Her eyes sparkled as much as did the glasses she polished and lined up carefully beneath the bar. Pio watched the fair-haired stranger sink back into the shadows of the Inn. 'It will be easier for him to leave those shadows than for him to step from the shadows which hold his spirit.'
She sighed, watching him as he toyed with his empty tankard, trying once again to conceal himself beneath the shadows of his hood. Well she knew the canker of secrets that ate at him, the loneliness that starved the spirit and could not be denied.
On a sudden impulse, she thought to return to where he sat. The remembrance of her own long loneliness, how she had held off those who would draw near, her held her back.
'No.' she said softly to herself. 'I will allow him the grace of his own time. When he is ready, he will speak.'
She polished the last glass and set it on the bar, thinking to pour herself a small glass of Dorwinion wine. The light from a nearby lantern caught the clear plane of the faceted side, and blazed out into the room for one small moment - a steady, blazing star, a beacon . . .
[ December 24, 2002: Message edited by: piosenniel ]
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Eldest, that’s what I am . . . I knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside.
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