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Laerdil
“I am the ostler here, and a better post I could not hope to have. I find horses to be… more dependable, and more honest, than most people – and I can be honest with them in return.”
Most people, Laerdil noted, as the words tethered themselves to memories he could see in Léof's thought, played out almost as if they were happening before his own mind's eye, of a father from whom harsh words came, of soldiers treating him as an afterthought at best, or worse, a troublemaker to be beaten down. Set against them, warm beasts whose hearts he had won through his care of them, who knew his sure hands with riding gear and brush and feed. To them he was as one of them.
"Aye, that is maybe of Elves and Men. Beasts are true and whole. There is no guessing or second guessing with them."
Laerdil saw somewhere in Léof's mind that there were important exceptions among Men.
"Long have the Elves struggled to find trust in Middle Earth, not least among ourselves. Have you found any folk worthy of trust?"
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