[Airerûthiel]

This is Maikadurion's first post (what he is doing during Ælfritha's first post):

~*~*~*~*~

Maikadurion listened intently at this talk of stolen horses. He knew that such treachery was frowned upon intensely in Rohan, and that to have a horse stolen in the land of the horse-lords was like parting a mother from her babe. Despite the comfortable routine he had got himself into working at the inn of the White Horse, in his heart he still yearned to break his vow and seek adventure in Middle-earth once more.

Then suddenly his thoughts leapt outside to the stable. "Formenelen," he whispered, and his heartbeat quickened, pounding in his ears like raindrops onto a roof of Edoras during a downpour. If his mother's horse had been taken...no, it would be too great a blow to his memory. The image of her pale face with its long hair as golden as oak leaves in autumn and the ice-blue eyes as cold as the first spring morn had all but faded from the memory of nine years, when he saw her lying in state in the Great Hall of his uncle.

As the throng of people poured forward from the door of the inn like a river in flood, he slipped in among them as silently and quickly as a shadow or a breath of wind, noticed by none, and made his way across the cobbled courtyard to the stables.

The half-Elf quieted the horses in Rohirric and the tongue of his Elven kin, and they were still - he had possessed the gift prized so highly by Men of the Riddermark for as long as he could remember. Going through each one of the remaining beautiful beasts, whose eyes had grown in their heads to twice their size and were immersed in a liquid trauma that gazed out pleadingly at him, Maikadurion reached the stall of the North Star. He closed his eyes as his delicate fingers ran themselves over the engraved brass plate on the stall door, and then slowly opened them as he stood up, already knowing what it was he would find there.

It was as empty as a tombstone that waits with yawning open mouth, hungry for its eternal meal of a coffin and a life.

"Then I know what I must do," he said to himself in a saddened and sombre tone, his feet as heavy as the helm with the treacherous path laid before them. "I have no choice but to leave, to return to my old life...to go back to what appears to be my destiny."

He walked back into the inn alongside the stragglers who offered only provisions to the troupe of riders, and then walked towards the bar.

"Drink this, my friend." Maikadurion glanced up to see Bethberry's kindly face as she took in his own expression. "I am surprised you are not on this side of the bar; after all, you seemed more content there than you do when we are divided by this wooden barricade."

"Good lady Bethberry, I have a boon to ask of you," said Maikadurion, opening his mouth to continue with his request. But he got no further; the innkeeper's sorrowful half-smile told him all he needed to know.

"You were not destined for the simple life, my friend," she replied. "Although for a short time you were content to work for your living, I see that in your heart your desire is to taste adventure all your days in Middle-earth. And maybe one day our paths will cross again. Go now, and fulfil your desires."

Maikadurion kept a pack behind the bar, filled with everything he would need should he choose to leave Edoras for the unknown, and he gratefully took this now from Bethberry. "You have been good to me, and I owe you a great debt. I leave you with my promise that one day I will return to the White Horse."

"And I shall hold your faith to that promise," replied the innkeeper. "You are strong and brave, and you leave this place with honour, having proved your worth. Go now; without horses to spare and your own mount taken, it will be a long journey on foot, even for the son of Elves and Men."