[Nerwen]

Nerwen rose to her feet.

"Bêthberry, if all the barrels of drink here can't ease your thirst, I don't know what will. Have some more! And as for the Suspicious Mutterer of Amon Lanc –I have good ears, Mr Legate– I'll have you know I come of a long-lived family on my mother's side.

Now, I suppose you'll all be wanting a speech?"

"Yes!" cried some of the Downers. "No!" others protested, but Nerwen ignored them.

"My dear Downers... My dear G55s and Legates; and my dear Bêthberries and Inziladuns, and Lommies, and Nogs, and Sallys, and Rikaes, and Aganzirs, and Miths and Estys, Wilwas, morms, Forms, Morsuls,, Mnemos, Angs, Eomers, Loslotes, Feas, Morthorons, and Hookbills... not to mention my precious one," she blew Shasta a kiss, "...and, last but not least, The Barrow-Wight Himself!" There was clapping at the name, though in truth most were in awe of the shrouded figure who sat with a plate of– could it be mouldering bones?– in front of him.

She stole a glance at the other hooded, glowing-eyed party-goer, wondering if the phantom had noticed that she had purposefully not mentioned his name. "That'll take his ego down a peg or two..." she thought.

"Today is my eleventy-first birthday! I am eleventy-one today– a number perhaps even more dear to us Downers than it is to the internet community at large– where would fangurls be without it?!!!!111!!!

Eleventy-one years is too short a time to spend among such excellent and admirable Downers. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I have repped less than half of you half as often as you deserve..."