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As the door opened, Leafa, who was towards the back of the group, wondered rather anxiously when her own father would tire of the wayfarer life and return home. She could imagine now how she would bring Ędegard to see her parents... how her mother and father would be so courteous to him... yet they would be watching him so closely... and her mother would look at her every so often with a very faint shadow of sorrow in her eyes.
"It must be hard to be a mother, Liornung," she said, with a little sigh.
"I suppose so," said Liornung, and his tones were so absent that Leafa looked up in surprise. His eyes were fixed on the ground, but it was as if he did not see it, so vague were they. Concern was written across his face in no uncertain lines, and he was fidgeting restlessly where he stood. Leafa gazed wide-eyed at him, and at last he sighed and turned towards her. "Hello, Leafa," he said with a little smile.
She barely managed to smile back. Something was terribly wrong with him, and she wished she knew what it was. That troubled look in his eyes...
She lifted her shoulders slightly and dropped them again, feeling dejected now, and turned her attention back to the door.
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