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Old 12-22-2003, 08:06 AM   #252
mark12_30
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Sting

The muffled noise in the hallway repeated itself, sounding suspiciously like a snort. Red turned, baffled, and peered out the door, careful not to overstretch his back while doing so.

From behind her basket of linens, Mellonin burst into peals of laughter. "Forgive me--" she gasped, "I am sorry. I'm sure you are doing your best. Forgive me."

His surprised expression faded into a resentful frown, and she immediately composed herself, and entered the room, placing her basket on a part of the floor that was still dry.

"Raefindan, you're obviously of noble blood. Your hands are far too soft. Whatever else you may have forgotten, working with your hands isn't one of them; you never learned it in the first place," she said, more gently now. "Look at you... you need something to kneel on; didn't you think of that? And you might want to wrap your hands."

Red shook his head. "Never mind my knees. My back is what really hurts. And I don't think I have that much noble blood, either."

She smiled. "Which began to hurt first, your knees or your back?"

He scowled at her.

"Your knees hurt first, and you tried to favor them. And then your back began to hurt."

He stood up, painfully. "All right. I'm clueless. Tell me."

Now it was her turn to frown. "Clueless?"

"It means-- well, it means that I'm confused, I'm sorry, and I'll listen to what you have to say."

She nodded, and let it go. "Here, no one will miss this." She folded up a blanket and handed it to him. "Wait here." She returned with some strips of cloth. "For your hands." She then picked up her basket of linens. "I must get several rooms ready. I will return as soon as I may." Raefindan began wrapping his hands, and Mellonin slipped out.

As she worked, she puzzled over the new stranger. With his soft hands, he couldn't be anything but royalty. Clearly he was not from Minas Tirith; even if his mind had become addled, and he forgot where he was from, others would have recognized him if he had been from this city. But neither Rohan, nor Dol Amroth, nor Dale had any red-headed royalty that she had ever heard of. All the mannish royalty she knew of was either golden haired or dark.

How did he come by the red hair? Did he have dwarf blood? She shuddered at the implications; but no. It was obviously a foolish idea; he stood straight and tall and rather slender, and was clearly, purely mannish. He just had red hair.

And completely soft hands. "Not even weapon-calluses, " she muttered. "Nothing. What did he do? Where is he from?"

She wondered more and more if Raefindan's mystery might not be somehow connected to her brother's disappearance. If he could appear, could her brother disappear? But if Raefindan couldn't tell her his own story, how would she learn, how would she guess if there was any connection?
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