Dawn once more, and the first villager to the square is
CaptainofDespair, always an early riser, and convenient in an alphebetical sort of way.
He sits with his back against the stone well, watching the front doors of each small house open, close, and disappear behind the nearing villagers who emerge from them.
Gil-Galad joins him first, muttering about Nazgul in the village graveyard. "Undead Riders, I tell you! Enslaved far into the afterlife by means of enchanted jewelry!"
"You're wrong." interrupts
Holby gently. "The travellers we found were bound, but in a different way than rumors amongst Elves and Wizards tell of Nazgul:
"
Two Rings to rule them both, two rings to find them. Two rings to haunt them beyond life and neatly bind them. In the land of Marriage, where heavy years do lie."
"So you think," asks
Kath, "that they do not haunt us?"
"I think not." says
Holby quietly. "I think they spend the afterlife quietly together, bound eternally by their love."
Mithalwen sips tea, pondering the bodies they had found so recently. "What do you think they wanted with our village?"
The phantom laughs. "Isn't it obvious? They were coming to worship me."
Saucie raises a single eyebrow. "I believe we're missing one of our fellows."
Indeed,
Lalwendė has not joined their morning well-meeting. When they search her house, there is no sign of struggle. Her bed is neatly made with a cat curled up upon it. Her gardens are immaculate.
Suddenly
Mithalwen turns away, dead white. The crows which
Lal had so often complained of frolicking amongst her produce perch at bay upon the crest of her roof. A new scarecrow has been erected amongst her tomatoes, fertilizing them with dripping blood.
Lalwendė has been found, and found innocent.
---
Dead
Night One:
Boromir88 (scholar) and
Fea (wife)
Day One:
Legate (innocent),
Durelin (innocent),
Menel (innocent)
Night Two:
Brinniel (innocent)
Day Two:
Shasta (innocent)
Night Two:
Lalwendė (innocent)
Alive
CaptainofDespair
Gil-Galad
Holbytlass
Kath
Mithalwen
the phantom
The Saucepan Man
---
Hey villagers, you're going to want to be right today...
