Summary: Young as she is, Elanor puts her grown-up escort at ease
Characters: Ferdibrand Took and young Elanor Gamgee
A double-drabble

Seeds of friendship sown

As head of escort, he’d been assigned to show young Elanor Gamgee about the Smials on this, her father the Mayor’s first official visit after Pippin’s elevation to Thain. The lass was plainly nervous, he could see, at the curious stares in the corridors, and so he took them into the quiet of the third-best parlour, where no one would be this time of day, for soothing tea and biscuits.

She was still ill at ease, he saw, though he managed to make her smile at a jest. He put his teacup down to say, ‘Your smile reminds me so of my own true love…’

‘Your wife?’ Elanor said, sipping at her tea. Her smile disappeared, probably in response to his own suddenly sorrowful expression, and so he found his smile once more, though it felt forced, to say lightly, ‘Her name was Nell…’

But no more words followed, and he found a lump in his throat that was hard to swallow. She put a small, warm hand on his. Young as she was, kindness and understanding were in her face as she said, ‘Then you must call me “Nell” after her, and we shall be friends, shall we not?’