[Elora]

Sometimes, Vanwe thought, it was like clouds passed over his face and he was far away from where he was. It was a bold assessment to make and one she kept silently within her as she watched Derufin re-settle into the kitchen where he sat. And there was a sadness too, that she could easily sense for it was something that was not unfamiliar to her. Her blue eyes were keen as she studied him and immersed as she was with trying to understand this most unusual man she did not immediately notice Léspheria when she entered the kitchen and sat at the table.

So much of what she knew and expected of others was not, it seemed, applicable to Derufin. She mouthed his name, letting the sound of it settle in.

"Derufin..." It was a soft murmur. Not even his name was like the names she was accustomed to. He had asked for her name, and the memory of the last time a Man had asked her name heated her cheeks. She still remembered how he had chuckled as she related it to him shortly after being unwillingly apprehended as a smuggler. "Vanwe! Gift," he had snorted as he reviewed her toussled appearance as she had warily crouched. "Aye, make no mistake! The King would consider another scoundrel curtailed a gift indeed to his coffers!" And with that he had hauled her off to a dark place with bars and a stench of desperation that had eaten at her very soul. Her name was bitter, but it was the only thing her mother had given her aside from life. She could still hear the guard's sarcastic inflection that carried the strong accents of Gondor now, echoing through her memory.

She offered her name now quietly to Derufin, not exactly sure what to expect this time.

"Not m'lady... that would not be right. I am named Vanwe," she said as she glanced at his face for some hint of his reaction. She set her knife down and tucked an errant strand of golden hair back behind her ear.

"I will not need many tools, Derufin, and I can start whenever you wish, now even," she finished, his name feeling new yet good as she pronounced it. With a bright flash of exuberance, she smiled into Derufin's grey eyes as she spoke.

Léspheria's presence did not go unnoted very long by Vanwe. She shifted in her seat to regard the woman, a little unsettled by her failure to note her appearance but unsurprised as for Vanwe the world was on a shapr kilter around her and filled with newness.

Her surprise was replaced with a shy smile. Was this the other Elf that Aman had spoken of, she wondered? Utterly at a loss as to what to do upon encountering another Elf, Vanwe remained where she was reaching only with a smile towards Léspheria. Where did she come from? Did she know her mother, or Finarfin's kindred? Notes scratched hastily upon a piece of paper held now by Silvanis cropped into her already crowded mind.

"There is honey too," Vanwe said as she passed the pot down to Léspheria. "It's very good," she added by way of encouragement. Honey was something else Vanwe had discovered only that morning. She had eaten enough in one meal that would normally have kept her going over the course of several days. A full stomach was yet another novelty. Discovery after discovery, and the promise of Oak to fill her hands also. It was a morning that was overflowing with unlooked for bounty.