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Old 10-30-2007, 11:46 PM   #3
Gwathagor
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: A Rainy Night In Soho
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Gwathagor is a guest of Elrond in Rivendell.Gwathagor is a guest of Elrond in Rivendell.Gwathagor is a guest of Elrond in Rivendell.
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Brown Barrabury

Browning Barrabury had been resting with his back against the maple tree for at least an hour, if not longer, and it was nearly supper time. The rain, however, had not let up, and he had little hope of starting a fire and cooking himself a real meal. He could light a fire easily enough with his flint and steel, and dry tinder could be had if you knew where to look, but finding dry fuel would another matter entirely. Alas! He would have to subsist on cold ham and apples - AGAIN.

"It's not natural!" he proclaimed to the damp, gray landscape that stretched out beneath the hill on which he sat. "A hobbit isn't MEANT to eat like this! What a fellow wants is good, hot food and he can feel at home anywhere."

Upon a moment's reflection, however, he experienced a change of heart, as he threw an apple core as far as he could, aiming for a ribbon of light and water that wove its merry way through the fields in the distance. Must be the Stockbrook. He determined that the advantages of his situation far outweighed the inconveniences (which, his indignant other half pointed out, were numerous) of living out of doors. He was alone, for one. The absence of the general boisterous noisiness that, he had noticed, typically accompanied hobbit-settlements allowed him to think clearly and deeply, something many hobbits had neither time nor inclination for. Also, being alone meant he could behave, he felt, more naturally. Society was sooo complicated, drat it. Surely we would be better withOUT all these...PEOPLE... He caught himself. Nonsense, he thought, and chuckled to himself, then laughed out loud at his own absurdity. Really! Ridiculous hobbit! He also laughed because the rain had begun to stop.

He stuffed his sack of cured pork, bread, apples, and cheese back into his heavy knapsack and stretched his legs. He yawned. It had been dry under the maple tree, which he had been fortunate enough to be near when the rain had begun. His clothing had become drenched in the first onslaught of precipitation, as he dashed for the nearest cover (the maple tree), but it had dried admirably as he rested and ruminated. As he prepared to continue his cross-country march, he also continued his previous line of thought.

Now, the Buckland folk are good sorts of hobbits. Generally very sensible, not given to unnecessary displays of absurdity and noise. That was really bothered him, was the sheer triviality of hobbit-life. But then, that was also what made it so charming.

"Two sides to every matter", he intoned graciously.

Regardless, it was this triviality and thoughtlessness that he thought to leave behind for a bit. The Bucklanders were just as odd as they were thought to be, but he generally felt quite at home among the stoic, wild hobbits from the Other Side of the Brandywine. After all, he was at least half-Brandybuck himself; why shouldn't he fit in?

He planned as he walked, getting just as wet from the tall grass as he had from the rain itself. He had a mind to pay a visit to his abundant Brandybuck cousins (his mother's family). A week away would do just fine; any longer, and he would be missed by the various inhabitants of Woodhall for whom he labored at various chores. He would eat, sleep, think, go for walks, smoke, trade tales with his hospitable cousins, and maybe even pay good old Fred a visit as he passed through. Yes, that would do splendidly. Fred could surely do with some company. The lad was a lonely fellow, in some ways, since his accident. The two of them had been working together when it happened, and Brown often felt that he was half-responsible...

He put the thought from his mind, as he came to a stream, laughing and swollen with the new rain. He leapt over the brook and headed up into sweet smelling woods on the other side. Night was falling.
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