[Durelin]

Maegisil could see Narisiel’s growing frustration with the elf-lord, and he felt his own anger and grief grow inside of him. It was this day that he had dreaded for so long. The way in which Celebrimbor spoke filled him with the kind of dread he had felt when his lord had first revealed to him the secret of the Rings: that dreadful secret, that mockery of the Mirdain, their great city, and their crafts. But unlike the feelings of fear and anguish that had boiled in his stomach since that fateful day, he found something new that clouded his mind even more: disgust. The people of Ost-in-Edhil still do not know what their lord did in his spare time… He looked upon his lord, the elf he had sworn allegiance to and been ever ready to risk his life for, whom he had considered his greatest friend and the most admirable being in all of Middle-earth, and for a moment, he sneered. Celebrimbor caught his eye.

“What is it, my wise and noble counselor?” Now the mockery was clear in the lord’s voice, and Maegisil was silenced by shock. He dropped his head slightly, not wanting to meet Celebrimbor’s eyes. “Do you have nothing to say, Counselor Maegisil?” the elf-lord asked bitterly after he received only silence from the other elf. After another moment of silence, he turned away from Maegisil, shaking his head.

“I do have something to say, my lord,” Maegisil said suddenly, causing Celebrimbor to sharply turn back to him. The lord smirked at the use of his title. “You are being a fool and a coward.”

Celebrimbor stared at him. If the elf-lord had not always been good at holding on to his composure, he would have been gaping at his…former…friend. He wanted to scream in his anger. When he finally spoke, he stuttered slightly, choking on his words, which only made him angrier. “Am…Am I the fool?”

“And a coward.”

“You are a fool.”

Maegisil suddenly realized the childishness of this, and after taking a breath, spoke with more assurance than before. “You have had over a century to prepare your city for the future and what it held. After your mistake, you knew what it would come to. I knew. You are right; I am a fool. I did not do anything for the future of Eregion, but neither did you. But who am I? I am only Maegisil. You are the Lord of Eregion.”

“And what could I have done?” Celebrimbor was yelling now, all outward calm thrown out the window, seemingly along with everything else. “I sat here in this very room for over a century wondering what to do. I sat here for hours each day in utter torment, with the awareness of what I had done and the knowledge that I had to do something about it.”

The Lord of Eregion’s outburst sparked something in Maegisil that had long been kept quiet. He could not remember getting truly angry for a very long time. He had always held his temper, and looked at things calmly and rationally. His philosophy had always been that he should never approach something passionately. But now it all fell apart.

“You sat here for a hundred years wallowing in self pity!”

Everyone was shocked at the volume and intensity of his voice, particularly Narisiel and Celebrimbor, who knew him well. The lord did gape at his counselor this time, searching for words that would not come, all of his excuses and denials broken down by that one sentence. Truth hit him hard in the gut, and he found himself struggling.

“We must tell the people…we must get them out…” he almost muttered, his mind searching for a way out, panic and total despair replacing all of his anger.

“We must evacuate those who cannot fight to the west as quickly as possible,” Maegisil said, almost to his own surprise, as he felt like he was taking command for a brief moment.

“The people will not want to leave,” Narisiel said softly, looking at Maegisil but watching Celebrimbor out of the corner of her eye, obviously still just as disturbed by the previous events as the counselor was.

“No, but they will know that they must. We will not hide anything from them. We believe there are at least twenty thousand, and that is what we will tell them. And we must ask those who can to fight, facing them with the odds of victory.”

“Which are none…” the Lord Celebrimbor murmured despairingly.