The song of the Elves has ever been renowned for its beauty, as though Eru, when He brought the Firstborn into being and blessed them, gifted them with voices that even the Ainur, the Valar, might envy.
When they sing, even Tulkas the Valiant would halt to listen.
Among all the Elven kindreds, the Teleri, free-hearted and enamoured of the sea and of song far more than forest or land, possess the fairest voices of all; not even the Vanyar, most beloved of the Valar, can surpass them in this.
And so, though the otherworldly soul understood not the words the Elves outside were singing, he could not but feel deeply the love of life and the praise of all created things that their music carried, a cry that sprang from the very fëa, touching the heart.
He stood stunned a long moment before he shook himself free of that spell.
He sat up and looked about him.
That his rescuer was a noble; or at least one of no slender means, he saw at once, for everything around him, down to the silken coverlet that lay over him, was lavish beyond reckoning.
Every object was either carved with numberless intricate devices or adorned with gems of many colours, so wondrously wrought that he half wondered whether he had strayed into some blessed realm.
He hesitated, then steeled himself, carefully lifted the gossamer coverlet, embroidered with gold thread and woven of some unknown stuff, a thing more art than blanket, and rose.
An unexpected weight pressed upon him, for this body was toweringly tall.
When he straightened, his head nearly touched the ceiling of the cabin, forcing him to stoop a little.
He lifted one hand and stared at the thick, long fingers, so full of power; he clenched his fist, and a surge of strength welled up from deep within, matched by the drum-like pounding of his heart.
“So,” he murmured to himself, “I have truly isekai’ed…
and been reborn?” He loosened his fist, a fist like a great cauldron, and stepped toward a shield mounted nearby, an embossed kite shield.
Its face was forged of some unknown metal, bright as silver and burnished to a mirror’s gleam.
The rim was traced with impossibly elaborate patterns, and the centre displayed two strange great trees rendered in gold inlay, their leaves and branches set with hundreds of tiny sapphires and rubies, a display of wealth so staggering it left one speechless.
But that was not what he cared for.
He ignored the extravagant gems and tracery and used the mirror-bright surface to study the face of his new body.
His expression remained calm as he gazed at the pair of cold eyes reflected there: eyes like jewels, wholly amber-gold, with vertical black slits at their centre…eerie, uncanny eyes.
“As I thought,” he mused.
“When she said ‘strong as a dragon,’ it was no mere figure of speech.
I have truly become a dragon in man’s shape.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and straightened, troubled.
Those icy golden dragon-eyes blinked, and he could see every hair-fine line in the shield’s chasing, every speck of dust.
“What kind of world have I come to?” he sighed up at the ceiling.
A long, clear horn-call rang out.
The Grey Havens lay ahead.
Half a month later, at dawn, the otherworldly soul was woken by the horns of the harbour, the returning signal of the shore patrol.
He could tell nothing grave had occurred, for the horn-blower had spirits enough to serenade the folk of the Havens with a little tune.
“A fair day it is,” he said, stretching, and climbed from his warm, pleasant bed.
The Elves had made this nest especially for him, carving the whole of it from the heartwood of a vast holly tree deep in the Blue Mountains.
Treated by Elven craftsmen, the wood gave off a faint, sweet scent; the bed was shaped like an oval, half-closed sphere, its inner and outer surfaces adorned with elaborate carvings of beasts and plants and set with chips of coloured gemstones.
A bed, he thought, fit for an emperor of fallen kingdoms.
But then, his frame was so prodigiously large that nothing else would serve.
His torso could rival that of a Gundabad Orc, his long limbs were corded with strength, and those amber-gold dragon eyes, already the stuff of growing legend, lent him a presence so weighted with power that even at rest the Elves of the Grey Havens could not but acknowledge him as the most fearsomely beautiful of Eru’s creations.
So they had gladly cleared a house for him on the high ground to the southwest, near the Hall of Governance and the feast-hall, and furnished it with everything suited to his stature.
Their warmth was almost overwhelming.
True, those strange golden eyes reminded some Elves who had lived through the Dagor Bragollach of a creature they loathed and feared.
Yet in the end, they hearkened to the feeling deep within their fëa.
The blessing of Ilúvatar Most Holy, “All that I have created and blessed shall befriend you; all that I loathe and shun cannot harm you!”, overcame their dread of the monster of memory.
The Firstborn chose to welcome the stranger, whose eyes were the eyes of Glaurung, Father of Dragons.
For unlike that abhorred Worm, this unknown soul bore a trace of something holy, something terrible and awe-inspiring that they had felt only from the great Powers in Valinor.
And so the Elves of the Grey Havens received the mysterious stranger whom the Shipwright had brought among them, sheltered him in their own land, and tended him with unsparing kindness.
“Good day,” the Dragonborn offered cheerfully as he stepped out of his “princely villa,” washed and dressed.
He walked the clean, stone-paved lanes, a smile on his face, greeting every Elf he met, each more beautiful than any earthly model by tenfold, a hundredfold.
He used Sindarin, the common tongue of Elves in Middle-earth, a hard-won harvest of these last weeks: simple daily speech.
“Good day,” replied a silver-haired Elf-maiden with a circlet of delicate filigree upon her brow, her smile light.
“Ochriamm.” Ochriamm: in Sindarin, “golden eyes.” The Dragonborn’s mouth gave a faint twitch.
He bowed to the Sinda and continued on.
Had she been a Falathrim, her speech might have borne a trace of the coast-dialect; though both kindreds were of the Teleri, one loved the dim forest, the other the sunlit shore, and over the long ages their tongues had drifted somewhat apart.
He had barely turned the corner into the main street when he came upon another Elf-woman, tall as the Sinda, with flowing black hair and grey eyes.
“Good day, Ilwen,” he said, surprised.
“What brings you here?” “And why should I not be here?” She lifted an eyebrow, her fair face schooled to indignation, as though he had asked something foolish.
“I am a warden of Lord Círdan.
I go where I please.” It was she who had once cast a cloak over him to cover his towering body.
Now she teased him: “As for you, Maethostol, Arien’s light is already upon your backside, why have you only just risen?” Maethostol, in Noldorin, “tall and mighty.” And Arien’s light meant the sun.
In the deeps of time, after Morgoth and Ungoliant destroyed the Two Trees, the Valar wrought from their last essence the vessels of the Sun and Moon, and appointed the Maiar Arien and Tilion to steer them across the sky.
Arien guided the Sun.
It is ever the Elven way to name things so: plain, yet each name with its own flavour.
The merrier, more playful Sindar and Falathrim, fond of the Dragonborn’s beautiful amber eyes, called him Ochriamm.
The bolder, more forthright Noldor, marvelling at his titanic frame that seemed touched with a numinous light, preferred Maethostol.
Thus, before he could speak a word of the local tongues, he already had two names.
What else were they to do?
shout “Hey, you”?
So thought the Elves, utterly ignoring the stranger’s bewildered face when he later came to understand what they were saying.
“Born.
You may call me Dragonborn,” the Dragonborn told the dark-haired warden with weary patience.
For while the Elves had given him two Elven names of their own devising, he had settled on “Dragon Born” after his first astonishment passed.
Well, his naming skill was no better than theirs: Dragonborn.
Perhaps even less inspired than the other two.
But fair or not, a name was only a name, he told himself, and willed himself not to dwell on the old name, the familiar faces, the things left behind.
Ilwen could not fail to understand him, even if his words came haltingly.
A fortnight ago this Dragonborn had been deaf as a stone to all speech, and now he stumbled over the matter of his own name.
So the black-haired, grey-eyed Noldo answered him with mock solemnity in her own tongue: “Very well, Maethostol.” From not far off, the Sinda’s bright laughter rippled through the air.
By now, many Elves were delightedly telling the tale: Ilwen of the Noldor had seen the mighty golden-eyed Dragonborn in his bare skin, and the two could barely stand the sight of one another.
Shaking his head, the Dragonborn resolved to press the matter no further.
He studied her: she was clad for battle, sword at her hip.
“Ilwen, did you seek me out?” As a warden of Círdan’s household, she seldom strayed far from the Hall of Governance; her chief duty was the Shipwright’s safety.
For all the strange bond of circumstance that had made them easier company than most, she would not have come to him when the sun had scarce showed its face without some cause.
Ilwen’s smile faded at his turn to earnest matters.
“Maethostol,” she said gravely, “the Lord summons you to the Hall of Governance.
A guest from a far country has come, and he wishes to meet you.”