The Green Dragon Inn - Part 4

[Elora]

Vanwe eased her way from the Mathom sale with a hobbit hat filled with coppers. With Aman and Derufin to keep some semblance of order, she decided that she would be entirely more comfortable if the princely sum she presently held was in the keeping of someone less questionable than a runaway. The commonroom was quiter, the crowd milling around the stableyards, and Vanwe made immediately for the kitchens.

"Pardon, Mistress Cook, but I have some proceeds from the sale," Vanwe stated. Cook looked up from the lamb broth she was readying for the evening.

"Well, nice as a hat full of coppers are, Vanwe, I can hardly include them in this. The copper would ruin the taste!"

Vanwe's brow furrowed until she realised that Cook was not serious.

"Oh, I thought it would be better kept in here for Aman when she is finished," she explained. Cook waved with the knife she had been slicing carrots with at a corner that Vanwe promptly set the hat down in. She emptied out her pocket too. That done, Vanwe stepped back out. Her throat was dry after the day fliting about the inn. The cool earthen jug of water that sat at the corner of the bar beckoned. Vanwe made for that, pouring out a cup that sat next to the jug.

The water was a welcome relief in more ways than one. She was thirsty, and it did not cost her money she did not possess. The maiden sat, cup in her long fingered and surprisingly delicate hands. Vanwe took to swirling the water within the cup, careful not to spill any. Water was not something to be wasted, even in the lush north. She gradually let the water still, her reflection peering back at her. She pondered it, and how to sort things out.

The face that gazed back up at her was supposedly uncannily like her mothers, and Vanwe allowed herself to fall into an old habit. She stared at the reflection, wondering what her mother looked at, and where she was, and even that she stared back at her instead of empty water. It was a foolish indulgence, yet it brought a wistful smile to her usually serious Elven face and revealed just how young and old she truly was. Vanwe imagined emerald eyes instead of her own sapphire ones, and forgot all the other tales that cloaked her mother's identity. She ignored the frayed collar of her dress, and saw only her mother, the mother she had wished she had and still secretly hoped she would find instead of the truth that lay somewhere out there.