(Text; UN: aloof)

[mourningjade]

Shameless.

(This Lan has passed judgment on you, Jikan. Now await your punishment.)

My arm would seize before I could give enough lashes.

(Actually it would fall off. Even with his endurance!)

Comments

[bythewaves]

[ Poor Qiren would have a stroke

he lifts a hand to gesture vaguely at their surrounds ]

All of this...how you have grown - such strange machinery... Well. Arda was always meant for Men, perhaps. You have always changed faster than us.

[ he smiles ]

Do they have names?

[mourningjade]

(He's already close to one with Wangji.)

This place is...advanced...to me. (Much of the machinery goes untouched by him.) Our lives are short in comparison. We must change or risk missing our destinies.

(He lifts the second rabbit - a black boy - and snuggles the pair.)

The black is Yue and the white is Yang.

[bythewaves]

[ to be fair, all Finweans are chaotic. Some are just more chaotic than others ]

One of the names we call you are Strangers, for you go out from the world, and we know not whence. [ Maglor nods, and smiles ]

Do those names mean anything?

[mourningjade]

(Ten million lashes!)

Yue means 'born under the moon' and Yang means 'sun'. (The two bunnies look content, snuggled together, little noses twitching.)

The fate of Men does not await you?

[bythewaves]

I see!

[ He laughs softly ]

I am no Man! Eldar I am, or Quendi, one of the Firstborn. Like all my people I am tied to Arda, until it ends.

[mourningjade]

I do not know what that means. (Only that he isn't a Man.) Will you suffer away from Arda?

[bythewaves]

Oh! [ He shakes his head apologetically ]

Ai, I forget, that folk here come from all over...Well. How best to explain it... Arda is what my people call the world we come from, and we call ourselves Quendi, the Speakers, and Eldar, the People of the Stars, for we are indeed the Firstborn of our world, the first of the speaking peoples, and the Stars were the first light we ever saw, and so also that which we love best.

We are made for Arda, and of her, and although we can be slain, and have been, our fear, our spirits, or souls, are tied to her, so that we exist so long as our world does. I do not suffer, at the least, I have not, so far! But I thank you for your concern.

[mourningjade]

(To be tied so intimately with something, Wangji almost understands the depth of such a bond. Almost. But he admits that he is mortal and what Maglor has experienced and will experience is beyond him.)

The stars are beautiful.

[bythewaves]

Clear indeed their song and true. [ Maglor agrees ]

And we honor highest the Lady Varda, Elentari, the Star-Queen, who kindles the stars and sets them in their places.