<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/8/8b/Scarred_Redhead_Warrior.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong> Cat (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=340173.msg16121430#msg16121430) (Tirmaethril Andtirnen)<br/><strong>Wearing:</strong> Her armour, the snarling cat-head pendant, a light sheen of travel-dirt, and a faint aroma of horse<br/><strong>Condition:</strong> Tired, hungry, thirsty, and delighted to be in such a fabulous centre of civilisation<br/><strong>Location:</strong> The taproom of the Prancing Pony<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong> Everyone who might be interested!  There is a lot of wide-eyed staring going on.<br/><hr/><br/>It took all of Cat's training in etiquette (rustic and eccentric though <em>that</em> was) and her experience of dealing with wildly-different cultures to restrain the urge to go far beyond mere <em>staring</em>.  The array of people within the Prancing Pony was fascinating even when she first entered the room, from the <em>kuduk</em> halflings she had seen while passing through Breeland to the immense blonde Northwoman who looked to be as much of an outlander as Cat herself.<br/><br/>But then others began arriving, including a stunning and exotically-clad woman who chose to sit right by her.  The newcomer looked to be kin to those Rhudaurians who claimed descent from 'Easterling' mercenaries, though her heritage seemed to be markedly less diluted than that of anyone Cat her previously met.<br/><br/>Caught mid-examination of the beauty and her never-before-seen style of dress, the knight of the fallen kingdom apologetically ducked her head... only to lift her gaze and return the smile she was offered, looking distinctly relieved that she had not caused offence.<br/><br/>"Cat," she said, before touching a hand to her chest, just below the cat-head pendant.  "My byname, that is.  It's a pleasure to meet you.  It seems that I came to Bree on an auspicious day."  She spoke Westron smoothly, though with a sensitive ear even a just-arrived foreigner might detect that her accent was not the same as that of the locals.<br/><br/>Then she found herself blinking in astonishment past Shishi.<br/><br/>A <em>pale fiend.</em><br/><br/>That's what her second husband's people called them, after long millennia of often-bitter acquaintance with the elves of Rivendell.  Inhuman fae of moonlight and shadow, uncaring of the woes of those who lived and breathed by daylight.  Of course, her Edain ancestors had told rather different tales - and indeed, as a descendant of Dunedain nobility, she was sure that she had faint traces of elven blood in her own veins, while there were sound reasons for the High Men of the North to have taught long generations of their children the Sindarin tongue - but she had never actually laid eyes on one of the First People in person.  Orcs and trolls and fell creatures of the wild, even the Great Grey Cat that had marked her, were all far more real and <em>tangible</em> parts of her world.<br/><br/>But now, beyond the stunning Easterling, there was one of the people of legend... and he was startlingly half-clad, and <em>talking to her</em> to boot.<br/><br/>She blinked at him, then at the white wolf he introduced as his friend, before darting a look to Shishi as if to check that she, too, was really witnessing this.  Then her ingrained manners took over, and she formally inclined her head.<br/><br/>"Of course.  Please, feel free."  Perhaps fortunately, she was too stunned to even think to try her Sindarin on him.<br/><br/>Arion's arrival passed almost unnoticed - a dark-haired man in travelling attire seeming wholly-mundane in comparison - only for another <em>pale fiend</em> to appear.  This second one was at least somewhat more conventionally attired, and lacked the startling golden hair of the first... but he was indubitably a member of elvenkind, too.  And behind <em>him</em> came someone clad in the sort of finery Cat had only seen as long-preserved heirlooms reserved for what fragments remained of long-gone Rhudaur's high nobility.<br/><br/>When Barliman addressed her question, it took her some few moments to rein in her wildly-racing thoughts... though once she registered his words, her eyes widened again.<br/><br/>"People have moved back into Norbury of the Kings?", she asked, opting to use its Westron name, not least to double-check that they were indeed thinking of the same place.  "That sounds... bold indeed.  And I can imagine that it would arouse interest from far and wide.  But there is also a claimant to the throne of Arnor itself, now?  This man clad in black cloak and helm?  Does he have supporters, or is he standing alone?"<br/></div>