[Formendacil]

"I'm Lossë, sir. I'm from Minas Tirith, out here so as to keep out of trouble I can't handle." Estahir may have changed his mind over the years about the benefits of curiosity, but he was not yet above being curious. What Father, Mother, or Guardian sent their daughter to the Shire, of all places? It may have excelled at staying out of trouble, but their daughter would be like a horse among donkeys, and it was a terribly long way from Minas Tirith. Far easier to send a troublesome child to the country somewhere.

And then there were the rumours in Arnor that the King Elessar planned, someday, to forbid the travel of Men in the Shire. However, it seemed likely that such rumours were unheard in Minas Tirith. What concern was it to the Gondorians if the Shire were forbidden to Men? Before he could wonder any further, his attention snapped back to Lossë.

"And I'm not sorry for trying to take your coin. I'm having a bad day: probably couldn't lift a trinket off a corpse if this luck holds."

"And that would be such a bad thing?" Estahir raised his eyebrow. "I'll admit, girl, that I probably see things a bit differently than you. I'm no thief- although the Men of Bree would have told you differently about twenty years ago, before the War- and so can't really see it from your point of view. You're clearly well-born, what need have you got of money so badly that you steal?"

Estahir shook his head, thinking more of himself than the slip of a girl he was talking to. Would that he had heeded his own advice! What need had he had of the Horde of Angelimir?

But after it he had gone anyway...

Imladris had not disappointed Estahir at all. The Lord Elrond's library, left virtually intact for the benefit of the Northern Realm, had indeed yielded some information on Angelimir of Nenuial.

Angelimir, it had turned out, was a Councillor of the Realm during the reign of Arvedui. They were of an age, and it seemed that in his younger days, during the reign of Araphant, Angelimir had travelled far and wide. He had fought with Eärnil at the Battle of the Camp, routing the Easterlings, and had spoken as one of Arvedui's proponents to the Council of Gondor that had rejected Arvedui's claim as king. Angelimir had returned to Arthedain, and during the last years of Araphant's reign, had been Governor of Tharbad and Southern Cardolan. Despite very limited resources, strained by the war against Angmar, Angelimir had managed to do some exploration and cartography of the Enedwaith, the No-Man's Land between Arnor and Gondor.

During this time, it seemed, Angelimir had been entrusted with an extremely large sum of money, from the treasury in Fornost, which he was to build a new treasury for somewhere in southern Cardolan- where it would be further away from the battlefront and thus less vulnerable to enemy attacks. It was the fear of Araphant that Angmar would break through and take the north of Arnor, but he hoped to hold out in the south until reinforcements could be called from Gondor or the Elves.

The histories, Estahir had noted with irritation, had been very helpless on what had happened to the treasure thereafter. It seemed that about this time Araphant had passed away, and Arvedui had become king. The war had intensified, and no men could be spared to build or maintain a treasury near Tharbad. Angelimir had been recalled to Fornost to sit on the council.

Angelimir had been one of the lucky few to escape the sack of Fornost. He had been one of Arvedui's company on the retreat towards Fornobel, but had ended up being seperated with few companions, and retreating across the Lhûn. He had holed up in an old Dwarven mine until spring, when Prince Eärnur and his Gondorian army had arrived and destroyed Angmar for good.

After that, there were no records of Angelimir. Lord Elrond had kept only the barest of records concerning the Dúnedain of the North after the death of Arvedui. It seemed that he would likely have become one of the founding Rangers, with both his wide experience as a traveller and lord of the realm to draw on. He would likely have been one of the chief aides of the Heir of the North, Aranarth.

Estahir had no way to prove it, but he suspected that it was at this time that the money he had been entrusted with in Tharbad had been moved to it's final location, the map to which had finally ended up in his hands. It would have made sense for the treasury to have been hidden in trust for the Return of the King, just as the scepter, Elendilmir, and the shards of Narsil were entrusted to Elrond for safekeeping.

And so Estahir had begun to research more deeply Angelimir's earlier history, the lands he had travelled, and the places he had known, hoping to find a location that resembled the one portrayed on the rag of a map.

Thoughts of his quest in mind, Estahir shook his head and looked at Lossë.

"What's the harm of asking, if you truly need the money? It's less shameful than theft."- and wiser than treasure hunts, he thought.