[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Rauthain

As Rauthain led Juta and advanced on the stairway beside Toby, he looked past the lithe form of Avanill in front of him, to Kaldir and Mrs. Banks walking on ahead. The tall man appeared in a proper mind now, though the ranger could not be sure if the pressure bearing down on his former compatriot's mind might not be increasing rather than subsiding as he neared this eventuality, and his concern that Kaldir might yet be directly influenced by the one he sought was renewed. He could see it would not fair well for the hobbit should Kaldir loose his self-possession, and he wondered that she should accompany him gladly when he had so gravely threatened them just moments earlier.

In his ears still echoed the words he had spoken to Dúlrain beside the dying campfire. He would not let Kaldir stand in his way of finding Naiore. He had set himself upon this long since, and yet now he found his resolve again wavered. Had he not caught sight of her on the hillside and yet tarried among his companions? And even though he now had Toby Longholes and Avanill along side him to see to Imladris, was not the Ravennor the more ominous threat to peace. Not only to the peace of the west but he now realized she continued to threaten his own calm as well as Kaldir’s.

"How comes it that a respectable woman of the Shire should find herself in the company of a bounty hunter?" Toby sighed, breaking into the ranger's thoughts.

"How does a ranger become a bounty hunter?" Rauthain mused. "Providence? Misfortune?" He stopped speaking for a moment considering the question more fully, as they traced the path cut in the stone face. "So she is from the Shire, is she? I had imagined her of Bree stock," the ranger began, again focusing on the slight lady in green, so at ease in Kaldir's presence. "Why do you say the Shire?" he questioned, after some thought. "Has she spoken to you of it?”

“Yes, she had in passing mentioned it. I suppose she thought it only polite to.” Toby replied, looking more at the cut stone in front of him than his fellow traveler.

“I had reckoned her to be a long time friend of Miss Nightshade's, for fast friends they would seem, but if what you say is true I cannot imagine how that may have come to pass. And indeed that very friendship I deem is what drew her into Kaldir's company, though I do not know how Miss Nightshade figures with him. I had at one time thought them both captive, but as you see it does not appear to be so,” Rauthain frowned. It seemed almost as though Kaldir himself was the captive, and not necessarily of the two women he had held in his train, though they did inexplicably seem to merit his good will. But rather he was still captive of a past that could not be altered, as Rauthain also felt himself to be. Naiore still had Kaldir bound to that dimly lit world of her making, though surrounded now by the beauty of Eriador, he could not see it.

“Captive? To the bounty hunter?” Toby questioned, evidently surprised.

“It does not appear so”, Rauthain repeated. "But I have told you these things freely, and now it is my turn to make a request of you, Master Longholes. I would ask that you return that which you borrowed of me, the squirrel skin pouch that was at my side as we rode to Barrold's place. Your little feat of daring nearly cost me my life and I would have my flint and whetstone, though you may keep the copper, it means little to me. And you had earned it."

“I do not want your money, it was only a spiteful urge brought on by your treatment of me.”

"I do not believe you intended such a dire outcome, and so will not hold you accountable for this, but it is a hard thing to strip an old man of the tools of his trade," he scolded.

"Here, here is the pouch with nary a haypenny missing," Toby exclaimed searching his pockets to produce the slim purse. "I do not want your coins."

"Ah this is a surprise!" Rauthain said, his eyes glinting in his amusement. "I had supposed I would have a greater struggle and had not expected you to surrender it so readily!"

"My heart is not in it, and I am sorry if it has caused you as great a trouble as you say."

"Then there is no more to be said. But truly it is a good thing you had not met me at the time or I may have been carrying a hobbit skin pouch today! But I have managed well enough as you see, and have borrowed a few things, though I made quite sure their owners no longer needed them," he said tying the purse back on his belt. "I see you have mended the cut strings as well."

Removing from his belt the whetstone he had gleaned from the fallen orc, he grinned as he presented it to Toby. "Here, to show my goodwill you may keep this as a memento."

Toby took the stone and studied the odd runes, "It is a strange gift!" he said. And not knowing what to do with it, he slipped it in his pocket.

“I have found many strange things on this journey,” Rauthain said pulling a shuttle also from his belt and squinting at it briefly, he placed this too in his pouch. “ And I expect I will see many more before it is though.”