[Aylwen Dreamsong]

As the other woman sat next to her, Jisela smiled kindly. Jisela had taken her boots off, leaving them next to her seat to dry. Jisela hated wearing the boots, they were old and hard to polish and clean. Jisela decided to look around the room once before talking to Rosanna. Reed was sitting by the fire with Darian, and Rhys was with the girl Eorlyn. Other people from the group dotted the table.

"Nice to meet you, Rosanna," Jisela began, shaking hands with the girl.

"You can call me Ros. You were the one playing with snow earlier right?" Ros asked, watching the other people of the group talk and converse.

"Yes. And I had no idea I had been throwing snowballs incorrectly my whole life until I was educated in the art by our companions Almarien and Krosan. Almarien's snowball can knock a strong man off his horse, but I still prefer sending them to the ground with an uppercut. Krosan's technique...well, I hope whoever falls victim to one of Krosan's snowballs has a hanky with them," Jisela replied, and suddenly realized that she was droning on about something truly uninteresting and unimportant. "Sorry. I guess you don't exactly want to hear about snowballs."

Ros chuckled. "Are you in the Order?" Ros changed the subject quickly. Jisela nodded.

"Rhys got into it first. We needed a way to get off the streets. We were given food and housing and Rhys trained with the Order. When I was old enough I started learning more about hand-to-hand combat, or, fist fighting, which is really what I was interested in. I'm guessing you're in the Order?" Jisela continued, and Ros nodded.

"How'd you get involved with it, the Order, I mean?" Jisela asked, hoping to learn a little more about Ros.

Nearby, Eorlyn and Rhys had begun to continue their conversation from earlier. Rhys seriously wondered which ranger would take Eorlyn under his wing. Rhys did not believe Eorlyn was...the type to go into such a line of work.

"My mother and father died of a sickness when I was young and Jisela was even younger," Rhys began, trying to ignore Eorlyn's fluttering and battering eyelasshes. "And for money I worked in a stable, with a former soldier in the Gondorian army. He taught my sister and me the ways of fighting and such, and when an agent of the Order found us, he offered us a place to stay in exchange for us joining."

Eorlyn nodded, and Rhys wondered if she was pretending to be interested. "Are you, by any chance, a descendant of, or from Rohan?" Rhys asked, ending the awkward silence.