[piosenniel]

Rog

The mention of the gulls made his antennae twitch with a frisson of apprehension. Most of his time above deck had been spent staring downward over the railing toward the waves. He’d forgotten about the ever hungry birds which spent much of their time eyeing the decks and the slops chute that emptied into the trailing waters for tasty tidbits. ‘Muddy Bells,’ he muttered to himself as he stroked the nervous energy from each antenna with his front legs. His frenetic grooming was cut short with the mention of ‘the two passengers’ from below.

‘They’ve said they wish to go to Umbar,’ came Haladan’s reply to something the Captain had said about them. ‘I thought we weren’t stopping there this time.’ Rog crept to the edge of the beam and looked down, watching the first mate cock his head to one side, awaiting an answer.

‘We’re not putting in there,’ said Faragear, moving his finger a little further south of the bay on the chart, tapping, as it came to rest, on a small inlet where the hills tapered down along the coast to meet the sea. ‘It’s here we’ll be going.’ ‘And the two passengers?’ asked Haladan again, picking up and apple from the nearby bowl to chew on. ‘They’ll have a choice,’ came the captain’s reply. ‘I’ll offer them a small boat to take them in - though they’ll need to be able to man it themselves. I’ll not risk any of my crew. Or barring that, they can come south with us. I’m sure one of the traders we are meeting will see them safely north to the city’s outskirts.’ Rog listened for a few more minutes, but the talk between the two men had turned to cargo space, and what the bottom prices were for the goods the merchants in Gondor and further north expected.

The windows were shut in the cabin and the air near the ceiling was warm. Moths being for the most part night creatures, he grew drowsy in the late afternoon heat and a certain level of languor crept over him. His sight dimmed and he hunkered down on his three pair of legs, his antennae drooping. ‘Nice,’ he murmured to himself, wriggling his proboscis out of the way as his body flattened against the wood. The rocking of the ship did not bother him in the slightest in this form, and he welcomed a restful sleep with a mothy sigh.

It was several hours later when he awoke. He could almost feel his segmented legs creak as he pushed his body up from the beam; he had lain in one position so long. The two men were gone from the room, and dusk, filtering in through the small paned windows of thick glass, cast the cabin in semi-darkness. He fluttered his wings, and flitted down to the table top below. The core of Haladan’s apple lay discarded on the surface where he had laid it down and forgotten it when the captain called him to another task.

Rog’s toes, or rather the pointy ends of his feet, twitched in anticipation. He was hungry and the ripe mushy brownness of the apple lured him closer. Finding a particularly soft part, he crawled onto it, tasting the succulent sweetness with his feet and mashing it further into a pulpy liquid. With a shiver of delight, he poked his proboscis into the midst of this tasty mess and slurped it up with an inaudible sigh. The room grew darker as the sun set.

‘Best be getting back to Aiwendil,’ he thought dreamily, as his antennae twitched with the sheer pleasure of feeling good for the moment. ‘Tell him what I’ve heard.’ An imperceptible belch issued from his mouthparts, and he curled up his proboscis, tucking it carefully under his head. For the most part, he did not worry that he had spent so long in his present shape . . . but better to be careful. Too long in one guise might find him fluttering off in search of a mate and ensuing death.

He flew to the lintel of the door, finding the crack he had spied earlier from his vantage point on the crossbeam. Crawling through, he cast about with his eyes for signs of any predators. The birds would already be drowsing, but the men aboard might inadvertently swat at him. The breezes had died down, the flight back down below-deck was straighter and quicker. Once back in the room he shared with Aiwendil, he changed back to his mannish form.

Now all he had to do was wait for the old man to return . . .