Iron Hand, Iron Heart: The Sons of Finarfin

The Guest Queen

Year 67 of the First Age

Here follows the account of Colnith

Queen of the Nandor

Wife of King Denethor, long missed in these lands

They scorn us with the title of guest.

The Guest-Elves, children of the weak willed who would not cross the misty peaks of the Hithaeglir long before the first rays of the sun spilled into Beleriand. They say we were too frightened. Yet despite their claims, my husband still led us over the mountains and into their lands when the dark forces of Morgoth could not be stayed in our native forests.

They say we are dark-hearted. That our wills refuse to bend to their silver haired king. The false-hearted one. It was a doomed hour that our greatest leader, bright-eyed King Denethor, joined forces with Thingol against the Dark One.

Thingol left my husband to die like a hart in the forest on Amon Ereb, the last standing before he was cut down by orc blades.

Now I must return to this accursed place every so often and swear my allegiance to this cave dweller. No better than a dwarf. I'd rather spit on his jeweled slippers.

Weak willed... how Melian could couple with such an ellon is beyond me.

How quick they are to forget our great sacrifice on Amon Ereb, how swift they are to look down upon us as lesser beings. Green-elves, sly and quick as tree shadow. Laegrim is the word they use for us now.

But I tell you, there is none among them, other than their wise hearted queen, that know the forests of this world better than our people. We are born of the woods, reared among hollows and swaddled in leaves. They will never tame us all and it angers them.

Worse among these dells and hillocks of the girdled kingdom are these newcomers. The ones who returned from the west with the rising of the moon. They bear souls of metal and hearts of steel. They are being summoned to this place of rock and winding corridor, so deep in the earth that I can barely breathe.

I am here to renew our allegiance to Thingol, at the behest of my nephew, the insufferable Saeros. He wishes so deeply to be seen as one of them. He would betray his own people for the scraps from their table.

I must remind myself that I was once queen to a good and kind husband. It has been too many years without him. I must remind myself and hold my head up in these whispering halls. Even the air itself is poison in Menegroth.