[the guy who be short]

Fléin walked into Ma Cuddonelds, perhaps just a little apprehensively. He had, of course, heard of it before, vaguely and in passing. Most people seemed acquainted with it. The large, yellow, spiderlike symbol above the doors was instantly recognisable - he'd seen it on litter for years. But what was Ma Cuddonelds?

There were chairs and tables all around the doors, stretching into the building for a few score metres. And there, right at the back, were several orcs behind a counter, an unsanitary looking kitchen behind them.

Two years in Mordor, and still Fléin could hardly look at an orc without shuddering, his hand unconsciously moving towards his axe. Still, he had to be politically correct, or at least pretend to be so. Or did he? Wasn't that one of the things he was trying to escape from...? He marched up to the counter.

"Excuse me my good Man-"

"Native Mordorian, please," the Orc simpered. Fléin shuddered.

"Yes, yes. What... this is an Inn, yes?"

The Orc explained that the establishment was indeed an eating house, or a fast food company, as some preferred, but that it was no ordinary inn. As words such as "Multinational corporation," "Providers of institutional food," "false allegations of food poisoning," and "possible halitosis" whizzed by, Fléin started to nod off. The story of Ma Cuddoneld herself, and her capitalising upon her brilliant ideas (such as using slave labour to increase profits and reconstituting chicken nuggets from diseased meat) passed him by completely. A long queue starting forming behind him, and when the person behind him pointed this out, the Orc simply started rambling about the history of language, and how the word queue had seemingly changed meaning after it's transition from French to English. He seemed to ramble on and on.

"Interesting, isn't it, how a queue is almost like a tail, in that it flows behind you, but of course, I had the most horrendous French teacher, don't you know, threatened to eat my legs, and my mothers, all of them, if I didn't do well, but never mind all that, what would you like to order?" he finished at last.

Fléin asked about the menu, and was told to choose from "a burger, large, medium or small, either cat, fish, lemming, possum, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel or any other furry animal, with optional purple ketchup, or else a bag, large, medium or small, of candy, flies, liquorice, bees, or slugs. There's also a choice of lima beans, chocolate, chewing gum or fruitcake, with either cola, coke, pepsi, coca cola, soda or mountain dew on the side."

Fléin signed at the unimaginitive, quasi-traditional Mordorian menu. Sometimes he really did long for a nice mug of ale and some nicely cooked chicken...
"Medium lemmingburger, please, and hold the purple ketchup," he replied.

After eating his meal at a small window table (it had come with purple ketchup, and was grossly overpriced at one troll fifty, and altogether wholly unsatisfying), he decided he really needed to sort out where this Edgingville was, and how he was to get there before the end of the day. It was already midday.

*******

Half an hour later, Fléin was still puzzling over the useless map. Amon Haradow... it had to be here somewhere. The map was still of Lûndûn, no matter how odd the names. Haradow... Haradow... Edgingville, too, was mysteriously absent.

The Dwarf sighed and, deciding that a short nap would clear his wits, set his head upon the rather sticky table. He closed his eyes, immediately regretted doing so for obvious reasons, sighed again and tried to get to sleep in the middle of the very busy restaurant.