[piosenniel]

Daisy pulled out a small carved wooden toy she had put in her net bag for safekeeping, and brought it up to Pio.

'Look, ma'am,' she said, excited with her find, one of the hobbit children must have left this when they went away.'

'Hobbit chidren?', said Pio, turning the finely done little carving of a ship in her hands. Rose had come up too and the two young hobbits explained what they found on the island.

Child and Kali were standing a little apart from the rest, talking. Child had opened the little bag from Minas Anor and was carfully unfolding the piece of parchment within. The elixir Pio had used on it had worked well, and the paper folded open without a tear. Revealed upon it was a crude drawing whose meaning the two of them were trying to decipher.

Rose wandered over to them, wanting to see what they were looking at. She peeked at the paper and exclaimed, 'O! it looks just like the toy we found on the island, Child. Come look!'

Sure enough, in Pio's hand and in Child's were representations of what appeared to be ships of elven design. Each bore an identical banner, a six-pointed star with a faceted jewel in the center.

'Show them the drawings, too, Rose', said Kali. Rose unrolled her quick drawings of the etchings in the cave room. There for all to see was another rendering of the ship with the star banner.

'What can this mean?', said Child, studying all three closely.

[ July 28, 2002: Message edited by: piosenniel ]