[Ealasaide]

Bragorn listened to Kannah’s discourse with interest, his merry gray eyes taking in the imperiousness of her manner with something between amusement and delight. Although she seemed to be making her best effort to intimidate him, Bragorn felt anything but cowed. In fact, as far as he could see, her haughtiness was merely her way of flirting with him. He smiled as she rustled her bright silk skirts, and obligingly looked down at them in admiration. As he did so, however, he raised one dark eyebrow ever so slightly. Hadn’t he just seen some skirts remarkably similar to hers in a merchant’s stall at the market in Edoras when he had passed through Rohan on his way north? He remembered thinking at the time that it was a pity he was currently without a wife or sweetheart, as they were an excellent buy. But then, he was no judge of ladies’ clothing. Perhaps the skirts in Edoras had been merely well-executed copies of Haradrim originals such as these. After all, if lovely Kannah said that hers were the genuine article, then who was he to beg to differ? He did like those earrings, though, especially the way they tinkled when she tossed her head.

“What of you, sir? From whence do you hail?” she asked with enough scorn in her voice to wilt a full field of alfalfa.

“I?” answered Bragorn lightly. “Not from the deltas, that’s for certain. My people hail from the northern end of Gondor, near the Rohirrim border, a small village close to the Firien Wood. Horse people there. Some people think of us as being more closely akin to the folks of Rohan, than of Gondor, though we are indeed Gondorians. Your people are healers, you say?”

“We are,” answered Kannah firmly, with a slight lift of her chin.

“That’s brilliant!” He smiled and took a long gulp of his ale. Putting the glass aside - half-empty - he wiped the foam from his mouth with his hand. “Maybe you can help me. I took a bit of a tumble the other day when my horse happened to step in a gopher hole. The shoulder’s a bit stiff.” He leaned toward her with his most charming smile and, pushing his thick black hair aside with one hand, used his other to pull back the neck of his mail shirt revealing a glimpse of very brawny shoulder. “Anything you can do about that?”

He really had taken a fall from his horse a few days prior and the shoulder really was a bit sore, but it was nothing for which he would ordinarily seek the attentions of a healer. It was simply all he could think of on short notice that might capture her interest, so he waited patiently, affecting the look of a wounded martyr. In the meantime, he expected her just as likely to reach out and pinch him as anything else. The more he thought about this possibility, however, the more the shadow of a grin danced on the corners of his mouth, transforming his martyred look into a rather twisted and silly grimace.