I'm writing a fanfic ([link]) and I had some fun chatting with people online with his name. His name being David/Alger Smith/Legrist Pilimorion.

The other person in the chat is kept anonymous, and I did patch up typos and re-ordered a few sentences to make the questions and answers match up.

Legrist(David): Hello, this is David.

Anonymous: Go ahead.

Legrist(David): You have some questions for me?

Anonymous: Le suilon!

Legrist(David): Ah-ha! I see you have a little Sindarin memorized. Galu!

Anonymous: Ah yes! I love the old tongue! I name many things in it. Including myself at least three times!

Legrist(David): Oh really? Could you give me an example or two? Or three?

Anonymous: In a game called Knighthood, I named my castle "Barad In Elvellyn". Fifi know two of my names. The other is Thalawest.

Legrist(David): Tower of the Elffriends, very clever.

Anonymous: I'm glad it's grammatical. I can't stand making errors! Don't you find it a bit of a giveaway that you only translate your name, and always do the same job?

Legrist(David): Well, I never had to elude people as much as I have now. It used to be that people hardly ever left their village, so I could travel a few villages over and re-invent my life quite easily.

Anonymous: So, eh, David, what year did you find yourself in England?

Legrist(David): I'm not entirely certain myself. There were several completing calendars at the time... but I calculate it to be around the 5th century.

Anonymous: Now that can't have been the Gregorian calendar. The Julian and what else?

Legrist(David): Local tribal ones.

Anonymous: Anything on Wiki about them?

Legrist(David): Most people didn't keep a careful count of the years, other than their own ages.

Anonymous: Did you find that annoying? I would.

Legrist(David): And, I wasn't accustomed to keeping track of the years either; seeing as I'm immortal and don't have any internal clock ticking toward my doom. I'm in no hurry.

Anonymous: I could be just as annoyed at you then! You know the Ages of Men, so why not these?

Legrist(David): I know them only as they applied to me. Tolkien filled in many of the blanks. Really, I'm no historian. I didn't even know how to write very well. I told Tolkien stories that I remembered, and he took notes.

Anonymous: You must have taught him how to write in the various systems of Ennor, though? Or do you mean record tales?

Legrist(David): The work he did on my own language was amazing and almost magical to me... he pulled things from me that I had forgotten... drew up an entire system from a few scribbles that I could recall. Really, I wasn’t very literate.

Anonymous: :laughs: But was it right?

Legrist(David): The only reason I haven't fled to China is that their writing system terrifies me, and these days, everything depends on knowing how to read and write.

Anonymous: :laughs even more: Actually, that's the main reason I haven't studied Chinese either.

Legrist(David): I think he figured it out correctly. I might have accidentally misled him, however. I don't know.

Anonymous: Latin is easier.

Legrist(David): Only biblical Latin.

Anonymous: I use classical, myself (the few times I use any). I like the pronunciation better. Not that I'm fluent, but at least I have a dictionary.

Legrist(David): The real Latin, it's full of idioms and bizarre words... just like any language.

Anonymous: Yeah, and I never realized how much Greek there was in it! I don't have a dictionary for Sindarin. Ardalambion has collected as much as possible, but sometimes it's just not enough.

Legrist(David): What I have constantly struggled with since coming here, is the rate that languages change. For an Elven language, the same amount of change is accomplished in three millenniums that is accomplished in one century.

Anonymous: We changing mortals. But didn't I hear that Quenya changed a lot before it was written down? The writing fixed it in place.

Legrist(David): Sly creatures you.

Anonymous: And that can't have taken much time; Fëanor was in ancient times even to you, I guess. Yes, and worse when you factor in British versus American English. The Brits never changed their spelling. The Yanks did once and refused to do so again. The Dutch, on the other hand, update their language every ten years (which is worse from your point of view, I suppose).

Legrist(David): Quenya. What I recall of Quenya is from my mother, and she was banned from speaking it outside of the home, so I never really learned it. Tolkien, once he heard a few songs in it, loved it right away. He liked it far more than Sindarin, and focused most of his attention on it.

Anonymous: Yeah, no fair! I like Sindarin better!

Legrist(David): Well, Quenya does have its allure. A forbidden language, forgotten to all but the wretched few... it's very romantic. Sindarin... I think it sounded too closely like some form of Gaelic.

Anonymous: I thought it was only Thingol who banned it.

Legrist(David): He did. So, my mother couldn't speak it outside our home.

Anonymous: In Mirkwood?

Legrist(David): Even after Thingol's kingdom fell, many people were faithful to his memory, and would shun my mother for being a Noldo. It would have been worse for us if she had openly spoken Quenya. Many of the Elves of Mirkwood were refugees from Doriath.

Anonymous: Well, that's commonsense on her part. Pity about the racism. Nothing new under the sun, eh? Sometimes I wish people /could/ come up with an entirely new problem.

Legrist(David): When I grew up, the sun was new to the sky.

Anonymous: Touché.

Legrist(David): To be honest, the Noldo earned the hatred. They committed an unspeakable act.

Anonymous: Not all of them!

Legrist(David): My mother, she followed her brother to Middle-earth after the Kinslaying. The fact that she came shows that she felt some sort of responsibility or guilt for the Kinslayings. Many of the Noldor didn't come to Middle-earth, in fact. Many were not persuaded by Fëanor's honey-words. Those who left felt connected to the crime. I suspect, though my mother never told me, and I have never met him, that my uncle was a Kinslayer. I think my mother distanced herself from him when she married my Sinda father.

Anonymous: Do you feel guilty of the crimes of your kin?

Legrist(David): I wasn't there. I had no part in the crimes. But, I have committed my own sins, so I do not consider myself stainless.

Anonymous: Do the Belain rule here, or does Eru rule directly?

Legrist(David): I don't know much about the political system of Valinor, never having been there.

Anonymous: OK.

Legrist(David): There's a reason why so much of the history of Aman after the War of the Jewels is left to mystery. No one in my family could tell me any stories of it.

Anonymous: Skeletons in the closet. Always tricky.

Legrist(David): My uncle is most certainly a skeleton. I wasn't ever told his name either.

Anonymous: "The one we don't mention"! (Sometime I just have to use quotes.) Do you have anything from Ennor anymore?

Legrist(David): Nothing but my own body. Things don't last very long, to be honest.

Anonymous: Any replicas? Hey, do you know the SCA? I bet they'd be interested in old-time swords.

Legrist(David): I have a cloak and arrow motif I like to hide on my projects, in memory of my parents. I do a lot of work for those sorts. Interesting folks. Most of my money comes from them, in fact.

Anonymous: I think it's fun, but I'm not allowed to go to fighter training yet. Dad doesn't like the idea.

Legrist(David): Oh dear, Fiona just came stumbling in, growling that it is two AM, and that the light is keeping her awake.

Anonymous: Oh. Sorry to keep you up, Fiona.

Legrist(David): Stay safe when fighting, and may you never be at the mercy of one of my swords. Losto vae!

Anonymous: And you!