#saeradan: ok he's finished babyranger training but can i keep him

[hallothere]

10 with... whoever first comes to mind :3

10. Comfort after something so angsty we have to do something not angsty with the au/hc that lives in my head rent free

There is something exhausting in restlessness. Roaming without direction, or anchor. He thinks of boats, sometimes. The idea is quite nice, but he could never be a sailor. He would be ever worried over the ship- itself the size and quite frankly the function of a home- at the mercy of the waves. And that for far longer than it's in harbor, if her captain has his way.

Boats of that sort belong on the sea. They were made and equipped and crewed with such a thing in mind.

He felt like a harbor, sometimes.

The cakes were a little luxury. He had his own arrangement with a bee-keeper on the other side of Bree ("The Honey Combe" she had said, eyes twinkling, face creased in glee) for any novelties in the batch. Honey made quite a good icing, or filling, when the mix was right. Of course, guests at the cabin had a bad habit of slathering it on anything. He'd caught them, fingers-in-mouths, trying to clean up the aftermath of anything from honey-dipped carrots to unsuccessfully candied jerky.

Now his pan had cooled, and it was time to take the fluffy fruits of his labor and do something with them. The 'Honey Combe' had provided an interesting batch after the bountiful spring, and he held the jar of deep amber up to the window so it caught the light.

A stifled yawn let him know his guest had woken, and that his foreign footsteps should not be taken as an intruder's. He smiled to himself. Ranger courtesy. The honey jar opened easily and it was the task of a moment to spoon out enough to mix.

"You really ought to bang pots and pans around. Let me sleep in like this and I'll shirk duty like the laziest cadet."

He grinned. "Well, for the first day you're a guest. After that I'll have you--" he stilled his tongue on the idea of mucking the stable, pretending to consider, "-thatching the roof. I'm getting too old to crawl up there."

A snort, of all things, the creaking of his sofa. A boat with anchor shorn, he thought.

"Thatch! Well, I suppose one must have something. Have you ever considered shingles? No, don't answer that, I wasn't volunteering." More movement on the sofa, then the scrape of his dining bench on wood. "Perhaps you didn't wake me for breakfast to ensure I didn't cook it. Dare I put the coffee on?"

He shook his head. "It's already made. You're welcome to it." As if Erebrandir's trough hadn't been filled, or the day's water drawn from the well. It was done earlier than he'd been awake, and for that reason he dared not comment.

"Well, time marches on." He continued. "Tomorrow, I can have you painting the shutters on the front."

Rifling his cupboards for a mug. "And if I'm gone, vanished in the night?"

A ship unmoored. "And miss the chance to paint them some abominable color as a jest?"

"You know me too well! Now I am forced to stay, sworn to the service of my elderly taskmaster. Say- that isn't the wooden horse you stole from Elendil in your schoolyard days?"

He rolled his eyes. "Pour me a mug too, if you would. These feeble hands can hardly lift the pot and my eyesight is so dimmed I can't tell it from the flower vase."

He heard the dramatic sigh and the clink of acquiescence. Ships were made to sail, but how dear a comfort when they were safe in the shelter of the harbor.