As Ĉoelhild played her sprits rose, playing had always seemed to melt away her troubles and bring her joy a gift her father oft told her she had inherited from her mother. She wished she had known her mother but her fathers memories had always been enough to dispel such sorrows. He had truly loved her and spoke often of her kindness and beauty, always telling Ĉoel with a wink and a nod that a part of her had remained in his daughter, that she was her mothers final gift to him. As the tune finished and she lowered the flute given her by Ruthven when it was discover that she could play she found herself laughing merrily. Something she could not recall doing in such along time, forgetting completely her reason for choosing that particular tune until her eyes again fell on the young girl nestled against her fathers shoulder.
Her laughter stopped as she was reminded of her own father and how he would hold her thusly when she was upset , she could remember clearly the warmth and tenderness of his embrace and the rich aroma of the tobacco smoke that clung to his clothes. Her hand searched for the hilt of her fathers sword hoping to draw from it some of that same warmth and security, but then she remembered that she had hidden it in the room the innkeeper had assigned to her. So instead she reached for the tankard that had just been poured for her and lifting it to her lips she sipped at the warm sweet liquid within as she let her eyes idly study the faces around the table at which she now sat.
The Innkeeper, Ruthven and Saeryn, she had already been acquainted with, but the others, the young girl she had heard her father call Gudryn and indeed the father himself she did not know. But then there was the halfling! Oh yes she had heard of halflings in fact there was not a Gondorian who had not, but she had never actually met one and she soon found herself staring with mild curiosity at the strange little fellow seated across from her.
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