The young blonde warrior-girl groans in despair, and stares around at the ruin of all her efforts, the field of battle littered with the crumpled fallen, and drops her head into her hands, rubbing aching eyes.
“Ahh by Elbereth why did I ever agree to this – ask for it even!?” she mutters. “What fell spirit, what pride drove me to this awful place?” and slowly looks up, surveying the field again, seeing not a grassy sward, but a broad oaken table, gleaming with polish, scattered not with bodies of the slain, but with pages of torn and crumpled parchments and more than a little spilled ink!
“I had to ask…I had to wonder…” she continues in disgusted tones, and puts on a mocking version of her own voice “Oh please I can’t read a lick, or write, I’m just a simple farm-girl and you two are so well educated and…” She throws her quill down, mangled with her own frustrated chewing like a sword nicked after long hard battle. “Eorl’s sweaty trousers, all this SITTING, its hard work! I’ll never mock a scholar again!”
Jumping up so quickly that the heavy chair nearly topples she stretches, back curving, joints popping as she reaches for the ceiling, groaning in relief. “Uncle said a true Rider never leaves his enemy with the field, but even he never faced such a foe…truly the pen IS mightier than the sword!”
She grins, resolved to fight another day, and with one last guilty look at the fallen, steals from the library to the sun and stables and free fields…
