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Some newborn part of Linduial recognized that a confidence was best returned with a confidence, and as she swept Leof a graceful parody of a full courtesy, she offered her own, shyly, like a rosebud revealing a new petal.
"You're lucky. I really don't have any memories of my mother--Marenil's wife, Enna, she was really mother to me. She taught me to weave, and was the first person I ran to when I had some feminine problem I dared not bring to my father." She blushed, then sighed.
"I just found out she died. While I was gone. I don't know what it will be like, going home and not finding her there. It frightens me a bit." Suddenly she realized talking to Leof was taking a lot of the sting out of learning of it so late, and she settled back onto her haybale (this time with a hand up from Leof) somehow...content. "You don't mind if I stay here a while, do you? And watch you work? All those people--" she waved vaguely towards the rest of the building-- "just want to ask me how I feel, and whether I was scared, and what it was like, and if it's true I set my own arm, and this and that. And I just don't want to talk about it. I promise not to say a word. You'll never know I'm here." And then she smiled, and it was a joke again. "Just hide me from the adoring masses. I think the Rohirrim love me as much now as they do Lothiriel, and while I'm honored and such, I wonder how she stands it all the time."
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