[Imladris]

Lira sighed sadly when she heard Reynion's anwer to Morlathion. He had seen much pain and grief, probably too much of it. She wondered fleetingly why he had lost his leg, but that also would have a sad tale attached to it. Her gaze swept the room: some were angry, some were happy, many were sad. Swirling her wine glass and absently noting how the wine looked like liquid ruby as it nearly splashed over the rim, she wondered how it felt to loose all that one possessed. Three hundred years were the years Lira boasted, yet it seemed she lived, nay continued longer than that; it was as if she had lived in Middle-Earth since it began. It had only been she had journeyed to Ithilien that she had really lived again. She remembered the evil that had lurked and spread like a virus in Greenwood. The wizards had had to drive the Necromancer from Mirkwood, and Lira remembered the joy that had for a time settled over the elvish realm. Then it had come back, and the orcs had attacked the fair kingdom and nearly destroyed it. Her parents had left after those horrors, and Lira wondered if they had made it safely to the Valinor.

Glancing at Esgallhugwen, Lira noticed that she was rather sad. Leaving Morlathion and Reynion, she asked Esgallhugwen, "What bitter thoughts haunt your mind this evening?"