It's your day! Happy Birthday!

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

*As Fea lay there, thinking and getting a hold of herself, she noticed all at once that the darkness was slowly giving way: a pale greenish light was growing round her. It did not at first show her what kind of a place she was in, for the light seemed to be coming out of herself, and from the computer before her, and had not yet reached the roof or wall. She looked into the monitor, and there in the cold glow she saw posting before her Thinlómien, Esty, JennyHallu, Glirdan, and Encaitare. They were on time, and their faces looked deathly relieved; and they were clad in white. About them lay many treasures, of gold maybe, and in that light they looked as mathoms do. On their heads were circlets, gold chains were about their waists and on their fingers were many rings. Swords lay by their sides, and shields were at their feet. Fea realized that across her neck lay one long naked sword.

Suddenly a song began: a cold murmur, rising and falling. The voice seemed far away and immeasurably dreary, sometimes high in the air and thin, sometimes like a low moan from the ground. Out of the formless stream of sad but horrible sounds, strings of words would now and again shape themselves: grim, hard, cold words, heartless and miserable. The night was railing against the morning of which it was bereaved, and the cold was cursing the warmth for which it hungered. Fea was chilled to the marrow. After a while the song became clearer, and with dread in her heart she perceived that it had changed.

Before she could hear words, she spoke, unsure, and not a little bit frightened.

"Barrow-Wight, please, if you could find it in your heart, forgive me." The blade was cold against her pale neck, and Fea could see in her mind's eye the stain that her own blood would make, a stark crimson against the silver of the sword, running warmly down her ivory throat to mingle with the soft threads of the blankets beneath her. A hesitation in the Wight's song spoke to her that he was listening, but she could not read his Wightness as she could others; unfathomable, worthy of respect, and, she must admit to herself, a bit terrifying.

"Please," she continued, trying not to choke on her words. "I am sorry that I missed your birthday; work held me and I saw the significance of the day but was kept from mentioning it. Please, your Imperial Wightness, have it in your heart to remove the blade from my throat and stop chanting curses over me. Next year... next year I will not be tardy."

*any resemblance to works previously written is purely coincidental