[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

On their way up the road to the as-yet-unspecified-wink-wink-location, Aimé thought he detected a change in Alli's mood. She seemed quieter and more lost than usual. Maybe he was wrong but no matter — he was going to press her on it even at the risk of making her less happy with him.

"You know Alli, we're probably all going to die at some stage. Think about the chances of me dying in the next minute. They're far greater than you want to admit. To the force in the world I am like a bit of parchment."

Two seconds later, and this really happened, not at all just to illustrate the point, two kids started bombarding him with quite large, white pebble-like objects which, had he thought about it, would have reminded him an awful lot of mint imperials. One caught him right on the knee just as he was putting that foot down, causing his leg to twist and the rest of his body to crumple in a heap on the ground. Climbing back up, with an exasperated grimace on his face, he showed her the pebble (maybe it was some sort of reptile egg) and said: "Look at the size of that! At any given moment you can be seriously damaged by a sort of......I don't even know what this thing is but think about what a person could do to you. Or a gorilla."

With laser precision, Aimé hurled the object back whence it came, hitting one of the kids right on the head, knocking him to the ground. In all probability his death-blow.

Showing remarkable concern, Alli retorted: "You exaggerate things; and you also have no sense of scale..." Then she continued walking.

Following her, Aimé said: "The point is that we're all going to be murdered one way or the other. Why don't we just laugh about it?"

"Because it's a lot easier to laugh when the wolves are content to leave you alone." Alli glared at her more fortunate companion.

There followed a long silence, until Aimé said: "Maybe it's easier because I know my life is forfeit. Protecting you is the only thing that matters now, and in a funny way that gives me greater freedom than I've ever had in Mordor. I don't have another care in the world."

Alli stared at him, the slightest suggestion of a smile and the merest hint of a tear forming.

Aimé smiled back. "Let's get some liqueor. We need an exagerrated sense of self-importance for what we're involved in." Being Mordor, they found a vendor within one minute.