The hall was silent and empty in the afternoon hours. Golden sunlight filtered lazily through the coloured windows, bathing everything in a multicoloured twilight.
He found her sitting on a small table in the furthest corner, staring into the unlit fireplace. She was nursing a glass of wine which she seemed to have refilled several times already from a flagon on the table.
"Mylady..."
She looked up. "Ah, come sit with me, Lord."
"I prefer to stand." He smiled thinly.
The drink did not seem to affect her - her movements were still graceful and calculated, her voice clear and precise. Yet something new had come into it that she did not usually show - or care to show.
He looked at her. "You are drunk, my lady."
"Aye, that I am." She pulled her lips into a mirthless smile. "Come, drink with me and I shall tell you a story."
Without waiting for the answer, she took the flagon and poured a glass for her companion, then refilled her own glass. Setting it to her lips she took a long, thoughtful sip before beginning.
"Once upon a time, there was a Noldo, a guardian of renown." She stared out from her sunlit table into the darkness of the hall. "And now this was very long ago, for it happened in fair Valinor, in a place called Tirion. A pretty place it was I hear, and the towers shone further than anything on these shores, and they shone in the light of the trees."
After a short pause to look at her companion, she continued.
"Long had the Noldo wished for a son to carry on his duty and glory. Finally, the Valar had blessed him and his wife with a child. But his firstborn, the child that was to be named after the father, was no son, but a daughter."
She sighed. "Still... he was proud. The daughter was named after him. And as the child grew, she showed the spirit and the talent, and he trained her as he would a son. Though she could not serve in the same company her father served in, she found apprenticeship in another company, and there was no shame in that, for both companies were lead by Noldor lords, brothers."
Again the Noldo paused, and again she refilled her and her companion's glasses.
"But those times were the end of the peaceful times, and the beginning of the times that have been on Arda ever since. When first the enemy destroyed the light and fled to the east, the Noldor followed. And so it was by the Enemy's doing that the father's company was forced to rise up arms against their own kind, and were cursed for it.
Condemned they were, and all Noldor with them, but most of all those who fought."
The Elf's voice had taken on a hard, measured tone.
"As the father fell in this disgraceful battle, his name was extinguished from the family's annals for his shame. It would no longer be spoken on this earth. And with it perished the name of the daughter who was named after him. Both lost their name for the sin of one, and so the father was punished for his pride one last time."
The Noldo looked into her glass, frowned as she saw the small remainder of wine left in it, and emptied it with a shrug.
"And so you see, this story has cured me of the necessity of names of honour. Why bother, when all pride is in vain?"
She fell silent.
He looked at her in wonder. "And what became of the daughter?"
She looked at him as if noticing him for the first time. "Who cares? She probably crossed the ice, or perished trying."
She shrugged again. "It's just an old story."
"I see." He smiled. "I also was a soldier of the Noldor host... Though the Valar offered forgiveness to me and my likes after the war, we refused."
"As we should!" Her face was proud again, no trace of inebriation left in it. "Or would you say that, had you the choice today, you would have acted differently?"
"Nay." He shook his head. "We did our duty to our captains and kings."
She smiled coldly. "Aye, we did. And had I been standing next to my father, I would have taken the first strike."
