The old Trade Inn at Sarn Ford had changed little since last she had been there, but Birdie certainly had. Since she had received the last “message” from her old friend she had been in flight, heading northwest away from desert lands until she found the broad, flowing Anduin and followed it to the white towers of Minas Anor.
Finding that she had once again missed Mithadan, she left arrangements with his servants for the delivery of her baggage, which was being sent to the city by a trade caravan from the newly opened South Lands. After resting three days, she left the city at dawn, racing the sun through the days as the windswept plains of Rohan passed below her, following the Great West Road. She paused to rest for two days in the hills of Dunharrow, denying the temptation to turn North and visit the vast spread of Fangorn.
But the ruins of Isengard, now guarded and explored by the soldiers of King Eomer, could not be so easily resisted, and Bird had spend some seven days watching the work and listening to the tales of the soldiers as they discovered treasure after treasure (and horror after horror) in Saruman’s folly. Had she been in women’s form, she would have certainly been arrested and detained, but a small black and white crow picking through the ruins did little to arouse the suspicion of the Horse Lords; the grounds were full of scavenging birds, after all.
But Bird was tiring, and her will was being diluted from having remained in the form of a flighty jackdaw for so long. Her travels across the green lands of Enedwaith and Dunland was done in shorter stages, with more stops made as ruins and signs, hidden from those on the ground, caught her eye in mid-flight. (She had even found some ancient smials of the Stoor-Folk) The signs of past civilizations were far more frequent than the marks of current settlements. King Ellesar had brought peace to the lands, but it would be a great many years before people would again fill these hills and valleys. The trip across the empty countries of Middle-earth was a lonely one.
At last she arrived at Sarn Ford as evening fell, and looked down fondly at the smoking chimney pots of the Trade Inn. She looked forward to exchanging gossip and tales with her old friend the Innkeeper, and thought back on the time she had spent there with her friend Holly Stoor (now happily settled with Olo in the Tower Hills) and a certain wise and irascible Grey Wanderer. She smiled in anticipation as she flew down from a towering oak, morphing as she fell, and landed in women’s form at the edge of the woods.
The Trade Inn stills see travelers from many lands, but even so, Bird’s dress was bound to raise a few eyebrows. She cared little though. The red bandanna, holding back her thick, wavy black hair and accenting the gold hoops in her ears she thought very flattering. The matching ballooned pants and soft kid slippers were comfortable and suitable for traveling, and the embroidered white blouse with the tight fitting black vest showed off her small but still pleasing shape. All in all, she thought she cut quite a dashing figure, and believed that the dress of the people of Harad was far more sensible and comfortable than the weighty leathers and iron of the Northlands. Gold, which “had no country”, would go far to dispel any questions about her choice of costume. She jiggled the full bag attached to her belt, thankful that there would be no need for trickery to pay for her stay this time.
At that minute, a call from Pio in the Shire wiggled through her brain, setting up an itch at both temples, but easier to bear then when she was sporting her insect antennae.
Mith…near…come…hurry…friend
“Alright. I’m coming”, thought Birdie to herself, wondering if her thoughts were reaching out to the impatient Pio, or if she were only “speaking to the winds“. Another day’s flight and she would be in the lands of Suza. But she had no intention of arriving as a bedraggled, wing-sore traveler. She strode eagerly towards the door of the inn, looking forward to good food, a bath, and a soft bed. And of course, gossip “as strange as news from Bree.”
(If you would like to see Birdie's costume,
click here. Birdie will explain to Pio who the guy on the right is later. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] )
[ February 24, 2003: Message edited by: Birdland ]