They worked in companionable silence, broken only by the thunk of their hammers as the nails were driven in, and the soft scrape of their boot soles as they moved along the rows of rough wooden shingles. An afternoon breeze had come up, the fine sheen of sweat on their arms and face now drying in the cooler air.
Derufin sat back on his heels for a moment to watch her. She moved with an assured grace which belied the near tumble of a while ago. Her hand grasped the hammer with an easy grip, and he watched the play of her muscles beneath the taut skin of her forearm, as she raised the hammer in an upward arc, letting it come down effortlessly to meet the nail.
He thought of his own Maerie as he watched her move. Her red hair picked up the bright sun and blazed darkly as banked embers, stirred up by a breeze. She glanced up at him, smiling, and her eyes were green. He shook his head to clear the image from his mind.
Maerie’s eyes had been brown, and flecked with gold.
‘Where are you from, Rie?’ he asked, breaking his reverie. His eyes now on the shingle before him, he picked up the rhythm of the nailing once again.
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‘Many are the strange chances of the world,’ said Mithrandir, ‘and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.’
– Gandalf in: The Silmarillion, 'Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age'
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