This day I met another maiden in Duillond, Duinien of the Falathrim, and she was mighty finely dressed in a rich blue gown with much gold couching stitched upon it. I complimented its stylishness, and this seemed to please her greatly. She told me of a garden inside a cave nearby, and so together we went to see it. It is a fair place, full of soft light and flowers, and there is a waterfall, and a grove with trees by it, but I thought the garden very small, and it was fenced by ruins: another good fair place gone to seed.
We discoursed about the lands around, and I told her something of my travels, and she seemed astonished by them, and admitted that she had never left her land of Lindon. I told her a little bit more of my journey through the wilderness between here and Imladris, and all the fearsome creatures that pursued me, but I was able to slip away without hurt, and the recalling of this did lift my spirits again, and I laughed most wildly at the joy of it. The lady cringed, and then I realized I should have better command of my temper, and be more careful of myself, and not admit to any joy until I knew more about the folk of this land, for those few that I met were not much like the elves of the Greenwood I had known, and I confess that it had been many a day since I had been in such fine company, not since I had left the Hall of Fire.
I thought of how to please the lady, and so I brought forth the wineskin. Sogadan filled it with Dorwinion Red before I left Imladris, and I offered it to the lady, thinking that she was in need of a little mirth, and it was a very good wine for this purpose. Duinien wrinkled up her nose, and said she liked wine, but not out of a wineskin, and asked if I had any goblets. This did make me laugh merrily again, so that I had to stifle my mouth with my hands and get control of myself, before replying that I was not in the habit of hanging a cupboard on my pants. Then this lady turned up her nose, and to my great surprise, strode off with my wineskin. She walked over to a table where I saw a few goblets resting thereon and began pouring out the wine. Coming up behind her, I saw her slop it most carelessly on the table, and I did cry out at the sight of it. The lady jumped, and squeezed the wineskin, and made it spurt wine across the bodice of her dress. Duinien cried out that I had startled her, and then she saw her dress, and oh! - what a sound that was! I searched in my pockets for a cloth, and found nothing but an old crumpled up piece of paper, and with this I did try to blot off the liquid from her dress, but the paper must have been dirty, or it had ink on it, for it besmirched the fabric, and to my horror, the blue dye began to soak into the paper. Her dress must not have been finely made as I first thought, if the dye would come out of the cloth so readily.
This sore vexed the lady, and I bowed, and begged a hundred thousand pardons, and I offered to repair her dress by hiding the splotches with embroidery; I could do a very clever thing with a bird or a flower: but she would have none of it, and seemed to doubt my skills in stitchery. Much to my dismay, she flung the wineskin down upon the floor and stormed out of the garden. I scooped up the wineskin and followed after her, pleading for her to stop and hear me out. She turned, and for an instant I thought she was going to strike me, but instead she crossed her arms and gave me a look of strong dislike.
I bowed deeply, and told Duinien that she was obviously a lady of high spirits, and high means, and good taste too. I said that I would gladly repay her for the cost of her dress, but as it was, I had left my purse with Sogadan the vinter in Imladris. She smirked, and said that there was indeed one thing I could do, and that was give her my wineskin.
If there is one thing I trust least in the world, it is a smirking elf-maiden. I asked Duinien why she wanted it, but she refused to say any more. Very reluctantly I handed the wineskin to her, and I was not much surprised when she upended it over my head. As I wiped the wine from my eyes, I could not stop myself from laughing at this act of petty vengeance, and I told her that it was not the first time wine has been spilled upon me, but ne’er by so fair a hand.
I fear neither the split wine nor my humour relieved her anger, and Duinien treated me to another pretty glare before turning on her heel and stalking off. And so I let her go, though she was wroth and still fuming, but I was not sorry, else she take it into her head to do some other injury to me.
