[Lhunardawen]

The handsome stranger, still holding the door open, continued to stare at Maika as though she had just stepped out of a dreamy fairy tale. His mouth dropped open in an impossibly cute way, but Maika did not care. She had eyes only for the other man in the laundry room.

"There seems to be something strangely different about you today, my lady," said Hyarmenwë, his eyes narrowed and his head tilted in an effort to figure out what it was.

"You noticed?" Maika bowed slightly, letting her hair fall from behind her shoulder to hide her pale pink cheeks. "They were, uh, broken, and I currently have no time to look for another pair..."

"I must say it makes you look a few years younger."

Maika's face snapped up towards Hyarmenwë. She thought she must have been glaring at him, because he proceeded to apologise for the comment.

"Forget it," she interrupted, waving a dismissive hand. They had to stop talking about age, and fast. "So, are you ready?"

"I rather doubt, Lady Maika, that I would be here if I wasn't," came Hyarmenwë's confident reply, but Maika knew better; she could see that he looked worried. Better let him worry about anakronisms, she thought. It's a healthy fear that would keep him safe.

"If you say so. Now, then, shall we?"

Maika stepped out into the hallway, the handsome stranger still standing where he was, and heard the door click shut behind her. She walked ahead, her hair swaying softly behind her. She felt comfortably light without the usual bun weighing her down, and it was evident in the hint of a skip in her stride. Unless the skip had another purpose for its existence that she did not know.

"Where are we headed?" The Gondorian seemed less scared now. Maika smiled, inwardly of course, at his show of bravery.

"For now, the wardrobe. I've arranged our transportation, and it's waiting for us there."

"Surely it's not--"

"Unless you'd rather walk, in which you're more likely to have a lengthy encounter with anakronisms. I don't mind walking."

Maika turned momentarily to Hyarmenwë, who now walked beside her.

"Strange though it sounds for a Gondorian to say it...I trust you, Lady Maika."

"As you should," she curtly replied. They halted in front of the now-familiar wardrobe. There was no sign of the old man they had previously met in sight. Maika thought, amused, that he had been so mistaken then.

"You know the drill," she told Hyarmenwë, and went in. He followed after her, keeping the door unnoticeably, except for the light from outside, open, as he did the last time. Again they stepped into Nurnia, which looked as it did when they first got there: the same field of grain, the same meandering stream from the same distant mountains. But there were new additions: two not-so-strange things, in the form of two shabby, obviously poorly kept, horses.

"I'm sorry," said Maika, "but these are the best I can find. Nobody rides on these in Mordor anymore."

"Fret not, my lady, I can make do with them," responded Hyarmenwë graciously as he approached the horses, and proceeded to stroke the dirty dark brown mane of one. "I'm even surprised you still have horses here with all the...anakronisms..."

Maika walked over to Hyarmenwë. Her long dark hair was flying, now behind her, now covering her face, in the gentle breeze. "They weren't easy to find, but a woman of position has her perks," she said shrugging, and gracefully mounted the other, dirty white, horse. Hyarmenwë followed suit on his.

"Before we leave," he said, "would you mind telling me our next destination?"

"I don't know if you'll believe me if I tell you, but here it is. Somewhere in Mordor lies a strange inn. At least it is strange for us, but for you it would certainly look ordinary. An oasis of rationality, you might even call it."

Hyarmenwë looked at Maika, surprised.

"I knew you would react like that."

"No, my lady, it's just that I have been in such a place before; Lady Alli had brought us Gondorians - apart from Dracomir, that is - there, over a fortnight ago."

Dracomir. Maika frowned ever so slightly at the name. That dirty little...no, she thought, catching herself. Now's not the time.

"Then it must be the same place, because I'm sure no other one exists in this land. That's very good. Now, let us be off."

And off rode the two ambassadors, one glad to be back in his element, the other awkward in the unfamiliar mode of transport, both oblivious to the light footsteps on their trail.