[Elora]

"I do not like to take freely what others pay for," Falowik said. In the darkness, Vanwe's cheeks flushed with shame.Neither do I, a small and desultory voice replied within her with mocking laughter. War could be laughter. Terrible things could be done whilst those perpetrating the acts laughed. Guilty, Vanwe pondered those things that she had taken freely, need overcoming other considerations.

The very dress she stood in, worn now and thin, was not hers. Yet she could not have fled so far north still in the garb of the Haradwaithe. They would have hunted her down before she crossed from Gondor to Rohan. Her mind darted also to the stub of a pencil that sat now heavily in the small pouch at her belt. At least the belt was hers, she recalled with some reliefm and the shoes. She'd managed to scrounge enough work on the docks of Dol Amroth to furnish those items. She recalled racing on bare feet between manors, carrying secretive documents and boxes. She still idly wondered what was written and was lay in her delivered caskets.

If it had not been for a case of mistaken identity, Vanwe mistaken for her mother by an itenerant cobbler looking for his new fortune in the reward bounty, she could still be darting through the narrow and often dark and dangerous streets of Dol Amroth. Instead, she was standing outside an inn.

Falowik had chosen the tree, and she understood that sometimes honesty was more comfortable than anything else. It was hard to sleep otherwise, no matter how luxuriant ones lodgings. Recalling her earlier suspicions, Vanwe felt an easing within her. An honest man would have no involvement in what had ailed the Elf. She had misjudged him, and poorly so even if he did not know she had done him a disservice.

It was unlike Vanwe to be contrary merely for the sake. Nonetheless, she found herself saying "Very well, Sir. I will return shortly." Before Falowik could demur, Vanwe was off to the stables again with her mind set on somehow repairing a few injustices of the night. She climbed up the ladder to the loft Derufin had given her when he'd found her sleeping in a horse stall.

In a lower draw of the chest of drawers were kept spare blankets for the coming winter. Vanwe retrieved two and laid a few other things upon her small pile of bedding. She added some soap and a clean towel. All she could spare and it was the least she could do. Derufin would not mind, she reasoned, as she climbed down with her new bundle.

Aman noticed Vanwe walk past, preoccupied.

"What's happening, Vanwe," she asked. Vanwe smiled at where she stood with Beren, face perplexed as she peered at the bundle Vanwe had under one arm. Concerned that Falowik may vanish before she could do this small kindness, Vanwe was loathe to loiter.

"Just sorting something out," she replied briefly.

"Are you feeling better?" Aman was not so quickly put off. Vanwe nodded in response.

"Yes, much better now that I have some fresh air. I am not used to healing in front of crowds." With a fleeting smile for Aman and Beren both, which Vanwe hoped would reassure them, she was off again.

Relieved to find Falowik still under his tree, Vanwe stepped closer this time and knelt. He watched her and her bundle warily, gaze shifting around her and then coming back to her face.

"You have chosen your tree, and I have chosen to give you these to use," Vanwe smiled gently at him. When he did not shoo her away, something the men of her village did so roughly, Vanwe continued on.

"There's two blankets. I thought one could be rolled and the other to cushion your lovely tree's roots," she said.

"There's soap too, and a towel. The road can be unforgiving. I always find that the Wilds are a little easier to bear with some water and soap. I've yet to find a plant which grows soap though. It's rarer than unencumbered gifts."

Vanwe held the bundle out. The scent of the soap drifted up, delicate and fresh between them. She hoped she had not offended Falowik's sense of pride.

"There's a well beside the stables, and a stream in the yonder woods," Vanwe added. "I made it my business to find that stream shortly after I arrived here myself."

Falowik made no move to claim the bundle from her.

"Please, accept this. How can one scamp sleep well in her bed which she hardly earns when she knows another enjoys a tree for the night?" Vanwe's attempt at levity was unsure, for she was busy noticing other things. Falowik reminded her in many ways of herself. She recalled how frightened she had been of strangers when she first arrived. It had been kindness that had eased that. A friendly face, a kind word, a bed for free. Between Aman's hospitality and Derufin's umitigated generosity, Vanwe had found herself inculcated into the closest thing to a community ever in her life.

But that was not the only thing Vanwe instinctively sensed within Falowik. She knew what it was like to be meted out suspicion and mistrust based purely on appearance. She knew what it was like to be lost, a speck in a wide world where your name was forgotten and your kin vanished. She knew what it was like to be hungry, thirsty and shelterless. All this and more Vanwe saw in Falowik, perhaps his eyes which she seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time studying.

Falowik did not seem to question the southern inflection of her words. She trusted him for reasons she could not name. So, knelt before Falowik in the darkness of the evening, Vanwe offered her small bundle to the Man and found herself watching him again as kinship hovered. She found she was smiling openly and without guise.