View Single Post
Old 04-26-2009, 11:15 PM   #279
piosenniel
Desultory Dwimmerlaik
 
piosenniel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Pickin' flowers with Bill the Cat.....
Posts: 7,816
piosenniel is a guest of Tom Bombadil.
Mithalwen's post

Loyalty is a strange thing. Some inspire it, and hold it through the bonds of admiration and affection. Others command it through ties of blood or duty. To treat it as a commodity to be purchased is a dangerous policy. Such allegiance may be transferred to the highest bidder and commerce is an activity of the rational mind which is liable to rate self interest above that of the paymaster. The ties of the heart are less easily severed.

Tathren knew that Lachrandir had been utterly loyal to Caranthir but his death had earned only his lord’s disdain. He remembered his father whose loyalty to his brother had led him to exile and slaughter. He would have followed Lachrandir even to the doors of Angband but his loyalty to the House of Feanor had died with his master So he did not protest or even murmur when Midsummer neared and Caranthir had forbidden those not yet of full years and stature from the ranks of his army. What in another leader might have seemed an act of compassion seemed a sneer on the lips of the Feanorian. If, as seemed to Tathren, Caranthir scanned his face for a sign of dissent, he found it not. The boy deemed merely by living he could in a small way spite the great lord

He remembered with foreboding the words of Mandos that had coursed through his mind as he had knelt beside his master, sensing they neared fulfilment. His kindred would reap a harvest of grief but the seeds had been sown long ago on a distant shore. He knew he might find death without going to war, that the doom of the Noldor could not be eluded forever - but this was not his time. Not yet.

Last edited by piosenniel; 06-30-2009 at 10:31 AM.
piosenniel is offline