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Léoðern had absently got up from Ginna's lap when Frodides had given her permission, and Ginna was glad that the child consented to come with her. They went out the kitchen and walked across the yard in silence. Ginna gently led Léoðern to the same bench where she had talked to Harreld the previous night, and lifted her up to let her sit.
"Are you feeling better, Léoðern?" Ginna asked, brushing away the strands of hair that had stuck to the girl's tear-stained cheeks.
"Ye-yes," she replied, her voice trembling a bit, but nevertheless she had stopped crying. "I'm sorry. I'm a big girl now, and big girls shouldn't be crying."
Ginna smiled in spite of herself. "Big girls can cry every now and then, if they have good reasons."
Léoðern looked at Ginna with a brave sort of twinkle in her eyes, as though eager to prove that she really was a big girl, and explained how Falco's sudden bursting into the Hall, shouting about how the Lord Eodwine was in trouble, had scared her, and more so when her father Garstan had to go and rescue him. "I don't want them to get hurt," she finished tremulously, and tears threatened to fall again from her eyes.
"That's a good reason, but they will be fine. The men of the Mead Hall will be with him, and together they will all bring the lord back safely." Ginna thought fleetingly of Garreth, Harreld, and that man who did not know her name, and immediately chided herself for doing so. It was not as though Léoðern could discern her thoughts, but all the same...she should not even be thinking about them. "Your father's a hero. You should be proud of him."
A broad smile came across Léoðern's lips, and she nodded fiercely.
"Now, while we wait for them, what about that tour I asked of you yesterday? Do you remember?"
"Of course," Léoðern exclaimed. "Come on!" And she slid from the bench -- "Be careful!" -- onto the ground and took Ginna by the hand, the latter standing up elegantly. Léoðern giggled.
"Why do you giggle?" asked Ginna.
"You move just like my friend Linduial. She's a princess. That's why I thought you're a princess, too."
Ginna laughed at the memory of their first meeting, and the irony of it. Indeed now she was a serving wench, as she had guessed! She couldn't help asking, "And where is your friend now?"
A spasm of sadness came upon Léoðern's face. "She went back to her home. I miss her so much."
Ginna felt pity well up inside her - not so much for Léoðern as for herself. She knelt before the child and looked her squarely in the eye. "I'm not a princess, as I told you, and I never will be. But I can take her place while she is gone, if you don't mind. Can we be friends?"
Léoðern laughed and screamed, "Only if you let me call you 'my lady'!" And she ran at top speed away from Ginna, who stood up and immediately caught her. Hand in hand they strolled towards the Hall, and it was as though Léoðern had not been previously crying. Ginna could only marvel at and envy the resilience of youth.
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