[Formendacil]

"Hrrrm hoom..."

Deep in his dusty home in New Luthany, Formendacil stirred. Who was to say what he was now, who had once been a cantankerous Númenórean of Arnor, but Barrow-downers are not obliged to self-identify themselves with but one of Middle-earth's races and the slow passage of time had rendered him far more Entish than aught else, at least so far as his virtual life went.

"I smell something in the air," he muttered to himself. It was dust, most likely, for a thick layer covered his haunt. He spent most of his days in the Other Land now, where he had reached his Hobbit majority (though had not come into any inheritance). That was a dour realm of late, and perhaps the dourness drove him back to the dusty lands he'd once known.

Even the invitation to celebrate the Downs's impending anniversary was covered over with further layers of postal detritus. It was weeks old.

"A wizard is never late..." he heard himself say aloud, in a creaking timbre of a voice. He frowned: that was a sign of age indeed, if he were unthinkingly quoting The Movies.

"...nor is he early," he admitted with a deep, ponderous sigh. Selecting his heaviest staff, he started away.