Ędegard
Ędegard wondered at Bellyn and Leafa, who seemed to hold him responsible for the Easterling's attack against himself! Bellyn spoke to the boy as to a dear friend. Ędegard winced at the wrongness of it. Leafa wept for the boy rather than for him. His heart sank and his gut turned. How was it that these two could act so?
Leafa he could understand, forced to live among Easterlings, having gotten used to them. There was time to help her see the truth. Bellyn was not his affair, but he still wondered how she could behave so. Maybe it was that in Minas Tirith, under the new king, the influence of Elves brought new ways, for all knew that the new king had had much to do with Elves. Ędegard held no ill feeling toward Elves, but their ways were not human ways, and he did not think it was good that humans should take Elvish ways to themselves. It was not natural.
He watched the Easterling boy as Leafa quietly worked on the cut at his eye. He was going to Amroth, shouting Elvish. Now there was an oddity! But Amroth was looking back at the boy in a strange way. A familiar way. Ędegard couldn't place it, but it stirred something in him, made him think of Edoras and a snowball fight.
"Hold a moment, Leafa, I wish to speak to Amroth."
"Hold this healing leaf over your eye, Ędegard," she said.
He smiled. "You are a healing leaf."
She blushed and gave him a quick smile, but the sorrow in her eyes did not dim. Her face succumbed to it again as she walked with him to Amroth and the Elves.
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