"I am indeed a person with experience in worlds bursting into chaos. Mine certainly did. I suppose we Elves ought to have seen it coming, as it had been coming for a very long time. But we were taken by surprise, at least my family and our clan were. We were strong and inventive, and so we responded. But we weren't at all prepared for the way chaos and destruction invaded the very fabric of our lives, overthrowing or even subverting our best intentions. Mine, certainly. But we still fought against the Dark Enemy of the World to our last breath. My brother Maglor was the only survivor in our family."

"A month, eh? It is good to be here with family, if you get along with them. I had to do a great deal of apologizing to mine, in order to restore amity. Do you and your brother and his partner have good relations? And what is this town of Reims, and what is this country of France, where you can't make noise?" He is tempted to laugh. "How did you stand it?"