[piosenniel]

Pio skirted the pool to the West, stopping just at the line of trees as it touched near the water’s edge. She reined in ‘Falmar and dismounted. And taking the apple she had gotten from Lorien, she cut it in two. ‘Here,’ she said laughingly, ‘this is for you, for bearing me here today and listening to my tortuous reasonings on the nature of forgiveness. Always the good listener, eh?!’ ‘Falmar dipped her head once, then took the proffered treat gently, her greedy lips engulfing the slice with only the briefest of soft contact between them and the Elf’s trusting fingers.

Stepping carefully over the loose stones that lined the bank of the pool, Pio crouched down for a moment, trailing her hand in the water. On a flat rock, nearly submersed at the pool’s edge she laid the other half of the apple. A curious group of water fowl drew near, eager to see what had been left. Wary enough, they kept a distance still between themselves and her, calling irritatedly for her to leave. She dipped her hands in the waters once more and clapped them together, delighting in the bright jewels that sailed out from them, lit up by the westering sun.

‘And this is for you, little masters.’ She pushed the apple nearer the edge of the rocky surface, as the birds watched her, silent now. ‘Tell the One who never abandoned us, I thank him. But for my thoughts of him, I would never have bent my stiff neck to the other.’ She pushed the apple into the shallows of the water and withdrew, watching the birds as they raced to the offering.

Mounting ‘Falmar, she returned to the Inn, hastening, once there, through the familiar door and into the welcoming cheer of the Common Room . . .