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Old 03-01-2004, 01:25 PM   #4
mark12_30
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1420! SeventhStar part 3

mark12_30

Where now she wanders none can tell,
in sunlight or in shade,
For lost of yore was Nimrodel,
and in the mountains strayed.

One of the silent grey servants brought out a tray of just-washed mugs; Morien caught up a towel, and motioned at him to put the tray on the bar. Morien dried a mug and put it back on its shelf.

Mellonin hummed another couple of lines, and then said, "I wonder why people disappear. "

Morien, busy drying mugs, listened with a bartender's patience.

"It amazes me that people can just disappear without a trace. Even an elf-maiden betrothed to a king. How could they just lose her like that? You'd think somebody would have learned what happened to Nimrodel by now, wouldn't you?"

Morien dried another mug, and Mellonin considered him, and glanced at Red before she continued. "I wonder if Red is lost, and has someone looking for him. And I wonder where he got lost from. Maybe he lives right here, but he just can't remember. I wonder if Mellondu has just forgotten who he is, and is wandering around the city. Or maybe in the Pelennor, or beyond."

"Maybe. I take it no one has told you any news?" Morien dried another mug.

"No, " Mellonin said. She turned to consider the common room; it was bustling, and many of the people seemed to know each other. But none of them knew her brother.

Morien paused, and then handed her the towel. "Here, I don't know why I'm doing this. Finish up."

"Yes, sir." She dried the mugs one by one, and put them away.


littlemanpoet

Raefinden. His nerves tingled to the sound of that name. There was something positively smashing about it! Positively smashing? Now, where on earth did that term come from? He knew he had reconnoitered it to his own working vocabulary quite some time ago, but he had absolutely no inkling from where.

So much was happening so fast in the common room of this Inn, it was hard to keep track of it all. So many people. Um, folk. It seemed to be the appropriate way to express oneself here. The rather grand elf lady and her three children, and the court she kept - if it could be called a court; she did seem rather queenly after all - were apparently headed for some place called Harad. It sounded desert-like. Yes, he was certain of it. How he knew, he could not say.

Red, or Raefinden, as it pleased him to name himself, decided that it was high time for him to busy himself in some way to pay for his room. He got up from his table and walked over to Morien.

"Sir, I would be most gratified if you would find some means of emp-" he stopped. The innkeeper looked at him blankly, as if trying to make sense of his grammar. Take care of your speech, Red he said to himself. "Forgive me." He bowed. "Please give me work, to pay for my room, sir."
littlemanpoet

Whatever else was true, Red was sure that he had not spent much time in his forgotten past doing much by way of hard labor. His back was screaming! He was on his knees, scrubbing the wood floor in one of the inn's rooms with hot, soapy water, using a very sturdy wooden brush.

When he had asked Morien for work, this was not what he had been thinking of. Rather, something more on the lines of reorganizing the scrolls alphabetically, or sweeping the floor in the common room, or waiting tables even. This was hard work. Morien was getting his room paid for, no danger!

Red left the brush in the puddle on the floor, and leaned back, still on his knees, pressing both hands into the small of his back. The ceiling was crawling with spider webs that needed removing. He would have to tell Morien about that.

Just then he heard a muffled noise from the hallway.

mark12_30

The muffled noise in the hallway repeated itself, sounding suspiciously like a snort. Red turned, baffled, and peered out the door, careful not to overstretch his back while doing so.

From behind her basket of linens, Mellonin burst into peals of laughter. "Forgive me--" she gasped, "I am sorry. I'm sure you are doing your best. Forgive me."

His surprised expression faded into a resentful frown, and she immediately composed herself, and entered the room, placing her basket on a part of the floor that was still dry.

"Raefindan, you're obviously of noble blood. Your hands are far too soft. Whatever else you may have forgotten, working with your hands isn't one of them; you never learned it in the first place," she said, more gently now. "Look at you... you need something to kneel on; didn't you think of that? And you might want to wrap your hands."

Red shook his head. "Never mind my knees. My back is what really hurts. And I don't think I have that much noble blood, either."

She smiled. "Which began to hurt first, your knees or your back?"

He scowled at her.

"Your knees hurt first, and you tried to favor them. And then your back began to hurt."

He stood up, painfully. "All right. I'm clueless. Tell me."

Now it was her turn to frown. "Clueless?"

"It means-- well, it means that I'm confused, I'm sorry, and I'll listen to what you have to say."

She nodded, and let it go. "Here, no one will miss this." She folded up a blanket and handed it to him. "Wait here." She returned with some strips of cloth. "For your hands." She then picked up her basket of linens. "I must get several rooms ready. I will return as soon as I may." Raefindan began wrapping his hands, and Mellonin slipped out.

As she worked, she puzzled over the new stranger. With his soft hands, he couldn't be anything but royalty. Clearly he was not from Minas Tirith; even if his mind had become addled, and he forgot where he was from, others would have recognized him if he had been from this city. But neither Rohan, nor Dol Amroth, nor Dale had any red-headed royalty that she had ever heard of. All the mannish royalty she knew of was either golden haired or dark.

How did he come by the red hair? Did he have dwarf blood? She shuddered at the implications; but no. It was obviously a foolish idea; he stood straight and tall and rather slender, and was clearly, purely mannish. He just had red hair.

And completely soft hands. "Not even weapon-calluses, " she muttered. "Nothing. What did he do? Where is he from?"

She wondered more and more if Raefindan's mystery might not be somehow connected to her brother's disappearance. If he could appear, could her brother disappear? But if Raefindan couldn't tell her his own story, how would she learn, how would she guess if there was any connection?

littlemanpoet

Raefindan hoped that Mellonin didn't take his facial expressions to heart. He liked to exaggerate his expressions now and then. He would have to show her just how exaggerated he could be some time, when she knew him better. But now he had to ask himself how he knew that about himself, and he again came up with no answer. Royal blood? He thought not. Most assuredly not! More likely he was the court jester, or whatever there was akin to that wherever he had come from. Hmm.... clueless. He knew the word was one that came naturally to his mind. Should I be more careful that my words reflect this place? He felt that he should, but that he would probably let some things slip. He shrugged.

He knelt on the blanket Melonnin had provided, and grabbed the brush around his cloth-wrapped hands. Yes, he could feel the difference. He could put more of his weight into his brushing. And now he grimaced as the pain moved into his shoulders, arms, and wrists. He figured that it was as it should be, for he was finally doing it right. He straightened, looking at the floor as if he had seen a ghost there.

"Well, by George, look at that!"

Raefindan could see how much cleaner the spot was where he had just worked on, compared to the areas he had been slaving over. He rolled his eyes.

"Oh no. Now I'll need to go back over the rest of it. I'm going to die before I get this done!"

He looked over his shoulder, hoping nobody had heard that little bit of melodrama. Melodrama. Now, there as another word he knew, and knew what it meant, but was sure it did not fit in this land and place. What would Melonnin say about it? 'Melo' would be related to 'friend' in the elvish speech here, he considered as he sloshed the brush in the bucket again, and 'drama' had no place in any bit of the elvish speech that he knew of.

"And how, Raefindan, do you know that?" It was as if he knew this place from wherever he had come from. How? He did not know, and wished he did. He grimaced again, stopped to crack his back, and fell to his assignment yet again. And he would have to find out who 'George' was now, too.
mark12_30
Mellonin looked in on Raefindan, and he looked up at her with a weary smile.

"Much better," she said. "Morien will give you dinner after all."

The look of dismay that crossed Raefindan's face drew another giggle from Mellonin, and she entered, and put her empty basket down. "No, I don't think he's really harsh enough to refuse you food. But he wants us to think he is."

"He didn't strike me that way, " Raefindan replied, scrubbing.

"I suppose not," Mellonin mused. "Perhaps I'm thinking of my old master instead. But anyway, you'll be done in time for dinner at least. Have you remembered anything?"

Raefindan looked down at his red hands. "No. Not even who George is. Any news of your brother?"

She shook her head ruefully. They exchanged wry looks, and with a shrug and a sigh he turned back to his scrub-brush. "I'll sleep well tonight, after this. Maybe by morning I'll have remembered... something. Or perhaps at dinner you can ask me questions, and maybe that will jar my memory and I'll remember. Would you like to try that?"

She brightened. "All right. Yes." Feeling a little more hopeful, she went to fetch a broom and sweep the stairs and the hallway.

littlemanpoet
It was late and the commons was almost empty. All of the guests had been served and left for home or to bed. Raefindan sat at table with a bowl of stew in one hand and a dark brown ale in the other. He placed both before him and heaved a sigh. He stretched his back once, and then set to. In moments half of both drink and stew were gone.

Mellonin came by with her own bowl of stew and a cup of clear liquid. "You've gained yourself an appetite!" She sat in the chair next to him.

"How could I not? I haven't worked that hard ever in my life." Raefindan met her eyes as she ate her stew. He could tell she what thought. "Yes, I know I'm soft by the standards of this place, but from where I come-" he lapsed into silence, staring a moment into his cup before returning his gaze to her. "- I think - I'm considered about average."

She swallowed. "How can that be? Who does your labor if all of you are soft as you?"

Raefindan frowned, perplexed. "I don't know!" He dipped his wooden spoon into his bowl of stew again, and lifted it to his mouth. "We don't have wooden spoons at table." He put the spoon in his mouth.

"What then?"

"Metal," he said, chewing.

"Metal? What is that?"

"A kind of ore from the ground. Like iron for swords, only made into spoons."

Mellonin looked at him in disbelief. "Is metal so common where you come from then?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

Last edited by mark12_30; 03-20-2004 at 07:48 PM.
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