"What do you mean, the world is vast? Do people think it's small where you come from, then?"
The voice was female, but they couldn't see the speaker. Then she stepped out from the shadows behind the stone stairs. At the same moment the moon emerged from the clouds and they saw she was an elf, with small pointed ears and large, luminous eyes. She was beautiful in a feline, exotic way – not human at all, graceful, and arrogant beyond measure. Her clothes were leather, some kind of poncho, shirt and tight trousers. She was unarmed.
"You were hiding under the throne?" Fredericks asked accusingly.
"Hiding? Most certainly not. I was sleeping. A nice dry place to spend the night, roof and all." She pointed at a blanket, beside which there was a bow, a vine of arrows, and a leather bag.
"The fact that you didn't take your bow when you rose to meet us convinces me that you aren't our enemy," Orlando said, and added: "Don't you think so, Pithlit?" to tell Fredericks they should use their Middle Country names.
"I guess you're right, Thargor." He bowed gracefully;
"My name is Pithlit and my friend here is known as Thargor. Might I inquire your name, fair lady?"
The elf-woman smiled and looked suddenly very young, even childish:
"My name is Minaiwen and I serve prince Legolas of Greenwood the Great."
"I have heard of him. Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo. " Orlando told her.
"Oh! You speak the ancient tongue! I do not, alas, I am only Moriquendi. Where do you come from?"
"I am from Laketown, near your forest in the north. My friend is an easterling whom Rhûn, not from Khand you understand, we have known each other for years and I'd trust him with my life, and often have. He doesn't know much about these parts, for so far we have travelled only in the wild realms far in the east."
"Why were you so surprised to see that the world is vast?"
"I'm not very good with maps. I never realized that Eriador is so big, nor Anduin so long."
"Ah. You are not dressed like a Laketowner, if you forgive me saying so."
"Oh, this stupid loincloth! You must have thought I was a complete barbarian! You see, I was kept as a slave for a while by some unpleasant people, until Pithlit freed me. We've travelled through wilderness and neither of us is any good at turning skins into clothes. As soon as I find a village I'll buy something decent to wear."
Minaiwen looked thoughtful. Then she sat down on the steps. Orlando sat beside her, but Fredericks remained standing. After a moment of silence the girl spoke:
"All right. There is something about you that feels strange, but you seem honest people. I wonder if you could help me? I am looking for a lost child. She seems to be ten or younger, for she is very small. Her hair is golden. She probably wears a yellow frock and a green hood, but no shoes –"
Orlando interrupted her:
"Is she a hobbit?"
"Yes! Have you seen her?"
"No. But my people know of hobbits. How old is she, then?"
"Twenty-one."
Now it was Fredericks who asked:
"I thought you called her a child?"
"She is. A hobbit aged twenty-one is like a human at thirteen, or an elf at one hundred."
"As I said, we haven't met anyone. How come a hobbit child be lost here?"
"She isn't. Others are looking for her elsewhere. I came here to see if I could find her with the help of the Seat of Seeing. I've tried three times. Every time I saw different things, so I haven't given up yet. She is visiting Gondor with her parents – her father is Samwise Gamgee, a companion of my lord Legolas. The girl is called Elanor. She is a maid of honour to the queen."
Fredericks looked at them and felt an outsider. He wished he had read the book. He – she, for it was her female part that did so – wished Orlando wasn't so enchanted by the pretty elf maiden. Fredericks wondered whether she was a person or a puppet. She resembled many of the too-pretty female sims in Middle Country, the airhead girls who played games of flirtation and wore pointed ears whenever that was the fashion. On the other hand, her clothes were sensible, and she at least pretended not to understand anything outside her own simworld. So she probably wasn't an airhead. Codehead, maybe. That would be good, a tiny voice spoke in her heart, there is no reason to be jealous of a puppet.
He climbed past the others and sat on the throne. And then he began to see.