[Aylwen Dreamsong]

Aylwen finished serving Castar his hot tea and left in time for someone to join him at his table. She left in time to catch the man from earlier – the one with who’d asked for milk and water – speaking with Sigrid as she went about her chores. He was a strange man, there was little doubt to that, but Aylwen trusted Talan if anything came up, and Aylwen trusted Sigrid to get Talan if she needed him. In any case, Aylwen saw the scraggly man leave Sigrid’s side. Besides, she wasn’t too worried with that and was more preoccupied with keeping the volunteers rebuilding the stables content with drinks and anything else they needed that she could provide.

Hisimé was awake, it seemed. Aylwen saw him ask for breakfast, and Aylwen watched as he was seated and served. Then Aylwen saw two men, dressed in the livery of Gondor, pass through the Inn. They had a heated conversation, then one of them left with an angry air about him. Aylwen watched in wonder, and looked to see where Talan was. When she did not see him anywhere near Aylwen shook it off and went on about her serving and work. Strange things were happening that day, it was obvious, and Aylwen was starting to wonder what it was all leading to.

On one of her trips from the common room to the kitchen, Aylwen picked up a note written by Bethberry, addressed to her. Aylwen read through it with dirty plates in her hands, and nodded with interest at the task. Bethberry asked Aylwen to set up something fun and entertaining with the musicians for that evening. The young woman sighed contentedly and left the dirty dishes in the kitchen. Aylwen left the kitchen and ran right into her brother, knocking long pieces of parchment out of his hands. The two fumbled around to pick all of them up, and then Taren sighed, sweat lining his forehead and brow.

“Aylwen, how far away from the Inn should the new stables be?” He asked, as if there might have been some tiff about it outside and Taren wanted Aylwen to settle it. Aylwen shrugged, not sure at all. Did it matter? Aylwen bit her lip as she came up with her answer, “Maybe the same distance away as the old one was?”

Taren rolled his eyes and turned away, exiting the Inn to get back to work without another word to Aylwen. The Assistant Innkeeper sighed and looked back over to see a new customer occupying one of the stools. Aylwen took the hooded stranger’s order and when she returned Aylwen saw that the customer was fair of face and though Aylwen had never seen an Elf in person before, it was not hard to tell. This surprised Aylwen, because there were few Elves in Rohan to the point that Aylwen had not seen on yet even in all the days of being the Assistant Innkeeper. She hadn’t even seen one when she lived in Gondor.

“Excuse me, miss,” Aylwen began, looking to the woman who was sipping her drink. “It’s not my place to pry, but what business brings you here to Edoras, and the White Horse? Not many of your kind come around here, I’ve noticed…”