[Nurumaiel]

Don's face wrinkled up and her eyebrows came together, looking like she was concentrating very hard. "Well, I don't know his name, but you talked together, and you went off with him, and..."

Her voice trailed off. She was hardly paying attention when Rie had left, so she didn't know what had happened, only that someone had 'stolen' Rie.

Stop thinking foolish things like that she scolded herself. Rie has a right to make friends.

"Well," the hobbit girl said slowly, trying to make her memory work, "we were sitting at a table together, eating or something, and..." There was a blank in her mind right there. "But it was a man, I think... I think... Don't you remember? His name was... something."

Suddenly Don remembered what had occured after Rie had left. "Rie, do you know what? After you left - " she knew that saying 'abandoned' would be a lie " - with that person, whatever his name was, a man came up to me, and asked where you had gone. I didn't tell him, of course, because I was suspicious, and then he told me that he was your - "

Don stopped abruptly and turned pale. Her eyes grew wide as she stared up at Rie. She couldn't tell Rie who it was. She couldn't.

* * *

Dinodas was nearly startled out of his wits when he saw Halwon Cotton and Gadbard Boffin, his two old friends, sitting with an Elf and talking. It was hard to resist the urge of running up and flinging his arms about them.

With great restraint, and trying to calm the pounding in his heart, he approached the table they were sitting at. A sly smile coming to his face, he walked behind the two, and, putting a finger to his lips, winked at the Elf and woman across the table from the two hobbits, quite oblivious of their old friend standing behind them. Grinning, Dinodas settled back to listen to the conversation, and wait for the time when Gaddy and Hal would turn around.

[ March 19, 2003: Message edited by: Nurumaiel ]