Thank you for reading this two-part fanfic novella!

I am not one given to writing "fanfics" by nature. It is for that very reason I have never before desired to write anything of the sort for Middle Earth, because it is very hard to do and if you cannot do it right then you should not do it at all.

Does this mean that I have done it right? I shall let you be the penultimate judges of that; I will say that I wrote this story as if the Professor himself were looking over my shoulder every moment, critiquing and correcting me every step of the journey I have made. The idea for it came to me while watching the more recent film adaptations, and since it did not let me go and because it was, in the end, a fairly interesting and intriguing concept, I decided to write it. As is plain from the text, I set it some two centuries after the beloved Lord of the Rings story itself so as to deliberately avoid dealing with any characters from that story in-person; not that I am given to patting myself on the back, but I believe that choice alone was probably the wisest in the whole affair.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

And so with the help of the Appendices of LOTR, Ruth. S. Noel's "The Languages of Tolkien's Middle Earth", Karen Wynn Fonstad's "The Atlas of Middle Earth", the supplemental aid of fandom wikis, a translation guides for Old English (for the Riddermark segment of the story) and for Welsh (Cymryc) and Gaelic (for the Dunlending segment), several translation sites for Elvish, Sindarin and Quenya alike, and with tributes and nods to Standing Stone Games' "Lord of the Rings Online", I have crafted this story--mostly for my enjoyment, I admit, but I hope indeed that it finds some measure of welcome with those of you who read it.

A special thank you to the three LOTRO players who so kindly let me adapt their names as heroes recalled from the time of the War of the Ring.

And, most of all, my deepest gratitude to the true creator of Arda, Endorenna, Middle Earth of many names, J.R.R. Tolkien. Without his influence I may well have never written anything, least of all a story in tribute to his own.

Namárië!