[Formendacil]

'Tis custom, they say, once a year, for the Wights and and Corpses of the Barrow-downs to gather and toast good health (an oxymoron--or a paradox) to the black niche they name their home, each one referring to theirself in the third person in a narrative of disjointed fancy.

It was then sixteen years since Formendacil of the North had become ensorcelled by that dark haunt, and never might he untwine himself from it, not though the roots of Downs were uprooted by Aulë or Melkor cast Grond upon it. He had departed from his own northern kin (nigh to the Lossoth, so the ignorant said) and wedded a southern lass first glimpsed betwixt the standing stone and the headwaters of the Withywindle. A son already was born to him and another presaged to follow.

Even so, it had been a long year or more of isolation since Formendacil had last mooted with the others of his kind, and though there was a stir with the spring of excitement not seen in many months, still he remembered the golden days of his youth, when many a Ghost Prince of Cardolin haunted that land, and he recalled also the arcane arts they had practiced: AOL, MSN, LJ--mere letters now, but magic once.

"To those remembered but missed," he raised a toast--thinking of the likes of Lhunardawen or Saucepan Man--"and to those who are but names now graven at the heads of their posts, forgotten by me but of the weft and warp of that time."

He drained his drink solemnly, then went in search of Rune, who needed to be told Marx was wrong, or [b]Boro[b], who needed to be told Bill was right.