‘And . . .’ he prompted her once again. A smile played about his lips, glad that she would ask him to stay. He looked away for a moment, his eyes darkening only briefly with the remembrance of another who was dear to him. He shook his head slightly, putting the memory from him, though the small faces of two children smiling up at him were harder to shut behind the mind’s doors.
He winced as Piosenniel looked sharply at him. Had she picked up some fleeting sadness from his thoughts? He rubbed his forehead, evading her questioning expression, and pretended a mild headache from the dust of the road and the heat of midsummer. He could see the amusement glint in her eyes at the clumsy way he sought to turn her attention. But, she played along, murmuring her sympathies and offering a healing powder for it should he wish it.
It was one of the things he cherished about this new friend he’d found. She could allow him his fictions and his evasions until he was ready to speak of them. And then, just as readily, she would listen without judgment . . .
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‘Many are the strange chances of the world,’ said Mithrandir, ‘and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.’
– Gandalf in: The Silmarillion, 'Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age'
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