Telpenaro

It was not, as such things went, a terribly dramatic meeting. Manadhlaer had taken her mare for a walk, as she did regularly at the advice of the horse-expert Nenrildë -- and while Milkthistle was a game creature and held her head high, the rider felt the weariness of the beast as if it were her own. She would need pasturing soon, and a retirement from adventure.

Coming the other way, toward the Hall of the Pillar, was Glorfingwë in his pale blue robes. Both reined in their horses and hailed each other.

It was not that, as she removed a stack of hairpins, Manadhlaer thought anything had gone particularly wrong at the Ball. Indeed, at times the dance-floor had been an impenetrable Huorn-forest of bodies through which she simply could not struggle hard enough to reach the other side of the room.

Only the last word in the signature line was, for obscure reasons, emphasized in red ink.

Dear Quartermaster Golvagor:

I am writing to request some supplies in the event that hir Tolmen should become a guest at the Houses of Healing.

After her night in the Hammer Hall, which at the very least did her no harm, Manadhlaer had been whisked around the Vale to a dizzying variety of safe-houses. This bright, bright morning, Manadhlaer had taken her breakfast in the Hall of the Order of the Fountain. Where Hammer Hall had smelled like a soldier's armpit directly after a battle, despite the most heroic efforts of Lieutenant Ancalassë, Fountain currently smelled like -- well, soap, and lots of it.

Arradril of the Order of the Arrow hooked a finger into the collar of her immaculate tabard, as though it were too tight. It had in fact been made to measure, to drape perfectly over the reinforced gambeson that Arrows wore in order to creep about the forest in silence. But Captain Sáranassë was, of late, insisting on visibility -- at least part of the time. So Arradril wore the indigo, inspired by Gondolin's House of the Swallow, and bore herself gravely when within the Vale. Most of the time.

Well, Diary, I suppose now it is true what people say, that one does not really know a person until one has lived with them.

That is, "with" in a very elastic sense -- for Captain Sáranassë has given me her own clean but spare bunk in Arrow Hall, and has taken to sleeping out of doors in a tree instead. She assures me she actually prefers it so. Rámarillë is clearly baffled by this. She circles one tree or another -- whether it be the correct tree, or no -- and honks very loudly into the air.

This diary page is splotched with tea along one edge, but is perfectly legible.

Well, Diary? Can you believe it? I shall finally be having some company who is not coming to my door with an arrow in them, or bone sticking out of them, or spitting blood. That is, if he actually forgives me. I do hope the boy forgives me. Not everybody of my own kindred has had the sort of life I have led, and I need to be mindful of that. 

Dear Diary,

I pressed the key to Themodir's house into the wide hand of a very surprised Dwarf fellow named Grunngi. In the course of events, it was decided that we would bring Grunngi back with us from Hrimbarg, for no good could come of the miserable life he was leading there with his perpetually angry cousin. (Some mystery surrounds the cousin, as it does everything lately.)