[Imladris]

"Iris, I come here not to intrude, but rather to offer my aid." Iris tried to still her heavy breathing and wiped the tears from her face. To aid…” why did everybody think that they must help her, that she was a child to be comforted! Savagely wiping her runny nose and stifling a sneeze to slowly raised her head, burning green eyes meeting the eyes of the woman before her. Romenna’s eyes were kind and soft. She held her hand out, but Iris ignored it, rather glaring at the woman. Breaking the stare, she shuddered and, after a scornful gaze, pushed the hand aside and climbed to her feet. “How will you aide me?” Iris asked in an icy, tight voice.

“Why don’t you come down with me, and we will have a bit of coffee,” Romenna suggested, smiling as she took Iris by the arm and nearly pushed her down the stairs.

“I don’t like coffee,” Iris said briefly.

“Then we will have something that you do like,” Romenna said, her eyes twinkling as she drew a chair from a vacant table and motioned Iris into it.

Iris hunched her shoulders and bent her head, her fingers absently tracing the wood pattern. The faint sound of a lyre drifted faintly down to her: Finduilas was still practicing, more than likely under the patient kind teaching of Elentari. A dark frown creased her brow, she gripped the wood, and sneered at the table.

A soft hand touched her elbow, and Romenna asked gently, “Are you alright?”

Iris shuddered again and she rubbed her hand over her eyes, trying to stay the tears that threatened to spill. “No,” she whispered. “Would you be fine if you wished a stranger ill?” Drumming her fingers nervously on the table, she let the sentence hang with no explanation. Let her wonder! It wasn’t her business! But yet a stray thought entered: why was this woman concerned with her? “Why do you want to help me?” she asked, bluntly.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 6:33 PM January 12, 2004: Message edited by: Imladris ]