[Elora]

Uien was silent as Falowik spoke, but her heart was far from quiet. For fear she would further shame herself, she kept her gaze locked on her plate yet what passed through her was plainly writ on her face. No sooner was she about to burst out of her silence with a question concerning the lost man than did the Hobbit of the prior evening arrive and seat himself at the table.

Suspicion and impatience marked his manner as he reached for the bread upon Falowik's plate. Anger flared inexplicably within her at the offence that simmered beneath his words. Appearances could be most deceiving. Before she could speak, Falowik had risen and left. She managed only to glance up at him, yet he could not stay. He held her gaze and turned and left.

Uien found herself all but glowing with outrage. When she turned back to the Hobbit, she all but threw her own bread upon his plate. Derufin's brows shot up in surprise. Falco looked baffled and then decidedly put out as he met her eyes. Her gaze was stern and forbidding.

"Master Hobbit, I am unfamiliar with the laws of this land. Tell me, if you would be so kind, as to whether it is true that to be a wanderer is to be guilty of some crime," she asked in a cool voice. Falco stared at her blankly.

"I'm not sure I take your meaning..." he started, stumbling for her name from the night before. She let him grasp for it futilely. Derfuin placed a warning hand on her arm which Uien paid no heed to. The injustice steeled her voice and tempered it further and she unconsciously drew to herself the lofty air that accompanied many of Lothlorien's folk to the eyes of the outside world.

"Falowik seems to stand in some suspicion, and his crime seems to be that of a wanderer who has reported a Man missing," Uien intoned. She fixed Falco with a keen stare. "Is not the world a cold enough place as it is? Must we expect treachery and misdeed of all simply because they are strange to us? Is the evil of Sauron's malice to continue to live, driving the Free Peoples apart through lingering mistrust?"

Even if Falco had answers for her questions, Uien had little inclination to accord them any attention. Her mind worked swiftly. The Shiriff was bristling by this stage. "I'll not have an Elf accuse me of unfairness," he objected in a rising voice.

"Then who will be permitted to question you? Tell me so that it may be so," Uien shot back fiercely. Her temper was loose and ranging widely, Falco firmly in her sights. Derufin, shocked by the outburst of his usually quiet assistant found a space into which intervene. "Come now, Uien... Master Shiriff. Is there any need for us to come to argument here?"

Uien had taken a deep breath and leant back from the table. Falco was muttering about imperious and arrogant Elves. "Yes," replied Uien bitterly, "For here, this day, it is Falowik who is treated as a foe for no more than being a stranger to these lands. In another place, in the past, it was I who wandered into lands unfriedly and by good deed comdemned myself. A slippery slope we are on, and I will be damned if I will see us slide into yet more divisions at some point in the future!

A war was not fought for such petty squabbles as this!" Derufin stared hard at Uien, perhaps in reproach. Uien met the gaze calmly, her mind made. "Volunteers, you say Master Falco, are to be gathered to search for the missing Man. You have another, and yes, she is a wanderer too. Mark me well!"

With that Uien stood. "If he is injured, you will need a healer, provided I can be trusted. And if I can, then so too can Falowik!" Uien gathered her skirts to her as though they were rich velvets. Falco and Derufin stared up at her, Falco's mouth slightly ajar as he struggled to deal with the Elf. If Uien was Noldorin in one trait, it was in her resolute counsel. The only individuals who had managed to alter it upon occassion in the past had long left her behind now.

"You may have my share also. I find I have no appetite," she said. Uien nodded to Derufin, favoured the Shiriff with a long, challenging gaze and swept from the Inn with her chin held high. Uien made one detour to the stables to fetch her cloak and her collection of dried herbs. Throwing the cloak around her shoulders, she made then for where Falowik stood by his tree.

He marked the high spirits in her eyes and he glanced at the small pack that hung from one hand. "I volunteered," Uien said simply. "Wanderers sometimes need to band together to smooth the road ahead." Uien smiled gently, glancing back at the Inn. "I think the Shiriff will be ill-pleased with me after my words, and likely Derufin as well, but he is not so foolish as to turn away the aid of a healer when a Man is missing in the wilds."

Falowik studied her as she pushed a strand of hair from her face. "Have I displeased you," she asked hesitantly, suddenly unsure. He shook his head uncertainly, gaze straying to the flowers he had found.

"I am not sure I understand," he began, gaze swinging back to her. "Is this wise?"

Uien's lips curved into a smile once more. "I am not sure I understand either. But sometimes what is wise and what should be done are not the same thing. I am not so learned as to be Wise, but the path to be taken shines so that I cannot turn away from it." Her gaze was intent and steady upon Falowik, taking in his features.

"If you seek labour to pay off the debt of a mouthful of bread, perhaps you could aid me to replentish my supply of herbs. I hope to be prepared for whatever the search may find." Uien held up her small pack, the scent of herbs delicately rising, and held her other hand out to Falowik. Her fingers yearned towards him, beckoning.