[Mnemosyne]

At the fourth bell, there came a knock on the door to Brinn's cart. At her bidding, the door opened and in stepped Elanor. Brinn couldn't help take a look at her feet (unshod, though the golden hair that covered them was so thick she could not, in all justice, consider them "bare") before meeting her eyes and greeting her. She could already see why the Court would be charmed with her.

Elanor swept a curtsy in response. "Hullo, Mistress Celebrindal," she said. "I hope I'm not being too forward, nor too rude, in spending your time."

"Not at all," said Brinn, which was actually true--she was still not in a state to go out and research matters, and if Elanor was forthcoming, she might be able to do some research of her own. "Please, take a seat."

Elanor climbed up on one of the chairs. "Well, then, thank you for your time. It means a lot to me, you see--we don't have anything like this where I come from, but I'm so fond of the histories so I wanted to see what you were doing with them. How do you manage to fit the wealth of material into the time of a play? How long is your play, anyhow?"

"No longer than two hours," Brinn said cautiously, "though that's if everything goes well."

"Two hours?" Elanor was clearly trying her best not to look startled. "How do you choose what's important?"

That is a very good question, thought Brinn. "Well," she said. "Most of our material up to this point has come down to us by word of mouth, so we've assumed that what people thought was worth passing on was the most important. But," she added to Elanor's crestfallen look--what was worth passing on among the pheriannath, she wondered?--"since we're performing for such a different audience this year, we're right in the middle of researching more of the story. We're hoping that what we put on for Cormare is much more... balanced... than what we've done before, and we'll be asking that same question ourselves later on in the week."

"Oh," said Elanor. "Isn't that an awful lot of work in one week?"

Brinn bit her tongue. This Elanor seemed sweet enough, but she had a way of getting to the root of Brinn's problems, all unthinking, that was starting to set her teeth on edge. "The King's Players are very talented," she said.

"Ah," and the look the... child? Woman? gave her was so very knowing that images of the first night's rehearsal ran through her head all unbidden. "Well, if you need any help at all, I'd be glad to provide some. Who's playing my father?"

"We don't know yet," said Brinn. Considering that Coldan plays Gimli after Sam's been killed off, and now we can't kill Sam off... "But Frodo the Ring-bearer will probably still be played by Sereth, who has been acting all her life."

"That's good," said Elanor. "He is a very important fellow, after all, and it must take some great skill to bring out all the depths to him."

Brinn paused. "Did--do--" She hated all this uncertainty; legend said that Frodo had sailed away with the Elves, but legend had also said that Merry was an elf, and anyhow the whole incident had the tinges of myth to it. "Do you know him?" The question sounded stupid the instant it left her mouth.

Elanor just smiled sadly. "Only in books and the faintest memories. He left when I was not six months old. But I read his words all the time, and--" she looked down at her hands, where they lay nested in her lap. "I'd like to think I do."

"We still don't have much reliable information about him," said Brinn. "In fact, if there's anything you could tell us about him--or any of the other pheriannath--I'd much appreciate it."

Elanor's eyes lit up. "What would you like to know?"