LOCATION

Starshine Inn: Main Hall

The Main Hall is a large and splendid room, with a high wooden roof from which hangs chanderliers and candelbras of intricate craftmanship, casting a strong light around the hall. The room, mostly open, is often filled with servants and stayers at the Inn that hurry around on their daily business. The floor, made of hundreds of different coloured tiles, forms a map of Arda, ranging from Aman to Middle Earth with Numenor at the center. Statues similar to those in the Foyer rest in some corners of Hall, though these instead depict heroes of war time rather than peacemakers and artisans. Several other large doors lead off to other locations in the Inn.

Obvious exits:

It is well past midnight - outside the Starshine Inn, myriad stars twinkle brightly in a deep blue sky - but even at this hour the main hall of the Inn is not empty. Every now and then the door bangs open as travellers return from an errand elsewhere, many of them looking a little the worse for drink. Other guests simply wander the Hall, perhaps kept awake by the disturbance. One of the latter, content to walk, stopping every now and then to examine a statue, is a young woman, dark hair pulled back tightly into a long braid, revealing a pale face and tired eyes. She sidesteps one unsteady lurching figure and halts briefly, scuffing her toe across the corner of mosiacked Hyarnustar on the decorated floor.

At a table near the mosiac - a pair of grey eyes watch the crowd warily. Seated with two big men who look to be by their insignia - if one did recognixe it - as Royal Guards to the Numenorian princess, is a slight young woman - richly dressed. The twain were laughing loudly, the grey eyes of the young maid with them galzed - boredom seems her lot. She does not even glance at them, her gaze is turns outward from the table to the folk who walk near. Especially of interest to her, seem her countrymen that are about in the Inn.

The young woman who is walking turns slightly as she hears a particularly raucous burst of laughter, and peers towards the source - two burly men in guards uniform. Her eyes fall briefly on the young maid in the guards' company, and she manages a small smile before turning away. As she moves, something small falls from her belt, and she drops to hands and knees to search for it on the patterned floor.

The maid at the table meets the glance of the walking girl - an adan like herself, but before even she can smile back at the girl - if she would have - the girl turns away. She watches as the girl goes to the floor to search - apparently for something she has lost. The maid swiftly rises - drawing no mor than a gance of the twain she is with - once they see the girl on the floor as well - they seem to guess the maid's purpose - and dismiss her from their thoughts again - or so it seems, for they turn back to eachother and bend their heads together once more.

The maid however seems in an indecent hurry to reach the girl's side. She fairly pushes curious drunkards from her path to get there. Soon she is standing at the girl's side and bending down to say softly. "Can I help you?" Her voice is sweet and guileless - almost too much so.

The young girl looks up, eyes wide. "Why, thank you!" she replies with a grateful, innocent smile. "I seem to have - oh!" This last exclamation comes as the whole belt round her slender waist drops to the floor with a clatter - obviously the buckle must have broken. From the attached money pouch, coins roll this way and that, while a small dagger, more decorative than useful, half-slips from its sheath. Face reddening to scarlet, the girl grabs at the belt, carefully sheathing the dagger, too flustered to even look at the rest of her possessions scattered across the tiles.

The standing maid gives the girl a curious glance - but tis swift for in a flash she is down gathering what she can of the contents of the belt from the floor. Others bend too and retrieve a coin her here and there. Soon the floor is clean of the coins that can be found and Azrien finds herself in receipt of all the other gathered coins. She straightens and clears her throat - none too softly.

The girl raises her head, face still crimson, and whispers in a low voice, "Thank you. I don't know how I could have been so clumsy." One hand clutching the broken belt and its attached objects, she takes a step towards the maid, nearly slipping as her foot catches on something small - only a bead, it turns out to be. She swiftly slips it into the half-open money pouch. "That was kind of you. May I?" She holds out the other hand to the maid, clearly expecting to receive the coins back.

The maid's expressions hardens and a flsuh darkens her cheeks. "Did you think that I would not return your money? Do I look a theif, then?" Her tone is danerously soft now as she looks at the girl. Thre coins are still in her hands.

The young girl stares at her in confusion. "Why do you say such a dreadful thing?" she asks, but in her eyes now is the first faint tinge of suspicion. Her own hand remains extended.

Perhaps boredom has made this maid cross or perhaps she is just not a nice person. Regardless, the other girls words only anger her the more and she just looks at the extended hand. Her lips are set in a stubborn line. Her gaze goes beynd the girl for a moment to find her erstwhile companions watching her intently. THis only deepens her scowl. "What is your name?" The maid demands of the girl.

"I am Gimilphel, apprentice to Galenrien," the girl answers readily enough. "Doubtless you have heard of her?" A small, proud smile tugs at her lips, then her face takes on a faintly worried expression. "And you? I should know the name of the one in whose debt I stand." She glances uncertainly from woman to coins and back again, her frown deepening ever so slightly, her eyes still wide.

"Of course I have heard of her. You must continue to insult me." The maid snaps. She continues. "I am Azrien, handmaid to Miriel, The Heir of Tar-Palantir, King." The words are crisp and said in a curiosly flat tone though pride is there too - as if she were trying to downplay the fact not boost. "She holds out her hands with the coins. "I was only trying to help. I need not your coins. Good eve, Gimilphel." These last three words were said in a tone that fairly screams the opposite meaning. With a last disdainful look, and a push of the coins into the girls' hands, Azrien spins away - and back to the table. The two gaurds faces are coidcidentally averted.

Gimilphel stares after the departing woman in obvious confusion. She lowers her head to look at the coins in her hand, murmuring, "But I wanted to thank you ..." She even takes a couple of steps in Azrien's direction, a couple of coins at the ready, before evidently thinking better of it. Sighing, she moves to the opposite side of the hall and starts to sort through her possessions.

Participants:

GIMILPHEL

Before you is a young woman of Numenorean race. Green eyes sparkle in a heart-shaped face, framed by dark hair that is normally tied back in a long braid. Her skin is pale, save for the faint rosy flush of her cheeks, which deepens when she is embarrassed - a state of affairs wont to happen far more often than she would like. She wears a dress of deep blue material, whose soft folds hang loosely about her slender form. The design is plain save for delicate embroidery at neckline and hemline in threads of silvery white, shaped to represent stars. Her earnest expression and wide eyes lend her an air of youthful innocence.

AZRIEN

A young woman slim and tall as all her folk stands before you. A thick mass of a reddish-brown hair falls freely around her shoulders and down her back to her waist. Its unruly length is held away from her face by two silver combes, exposing her ears. Though her large grey eyes and full lips lend an air of youthful innocence, the way her eyes move deliberately from one thing to the next, as if to measure them, might suggest a maturity that usually only age brings.

Currently she wears a dress of a rich burgandy color, with blue embroidered wrist and hemline. Her dress though modestly cut does not do much to hide her charms. Around her small waist is a delicate silver belt. Slippers that match her dress peek out from beneath her hemline, just exposing trim ankles.