He could see her, still leaning on the sill, looking east, as he walked to the springhouse. The angle of the sun threw parts of her face into shadow, for a moment reminding him of a face whose features were etched behind his eyes. His breath caught in his throat, and he closed his eyes against the vision of her face. He blinked his eyes, hard, willing the memory of that waiting woman away.
Pio had withdrawn from the window. The congruence of her features and the one he remembered slid apart, granting him the grace to carry on. Derufin forced his feet to continue on their errand, coming at last to where the block of ice was kept. He chipped at it methodically, dropping slivers from it carefully into her glass of tea. If Piosenniel wanted tea with ice, then that is what he would bring her.
His steps carried him back to the Inn. The cold of the glass sweated in the warmth of the day – it puddled on the table as he placed it before her. She smiled, lifting the glass to her mouth. ‘Well worth the wait,’ she said, taking a long drink. ‘Just what I wanted.’
He smiled, too, taking up the easy fiction. ‘Then I’m glad I was here to bring it to you.’
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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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