for real finally, or try to cross the
        mountains and find Celeborn and Galadriel and their following. I can do that
        now, or at least I have as good a chance as anyone does. I don't need anyone
        else in the world, if I can't have Beren, and if they "need" me that's just
        too bad!

    [she wipes her eyes roughly, and gives an ironic smile.]

        Silly, silly, silly -- getting all upset over possibilities that haven't even
        happened yet, and that I've no way to judge the most likely. I'm so tired of
        it all . . . only I'm not, or maybe I am. --But I can't stop, and I'm afraid
        to go forward, and no one can help me now.

    [she stands still for a moment, looking up the steps, and squares her shoulders.]

        Well. I didn't get this far waiting for people to open doors for me.

    [starts to approach the Doors, hesitates again.]

        Oh, I wish you were with me, Huan.  But this isn't like last time: I'm afraid
        it won't end happily. -- Then again, I can't think of a single story that does.
        Not the true ones, at least.

    [Sighs.]

        No more disguises. No more tricks.  All I can do is tell the truth now, and
        hope that that's enough.

    [She casts her cloak down on the steps: it melts and vanishes into the shadows]

        Beren -- I'm here.

    [She strides towards the Doors, and they melt away in front of her as she enters
        the Halls of Mandos.]

    [The Hall.]

    [Namo is sitting pensively by the palantir, fiddling with his teacup. Nienna
    is still on the floor in front of the Loom, watching with an odd, almost-pleased
    expression. An Elvish-looking individual (who could be played by Ewan MacGregor
    from the second Star Wars series) enters the hall and crosses quickly to where
    she is sitting. Ordinarily he seems like he'd be rather cheerful and self-possessed,
    but right now he's looking rather harassed and frayed, and it comes through when
    he addresses her:]

        --Master, everything's in chaos, nobody knows what to do, everyone's asking
        me for advice, some people are continuing to complain about certain other
        people and refusing to countenance the possibility that their problems just
        might not be as serious as those who have just come in and demanding to see
        the Lady of the Halls at once, and they're all unhappy with me because I'm
        not you!

Nienna:
        Apprentice mine, have you considered how much worse matters could be?

Nienna's Apprentice:
        Er -- no, I haven't, m'lady.

Nienna:
        Why don't you do that?

Apprentice:
        Was that a question question, or a suggestion question?

Nienna:
        What do you think?

Apprentice:
        Both.

Nienna:
        Let me know when you have an answer; I'll be interested in hearing it.

Apprentice:
        Certainly. But none of this helps with the fact that everything's in chaos
        and I really need Lady Vaire and she can't be everywhere at once!

    [Nienna sighs]

Apprentice:
        I know. I don't really need the Lady of the Halls, I just need to keep
        reminding myself that I have been delegated the authority and I do have
        the intelligence to solve small problems on my own and the confidence to
        not be overwhelmed by the troublemakers along with it. --But there are
        just so bloody many of them!

Nienna:
        You want me to come rescue you.

Apprentice:
        No. Well, yes. But not really. I want to be rescued, but I don't want the
        consequences of being rescued, to wit -- losing even more ground to the
        insufferable Feanorians and looking a total fool in front of everyone else
        and causing increased doubt and discord as a result. --I'm going back to
        work. Thank you.

    [he starts to walk away]

Namo: [sighing]
        When you said you had everything under control, I should have known that meant
        you were delegating.

Nienna:
        Of course. Micromanagement is poor Melkor's besetting weakness.

    [her brother closes his eyes and rubs his temples. Halfway to the door the
    Apprentice halts in mid-stride, pivots on his heel and hurries back over]

Apprentice:
        I almost forgot completely -- Sir, there's a young lady here who insists on
        seeing you personally and immediately. She says her mother used to work for
        your brother.

Namo: [looking blank]
        So why does she want to see me instead of Irmo?

Apprentice: [delicately]
        Er -- because she's here.

Namo:
        Oh. You mean she's discorporate. Why can't you just say so?

    [the Apprentice winces a little]

        Can you tell her I'm in the middle of about six different things and I will
        see her as soon as I can?

Apprentice:
        I've done that.

Namo:
        Can you explain that things are not going well and that while everyone's
        problems are important, not all of them are crises?

Apprentice:
        That too.

    [Namo sighs]

        She really won't take no for an answer. I keep giving it to her, and she
        keeps refusing it.

Namo:
        Can you tell her it isn't fair to the others ahead of her?

Apprentice:
        She says it's a matter of justice, and she refuses to go until her case is heard.

Namo: [shaking his head]
        Wait, wait, what do you mean -- "go" --? People don't just come and go from
        my Halls without leave.

Apprentice:
        Well, she apparently came on her own. It seems her consort was one of the
        recently admitted.

Namo: [snorts]
        Did you tell her her case was hardly unique?

Apprentice:
        I did, Sir -- but I'm not entirely sure I was correct. She doesn't seem to
        have come in the normal way at all. There was some peculiar talk about
        Thorondor and "hitching a ride" -- a quaint turn of phrase which I believe,
        though I'd have to consult the Archives to be sure, derives from a mortal
        practice concerning a crude form of wheeled vessel known as, erm, a "cart."
        I confess that ordinarily I would simply dismiss it as the normal, ah,
        post-discorporation trauma, or possibly prior mental derangement -- but
        there's something about her that causes me to be uncertain of that diagnosis.

    [pause]

        She really is very insistent, Sir.

    [pause]

Namo:
        You're intimidated by her.

    [Nienna's student makes as though to deny it, with indignation -- and then sighs]

Apprentice:
        Frankly, my Lord, yes. In all honesty -- she reminds me of Feanor.

    [silence]

Namo: [shaking his head]
        No. There cannot be two Eldar in the universe that obliviously self-centered
        and full of destructive energy. I refuse to believe it. Ea would disintegrate.

Apprentice:
        It's the obdurate refusal to be put off. --And the way she sounds totally
        believable saying the most insane things.

Namo:
        What are her names?

Apprentice:
        She only gave one -- "Nightingale." --She said it as though it should mean
        something, when I asked her who she was, and she told me her maternal
        parent was formerly in the employ of your sibling.

Namo: [musing]
        Nightingales, nightingales -- why do they sound familiar?

Apprentice: [hopefully]
        I could go check the Archive, if you'd like.

Namo: [snorts]
        So you can skive out of dealing with the discorporate? Fat chance. No -- I
        think there's some connection that I should remember -- why don't you go ask
        Irmo if "nightingale" means anything to him. There's an errand you can run.

Apprentice:
        Er, you could use the remote there -- why not just ask him?

Namo:
        Because you're annoying me. Because I'm waiting to hear from security about
        that rogue, among other things.

Apprentice: [disappointed]
        Oh.

    [starts to leave, turns back again]

        Sir, didn't Melian have nightingales? And aren't all these new patients from
        the place where she settled down? Dorl -- Dorith -- one of those Dor-- names?

    [long pause. Namo frowns, then sets down his teacup with a bang]

Namo: [wearily]
        All right. I'll talk to her.

    [he turns his chair about to face into the room]

Apprentice: [raising an eyebrow]
        --Actually, Sir, I think the word you want is --"listen."

Gower:
        --That Melian's daughter made her way
        to Mandos' Halls, and there did win
        her way as well, with imploring song,
        and of her thought and melody did spin
        a thread to bind the sternest and most strong
        to clemency -- this all do remember well.
        But of the rest, that followed ere the Choice
        little is said, and less considered: how still
        much ado was made, high counsels held, voice
        upraised to counter and to question,
        troubling the highest, making them to pause
        and ponder long with sad consideration
        this strange matter of their love, and cause
        that Luthien upholds, appeals, maintains
        with such unreservéd zeal that even yet,
        beyond the Bent World's verge, her strains
        are sung in deathless memory, past the set
        of Sun, of Moon, by gods and Elven-kind
        until the ending of all things shall find
        even the stars and that unstained land--
 

    [The Hall. There is a difference -- where the tea-table occupied an alcove under
    a lamp, there is now a vast double throne under an arch, with only the lamp, the
    occupant, and the stone sphere resting on the dividing arm of the throne the same.
    In the background, Nienna is still paying attention to the Loom. Before the throne,
    Luthien is looking up at Namo with a desperate expression. ]

Namo:
        I -- I'm sorry, I was thinking about what you'd just said -- I  . . . missed
        your last remark.

    [he wipes at his eyes, shaking his head a little]

Luthien:
        Might I please speak to him now, my Lord?

    [pause]

Namo:
        I . . . am not sure how to break this to you, but he -- he isn't here.

Luthien: [frightened]
        He has to be.

Namo:
        No, I'm afraid that isn't the case. Except for those who give themselves
        to the Enemy during their lifetimes, or have ties to their own place that are
        strong enough to override the call of their Fate, mortals do not remain in Arda.

Luthien:
        But he wouldn't have lingered back there -- he's not evil, he has no one
        left besides me, and he knows I'll come here too.

Namo:
        But Men don't stay here -- they go on from the Halls to their own destiny
        beyond Ea.

    [pause]

        I'm sorry.

Luthien: [becoming increasingly frantic]
        But I told him to wait for me!  I -- I came as fast as I could -- how long
        has it been? You didn't -- you didn't send him on without me -- please tell
        me you didn't!  Surely he would have explained --

    [greater apprehension]

        --but what if he couldn't --

    [sudden notion]

        --is Huan here?

Namo: [bewildered]
        Why would he be here? He isn't an Elf -- he belongs to Orome.

Luthien:
        No. He belongs to Beren now. And me. I'm sure he would be waiting for
        us here somewhere. He might be looking after him--

Namo: [frowning]
        That's the second time dogs have come up in recent conversation. Very peculiar.

Nienna: [from where she's sitting, not looking over]
        If you'd been paying attention to the news, or even what's going on under
        your own roof, you'd understand. You need to remember the big picture, not
        just focus on the organizational details, Namo.

Namo: [giving her an exasperated look]
        Be a little more cryptic, would you? Ah --

    [realization hits]

        Aaha. The kid with the dog.

Luthien:
        They're here? He's still here?

    [he nods, picking up the sphere]

Namo:
        --Security, please.  --Just how big is that dog, anyway? Uh-huh. I see.
        Can you put my wife on, please? --Vaire, things have just gotten a little
        more complicated. --If you can believe it.  I know.  Look, I need you to
        talk to that mortal again.  He hasn't been rude to you, has he? No, apparently
        he has some kind of aphasia problem, but he's not deaf. Would you ask him if
        he's Beren Barahirion? -- and if he is, tell him that Luthien is here and
        would like to speak with him, and ask him if he would be so good as to come
        over here.  His dog can come too. --Has the dog been rude to you? Well, I'm
        going to have a little talk with Orome about him.  -- Yes, that's right.
        Love you too.

    [sets down palantir, sighs and shakes his head with a pained expression]

        I find it difficult to believe that all this madness really is connected.
        It's almost enough to make one think that order is an illusion.

Nienna:
        Why do you think I've been watching all along? It takes patience to see
        the patterns.

    [her brother half-smiles]

Namo: [to Luthien]
        --Yes. He's here, beneath this roof, and will be here directly.

Luthien: [whispering]
        Thank you. --Thank you--

    [Enter Nienna's Apprentice, and Huan, who sniffs the air and looks towards the
    Loom, keening softly. Beren is between them, holding onto Huan's collar for balance.
    He is more bowed and tattered than in Act II, wearing a motley layered assortment
    of frayed rags and well-made tailoring (all far too large), his head low, his right
    arm held stiffly by his side. He looks like a defeated veteran of a long campaign
    stumbling home from the wars.]

Luthien:
        Beren.

    [he lifts his head and looks over blankly towards her -- and then he seems to
    recognize her and lets go of Huan to hurl himself at her in a controlled collapse
    as she runs to catch him, locking her arms around his back as he leans against
    her shoulder, eyes closed, oblivious to the rest of his surroundings. Luthien stands
    there holding him close, crying, unable to speak right away. After a few moments
    they straighten and look at each other, though she does not let go of him any more
    than he tries to step away:]

        Are you all right?

    [he nods. Worried:]

        Can you talk?

Beren: [with visible effort]
        Yes.

    [wry smile]

        It's hard.

    [suddenly]

        --Where's Huan?

Luthien: [more worried]
        He's right here, on the other side of me.

    [Huan comes closer; Beren does not react until the Hound whines]

        Beren, can you see?

    [pause]

Beren:
        I can see you. The rest -- is all grey and lights.

    [she is very upset, far more than he is]

        It's a little bit better now.

Apprentice: [who has been standing awkwardly to the side]
        There isn't much more to see than "grey and lights", I'm afraid.

    [at Namo's stern Look]

        No criticism of your Lady's decorating scheme was -- well, I'm afraid it
        was, rather, but, erm -- it could be a lot worse.

Namo:
        Why don't you go find something to do while they make their goodbyes, hm?

Luthien: [disbelieving]
        Goodbyes?!? What do you mean?!

Namo: [gently]
        So that he can be on his way.

Luthien: [horrified]
        What!?

Namo: [frowning]
        Isn't that what you wanted? Since you didn't get the chance to speak
        together before his dissolution?

Luthien: [shaking her head]
        No! I mean, yes but not just that, I want to stay with him -- him to
        stay with me, always.

    [she is on the edge of tears, and holds onto Beren tighter than ever. Huan
    presses up against them both, looking anxious]

Namo:
        But that isn't possible.

Luthien:
        Why not?

Namo:
        Because the One has organized the universe otherwise. He isn't supposed to
        stay here. But you know this. So make your farewells, and let him go.

Luthien: [mournfully]
        I may have emphasized the part about how we didn't get a chance to even say
        goodbye properly a little too much. My Lord, please, can't you make an exception?

Namo:
        No. I didn't make the Law.

Luthien:
        But you're in charge here.

Namo:
        I administer the Law. But I do not have the power to change it.

Luthien: [fraying]
        I didn't come all this way just to have him taken away from me again. I will
        not let this happen.

Namo:
        Luthien, I'm afraid you don't understand.

Luthien:
        I understand very well, my Lord, and I don't care.

Beren: [uneven smile]
        Haven't we done this before?

Namo: [sighing]
        Please try to look at it rationally. I agree that it is a terrible tragedy,
        but you knew that your husband was mortal and under a separate Doom before
        you married him. The tragic shortness of your marriage does not change that
        essential fact.

Luthien: [desperate]
        Then can we at least have an entire lifetime here before he has to go?
        We're owed at least that!

Namo:
        Very few people, in this world, get what they deserve. It shouldn't have
        happened this way, you're right.

Luthien: [hopeful]
        And?

Namo:
        And it's unfortunate. Most unfortunate. That's why I'm giving you a chance
        to have a good memory, before he goes.

Luthien: [strongly]
        --No. Beren is staying with me.

Apprentice: [nervously]
        Your Highness, that's not--

Luthien: [sarcastic]
        What, will he blast me if I defy him?

Namo: [dry]
        No, that isn't my style. You need to reconcile yourself to facts, Luthien.

Luthien:
        If someone says that to me one more time, I'm going to scream until the roof
        falls in. I know what the facts are. I want solutions! And acceptable ones!
        This -- saying goodbye to Beren so that he can be kicked out yet again like
        a trespassing vagabond -- is not an acceptable solution. You've got to do better.

    [the Lord of the Halls gives a short laugh and closes his eyes]

Namo:
        You understand I really do not have the time to spare, even though I'm making it.

Luthien: [snappish]
        Well, we jolly well didn't have it either. Don't try to make me feel sorry for
        you, it won't work.

    [the Apprentice covers his face with his hand]

        Why can't you even make an exeption to the rules?

Namo: [patiently]
        Because it is not a Rule, it is the Law. And it would not be fair to him.

Luthien:
        I don't understand--

Namo:
        I know.

Luthien:
        --How could it not be fair to him? He's the one who's been cheated most by
        all this!

Namo:
        You wish to keep him here, in this fragmentary state, because of your affection
        for him. But he is not made for this place, nor this state, because he is not
        like you.

    [gesturing]

        Look at him. Do you want to hold him in that, without any hope of being rehoused,
        without the natural properties that make such a mode endurable, alone and severed
        from his own kind, until you've decided that you've had him long enough? What
        does he think of all this? Have you even asked him, or simply laid commands on him?

    [Luthien looks defiant, but increasingly anxious]

Apprentice: [thoughtfully]
        Sir, could perhaps something be done -- to some small area, to make it less
        overwhelming to his senses?

Namo:
        I don't know. Nor do I know yet what his feelings on the matter are.

    [to Beren:]

        --Beren son of Barahir.

    [Beren starts and tries to focus on the Lord of the Halls]

        What do you want?

Beren: [after several attempts]
        I want Tinuviel to be happy.

Namo:
        Being happy and getting what one asks for are not always the same thing.
        --What do you want for yourself?

    [pause -- Luthien looks wretched and afraid]

Beren: [faintly]
        I want to stay with my wife.

    [she hugs him in relief]

Namo: [grim]
        As you now are, young Man?

Beren: [simply]
        I've known worse. This doesn't hurt.

    [silence]

Namo: [to where Nienna has been up till now]
        I'm surprised you haven't jumped in yet -- where's she gotten to?

    [sighing -- to Beren:]

    You're not making things any easier.

Beren: [a very faint smile]
        I usually don't.

Namo: [snorts, sounding exasperated, but not angry]
        I'm not sure what to do. This is unprecedented, and nothing I can recall
        from the Song gives me any hints, let alone specific directions. I'm going
        to consult with my peers about this -- fortunately they're already somewhat
        aware of your circumstances, so it shouldn't take too long to bring them up
        to date. Meanwhile you two might as well--

Huan: [interrupting]
        [loud single bark]

Namo:
        --three, might as well stay here as anywhere else. Then we won't waste any
        time trying to find you again.

    [to the Apprentice]

        You're sure you don't know where my sister might be?

Apprentice:
        Yes. Erm, no. That is, I'm sure I don't know where she is. I know many places
        where she might be.

    [the Lord of the Halls looks up at the ceiling]

Namo:
        Do you do this on purpose, or does it come naturally? --Has she given you
        any tasks that you're supposed to be doing right now?

Apprentice:
        I don't know, my Lord. --I mean, I'm not sure why I do it. My Master only
        told me to make myself useful about the Halls.

Namo:
        Good. --About the latter, not the first part of your statement. Go find my
        Lady, explain things to her -- quickly -- and ask her to meet me at the
        Mahanaxar. First, however, ask her what you should be doing and then go and
        do it. If nothing else, then I'll have you handle coordinating security --
        that should help curb your taste for adventure, seeing how these stakeouts
        really go down.

Apprentice:
        Certainly, Sir.

    [he gives a rather extravagant bow, and strides jauntily out, though not without
    a backwards concerned look at the three shades. The Lord of the Halls picks up his
    cup from the other arm of his throne (where it was not a moment before) finishes
    the last of his tea and rises from his throne. Setting down the cup he vanishes,
    without another word. Beren reacts, starting.]

Beren:
        What's gonna happen now?

Luthien:
        I don't know. I -- I --

    [shaking her head]

        I'm going on nothing but instinct right now. I don't know why they all need
        to discuss it. And I have no idea what they'll decide.

    [Behind them Vaire appears for a moment, glances across at the trio with a
    sympathetic expression, and with a fond shake of her head dismisses the teacup
    sitting on her husband's chair. Another quick gesture dismisses the muddle of
    chairs and dims the light of the Loom to a faint glow. She disappears without
    them noticing her, with the possible exception of Huan. Beren sinks down onto
    his knees, closing his eyes. Luthien drops down in front of him]

Luthien: [anxious]
        What's wrong -- Beren, love, what's the matter?

Beren: [looking up at her, vaguely]
        I'm tired. --And I got chilled and couldn't get warm again.

Luthien:
        Have they hurt you somehow?

Beren: [slowly]
        No. Some people -- I'm not sure what kind of people they were. They weren't
        Elves, I'm pretty sure. They came, and  . . . talked at me kind of loudly.
        They -- they weren't real happy with me being there in the entryway. But
        nobody did anything except talk. I -- wasn't listening to most of it anyway.

    [he reaches out his hand, and Huan bumps his head under it]

        He came along and started licking my face . . . and made me move and kind of
        curled up around me . . . and after that . . . I wasn't cold. He growled at
        them when they came by to yell at me, too, and after a while they stopped.

    [he smiles, rubbing Huan's ears]

        He's a good dog. Isn't that right, boy?

Huan:
        [whines]

    [Luthien pulls Beren close against her side, and he leans his head on her shoulder.
    Huan moves to lie couchant behind them, right at their backs.]

Luthien: [whispering]
        Shh, it's all right, don't be afraid -- we're here now, I won't let anything
        else happen to you. Just rest, you're safe, we've got you, we've got you . . .

Beren: [not opening his eyes]
        Sounds good . . . to me . . .

    [she is weeping silently, but not letting him know it as she alternately smoothes
    his hair and rubs gently at his wrist. Across the room as she is trying to blink
    away the tears, the glow of the Loom attracts her attention, and she strains to
    make out what it is. At that moment the quiet of the hall is shattered beyond repair:]

Tulkas: [shouting in the distance]
        Well of course it's unprecedented, everything's unprecedented, you know we're
        just making it up as we go along!

    [Following this proclamation the speaker himself appears, striding in out of nowhere
    to where the three are, much to the astonishment of the lovers. Huan does not leave
    where he is lying pressed up against Beren and Luthien, but he gives a short happy
    bark and thumps his tail on the floor]

Tulkas: [shaking his head in disgust]
        They call me "simple" -- but not everything is this complicated. Some things
        are simple.

    [looks around and snorts in disgust]

        What is it with this obsessive need of Vaire's to tidy everything? How much
        work is it to leave a few chairs around?

    [manifests a heavy, carved chair of the royal fald-stool with arms and back type,
    flings self down in it. (Note: there are no obvious sfx -- no flashes, no "magical"
    sounds -- it's just there.) Manifesting a drinking horn:]

        You want anything? A drink? Say the word --

    [Beren, a bit wild-eyed, shakes his head; Luthien is marginally more composed.]

Luthien:
        Oh -- no thank you, my lord. We are quite -- adequate -- as we are --

Tulkas: [to Beren]
        --Good work with those little spiders. Too many to clean out, of course, but
        you made a nice dent in the population.

Beren: [startled into blurting out a response]
        Little?

Tulkas:
        Should've seen their mother.

    [shakes his head sadly]

        I'll regret not catching her to the end of the world.

    [he takes another pull of his drink]

Beren: [aside]
        So will the world.

Tulkas:
        That's what I said.

    [Beren looks confused.]

        Now, mind you, I don't go in for all those fancy gadgets, myself -- I'm
        more the hands-on type -- but heh, even I can see why you wouldn't want
        to come to close quarters with those things. How come you never used a,
        a whatsit, poky-stick-thing -- you know, a "spear?" Seems a lot better
        than going after those things with a -- sword -- farther away, right?
        Why didn't you make yourself one?

Beren:
        Um -- 'cause I'm not a smith?

    [Tulkas looks a bit confused at this]

        I didn't have the tools, or the time, and I wouldn't have known what to do
        with them if I did. And a spear can be damned inconvenient for hauling around
        in rough terrain -- anything taller than you is gonna catch on stuff. Plus
        there's the problem of if you throw it you haven't got it, but if you hang
        on to it, it can become a liability. Spears are best for open country and
        pitched battle. Otherwise--

    [it clicks, suddenly, and he looks horrified]

        Ah. Sir. --My lord. --Oh gods -- help me--

    [Tulkas looks around]

Tulkas:
        No one else here, unless you're counting Huan. "Otherwise--?" You were saying--?

Beren: [quietly, rushed]
        Otherwise it can become just another thing to slow you down.

    [bowing his head]

        Sir.

Tulkas:
        Oh yeah. I'm with you there.

    [getting louder]

        I mean, it's all just a way of hitting harder in one place than another. I
        don't know why other people go on about weapons as if they're so much better
        than brute force, especially the more moving parts they have. They're not any
        easier. All this business about "it's so easy, you just pull it and the bow
        does the work for you," and nothing about how it wants to go in all different
        directions, including back into you and along your arm--!

Beren: [startled into forgetting]
        Somebody said archery was easy? I would never agree with that.

Tulkas:
        But you were really good at it.

Beren:
        Yeah, but I started practicing when I was what, four? five? and I kept
        practicing, and I twanged myself good more'n a few times there -- first
        time I tried fooling around with a full-size bow I gave myself a bloody
        nose, and my first recurved hunting job -- ouch. --Of course I shouldn't
        have been too impatient to put on a vambrace before testing it. But yeah,
        anything that can punch through an elk, or a warg, or an armored Orc,
        before it can get close enough to damage you, is going to have a hell of
        a lot of power and need extreme control to make that power go where you
        need it to, and only there.

    [he stops, and starts to panic again -- Tulkas does not seem to notice, but
    Luthien hugs him]

Tulkas: [smiling triumphantly]
        I'm going to have you tell my brother-in-law this. Someone needs to take
        him down a notch. Besides, you understand when brute force is the right
        thing -- that bit with Feanor's brat, when he grabbed her? On the horse?
        -- No hesitation, no stopping-to-think-it-over -- exactly what I would
        have done. Perfect.

    [gestures with his horn towards Beren and drinks a toast]

        Of course, I helped a bit. You've always tended to be a little too thoughtful
        and cautious -- except towards the end there -- and sometimes you just need
        to act without distractions. Not the time and place for it

Beren:
        Y--you're Tulkas, right--?

Tulkas: [shrugs]
        Last time I checked. I think that's what they're still calling me.

Beren:
        Ah . . .  okay. So -- when I pulled Curufin down, that was really you? Your
        power working through me? I should thank you for saving Luthien then?

Tulkas: [shaking his head]
        Oh no, I just helped with the distractions. It was all you. Besides, you
        already did. I'm one of the Valar, right? Don't you remember thanking us?

Beren:
        . . .

Luthien:
        How do you know all this -- milord?

Tulkas:
        Oh, I was following the story off and on from a long ways back -- even before
        what's-his-name, the guy who didn't come back -- Thingol -- got my attention
        begging me to smite him couple-three times a day. Nia said this was one I'd li--

Luthien: [interrupting, outraged]
        You didn't!

Tulkas:
        --Of course not. That's not how it works, anyway, and your dad knows it.

        [snorts]

        Besides, I didn't need to.

    [glares at Beren]

        What were you thinking, you dimwit? You had every chance handed to you to go
        off and have a decent life with your girl and what do you do, you go and
        yourself killed, for a bargain which nobody in his right mind would have
        considered taking up -- can we say "rigged contest," hm? -- and you can't
        claim it was an accident, how often did you try to get yourself killed
        before you succeeded? Every time she said "Let's just go and live in the
        woods," would it have, huh, killed you to say "yes"? Obviously not. Believe
        me, I wanted to clobber you a couple times there.

    [the disgruntled Power recovers from his rant with another drink]

Beren: [quiet]
        I'm sorry, if that helps any.

Tulkas: [looks around expectantly, then shakes his head]
        --Nope, nothing's changed. So I don't think it did.

    [Beren looks even more baffled.]

        Well. What are you going to do now?

Beren:
        Do?

Tulkas:
        Right, what are you going to do about this situation you got yourselves into?

Beren:
        . . .

Luthien:
        I got us into it too. But at this point it isn't up to us. What can we do?

    [pause]

        That is to say, we're dead.

Tulkas:
        I know that. How much of a simpleton do you take me for? There's always something
        you can do. It might not work, but at least--

    [There is a sudden gust of wind through the place and a tall, athletic woman (who
    might well be played by Maureen O'Sullivan, the original "Jane") in swirling but
    rather abbreviated drapery appears behind Tulkas, and puts her hands over his
    eyes, exclaiming:]

        Guess who!

Tulkas:
        Hmm . . . I think . . . but no, can't be sure--

Nessa:
        Silly!

    [She leans over and gives him a quick upside-down kiss]

        Sure now?

Tulkas: [frowns, shakes his head]
        Not quite.

    [they share a rather-more-protracted moment]

        I think -- but . . .

    [he ducks before she can thwack him on the head, grinning]

Nessa: [moving around beside him]
        Where did all the chairs go?

Tulkas:
        You know Vaire -- leave something alone for a moment, it gets cleaned up and
        put away. Here, sit on my lap, we only need one chair anyway.

    [Nessa plunks herself down on his knees, grabs the mead-horn and takes a big
    gulp before passing it back and leaning against his shoulder.]

        So what's going on? Anything interesting?

Nessa: [scornful expression]
        Pfft. Talk, talk, talk, "Rules" -- talk, talk, talk, "mortal" -- talk, talk,--

Tulkas: [interrupting]
        Who's saying what?

Nessa:
        --You know how it goes. Somebody says one thing, someone else says another,
        and after it wrangles around for a while the first person's saying what the
        third said and the third and second are disagreeing with themselves and
        everyone else is just shaking their heads.

Tulkas:
        You left out shouting.

Nessa:
        You didn't let me get there --

    [pokes him in the ribs]

        --talk, talk, talk, "War," -- talk, talk, talk, "Melian" -- shouting: "That
        scoundrel who seduced my finest employee and convinced her to throw away her
        career and become a housewife--"

Tulkas:
        --That's got to be Irmo--

Nessa: [nods]
        --More shouting. Back again to "mortal -- Rules -- War." It's soooo boring.
        --This chair is not big enough for the two of us.

Tulkas:
        That's because you insist on trying to sit sideways.

Nessa:
        Well, how else can you feed me grapes? If I face forward, you stick them
        in my eye.

Tulkas:
        We don't have any grapes, silly.

Nessa:
        Well, get some!

    [Beren gives Luthien a cautious Look; she only raises her eyebrows in answer. This
    is not what she expected either.]

        Never mind, I'll fetch them.

    [Nessa holds out her hand and manifests a large cluster, pulls off one and pops it
    in her husband's mouth before giving him the rest of the bunch. Tulkas looks at
    both occupied hands, shakes his head and sets the drinking horn down on the floor,
    on feet which might not have been there a moment before. He starts feeding her
    grapes while she crosses her feet on one arm of the chair and leans back on the
    other. Tulkas starts teasing her, holding them just a little too high, and Nessa
    tickles him in return. This was not such a good idea, as in the resulting upheaval
    the chair really proves to be too small and she falls halfway onto the floor out
    of his lap. Huan has to get up and come over and "help" at this point with excited
    noises and nose-pokings]

Nessa:
        Huan, get away! This is stupid--

    [she glares at the arm of the chair and gives it a whack with her hand]

        I'm going to fix this, just wait a moment--

    [There are no obvious sfx at this point, either audio or visual enhancement,
    just as with the previous manifestations]

Beren: [whispering to Luthien]
        Were they talking about your parents--?

Luthien: [almost incapable of speech]
        I -- I'm -- I think so--

Beren:
            Did you get that -- that -- bit, about -- being angry at --

    [breaks off, astounded -- loudly:]

        --That's a hill. A real hill, from outside -- at least it looks real--

Nessa: [beaming]
        Thank you!

    [instead of a heavy fald-stool with arms, the divine couple are now sitting on a
    grassy hillock with some shrubs growing on it, allowing for much easier reclining.
    It is a fairly decent-sized prominence, not inconspicuous at all. ]

        Would you like one too? We have plenty around our hall -- I can get another,
        no problem.

Beren: [rushed]
        Uh -- thank you very much, my lady, but I really don't want to put anyone to
        any trouble on my behalf.

Nessa: [between grapes]
        Well, I don't think you're obnoxious at all. That was very polite.

Luthien: [temper starting to flare]
        Who's saying Beren's obnoxious?

Nessa: [shrugs]
        Different people. My brother, like he's got room to talk. People with no
        senses of humor. Or romance.

    [to Tulkas]

        My turn.

    [she sits up and takes the fruit and they switch places. To Luthien:]

        I was so pleased with the way you used my Art to put old Melkor in his place--

Tulkas: [chuckles]
        Heh. That's one way of putting it.

Nessa:
        What?!?

Tulkas:
        You were shaking me and screaming and whacking Tav on the arm and yelling "See?
        See? Don't you ever call Dance a frivolous waste of time again!" until everyone
        told you to sit down and be quiet.

Nessa:
        I didn't hear that.

Tulkas:
        That's 'cause you were shouting.

Nessa:
        Pfft.

    [she silences him with another grape]

        You want to talk about obnoxious? He -- Melkor --  used to swagger about like
        he was Eru's gift to Valier -- and no idea how to win friends, much less hearts.
        No understanding of what conversation meant. He honestly thought that we wanted
        to hear him talk about himself.

Luthien: [defensive]
        Well, if someone's interesting, that's all right.

Nessa:
        You met him. Did he have anything the least bit interesting to say? The "art of
        conversation" involves an exchange of ideas, right? He couldn't ever grasp that
        there's this basic difference between a conversation and a monologue. Do you know
        how annoying it is to have someone just ignore everything you say to them?

Luthien:
        Well, up until recently I'd have had to say -- no, but--

Beren: [muttering]
        I'm sorry--

Luthien:
        I wasn't talking about you, I was referring to Celegorm. And my father. You
        listened, you just disagreed with me.

Beren: [gloomy]
        I was right, though--

Luthien: [sharply]
        No, you were not. If you had listened to me from the very beginning, milord,
        you would not have lost your hand, and you wouldn't be incapacitated in a fight,
        and you wouldn't have gotten yourself killed. Am I not right? Beren? Am I not
        right about that? Even the gods think so, weren't you listening--

Beren: [louder]
        But it wouldn't have worked then either--

Nessa: [loudly as if shooing a cat, dropping the grapes and clapping her hands]
        Wssht!

    [they jump -- the Patrons of Spouses look at them very seriously and severely]

        What are you fighting about?

Tulkas:
        Sounds like you're fighting over something that's already over.

Luthien:
        Er . . .

Nessa:
        Why?

Beren:
        Uh -- I guess because -- I've been doing it so long --

Luthien: [firmly]
        We've been doing it--

Beren:
        --we -- just don't know how to stop.

Nessa:
        That's not a good enough reason. Is it?

    [they shake their heads meekly. Huan thumps his tail and gives a sympathy whine]

        --Where were we?

Tulkas: [helpfully]
        Talking about my ex-rival. Whose head I am someday going to pound flush level
        with his neck.

Nessa:
        That's right.

    [gives him another grape -- to Luthien:]

        I'm betting all he said was, "Nobody appreciates me, I don't get the respect
        I deserve, everyone else is having such a great time, poor me, --you watch,
        they'll all be sorry someday" -- am I not right?

Luthien: [deadpan]
        That was pretty much all, except that you left out the bit about, "Get down
        here or I'll shoot you down with a lightning bolt."

Tulkas: [flat]
        Oh, how nice. He's got a new hobby. Indoor target practice. Joy.

Nessa:
        No, he used to do that.

Tulkas:
        Not indoors.

Nessa:
        Well, how would we know what he was doing all that time in Utumno? --This is
        a silly argument. Let's stop.

Tulkas: [amiably]
        All right.

Nessa: [gesturing towards Beren with her arm]
        Did you ever get a proper Acclamation? Did your family ever acknowledge him
        as your consort?

Luthien: [a bit dry]
        Haven't you been watching us all along?

Nessa:
        No, I had work to do right around then. Summer, you know.

Luthien:
        Well.

    [she sighs]

        They did give us a feast and all, but I'm not sure that I would call it a
        proper celebration. It wasn't very celebratory, you see, what with Carcharoth
        on the loose and so many people having been killed by his rampages and
        everyone all packed into the Caves for safety and the whole place completely
        disorganized as a result. No one was very cheerful, to put it mildly. Poor
        Mablung looked like a ghost -- he shouldn't even have been up yet, but trying
        to make him or Beleg stop for their own good is like telling Beren to take
        care of himself --

    [Beren looks away, embarrassed]

        --and my mother didn't look much better, and Dad was trying so hard to be
        polite and not say anything distressing, but there really aren't a whole lot
        of conversation topics left that don't end up somewhere unpleasant, and how
        much can you say about the weather? And Beren was so nervous -- and so was I
        -- and we weren't used to sitting at table -- out in the woods by the campfire
        I'd cut things and hold them for him, but our timing was all off and we kept
        knocking everything over. And then everyone pretended they didn't notice, and
        that was even worse. Beren was almost in tears, and I was trying not to get
        angry, and it wasn't working very well . . .

 Nessa:
        Oh, you poor kids!

Luthien:
        . . . and we were both so exhausted and frayed that trying to be social was,
        frankly, a waste of time, and then there was all this fuss with Mom over
        whether we should have my old rooms, or the best guest suite instead, and
        since every available chamber was full of refugees who would have to be
        shuffled around, I thought it was irrelevant, especially given our living
        conditions for the past year, and they didn't understand that it was a joke
        when I said "Just give me a sword and I'll make a lean-to of branches like
        I usually do," and so I got lectured about The Dangers of Carcharoth! as
        though I were an idiot, and then I said, "Well, is my house still up in
        Hirilorn?" and that killed conversation completely for a bit.

    [shaking her head]

        And then Mom wanted to give me their room, and neither one of us wanted that,
        and Beren tried to help by suggesting that we could sleep on the floor in one
        of the storage caves, and they thought that was Not Funny either, and then
        they realized that it wasn't supposed to be a joke, and things got touchy
        again for a little while, and then we had another round of mutual apologizing.

Nessa:
        So what did you end up doing?

Luthien: [completely unable to stop now that she's started talking about it]
        Hirilorn, actually. No one else was staying there, no way up it for Carcharoth
        -- and the army stationed all around the gates of Menegroth below -- and
        ultimately everyone agreed it was the best solution. Not perfect, mind you --
        I had to guard Beren up the ladder like you do with small children to the house
        door, and then he got upset all over again about how high up it was -- he'd only
        seen the tree once at sunset and it was a lot more impressive actually being in
        it -- because of me climbing down from it, and then we fought about me sleeping
        on the floor with him because my bed was too small for us both and he was being
        all self-sacrificing again and I had to cry before he'd stop it, and then we
        fought about him going on the Hunt the next day, because he insisted that it
    `   really was his fault about Carcharoth and besides Mablung was going in spite
        of his injuries, and we were both feeling so Doomed that I couldn't tell if
        it was a real perception or not, and I tried to make a joke about this being
        familiar, up in the moonlight with sentries down on the lawn and he got upset
        again about the fact that I had to rappel down, and about the fact that they
        were in the Pit then . . .

   [she stops, taking a ragged breath; Beren is profoundly mortified -- Tulkas
    gives him a sympathetic look]

Tulkas: [pointing at the drinking horn on the floor]
        Sure you don't want some mead? You look like you could use a drink.

Beren:
        No thanks -- but it sounds like a better idea all the time.

Luthien: [forlornly]
        . . . and I almost wished that they'd just drunk us a toast, broken a loaf,
        handed us some blankets and said "there's an empty corner behind those shelves
        over there," just bread -- wine -- bed, instead of even trying to make a fuss
        . . . It wasn't just the awfulness at dinner, the rest of the celebration wasn't
        any good either -- there wasn't any of the traditional singing, because it
        wouldn't have been appropriate with all the mourning, and everyone was so
        awkward about congratulating us . . . and about actually looking me in the eye,
        and not staring at Beren. As a wedding -- it was pretty awful, really. And then
        he got killed--

    [she stops abruptly]

Nessa: [outraged]
        That's not right! You deserved better than that!

Luthien: [shrugs]
        Well, -- yes. But under the circumstances--

Nessa: [interrupting]

        That doesn't matter. That's just no good at all. --You know Morgoth ruined
        our honeymoon, too.

Luthien: [blinking suspiciously hard -- politely:]
        --Really?

Nessa:
        The party was wonderful. Which just made everything after so much more awful
        as well. It's worse when good memories get spoiled by some disaster.

Luthien:
        What happened? I remember Mom saying something about that was why you all moved
        out of Middle-earth -- something about volcanic eruptions or something -- she
        wasn't very clear, and I was a little kid being fished out from under the loom.

Nessa:
        He used our wedding as cover to sneak his army of fiends in from Without and
        start entrenching up north and by the time we realized he was causing the
        pollution and the mutations, that it wasn't something we'd done wrong, he
        had already tunneled under the Lamps.

Tulkas: [bitterly]
        I shouldn't have gone off-duty.

Nessa:
        No darling, it was my fault for distracting you. You couldn't have known about
        the double-agents -- not even Manwe did, then, so why shouldn't you have had
        the night off?

Tulkas:
        Honey, don't you dare blame yourself. Just as much my fault for daring you to
        try to wear me out--

Nessa: [mischievously]
        No one can keep up with me. I bet I could do it again tonight . . .

Tulkas: [interested]
        What stakes?

Nessa:
        A beach holiday on Tol Eressea. Moonlight on the ocean, dolphins playing, and
        the water right there when we get sandy. --What are you betting?

Tulkas:
        A mountain-climbing vacation.

    [leadingly]

        --Sunrise over the Pelori, bonfires under the stars at the edge of the world,
        and that bracing mountain air means we'll have to keep warm somehow. The deer
        will like it too, we won't have to ask anyone to watch them while we're away.

Nessa:
        Ooh, you're cheating!

    [she pokes him in the ribs. He sits up and tries to catch her hand, giving her
    kisses, while she keeps on trying to tickle him.]

Beren: [to himself]
        They looked a lot more staid on Gran's tapestries . . .

    [Luthien gives a speculative look at the Powers and then at him]

Luthien:
        If you hadn't gone and gotten yourself killed, we could have had that in
        Middle-earth, too. They've been married for thousands of years and somehow
        they manage not to fight most of the time.]

    [Beren winces. Unnoticed except by Huan, who pricks up his ears, Aule's Assistant
    appears in the middle of the hall. He does a double-take at the sight of the hill
    and its occupants, before giving a disgusted snort at the sight of the amorous deities.]

Aule's Assistant: [clearing his throat]
        If you can manage to divert your attention from this unseemly spectacle, and
        grant this humble messenger a modicum of the same?

    [they all turn and stare at him]

Tulkas: [looking around the room]
        Unseemliness? We can't have that. --Where?

    [the Assistant shakes his head. Nessa throws a grape at him; he ignores it with
    studied decorousness]

Assistant: [to Luthien]
        The Powers have requested -- in the absence or preoccupation of the regular
        staff -- that I provide you with escort to the chamber in these Halls where
        they will hold their deliberations so that you may address them, and account
        for your actions.

    [silence. Beren and Luthien, looking nervous, start to get up]

Luthien: [to Beren]
        If you find yourself getting panicked again, leave the talking to me this time.

Assistant: [quickly]
        The presence of your -- consort -- is not required.

Luthien:
        What do you mean?

Assistant:
        I mean, plainly put, that the mortal is not to attend this meeting.

Luthien:
        Well, then, -- I'm not going either. Why can't he?

Assistant:
        To your first word, this is not "attendance optional," to your second -- in
        plainest speech --  because he does not belong here in the first place, nor
        with you, who are of a different kind, nor is your reasoning made clearer
        by his company.

Luthien: [tearful frustration]
        Why is everyone out to get us? We're not hurting anyone, we didn't ask for
        very much -- we just want to be together. --What is the problem? Why does
        everyone in the world have to make such a fuss about us? What do the gods
        care about me, about Beren, when they have all of Arda to worry about? What
        difference do we make?

    [pause]

Tulkas:
        Well, you did come and insist rather loudly that Namo pay attention to you.
        --Not trying to be mean, just pointing out a fact.

Luthien:
        But why can't you just fix things?

Tulkas:
        How?

Luthien: [acerbic]
        You're the gods, you're supposed to be all powerful.

Nessa: [patiently]
        Now, little sister, I'm sure Melian taught you better than that.

Luthien: [still stubborn]
        You still haven't explained why such a fuss is being made.

Tulkas:
        You've thrown everyone off by doing something completely unprecedented.
        People don't just show up here without being called for, you know.

Nessa: [thoughtful]
        Well, there was that other time which is sort of the same thing--

Tulkas: [scowling]
        Yes, but that's not a good precedent. And it isn't really the same at all.
        They're not like them -- and a jolly good thing, too!

Nessa:
        True.

    [to Luthien]

        You should really do something with your hair, you look like a poor sheep
        they've forgotten to shear.

    [Luthien, looking intensely piqued, starts to say something -- and Beren laughs]

        It looks so nice when you braid flowers in it.

Luthien: [to Beren, who has turned it into a cough]
        What, sir?!

Beren: [complete innocence]
        Oh absolutely, I agree -- about the flowers.

    [she gives him a narrow Look; he takes a lock of her hair in his fingers]

        You just don't get a break, do you? --It's okay, it's okay, this is just
        a little thing--

    [he tugs her closer until their foreheads touch; whispering:]

        You still don't look as much of a sheepdog as me--

    [they kiss]

Tulkas: [approving]
        Much better.

    [embarrassed, they straighten back up]

Assistant: [clearing his throat]
        --Could we please stop wasting time, young Lady?

Luthien: [same tone back]
        That is Princess, to you, sir. And we are not wasting anyone's time, but
        quite the reverse.

Nessa: [to her husband]
        Oh, I've got a plan. A good plan! Listen--

    [She grabs his head and whispers into his ear.]

        Let's go find her, all right?

Tulkas: [frowning]
        You really think that will help?

Nessa:
        I'm sure. --Oh, I want to stop by the house first and pick up the deer.

Tulkas:
        Are they part of the plan?

Nessa:
        No, silly, it's just more fun when they're around. Race you back to the hall!

    [Vanishes. Tulkas vanishes a split-second later. The Hill is left behind]

Assistant: [shaking his head]
        --Well, don't expect to see them any time soon.

    [to Luthien, not really a question]

        Your Highness, are you coming or not?

Luthien: [folding her arms]
        I told you, I'm not going anywhere without Beren.

    [deliberately]

        You tell them -- If he is not welcome, I'm not welcome

Beren: [unhappy]
        --Tinuviel -- maybe--

Luthien:
        No. If they're going to make this big deal about me being Mom's daughter
        and "isn't it wonderful" to meet me and isn't it so awful what happened,
        they can treat you with the respect due you as my consort. Otherwise it's
        just the same as Doriath.

    [The Assistant gives her a disgruntled glare; she gives it right back to him]

Assistant:
        I will speak to my Patrons about this, Elf.

Luthien:
        Good. You do that.

    [after a brief staring contest Aule's messenger vanishes, not before saying,
    in a last-word-power-play manner:]

Assistant:
        Don't touch anything while you're waiting. --Especially the Loom.

    [silence -- particularly deafening after the last visitors;  the couple look at
    each other, recovering from the overwhelming personalities and onslaught of
    information they've just experienced.]

Luthien:
        Well.

Beren:
        --Yeah.

    [pause]

        Not -- not quite what you expected either, huh?

Luthien:
        I think -- my parents -- left a lot out.

    [pulling herself together]

        Now I'm wondering what else they neglected to mention or somehow failed to
        convey quite vividly enough. --So what were you expecting?

Beren:
        I don't know. Not this.

    [shaking his head]

        I mean -- I don't know, I just -- my folks raised me to be godsfearing and
        pious, I learned my myths, and how you don't reap all the field, you leave
        some for the deer in winter because Yavanna is patron of wild animals, not
        just farmers, and you don't ever shoot swans because they're sacred to Ulmo,
        and if you wear down a knife or a needle where it can't be sharpened any
        more you don't throw it away in the trash, you bury it out of respect for
        Aule, and you thank Manwe when the weather holds good for harvest --

    [short dismayed laugh]

        --that was all just -- everyday stuff -- just life, but not -- there, like
        the War. The stories -- they were like tapestries, bright colors, and detailed,
        and interesting, but background, not -- real -- the way stories about our
        history were real, people if you didn't know, at least you knew people who
        had known someone who had known them.

    [sighs]

        And then everything fell apart, and -- what was normal and what wasn't -- by
        the end nothing human was real to me, and I swear I could understand what
        the streams were saying, but since it wasn't in words I couldn't ever say
        what it was -- and then -- you --

    [she smiles sadly at him]

        and afterwards . . .

    [he shakes his head]

        . . . he'd say things, or they would, and I literally couldn't make anything
        of it . . . I hear words like "and so I asked Varda," and -- my mind just
        stops, like a pony balking -- I can't make any pictures to go along with the
        words. I just had no idea really what to expect . . . being mortal, especially . . .

    [with a touch of resentment]

    --but I did think it was going to be peaceful at least.

Luthien: [slowly]
        It's different for me, obviously -- more like your old family stories about
        Hithlum, friends of my parents and places that I've never met or seen but
        had always felt familiar towards, because of the way they talked about them.
        But it's still quite different from the way I'd imagined it, from their
        stories . . .

    [glancing up at the glowing vaults with a thoughtful frown]

        So that is the Loom. That answers one question, at least. I wonder . . .

    [she gets up and tugs him over towards it, despite his reluctance]

Beren: [worried]
        Tinuviel, he just said--

Luthien:
        All he said was don't touch it. I'm just looking, Beren.

    [it's clear that's not going to be the case for very long]

        Oh, interesting. I can see now why they call it a "loom." I think -- look
        at that, there actually are several, um, heddles, I suppose you have to call
        them -- see?

Beren:
        No.

Luthien:
        More than several, really. They just keep on going, all the way back in, I
        don't see how they all fit. And that's got to be the take-up -- again, I don't
        understand how all of them can be in there--

    [she leans in and starts trying to measure spaces]

Beren:
        Er--

Luthien:
        --because there's got to be one for each "heddle", but it looks to me like
        you could unwind the, ah, cloth, and thread it over these bits, if you--

    [without her actually touching anything, some part of the construct moves and
    there is a dramatic, if brief, change in the intensity, texture, and color
    of the lights]

        Oh! --Did you see that? You did see that, right? I don't know exactly what
        it was, but there was definitely something there-- Now if I do this -- or
        this instead--

Beren: [trying to pull her away]
        I don't think we're supposed to be doing this . . .

Luthien:
        And that has stopped you when?

Beren:
        . . .

    [she keeps poking around, while he alternates between expressions of dread and
    resignation. Thus neither of them see when Huan re-enters, carefully leading Finrod
    Felagund by the sleeve, who is a little bemused but otherwise calm and unflustered.]

Finrod:
        Huan, I don't think we're supposed to be back here. I know it's a madhouse
        right now and no one seems to be around to give any answers, and I haven't
        been able to find anyone to send down to Orome about you, but don't you think
        we should look for someone to come explain what's going on . . . and . . .

    [stops]

        I -- think we've found them.  Somehow -- I'm not surprised. Aside from being
        shocked beyond words. Beren? -- and  Luthien? -- how --

    [He hastens over to the two of them, who have turned around with a start and are
    standing frozen in front of the Loom]

        How . . .?

    [Beren, speechless, falls on his knees before him, Luthien kneeling with him.
    Finrod at once kneels too, taking their free hands in his own -- or attempting to.]

Finrod: [in extreme distress]
        Beren, what's happened?

Beren: [roughly, not looking up]
        I've failed you again, sir.

Huan:
        [barks sharply]

Finrod:
        Last I knew you were safe and living happily together. What happened to
        you -- three?

Beren:
        Carcharoth.

Finrod:
        What's Carcharoth?

Huan:
        [growls]

Luthien:
        Morgoth's anti-Huan defense system. But I knocked him out and we got in anyway,
        but then Morgoth saw through my ruse and recognized me.

Finrod: [aghast]
        Ah -- you were killed by Morgoth?

Luthien:
        No! We got it. But then Carcharoth got it. And Beren's hand. And then the Eagles
        came and got us. And Huan and I took care of Beren. And then we went home, but
        Carcharoth had already gotten there and into Doriath because of the Silmaril
        but I'm not sure if it might not have been because of Beren's hand, either,
        and they went to hunt him and he almost got my father but Beren got in the
        way -- and here we are.

Finrod: [stunned]
        You -- got -- a Silmaril. --Yourselves.

Beren: [hoarse]
        And then I lost it.

Finrod:
        You two -- went into Angband and took one of the jewels away. By yourselves.

Luthien:
        With Huan's help.

Finrod: [horrified, touching Beren's wrist ]
        Is that what happened to you?

Beren:
       No. That was Carcharoth.

Finrod:
        But you knocked -- Carcharoth -- out.

Beren:
        But then he woke up.

Luthien:
        --I explained that, remember?

Finrod: [mildly]
        I'm still trying to accept the fact that you're really here and not some sort
        of hallucination born of wishful thinking.

Luthien: [remorseful]
        I'm sorry--

Finrod: [brushing her bangs aside]
        What happened to your hair? You look like a wild pony.

Luthien: [laughing and crying together]
        Oh, no . . . not you too . . . !

Finrod:
        I -- no, I believe it, I simply cannot comprehend this.

    [he shakes his head, laughing a little]

        Let me endeavor to do so. --We'd heard of your exploit from several sources,
        but mostly from the newly-arrived -- there are several persons here who came
        not long after returning to Nargothrond, finding freedom sadly lacking as
        compared to expectations and recollection -- and I've had no end of trouble
        convincing the majority here that my older cousin from the Old Country isn't
        really twelve feet tall with a perpetual battle-aura brighter than the High-
        King's, let me assure you.

    [Luthien gives a short incredulous laugh]

        And they all said that you looked like the happiest couple in Middle-earth,
        and they were so pleased, and we were too, and it seemed as though things
        were going uphill, what with Sauron routed and no enemy base in that
        geographical corridor any more, and that was the last we knew, until the
        staff were all called away suddenly and with a great deal of worry expressed,
        talking about a sudden influx of casualties from Beleriand all intensely
        traumatized and no one's given us any meaningful answers since then.

Beren: [hollowly to himself]
        --Carcharoth . . .

Luthien: [getting warmer as she goes]
        Beren wouldn't go along with it -- too much happiness and he had to wallow
        in guilt some more and then try to immolate himself, and we tried to stop him,
        Huan and I, we really did -- but even though we could escape Nargothrond's
        security and defeat a Dark Lord, we were no match for Beren when it comes to
        out-and-out granite-hard stubbornness, not about going to Angband, not about
        refusing to take the peace we could get, not about going off to fight Carcharoth
        -- again!
 

    [Beren cringes and ducks his head; Finrod grips his arm comfortingly]

        I'm sorry. It's been a horrible year.

Finrod: [hesitantly]
        Did you like Nargothrond? --I mean -- that is, of course, aside from being
        a prisoner . . . ?

Luthien: [incredulous]
        Finrod--! Really, do you think--

    [she checks, and then looks sadly at him]

        --It was beautiful. It was just as lovely as you said it would be. I wish--

    [she breaks off, shaking her head, and reaches out to stroke the side of his face.
    He gives her a rueful smile]

        I wish I'd gotten there in time.

Finrod: [gently]
        So you could have watched me fade after? --You did.

    [he looks at Beren]

        You keep saying "Carcharoth" and I don't quite know what you're talking about.
        Is that a weapon? Or or a person? Or both, like Glaurung?

    [Beren answers before Luthien can start to speak]

Beren: [meeting Finrod's eyes for the first time]
        Mine.

    [pause -- Finrod stares at him, starting to make sense of it]

        --And Huan's.

    [Finrod understands -- his expression changes to utter dismay and he cannot say
    anything. He reaches over and pulls them both against his shoulders, rocking them
    for a moment like children, resting his forehead against theirs. When they
    straighten he commands:]

Finrod:
        Tell me everything.

Luthien: [tired and frustrated]
        Finrod, it's such a long story, and I've been telling it over and over and
        over again and--

Finrod: [quietly]
        I promise I'll listen.

    [she stops and almost smiles -- he gives her a kiss on the forehead and stands,
    helping them both get up.]

        Let's find someplace more comfortable than the floor, though, if you don't mind.

    [glances around -- musing:]

        I wonder if benches would qualify as a technical violation . . .

    [the others look at each other, wondering what on earth he's talking about. A
    woman's voice echoes through the door from down the hallway:]

        --I shall not speak with him, dost thou not hear me plain? I'll have none of this--

Finrod:
        Grinding Ice--!

    [Casts around frantically, ducks behind Huan.  A tall and radiantly blonde woman
    sweeps in accompanied by Nienna's Apprentice. She could be played excellently by
    Uma Thurman, on loan from Gattaca. The faint (given the lighting) but definite
    living color of her and the slight shadow she casts make for a somewhat disquieting
    effect, as they do for her escort. Her gown is sleeveless, off the shoulder and
    flowing white, with a wide begemmed sash -- Art-Nouveau Egyptian-classical, like
    a Mucha-esque Cleopatra.]

Apprentice:
        My Master asks but that you hear him out -- whether you say anything or not,
        milady.

Amarie:
        I mean absolutely no disrespect to thy Master whatsoever, but thou mayest
        tell the Lady that if she doth hope to force some manner of reconciliation
        on us in such wise, it is foredoomed to be in vain. I will not to talk to him,
        do you hear?

Apprentice:
        Alas, yes.

    [they see Beren, Luthien, and Huan -- and no one else -- present in the chamber,
    and cross to them in the absence of any other possible advisors]

Apprentice:
        Erm . . . excuse me, Your Highness, but you haven't happened to see my teacher
        -- that would be the Lady Nienna -- about anywhere lately?

Luthien: [rather sharp]
        I am afraid I haven't, sir. I have seen precious little of pity as yet from
        the Powers here -- though much in the way of sentimentality.

Beren: [trying to be fair]
        Uh--

Amarie: [interested now as well as annoyed]
        --"Highness"? Shall be a foreigner from the other Shore, belike? For I know
        all the royals in this land, and she is none of them.

Apprentice: [graciously indicating with his arm]
        This is the daughter of the Lady Melian and her consort, King Elu, once called
        Elwe, brother of the lord of Alqualonde (who is well known to yourself,) -- the
        Princess Luthien of Doriath in Beleriand.

    [silence]

Amarie: [staring intensely at Luthien]
        So.

    [pause]

        This, then, shall be the infamous maid herself?

Luthien:
        --Infamous?  I wouldn't know.  Who are you?

Apprentice: [quickly]
        I'm just the messenger. As in 'Don't shoot'.

Amarie: [looks her up and down and sniffs]
        Thou dost not appear much that hath such havoc late inspired.

    [turning her gaze on Beren]

        And this is thy human consort. --I should have expected better there as well.

    [the detached contempt slips into cold rage]

        An I thought it should touch him, that mortal killer, I'd strike him across his
        villainous countenance, as I'd thee as well --

    [back to the cool detachment]

        --but such doth merit not even my disregard.

Luthien:
        Don't you dare threaten him!

Amarie: [sneering]
        What matter? He hath not substance nor reality in any case.

    [Beren raises his brows but says nothing. Behind Huan Finrod grimaces, and
    reluctantly gets up from his knees to step around the Hound.]

Finrod:
        --Amarie.  --Is that how you see them? Or only all of us that are dead?

    [silence. They stare at each other with extreme intensity -- her shock at the
    surprise takes a moment to fade]

Amarie: [flatly]
        --What dost thou here?

Finrod:
        A friend summoned me. I don't ignore such things. --Especially when it's Huan.

Beren: [astonished]
        --That's Amarie?

Luthien:
        Oh, this is your old girlfriend?

Amarie: [furious]
        Wretch, what hast thou said of me?

Beren:
        --This is Amarie?

Amarie: [through her teeth]
        --And am I thus made sport for a Secondborn barbarian, and a mockery for
        usurpers as well as renegades?

Finrod: [iron]
        Do not speak ill of my friend.

    [she snorts in disdain]

Amarie:
        He is dead, withal.

Finrod:
        So am I.

Amarie: [scoffing]
        Thou? Thou art merely affected and that right willfully, thou miscreant.

Beren: [confused]
        --Affected? --Does that mean something different here?

Luthien:
        Not that I've heard.

    [to Amarie]

        Now you hear me, you can't insult my cousin that way -- or any other way,
        I won't have it.

Amarie: [without heat, very matter-of-factly]
        Silence, thou shameless recusant. Thou'rt naught but a savage, for all thy
        shadowed folk name thee princess, and the more so to roam the wildwood in
        garment of suspect sorcery and thine own hair--!

    [Luthien is momentarily speechless. Beren winces, glances at Finrod]

Finrod:
        Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Beren:
        Oh yeah. -- No cover at all.

Finrod:
        What an inopportune time for Huan to run off. He'd be adequate cover for us both.

Beren:
        Hey -- it could be worse.

    [pause]

Finrod:
        It was.

    [Both studiously avoid each other's eyes for a moment. Futile -- each steals a look,
    and simultaneously bursts into uncontrollable laughter.]

Amarie: [affronted, turning her wrath on them]
        What, pray tell, dost so amuse?

    [Beren and Finrod try to look serious. Attempt fails utterly.]

Finrod: [leaning on Beren's shoulder, doubled over]
        "Dumb Stunts of the Noldor," number I-couldn't-begin-to-guess-which, out of
        very-likely-infinity--

Beren: [being the Voice of Reason]
        It was a good plan, it just needed some tweaking. Huan even said so. It
        worked fine the second time--

Finrod:
            Right.

    [wiping eyes]

        --Would you care to explain what definition of "fine" you're using?

Beren:
        Hey, just because I blew it afterwards doesn't change the fact that the plan
        worked perfectly.

Finrod:
        What were we thinking?

Beren:
        Hey -- you want stupid? You wouldn't think anyone could forget this, would you?

    [gesturing with his right wrist]

        Carcharoth charges and instead of bracing the end of it against the side of
        my foot and using my elbow to help stabilize it, I go to level it at him like
        I still had two hands and he brushes it aside like I was poking him with a
        cattail instead. How dumb is that?

Finrod: [scoffs]
        What about "leave the talking to me, I can handle him," --never mind the fact
        that we're talking about a being who helped build the world itself, older by
        comparison to me than I am to you -- no, I'll just take care of him!

Beren:
        No, no, nothing on me. You gotta hear the whole story -- you're not going to
    believe most of it.

Finrod:
        I don't believe most of it anyway. Not even the parts I was present for.

    [they lose it again -- Luthien sighs and shakes her head; Amarie is staring in
    horrified fascination]

Amarie:
        What doth so amuse?

Luthien: [dryly]
        Wolves.

Amarie:
        Wolves?!?

    [Luthien nods]

        And thou dost think naught on't?

Luthien: [shrugging]
        I can't laugh about it -- but I won't deny them the right. It's their battle.
        --Beren doesn't find anything remotely amusing in the parts of my adventures
        I find funny after the fact.

Amarie:
        --Madness!

Beren: [recovering enough to argue]
        Yeah, but what about me blowing our cover?

Finrod:
       That wasn't you, that was me. Besides, we were insane then.

Beren:
        Well, I certainly was. I distinctly remember calling you "Ma" on more than
        one occasion.

Finrod: [reasonably]
        Yes -- and I answered.

    [unsteadily they endeavor to regain self-possession]

Beren: [nodding towards Amarie]
        Now she's going to think we're completely crazy.

Finrod:
        Oh, I'm sure she already does. All of Tirion thinks so, or so I've been
        informed, and no doubt they think it on the seacoast and in Valmar too.
        Besides, she told me so when I left: this will merely confirm her opinion
        irrefutably.

Amarie: [acidly]
        Wouldst thou leave off this affectation that I am not present, while thou
        dost speak of me, else cease from the same?  Or shall that prove too much
        in the way of civilized manners for thee, Finrod?

Beren: [sobering up]
        Would you rather we talk about you when you can't hear and respond, milady?
        Is that how they do it in civilized society?

Finrod: [to Beren]
        For someone who isn't real, you make a lot of sense, you know.

Beren:
        Thank you. --I try.

Amarie: [outraged]
        I shall not be insulted by an -- an Aftercomer.

Finrod: [to Beren]
        I thought you asked her a serious question.

Beren:
        Me too.

Amarie:
        Finrod, presumest not to disregard me, nor speak me past as I were but
        a carven figure!

Finrod: [becoming quite focussed]
        But you ordered me not to speak to you -- you made that one of the conditions
        of ever getting the chance to ask for your forgiveness again.  Are you going
        to hold this against me, start the yen over again, because I'm doing what
        you're telling me to do now? Amarie, I haven't got the strength for this. I
        apologized. You got angry. I'm not allowed to apologize, or to seek you out,
        and now apparently you're angry with me for obeying you.  If you're going to
        play these games with me, then I'll stay here till the end of Arda and work
        on my songs. There's a wonderful group of musicians here, and the acoustics
        are excellent. What do you want me to do?

Amarie:
        Oh! Thou mocker!

Luthien: [incandescent]
        What?!? You set him an impossible task and then you punish him for doing it?

Amarie:
        Thou art the one to talk, forsooth.  To name a Silmaril for thy dowry --!

Luthien: [rolling her eyes]
        Not this again -- That wasn't my idea.

Amarie:
        What matters that, when the end's the same? Dost thou know what he endured
        for thy sake, thou spoilt daughter of the twilight?

Luthien: [mildly]
        Yes, I rather think I do. Better than you, by far. I was the one who discovered
        them, you know. And helped with the burying.

    [raising her voice and pointing to her husband and kinsman]

        How could I not?! I took care of Beren afterwards and listened to him talk
        about it -- when he could talk -- night after night after night, I washed
        his corpse--

Finrod: [embarrassed]
        Luthien, please--

Luthien:
        --of course I know! So don't try to put your guilt at not being there on me.

Amarie: [indignant]
        Guilt? I have no guilt. I did not rebel, wherefore I have no reason to
        reproach myself.

Luthien: [ironic smile]
        Yes, well, I'm sure that's your story.

Amarie:
        Story? 'Tis but the truth.

Luthien: [more serious]
        I don't know. I look at you and I think -- if that were true she'd be far
        more unhappy and far less angry. It feels like something of an act to me --
        keep your temper hot with us, and then you won't have to think about how
        differently things might have gone if you'd gone with him and help keep
        control of matters all along.

Amarie: [shortly]
        My parents and elders forbade it.

Luthien: [raising an eyebrow]
        --And? Did they lock you up in a tower, too?

Amarie:
        --And I honor them, -- as is my filial duty.

    [Finrod makes a stifled noise, but is straightfaced by the time she glares at him]

        As I honor the gods and do obey them without question.

    [Luthien shrugs]

Luthien:
        -Indeed. I suppose you have to stick to your story now.

Amarie:
        Again with this talk of stories! Have thy Turned people no knowledge of the
        truth then, to judge all as falsehoods?

    [Luthien gives her an ominous look -- no more quarter to give]

Luthien:
        I don't know you. I can't tell if you were truly being principled, or just
        too afraid of being different, or of being disapproved, or of the dangers
        even. Don't interrupt me! I do hope that it's the former -- I trust as much,
        because I know Finrod, and his judgment weighs in your favor. But the way
        it's all woven together is something only you know, or perhaps only the One.
        But you made your choice, and Finrod made his, and they were irreconcilable.
        End of stanza. New verse.  He's back, he's said he's sorry, and he's proven
        it by letting your wishes command him. What is your problem?

Amarie: [ice]
        My problem is no more than this -- thanks to thy meddling and willfulness,
        the one I should have wed died an exile and outcast, in the torments of the
        Enemy so that thou and this vagabond of thine could wed in despite of all
        graciousness and reason.

Luthien: [offhand]
        Don't blame us for what you should blame yourself for. --At least no one's
        trying to forcibly split you up and keep you from ever seeing him again for
        all of eternity!

Finrod:
        Er -- just to be clear on matters -- that's Luthien's viewpoint, not mine.
        I never said any of it was your -- ah, her -- fault.

    [to Luthien, sharply]

        What was that last bit there?

    [the next two exchanges overlap]

Luthien:
        They want Beren to leave and me to stay and I won't have it.

Amarie: [to Finrod]
        Do not presume to address me!

Luthien: [condescending]
        Now, don't get angry because you're getting what you demanded. I really don't
        understand your problem at all. Do you love him? If yes, work to a solution.
        If not, give it up. Let it go -- what does it matter if he suffers or not, if
        he doesn't mean anything to you any more? Go find a hobby, get on with your
        life, why don't you.

Amarie:
        Such facile japery is but to be expected from one born to the darkness.

Luthien: [maddeningly slow emphasis]
       Whether I am a Dark-elf or not has no bearing on my question. Do you love him?
        Yes or no answer.

Amarie: [just as patronizing]
        Plain thou wouldst have it -- yet it hath not such simplicity. Of course I
        didst love him, but--

Luthien: [cutting her off]
       -- No. You've got it all wrong. It's and. Never "but" -- "I love you, and--"

Amarie: [still more patronizing]
        I ken not what thou wouldst convey.

Luthien:
        "--I love you, and I don't want you to do this." "--I love you, and this is
        stupid." "--I love you, and I'm going with you." It isn't really that complicated.
        --Or else you didn't really love him.

    [pause]

Amarie: [ice]
        I have neither heart nor time for folly.

    [looks to where Nienna's Apprentice was standing -- and is quite obviously not now]

        --Where has that strange youth betaken himself? He was to guide me to his
        Master's presence.

Finrod:
        I'm not surprised he's made himself scarce, considering how much I'd like to
        do the same thing myself.

Beren: [looking around]
        Huan hasn't come back yet either.

Finrod: [dry]
        Well, I've always had a high opinion of his intelligence.

Amarie:
        I'll not stand here and be insulted by such compare!

Luthien:
        Yes, well, why don't you do that then?

Amarie: [as if to a crazy person or a small child]
        Do? --What?

Luthien:
        Walk away, since you won't stand for it.

    [Amarie gives a blazing look towards Finrod, who is wearing a suspiciously
    innocent expression]

Amarie: [softly]
        And so thou'lt stand by and see me mocked, even? I'll go, then, and find
        the Lady myself and bring her my plaint, if I must walk these Halls till even.

    [she turns abruptly and strides away towards the corridor without another word
    or backwards look]

Finrod: [raising his voice]
        If she would listen to me, I would tell her that it might not work. Distance
        and direction aren't exactly the same here as they are Outside.

    [she still does not look or pause, though there is a visible if controlled reaction
    in the set of her shoulders and lifted chin. After she is no longer visible from the
    doorway the place seems a lot larger and dimmer. Finrod gives a sigh half of relief,
    half of regret, as Luthien moves to him and puts her arm around his shoulders in a
    consoling gesture.]

Finrod:
        That could have gone much worse.

Luthien: [tight]
        I don't see how.

Finrod:
        For a moment there I thought she might try to hit me again.

    [rubs his jaw reminiscently]

        For someone with no combat training who, quote, disapproves of violence,
    unquote, she did an excellent job of knocking me part-way across the table
    before we left.

    [pulling himself together -- as if the last few minutes hadn't happened at all:]

        You were going to fill in the details omitted from the condensed version,
        and I was going to find us somewhere to sit. I suppose -- I wonder what the
        purpose of it is? -- that quaint little informal garden might serve the purpose.

    [he takes their hands as though to lead them to the hill, but this is interrupted
    by the loud entrance of Huan, dashing in as if in pursuit of an animal -- he skids
    to a stop just short of Finrod and begins to vigorously lavish canine attention on him]

Beren:
        Hey! Hey! Easy! You're gonna knock someone over.

Finrod: [laughing]
        --Are you going to do this every time you see me, old Hound?

Luthien:
        Huan, sit!

    [Huan does so, grinning]

Vaire: [stern]
        Finarfinion. --What are you doing here?

    [she approaches from the doorway; Finrod bows.]

Finrod:
        Conversing with my cousin and my friends, my Lady.

Vaire: [darkly]
        That had better be all.

    [to Luthien -- gently]

        What seems to be the difficulty, dear?

    [she notices the Hill -- to Finrod:]

        What is that?!?

Finrod: [pleasantly]
        Amazing, isn't it? It seems to be the real thing. I'm sure the grass is longer
        than it was a little while ago.

Vaire: [almost speechless]
        I -- said --

Finrod:
        And I haven't. It was already there when I came in.

Luthien:
        Tulkas' wife put it there.

Vaire:
        Oh.

    [pause -- shaking her head:]

        I wonder why.

    [to Luthien]

        Would you please come and sit down with us so that we can get this situation
        taken care of?

Luthien: [lifting her hands]
        What part of "not without Beren" is so hard to understand? Should I set it to
        a melody and sing it instead?

Vaire:
        Child, please don't be difficult.

Luthien:
        Difficult? Believe me, I haven't even started being difficult.

    [she is getting the combat look again]

Finrod: [murmuring]
        --Tact, cousin, tact.

Luthien:
        I tried that. It hasn't worked at all to date.

    [Beren turns her towards him]

Beren: [quietly but earnest]
        Tinuviel. --Don't let them make you crazy. We're together now. We can get
        through this. If they're willing to talk, the situation isn't hopeless. Not
        all concessions are bad ideas. Go with the Lady -- she said they want to hear
        you. That's a good thing, right?

Finrod:
        You didn't marry a fool, Luthien.

    [after a moment she sighs and nods, though her expression is still very hard.
    Putting her arms around Beren's neck:]

Luthien: [softly]
        Stay close to him, don't go wandering about on your own, don't let anyone
        talk you into agreeing to anything, even if it seems harmless this time,
        --don't even talk to strangers if you can avoid it, and wait here for me.
        I'm going to sort this nonsense out once and for all.

    [she kisses him briefly and reassuringly]

Beren:
        But -- these are your mother's people, in a way, really -- they wouldn't do
        anything to us, would they? They're kind of family, aren't they?

Luthien:
        Beren. --Listen to what you just said.

    [pause]

Beren: [smiles wryly]
        Point taken.

Luthien: [to Huan]
        Will you stay here and help look after Beren?

Beren: [looking at the ceiling]
        I tried that once.

    [Huan wags his tail twice]

Finrod:
        Don't worry, we'll take care of him.

Luthien:
        I know.

    [she starts to follow, then turns back and gives Beren a quick intense kiss, and
    then darts to hug Finrod again before reluctantly accompanying Vaire. The Weaver
    gives Finrod a frown, seeming about to say something, but changes her mind. The
    three of them are left alone. There is a brief silence, during which Huan melts
    away into the shadows again; while the other two look at each other uncertainly
    in a renewal of shyness.]

Finrod:
        How are you -- honestly?

    [pause]

Beren:
        It's not as bad as it has been.

    [Finrod sighs, unsurprised]

        I'm sorry, I didn't mean to depress you--

Finrod: [very emphatically]
        Beren. Do not, I beg you most fervently, if you have any compassion whatsoever,
        apologize for having been killed. --Unless it really is your wish to leave me
        still more depressed.

    [pause]

Beren: [quieter]
        All right.

    [pause]

Finrod: [forced briskness]
        Where's Huan? He seems to have gone off again.

Beren: [shaking his head]
        That's what I said. It's like you said, back when -- Huan's his own dog,
        and no mistake.

    [almost smiling]

        And he's our dog, too.

    [smile fading]

        He's always right, even when I've disagreed with him, so he's probably doing
        something to help me again, even though he shouldn't.

Finrod:
        Why shouldn't he?

Beren:
        Because I don't deserve it.

Finrod:
        Beren--

Beren: [changing subject]
        Sir -- how are you? Are -- are you well? Are you -- treated well? I can't really
        tell anything about what it's like here -- it's too big, or something and it's
        just sort of strange and blurry -- and I can't tell much about the people, there's
        been some shouting, but no one's shoved any spears or other pointed objects in
        my face yet or threatened to chain me up, so so far I'm not complaining.

Finrod:
        No. No chains, here. It's -- very peaceful. A trifle dull, perhaps, but -- not
        unpleasant. Not for me, at least. Plenty of time to think, which some people
        find trying, but I don't mind it. And no responsibilities, which is an immense
        relief. I'd not expected that . . . I had no idea how much I was attempting to
        keep under control these last few decades, until I no longer had to do so.

Beren:
        I'm--

Finrod: [raising his hand abruptly]
        No apologies for that, either.

    [this leaves Beren with nothing to say for the moment]

        I really don't understand why you've had so much awful luck. It can't be
        explained merely by your own actions. There does seem to be something to that
        saying, "Circumstances conspired against them."

Beren:
        Mm.

    [giving him an uncertain glance]

        You know something? I just realized -- we're related now. By marriage at least.

    [Finrod looks taken aback]

Finrod: [sounding dismayed]
        Oh. You're right. I'd forgotten about that as well. Oh dear.

    [sighing]

        You don't deserve that on top of everything that's already happened. There's
        been far too much chaos and madness in your life already.

Beren:
        Uh--

Finrod: [changing subject himself]
          So that's what the Loom looks like when it's off. --Hm.

    [he looks at it with a considering expression]

        I wonder if . . .

    [trailing off]

Beren:
        Um -- not to sound critical or anything, but -- I always thought there was
        actual string involved, somehow.

Finrod: [nods]
        So did I.

    [Beren looks surprised]

        --What? I hadn't seen it either.

Beren:
        Oh.

Finrod:
        I never tried to mislead your family --

Beren: [earnestly]
        No, no -- I wasn't saying you did -- it could have been us, too, messing things
        up, or even just me not paying attention.

Finrod: [just as earnest]
        Please, don't denigrate yourself. I was saying, I didn't misrepresent
        deliberately -- but there were many, many things which I didn't understand,
        or of which I have a much better understanding now. Some of my explanations
        were in retrospect too facile, oversimplified, or at least open to
        misunderstanding. Especially about things having to do with the Halls.
        And I'm lecturing again, aren't I?

Beren: [softly]
        It's all right -- I don't mind.

    [nods towards the Loom]

        She made it do something, right before you two came in, but I don't know how
        she did it.

    [Finrod gives him a quick look]

Finrod:
        You say that as though you're expecting me to start tinkering with it.

    [pause]

Beren:
        You mean you're not?

    [they share a somewhat hesitant grin; Finrod moves as though about to put a hand
    on Beren's shoulder, but doesn't quite know if he ought -- the awkwardness of their
    reunion is cut short by a familiar voice from the doorway:]

Captain:
        There you are, Sir.

    [Beren instinctively moves behind Finrod, trying to vanish as the Captain comes up]

        --Are we supposed to be back here? I'm sorry, I still haven't been able to
        establish exactly what's all the ruckus--

    [Finrod steps back, saying nothing]

        --Beren?!?

    [he grabs Beren, dragging him practically off his feet into a bear-hug -- setting
    him down, catches his shoulders and gives him a little shake, staring at him, then
    hugs him again]

        Sweet Cuivienen, lad --  we thought we'd lost you forever.

    [letting him go, but still keeping an arm around his shoulders, --to Finrod:]

        Sir, it's Beren--

    [--then laughs at himself]

Finrod: [smiling]
        I know. As, apparently, do most of the greater and lesser Powers in this place.

Captain:
        You mean all this trouble's over him?

Beren: [hoarse]
        --Surprised?

Finrod:
        Yes, for once it's actually not us.

Captain: [troubled look]
        Only -- this means--

    [looking at Finrod:]

        --how long has it been, Sir?

Finrod: [meaningfully]
        Not long enough.

Beren:
        About half a year. A little more.

Captain: [very grim]
        What happened?

Beren:
        A -- lot of things.

    [he is barely managing to control his emotions]

Captain:
        Beren -- and what of your lady--?

Beren:
        She--

    [he cannot continue]

Finrod:
        My cousin's pulling strings with the Powers to keep Beren from being sent
        Beyond. They, of course, think that they are convincing her to act in their best
        interests by letting him go. Which of them has the correct understanding of the
        situation has yet to be determined -- it's all very much in flux. I'm still
        catching up with the background, but the present difficulty seems clear enough.

Captain: [frowning]
        Resolvable, Sire?

Finrod: [edged smile]
        If I have any say in it, yes. We'll need -- oh, good.

    [The Steward enters a second after he finishes speaking, and has nearly crossed
    the floor to them before he does a double take at the third member of the trio.
    After a moment's blank stare at Beren, he looks to the other two and then, seemingly
    accepting without further question, lets his gaze travel back to the Man.]

Steward: [formal]
        My lord Barahirion.

    [he bows, very correctly]

Beren:
        Sir --

    [he moves forward, from under the Captain's hand, and then halts, looking helplessly
    at the other Elf-lord]

Steward:
        I confess myself at a loss for words.

Beren:
        --Sir, I'm so sorry -- I--

Steward:
        Please -- do not distress yourself upon my account.

Beren: [choked]
        --I saw your bones.

Steward: [coolly]
        That is all in the past.

    [noticing, frowns -- in a different tone]

        What happened--

    [Before he can finish asking the question, the entrance of the rest of the Ten,
    noisily accompanied by Huan, interrupts him.]

First Guard:
        Milords, look who's playing sheepdog -- Beren!?!

    [At once Beren is surrounded by them and mobbed enthusiastically by eight Elven-
    warriors' shades, all trying to slap him on the back, fling their arms around
    his shoulders, ruffle his hair and embrace him like a long-lost sibling. He is
    completely overcome and gives up even trying to speak, simply accepting their
    welcome. Finrod looks on, wearing a rather rueful smile.]

Captain: [gently amused]
        Now then, now then, take turns, don't throttle the Beoring all at once.

    [they spread out, abashed, but still fiercely possessive, dividing demonstrations
    of affection between Beren and Huan.]

Warrior: [grinning]
        I suppose that means it's all right if we do it singly, then -- Beren, what
        happened to your hand?

Beren: [heavily]
        It's a long story.

Warrior:
        --That bad?

    [Beren gives a wry grimace, not quite a smile]

Second Guard: [concerned]
        Why are you still here? Are you in trouble again?

Beren:
        Er--

    [the Soldier is looking around with interest at the Hall and its decoration, or
    lack thereof]

Soldier: [to the elder of the two subordinate Rangers]
        Well, that answers that. It's as boring here as it is everywhere else. They
        really like it that way -- it isn't for some therapeutic reason. Pay up.

    [the Ranger sighs and hands over a brooch, manifesting it as he does]

Ranger:
        I like the little ridge though, -- even if it doesn't really seem to fit with
        the rest of the decor.

Beren:
        She made that.

Steward: [frowning]
        Who? Lady Vaire?

Beren:
        No. Her -- um, the Lady of Summer, the Bride.

Captain:
        Oh, yes, that makes sense. The roses especially -- they look like her style.

Steward:
        --Nessa was here?

Beren:
        And Lord Astaldo -- he -- he was--

Captain: [knowingly]
        They're a bit much to take, either one of them.

Beren:
        Yeah, but -- actually, he was really nice. They both were. Just -- a little --

Captain:
        --Overpowering?

    [Beren nods]

Captain:
        I know. They're wonderful people, but very little sense of restraint. If you
        ever go to one of their parties, don't ever let Tulkas talk you into a drinking
        contest. --Or Nessa, for that matter.

Guard:
        That girl who works for them, who is she, -- Measse, that's it -- did a pretty
        good job of drinking you under the table back in the day, sir.

Captain: [mock indignation]
        And how would you know but by hearsay, eh? You were long since past consciousness,
        as I recall.

Beren: [eyes widening]
        That's not the -- the same Measse you ask that you'll come home at the end of
        a fight?

    [silence]

Youngest Ranger: [whispering]
        I'm not used to this either.

Finrod: [briskly]
        All right then, everyone! Catch up later -- we have work to do.

    [he gestures for the Steward and the Captain to draw near, while the rest hang
    about, beginning to drift off and sightsee around the staff area of the Halls.]

        I want all of you to stay here and guard Beren -- I've promised Luthien I'd
        look after him for her. Will you make sure nothing happens to him while I go
        and see a few people who might be helpful?

Captain:
        You know you've no need to ask that.

Finrod: [quick smile]
        I know. --But it's more polite that way.

Soldier: [overhearing]
        Ah, Sir, -- what could happen to him here?

Finrod: [shaking his head]
        I've neither idea nor the wish to find out.

Captain: [with a meaningful look]
        All of us, Sire?

Finrod:
        I'd feel better that way.

Steward:
        Are you certain that's wise, my lord?

Finrod: [edged]
        I can take care of myself. There's no trouble here that I can't handle very
        well on my own.

Captain: [raising an eyebrow]
        Shouldn't that be, --none that you haven't handled as of yet?

    [Beren, with a worried expression, puts his hand on Finrod's arm]

Beren:
        Sir, I don't want you to get in any trouble because of me.

Finrod:
        It won't be because of you.

Beren: [urgent]
        But if you're trying to find help for me and Luthien, then it would be. I don't
        want to owe you any more, Sir. I -- I couldn't live with that.

    [pause]

        I mean . . .

Finrod:
        Beren, you're not in my debt: I owed your father my life.

Beren:
        But my father didn't get killed saving your life!

Finrod: [getting exasperated]
        You know that's irrelevant. Do you think that the lives of your companions
        were worth less than your own or your families? No. You don't. And neither do
        I. Lots of people did get killed at Serech. You're the last Beoring, you get
        to collect on it, like it or not.

Captain: [rolling his eyes]
        Not this again!

    [the Soldier has still been standing nearby, listening with concern]

Soldier: [aside, to the Captain]
        What's going on, Sir?

Captain:
        It's the "Endless Battle." You know -- The Argument.

Soldier:
        No, I don't know. What about?

Captain:
        That's right -- you were first, that was after your time. They're arguing over
        whose fault it is more.

Soldier: [bemused]
        Oh. But--

Captain:
        Not what you're thinking, lad -- the other way round.

Warrior: [interrupting]
        Where are they up to?

Captain: [listening]
        Going over the mountains west, as opposed to what we actually did and what
        might or might not have happened in various hypothetical situations which
        did not, obviously, occur.

Warrior: [heartfelt]
       Damn. They're just getting started, then.

Third Guard:
        What are we up to now? Anyone remember the tally?

Ranger:
        I lost count after twelve-score.

Soldier:
        --But why are they arguing?

Captain: [snorts]
        What, they need a reason to claim responsibility for every earthly mishap?
        Remember who you're talking about: "I ought to have Seen and single-handedly
        prevented the Kinslaying," on the one hand, against, "If only I'd been killed
        at Aeluin everything in the world would be fine."

Steward:
        It was at four hundred eighty, and eleven, when I was taken. Or one, depending
        on whether you subscribe to the view that it's all actually one long Argument
        with breaks. I was counting every time they repeated an exchange as a new
        engagement.

First Guard:
        There were times when I could have killed the both of them myself, or myself,
        just to get away from it.

Ranger: [quietly]
        It was worse when they stopped, though.

    [sighs and nods of agreement from the final veterans]

Beren:
        But you asked me my opinion about that and I agreed it was risky--

Finrod: [cutting him off]
        You know you didn't feel competent to contradict me, because of your youth,
        regardless of the fact that in terms of actual field experience of recent date--

Steward: [looking up at the vaulting, fervently]
        Dear sweet Lady, make themstop!

Ranger:
        That doesn't work here either, sir. I don't think anything can.

Youngest Ranger: [muttering]
        --That's because they're both swarn.

Finrod:
        Beren, I'm the eldest, I was in command, I should have known better--

Captain:
        Great Mother of Spiders, no, no, NO!!! I am not listening to this for another
        hundred-forty-three years, can you imagine?!

Steward:
        Most unfortunately -- yes.

Beren:
        But I shouldn't have just--

Captain:
        That's it, no more, I've had it --

    [shouting]

        Hey! You two! Would you stop it? We already know how this goes, we don't need
        to hear it again!

        "--It's my fault, I shouldn't have involved anyone else in the first place."

        "--No, it was my decision to get involved, not yours."

        "--But you had to help me, you didn't have a choice."

        "--You only had authority over me because I gave it you to begin with.
        Besides, I was in charge of the entire operation, therefore any and all
        responsibility is solely mine."

        "--There wouldn't have been any operation if I hadn't started it all, so
        it is really my fault."

    [normal tone]

        --Did I cover everything?

Warrior:
        You forgot "But your entire civilization was collateral damage in our war--"

Fourth Guard:
        --and "but we wouldn't have had a civilization without you--"

Steward:
        But otherwise I think you touched upon all the salient points with admirable
        succinctness. I couldn't have done it better.

Youngest Ranger:
        You did the voices very well, too, sir.

    [absolute silence. Finrod and Beren look at each other, guiltily. Both of them
    start to say something, several times, and can't.]

Steward: [amazed]
        --Holy Stars. It actually worked.

Captain: [bland]
        Of course, if you absolutely insist, we could always test out the Ered Wethrin
        hypothesis the way we did with the Bragollach.

Finrod:
        Ahem. I think -- I should go and see -- about doing -- what it was I was going
        to do. Now. --Excuse me.

    [he turns and leaves abruptly]

Fourth Guard:
        --Did we go too far?

Beren: [shaking head]
        No, he just couldn't keep a straight face much longer and we already got
        our ears ripped good by Amarie for inappropriate behavior once this . . .
        well, already.

    [The mention of Amarie's name brings varied and strong reactions]

Steward:
        Amarie?

Captain:
        She's here? --What happened?

Warrior:
        We're doomed. She's absolutely ruthless.

Steward:
        Amarie?

Youngest Ranger:
        Was there an accident?

Second Guard:
        There aren't accidents here.

Youngest Ranger:
        Do you mean "here" here, or "here" as in Aman?

Second Guard:
        Aman "here." Besides, she's Vanyar, what would she need to learn here?

Steward:
        The Lady Amarie? You're sure?

Beren:
        Er, tall, blonde, and answering to the name of "Amarie" --?

Captain:
        Hard to think who else it would be. --Don't worry, even if she is here, I
        imagine she's still against violence.

    [the Steward gives him an annoyed Look]

        --Not that that can't be conveniently forgotten. Again.

Beren:
        Not -- here like us. Just -- here.

Warrior:
        How?

Beren: [exasperated]
        I don't know. All I know is that she didn't want to be here and she kind of
        laid down the law to the guy who brought her here that she wasn't interested
        in talking to Finrod and then spent a long time yelling at him anyway. The
        King, not the other guy. --And us. And then she was losing to Tinuviel so
        she went off in a huff to complain to whoever it was who sent for her. If
        anyone said who it was I missed it.

    [pause]

Steward:
        Ah. That's interesting.

Captain:
        Very interesting.

Steward:
        Bets?

Captain: [snorts]
        --No! You cheat.

Steward: [haughty]
        Employing the Sight is not cheating if all other parties are well aware that
        one possesses it. Besides, it's neither guaranteed nor infallible.

Soldier:
        Then how come you always win, sir?

Steward: [austere]
        Luck.

    [several of the Ten exchange significant Looks]

Beren:
        Okay, why are you worried about people ambushing him? Who would do that,
        and why? --And how?

Captain:
        It's a long story -- not quite so long as Noldolante, however -- but I
        suppose that technically we did start it, at the very beginning--

Steward:
        --Not just technically--

Captain:
        --by pounding the hell out of a Feanorian or two followed by lessons in Why
        Pell-work Is Not Enough Nor Will You Encounter The Rules Of Formal Combat
        In The Wild, followed in turn by -- the worst cut of all -- apologies.

Beren:
        But why were you guys beating up Feanor's partisans? Or was there a reason?

Ranger: [wryly]
        There's always a reason. Even if it's just the appellation "House Feanor."

Captain:
        Oh, there was an unpleasant fellow who likes to hang about the High King and
        act as though he's a notable at court again -- one of quite a few, but this
        chap has the gift for getting on one's nerves like you wouldn't believe. He
        was one of their top Elves back when Maedhros was still High King, and he
        never stops letting people know how he was the Second Casualty in the War.
        Apparently we're all supposed to accept his assumption that Grey and Green
        losses don't count.

    [snorts]

        Why he's so proud of being too dumb to figure out it was an ambush in
        advance -- particularly since they were planning on it themselves, and
        surely an evil god with centuries' practice at deceit and betrayal ought
        to be able to think of such a thing himself -- and of not succeeding in
        covering his lord's retreat and thus making his death count for something,
        I have yet to figure out. But there you have it. At any rate, we hadn't been
        here very long -- no idea what that would be in the Outside, I'm afraid, but
        it didn't seem very long -- when he turned up while our lord was relating our
        misadventures to his uncle and made so bold as to provide unasked-for
        commentary. He found the story most diverting.

Beren: [lethally cold]
        He was making fun of the King? --And you all?

Captain: [nods]
        I warned him not to make light of what he didn't understand, as Himself was
        being too dignified to pay attention to such offensive behavior. I did so,
        in no uncertain terms. --He laughed again.

Beren:
        Then what happened?

Captain:
        He discovered that the imagined experience of being picked up by the collar
        and slammed repeatedly against a stone wall was nearly as unpleasant as the
        actuality.

Soldier:
        Then we laughed.

Captain:
        Then he complained bitterly to the High King, who found it tiresome, until
        it was suggested -- I'm sure you can guess by whom -- that he issue a challenge
        and endeavor to satisfy his honor in the traditional way. After some balking
        about whether or not such a thing would be possible, and this being decisively
        demonstrated -- again by the King -- he did so.

Beren:
        And?

Captain:
        I was still quite angry. --He should have known that His Majesty wasn't
        making the suggestion out of a pure disinterested sense of fair play -- but
        if he hadn't the brains to be wary of taking any free advice from someone
        he'd just been insulting, that's hardly our responsibility, now.

Ranger:
        It was very funny.

Steward: [sighing]
        Since then the situation has somewhat escalated, as might have been expected,
        though perhaps not to the scale that has from time to time been reached.

Beren:
        That's why you are in -- in trouble all the time? You're fighting with the
        guys from House Feanor?

Captain:
        Well, it isn't all the time.

First Guard:
        And we certainly aren't the only ones.

Soldier:
        Replace "fighting with" with "polishing the floor with" and you'll be closer.

Warrior:
        I still think we'd have been all right if we had left the walls alone.

Captain:
        No, because someone would still have complained until the rafters rang due
        to the fact that every single time time we kicked their sorry hindquarters
        back to Himring, except for the one time we did "Under Stars" and tossed
        them into the sea.

Steward:
        That, I think, was the unforgivable insult.

Captain:
        Yes, well, you saying afterwards that Dagor-nuin-Giliad was a case history
        in basic strategy and every recruit these days studied the tactical errors
        made by Feanor before learning how to manage a spear and a horse at the
        same time didn't exactly help.

Steward: [sharply]
        It's no more than the truth.

Captain:
        It was more the tone of voice. Besides, it's just as true that we've beat
        them roundly on every occasion. Hence the sneak attacks and the complaints.

Warrior:
        But if we hadn't moved the walls, Lady Vaire wouldn't have gotten involved.

Steward:
        I do not recommend wagering anything on that unproveable possibility.

Beren:
        I'm sorry, but -- this isn't making any sense.

Captain:
        It's a long story.

    [pause]

Beren: [wry]
        As long as the Return of the Noldor?

Captain: [ironic]
       Not quite.

    [from this point, with that routine, in spite of recurring guilt attacks, any
    lingering reserve on Beren's part is gone -- he settles back into their old
    familiarities]

Beren:
        Okay, so what happened? --Is happening? Whichever.

Captain:
        Ever since the Dagor Bragollach, various parties here have been fighting
        over how it might have gone differently. The most obstreperous of the lot
        were those who went West at the "Glorious Battle", because they had the
        experience of winning easily at the "Battle-under-Stars", the first one
        fought after the Return.

Beren:
        Yeah, I remember, that's the one we used to play in the door-yard on moonless
        nights. --Boy, did we get in trouble for beating on the "Gates" of "Angband"
        with sticks when we did the Coming of Fingolfin. Huh.

    [he shakes his head in bemusement at it all.]

Captain:
        Hold onto that thought, as you'd say. --When I say "fighting," I mean endless
        discussions and arguments, the sort that make a council back home look as
        quick as an exchange of hand-signals. The Old Guard was convinced that If
        Only They'd Been There, the Battle would never have been lost, and we Young
        Whelps were obviously incompetent and/or cowards to flee the field.

Ranger:
        As you'd expect, that didn't go over well with those who actually were there.

Warrior:
        But until we showed up they'd never done anything but talk about it. At nauseating length, I might add.

Captain:
        Then after listening to the debate cycle round twelve or fourteen times, he
        comes up and says, "Why don't you put your talk to the test and prove that
        you could have done it better?" Not in those exact words, of course, but you
        get the picture. And they all shut up for a bit, until they started jeering
        at him about how it wasn't feasible, and he said, "Well, perhaps not for you,
        by yourselves," and they said, "What, you could?" and he said nothing, and
        manifested a quarter-size copy of Glaurung in the middle of the hall. And
        some lava for him to play in.

    [grinning]

        After everyone had sorted themselves out, minus those who didn't feel like
        it just at the moment, and the shouting and the recriminations had died down
        to a dull roar, he asks, "Well, why didn't you shoot him?" to some of the
        more obnoxious of the old-timers, and then added, "That's what cousin Fingon
        did when the Worm was that small," and everything split into an uproar again
        with the dividing lines not being House Feanor and Everyone Else for once,
        but Those Who Were There and Those Who Weren't. And the upshot was a challenge
        to refight it, as much as possible like the real thing, with strict rules
        governing what could be done and not done, such as having to stay dead if
        killed, or your horse likewise if mounted, and not being able to make yourself
        unlimited arrows, but having to glean them off the field, or to mindspeak
        farther than you could alive. Making sense yet?

Beren:
        No. I think you're saying you somehow pretended to fight the Sudden Flame
        amongst yourselves in the Halls, like us when we were kids playing Lords
        of the West versus Morgoth. But I don't understand where the horses are
        coming from and the arrows and how you can be killed if you're already
        dead. --Unless you mean you have to stay down like when you get "killed"
        with a stick that's supposed to be a famous sword.

Second Guard: [encouraging]
        That's right. It's exactly the same thing, only instead of pretending we had
        horses and spears, we -- er --

Steward: [raising his eyebrows]
        --Pretended we had horses and spears.

Beren:
        But how would it work? And it doesn't seem like you could convince them,
        because they would still say, well, yes, but that's you, not Orcs, if you
        won. And what about the Balrogs and the fire? And anyway if you did make an
        illusion of lava, it still isn't the same because first of all, it isn't hot
        if it's an illusion, right? and second, the terrain -- the floor is flat,
        not hills and stuff, and that makes a huge difference.

Soldier: [wistfully]
        We should have had you helping plan it. That would have been fun.

Captain:
        As to your first objection, is it hot -- that depends on how convincing an
        illusion it is. Which in turn depends equally on how much the artist knows
        about the subject, and how convincingly then chooses to hold it. Not everyone
        is willing to think about such things in all their painful details. As to
        the second -- that's what the debate about the walls concerns. Though it was
        actually the floor as well as the walls.

    [pause]

Beren: [flatly]
        Why did King Finrod move the walls? --And the floor?

First Guard: [grinning]
        My, he's quick.

Beren:
        --And, by the way, how?

Captain:
        Can't answer the how for you, I'm afraid -- I can't do it myself at all.
        You'll have to consult these young punks on that matter --

    [gestures towards the Youngest Ranger and the Soldier]

        --they're the best of us, after His Majesty. I find the stuff far too
        convincingly solid to convince myself that since one works stone, or
        anything for that matter, with one's mind equally as much as with one's
        body, with sufficient concentration and understanding one ought to be
        able to reshape matter regardless of physical contact. "After all," as
        he said, "if Lady Vaire can do it, I should be able to."

    [silence -- suddenly Beren chuckles, and instantly suppresses it]

        Oh yes. Why's a lot easier -- we needed a very large open space to start
        with -- we didn't do it to full scale, exactly, we had to cheat a little,
        but it was -- big. And to address that terrain problem you noted.

    [pause]

Beren: [stunned]
        Goddess of mercy . . . you turned the Halls of Mandos into Ard-galen?!

Ranger: [shrugging]
        Not all the Halls, just some.

Third Guard:
        A little part.

Soldier:
        A good bit of it was illusion too -- Thangorodrim, for instance, was just the
        gates and a shell for the lower portion, since no one actually got inside it.

Beren:
        Good grief! -- and they let you get away with it?

Captain:
        For a while. Eventually they noticed and we had to stop. Which might not have
        happened if certain people hadn't gone and complained bloody murder about it.
        It really did have to do with the walls, though.

Steward:
        --And the fact that killing each other, even thus in seeming only, offended
        the Powers' sense of fitting behaviour within these walls.

Warrior: [sighing]
        I'm not sure that what the King said to her was the most tactful thing to
        say, either. Even if it was true.

Beren:
        Do I really want to know what it was?

Steward:
        His Majesty was somewhat aggrieved due to the fact that walls had been being
        reconfigured for some time prior to the reenactment, as part of his experiments,
        and that he assumed the Lady of the Halls was quite aware of it all along, it
        not occurring to any of us that she should not be.

Warrior:
        There was that business with the missing gallery, too, Sir.

Steward: [nods]
        There was.

    [Beren gives him a cautious look]

        Lady Vaire ordered us to remove all traces of alterations throughout the Halls.
        One of the galleries which was removed was apparently one which she herself
        had shaped as part of an expansion plan. I say "apparently", because it isn't
        certain: King Felagund maintains that the one which was his attempt at duplicating
        it was on the opposite side of the corridor, and that her Ladyship has gotten
        confused about which was which. None of the rest of us is certain. --They argue
        about this from time to time, to no certain resolution.

Beren:
        . . .

Captain:
        Look, this is tiresome, standing around. Why don't we make use of the hill
        that Nessa's kindly left for us and make ourselves comfortable.

Steward: [looking up at the ceiling and shaking his head]
        You would think that a pile of dirt and weeds looked comfortable.

Captain:
        Weeds! Those are flowers, Edrahil -- can't you tell the difference? And by
        comparison to a stone floor -- most definitely, wouldn't you agree?

Steward: [ignoring him]
        It seems to be rapidly becoming overgrown with wild roses. Not cultivars, and
        therefore weeds. And very likely with their natural thorns, and thus not comfortable.

Beren: [trying to interrupt]
        Sirs--

Youngest Ranger: [smiling wryly]
        Don't waste the effort, Beren.

    [he puts an arm over Beren's shoulders and leads the way]

        We'll just have to make sure we take the grassy bits and leave the thorns
        for Lord Edrahil so he'll have something to complain about.

Steward: [to the world at large]
        --Young people these days.

Beren: [as everyone settles down on the Hill]
        So . . . who played us?

Fourth Guard:
        We didn't actually do our bit, because it wasn't important in terms of the
        overall outcome.

Captain:
        --That is to say, all that happened in terms of the Bragollach was that we
        never made it to the real front with any reinforcements, so Serech was
        irrelevant in that sense.

Beren:
        Oh . . . okay. So what did you do?

Captain:
        Headed various units under the the King's command.

Beren:
        Who was he? --The High King?

Captain:
        No, his uncle was quite happy to take part.

Beren:
        Er . . . I meant the current High King.

Captain:
        Oh. No, he took the most difficult part. They didn't actually refight the
        Duel, since it would have been a draw most likely, but the exercise ended
        when Fingolfin made it to the Gates. --What's wrong?

Beren:
        You mean -- he --

    [breaks off, wide-eyed]

Captain:
        Of course. No one else has studied the War in such depth and in such a
        technical way, interviewing survivors -- and veterans -- of as many parts
        of the field as possible. Who better to play the Arranger of Battles?

    [pause]

Beren: [suspiciously bland tone]
        Somehow I don't think that would have been seen as appropriate either.

Captain:
        I don't think it helped, no. The resentment over the Bragollach had mostly
        died down, though, before the Feanorians started things back up again.

Beren:
        Why? I mean, other than being House Feanor, what's the reason?

Second Guard:
        Isn't that reason enough?

Steward: [to the Captain]
        There would be considerably less hostilities did you refrain from provoking them.

Captain: [superior tone]
        I have never yet drawn first.

Steward:
        No, but you needn't respond every time.

Captain: [snorts indignantly]
        What, I should stand there and let them hack at me without defending myself?

Steward:
        I meant the verbal provocation that invariably results in them drawing upon you.

Captain:
        If they refuse to accept that they are totally outclassed and persist in
        challenging either with wits or weapons, I see no reason to spare them a
        lesson. Better they harry me than the King. For everyone -- I'm actually
        being kind to them, you see.

Beren:
        I'm guessing I really don't want to know the story, but -- why are they
        going after him? You'd think they'd be ashamed to.

Captain:
        Partly a simmering resentment over the fact that none of them are as
        good as he--

Steward:
        --the remainder, resentment over his being proven right on a matter of
        speculative discussion.

Captain:
        Namely, the debate over whether or not -- as House Feanor affects to hold,
        or did -- the words of the Ban were metaphorical, or literal, as our lord
        argued. The claim that we were never going to be allowed out of here and
        "long" was a euphemism for "never" -- which was used as the justification
        for much resentment and obduracy -- being quite thoroughly disproven by the
        amnesty granted Himself. For a while there it got completely out of hand, but
        after the last rout I think they've given it up, at least for a while. Sooner
        or later some idiot's going to --

Beren: [interrupting]
        Wait -- wait a second. You're telling me that he doesn't have to stay here?

    [silence]

        I don't understand.

First Guard: [wry grin]
        Long story.

Steward: [dry]
        Not that long.

Beren:
        But --

    [shaking his head in frustration]

        Explanation? --Please?

Steward:
        His Majesty has personal reasons for not accepting.

Beren: [flatly]
        --You.

Captain:
        No, actually, not at all. That was part of the haggling-over-terms that
        gave Lord Namo such headaches.

Steward:
        I would not call it "haggling" --

Captain:
        Really? Then what would you call it?

    [the Steward gives him a cool Look]

        Haggling, I say, as per the grounds for the offer being equally applicable
        to all of us.

Steward:
        Essentially, the argument went as follows: seeing that our lord was guiltless
        in the matter of the Kinslaying, and had departed Aman out of a sense of
        responsibility towards the rest of us, not for his own ambitions, and in
        consideration of his generosity and valor in Beleriand -- and it is possible,
        though these are mere deductions based on certain unguarded remarks, there
        was also a certain measure of pressure by parental forces -- there should be
        no real reason to continue to hold him here, and that mitigation of sentence
        was in order. To this King Finrod countered that we were no less free of guilt
        where Alqualonde was concerned, and that if he were to be released early on
        this count, and the deeds and sufferings that had transpired on the further
        shore, -- then we too should be granted the same. --Or he would not accept it.

    [pause]

Beren:
        Sounds like haggling to me.

Steward: [as if he hadn't spoken]
        Pursuant to which there was considerable debate, amongst the Powers, and
        while we awaited the final decision, word came in reply to the King's
        messenger that Lady Amarie refused to accept his apology and forbade him
        to contact her again for a full Great Year.

Captain:
        At that point Himself says, "Never mind about me," just when he'd won his
        concessions -- the wording of it was a tremendous battle, since he wouldn't
        apologize for thoughts he never held nor for actions he considered justified,
        either -- and that miffed the Lord and Lady no end.

Beren: [frowning]
        Did they withdraw the offer?

Steward:
        Of course not.

Beren:
        But you're still here.

    [silence]

Steward: [gravely]
        Would you have taken it?

Captain: [quickly]
        A yen isn't very long to us, Beren.

    [comprehending, Beren looks away, intensely embarrassed]

Beren:
        I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that--

Fourth Guard: [comfortingly]
        It's all right, everyone thinks we're raving lunatics.

Beren:
        I can't believe I asked that--

Captain:
        Beren. We know you wouldn't have taken it under the circumstances. We know
        you don't think we'd leave him. Stop worrying over such an insignificant thing.

Beren:
        But--

Captain:
        Enough.

        [Beren starts to protest some more, then gives in.]

Beren:
        So you could just walk out of here -- or however it works -- but you don't.
        That must really irritate everybody.

Ranger:
        We're taking bets on whether we're going to be the first in history to be
        evicted from the Halls.

Beren:
        Why?

Ranger:
        It would fit with the cyclical notion of history repeating itself, and the
        wish has been expressed loudly more than a few times that it was allowable.

Youngest Ranger: [correcting]
        I think he was trying to ask why they'd want to throw us out at all.

Ranger:
        Oh. Well, they were really, really put out with us introducing the concept
        of dueling in the first place. Battle reenactment is so far beyond that that
        the Lord and Lady were completely speechless when they found out.

Steward:
        I believe it is the failure to leave off that is the issue now, not the past.

Fourth Guard:
        Only it isn't our fault, Sir.

Steward: [dry]
        Another debatable point, that.

Beren:
        So what's going on? I don't really understand.

Captain:
        The resentment over our status keeps tending to spill over into outright
        aggression. Naturally we're not going to allow them to attack us -- or the
        King -- without a fight. And it goes on from there.

Steward:
        Complicated by the fact that His Majesty refuses to allow his behaviour to
        be curtailed by threat of offense.

Beren:
        So the rest of the Elves here are angry because you could go if you wanted,
        and they can't.

Steward:
        A small but active minority, almost exclusively composed of partisans of
        House Feanor.

Beren: [puzzled]
        Not everybody?

Captain: [quietly]
        Most people aren't ready. Not even the Feanorians --

Steward:
        --especially not the Feanorians--

Captain:
        --and they know it. But there's a lot of resentment left over from Beleriand
        as well.

    [pause]

Beren:
        That seems all backwards.

Captain:
        It does, doesn't it?

Beren:
        So that's why they might attack him if they see him in the Halls?

Captain: [nodding]
        Now you have to remember that Finrod Felagund is also and as much a scion
        of the House of Finwe as any of the more egregious members of the family,
        and that means that on some level he enjoys competition -- especially against
        his relatives, and their representatives -- as much as anyone else. Possibly
        more. Most particularly when nothing critical is depending on the outcome.
        This means that he can't just lose gracefully and take the challenge out of
        it -- no, he's got to beat them in new and more spectacular ways each time,
        which in turn simply incites them to new levels of aggression. The last time
        they set upon him with an entire company of horse.

    [pause]

Beren:
        What happened then?

Captain:
        Well, put it this way -- none of them are Maiar.

Ranger: [smugly]
        --And don't they realize that now!

Captain:
        Lady Vaire was quite put out with Himself for traumatizing them so badly,
        but Lady Nia pointed out that they had made tremendous strides in terms of
        progress towards humility and self-knowledge, so that harangue didn't last
        long. It did cause the imposition of an absolute crackdown on him rearranging
        the structures of the place, but there are ways around that.

Beren:
        But what happened?

Captain: [shrugging]
        They cheat, he uses corresponding power. Thirty-to-one and cavalry to boot
        most definitely being cheating, he forwent restraint and used some of the
        Dagor Bragollach illusions on them -- only they weren't all illusions: some
        of the rifts and ridges were quite real -- as the horses weren't he had no
        compunction whatsoever about employing the technique and even though the
        napalm was illusory, when you've just been thrown into a twelve-foot crater
        you didn't believe was there, you're not inclined to test the actuality of
        such things.

Third Guard: [gleeful]
        The most insulting part was when he showed up to meet his uncle without
        the slightest mention of having been waylaid, and no sign of it at all --
        they never even got near him -- and the upper-level House Feanor folk who
        were waiting to see him set down didn't know what to do -- they couldn't
        exactly ask, "Oh, did our warriors miss you in the Halls somehow?"

Beren: [faintly]
        I see.

    [pause]

        So he's here because he doesn't have to deal with Amarie not forgiving him
        in here, and you're here because he's here, and nobody actually wants you
        in here, and the other Noldor aren't sure whether to hate you because you
        can leave, or because you don't. Even though they don't really want to
        leave, either.

    [pause]

        I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Soldier: [cheerfully]
        Some people think trying to hit us is the appropriate response.

Beren: [shaking his head]
        If I was alive I would say this needs a drink to make any sense out of.

Captain:
        If you think that would help--

    [He takes the flask from his belt and starts to offer it to Beren, but pauses
    to unstopper it first before handing it to him]

Beren: [staring at the canteen in his hand]
        What's this?

Captain:
        Er -- a drink . . .?

Beren:
        But what is it?

Captain: [shrugs]
        A passable recollection of miruvor.

Beren:
        But you just gave it to me.

Captain: [bewildered]
        I thought you wanted a drink. Sorry if I misunderstood

Beren: [agitated]
        But how can it be real? If it's your memory, not mine, then how come it
        didn't disappear when you handed it to me?

Captain: [frowning]
        Because I don't want it to?

Beren:
        How do we know it's the same for me as it is for you?

Captain:
        We don't -- but . . . we don't know that when we're corporate either, do we?
        I could have experienced the taste of it differently then.

    [Beren shakes his head, baffled]

Beren: [increasingly manic]
        Is it an illusion? But what does illusion mean here? If we don't have have
        any bodies, then isn't everything an illusion? Is that how it works?

    [pause]

Captain:
        Do you remember the last night we dared risk lighting a fire, and you "made
        the mistake" -- I think that was what you said -- of asking --What color was?
        and if color was in things, how could it be changed by light? And after when
        he'd finished the preliminary explanation, you said something like, "If it was
        really that complicated nobody would be able to see" --?