[Amanaduial the archer]

"Horses? A rare enough talent in the Shire - but then, nowadays young gentlemen such as yourself are rare enough as well."

Aman had entered through the side door through from the garden, pretty much unseen and unheard thanks to Derufin's well-oiled locks, and had been quietly listening from the doorway. Startled, Ginger jumped slightly, then smiled in relief at the Innkeeper; whereas Cook span around with her eyes narrowed accusingly as she realised that the Innkeeper had been listening, unseen. Aman held her hands up as if in surrender. "I apologise, I could not help but overhear."

"You were eavesdropping, Missy," Cook growled. Aman looked about to protest, then closed her mouth and shrugged, nodding and giving a slightly rueful grin. She saw Tim staring at her in amazement and winked at him, shrugging again. "Well, maybe a little bit..." she murmured. "But now I'm here..." she stepped further into the kitchen, off-loading an apron-full of freshly picked vegetables onto Ginger; the Green Dragon vegetable patch was a modest but well-kept plot which sprawled neatly around the side of the Inn, beside the kitchen, and the Innkeeper had happened to be picking from there this morning - it allowed her to be useful enough so as not to be berated by Cook, whilst avoiding the rush of all-too-perky customers early in the morning. The Innkeeper was not a morning person.

However, this morning was already looking to be a beautiful one, and despite the early hour, Aman was feeling the sun inside as the external one warmed her outside. Eyeing the two children, Aman realised that they were indeed the pair who had come in last night: on the right, with Ginger's comforting hand on one skinny shoulder, was the little girl; and on the left, having apparently developed a sudden and intense interest in the tea-pot, was her brother, the wary-looking boy, Tim. The woman sighed: she had suspected these two weren't looking for their parents, and apparently this had been confirmed. That was the problem with niggling suspicions: sometimes it was so much easier, for once, if one could just be proved wrong about them.

Turning to Cook, she clicked her fingers, suddenly remembering something. "Oh, Vinca - Goody Longhole was asking after you this morning. Something about you agreeing to swap a few of the Dragon's recipes with hers..."

Cook snorted in a most unlady-like fashion. "Swap? With her? That old trout, if she values her darned apple pie as highly as any of the Dragon's finest fodder and thinks I'll trade secrets for that, she is sorely mistaken! Been pestering me about it for weeks..."

The Innkeeper clandestinely raised an eyebrow at Ginger, wiping her earthy hands on her now muddy apron. "Well, you know, she has been working hard for the festivals this coming summer, that apple pie of hers isn't to be lightly valued anymore..."

"You consider her deserts to be finer than mine?" The old hobbit-wife was almost quivering with indignation. Aman hastily tried to remedy her words. "No, nonono, I didn't mean...I just meant that maybe a little extra help is maybe just what you need to show her exactly why the 'Dragon is famed for it's victuals." Cook settled down and Aman almost sagged in relief - the wrath of the homely looking hobbit matron was to be feared by the fiercest of battle-scarred warriors. But Cook had picked up on her drift by now, and at this point turned to Wren. Her face softened and, to Aman's surprise, her features took on an almost conspiratorial edge as she nudged the little girl carefully, winking. "What do you say? Reckon we could give that Goody Longhole a run for her money, eh?"

The little girl giggled between sniffs and returned the smile bashfully. Aman wordlessly offered her a clean handkerchief as she eyed her brother. He had looked up in surprise at the Innkeeper when Cook had given this apparent consent to them staying, but when he saw the Rohirrim woman returning his inquisitive gaze he reddened slightly but, not altogether to the young woman's surprise, he raised his chin and returned it - not insolently, but with a quiet pride. A stray he may have been, but this boy was not a beggar: a determination glinted in his grey eyes that Aman wasn't sure she did not recognise. She nodded slightly, more to herself than anyone else, and looked away, her eyes turning to her hands as she resumed wiping the dirt away, as she measured up the boy. The 'Dragon had always been a quietly charitable residence, certainly since Aman had got here: the Innkeeper had picked up a fair old reputation for 'picking up strays' as some of the older, disapproving goodwifes put it. But then, maybe it was a reputation which she deserved, and did not exactly resent: when those in hiding or without a friend were swept to the Dragon, the kind-hearted Innkeeper simply couldn't just turn them away, even when it would perhaps have been better to do so. Crystal, a girl on the run from her vicious father; Uien, an elven girl of such melancholy beauty who Derufin had adopted as his protege; and Snaveling, of course, always Snaveling - if there had ever been a fouler rogue who the Innkeeper would have been in her rights to turn away or, better still, have arrested, the Black Numenorian was it - yet her charity to him even when he spat it back in her face had been rewarded, had it not? She had found a key to a past she had never know to have had... Aman smiled slightly to herself. Yes, Tar-Corondir was an exception to every rule in the book, and more. But he was just more living proof that scorn of the hand she extended to wanderers was, if only sometimes, a scorn unstudied.

She looked up sidelong at the boy again, and nodded slightly once more. Looking in his eyes, eyes that had lost both parents and yet were still determined to keep their pride and make what they could of life, Aman was not sure that she did not see a little of herself in him. But to have been subjected to such loss so young… “Tim, isn’t it?” The boy looked slightly surprised, but nodded. “Your mother was an Easterling, you say? It isn’t an accusation,” she added hastily as the boy’s eyes flashed defensively. “It was merely a question. I have a fondness for the Eastern horses – indeed one of my three horses, Taydoch, is from the the region of Rhun – far East, I suppose, especially from the viewpoint of where I originate from.”

Tim frowned questioningly, and Aman answered, “Rohan. I am from the land of the Horse-lords.”

“Psh, not just from – Aman herself is a so-called ‘horse-lord’ – never seen a woman so fond of wearing riding leathers…” Cook interjected huffily, but with a touch of a smile in her expression nonetheless. Tim, his head whipping from one speaker to the other as if watching a tennis match, his eyes saucer-like, seemed speechless. “…you’re one of the Rohirrim?”

Aman smiled simply, then held out a hand to the boy. “If you truly have an aptitude for working with horses, we’ll get on just famously,” she replied warmly. “Come on, let me show you the stables – no point in hanging around…”