"I'm Astilwen. Odd name for a hobbit I know but I'm used to it now! And you?"
Ariane paused where she was examining various interesting looking sweets, the music drilling its way to loop in her head, over and over again as it carried on playing in the background, but also staying in her mind in one particular little point. "Ariane. Ariane Calthye." She shrugged. "I'm really not certain of where it came from, and a few have remarked to its tone."
She found the hobbit to be a most remarkable person, a bit like she might have ended up had she been about two feet shorter, and had a chance to grow up properly, in a much different manner. Were all short people stereotyped to be cheerful, Ariane wondered to herself? There had been a time when she had been a cheerful person who couldn't be matched for the melodrama, salient and proud of it.
Perhaps Elachi had changed her, then...
But she shook it aside. Her husband wasn't there (though some part of her mind wished he was, if only to see if he'd hit his head on the doorway), and she had someone to talk to. Someone who most certainly was not concerned about the issues in her reality. Someone who might actually hold a relatively sane conversation with her, and not care about her height, for that matter. She smiled to herself. That was a rareity.
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