2004 Barrow-Downs’ Birthday Celebration!

[Arry]

Arry walked through the gates with a sense of great anticipation. He’d not been in the Shire long. Passing through, really. Didn’t intend to stay. But the bright flyers tacked to the verandah post of the Green Dragon Inn had caught his eye.

A party! There was to be a party! he’d read. A sure chance for him to make a few coins before he made his way to Sarn Ford and from there to parts east.

Once inside the Party Field, he ducked behind the nearest pavilion. The Floating Log’s big striped tent bearing a sign affixed to a sturdy pole in front of it. ** First Chance ** - it read, with a large tankard of foaming ale painted next to the words. Arry pulled his juggler’s motley from his pack and hastily pulled it on. Digging deep into the bottom of a side pocket he fished out three brightly colored balls – red, blue, and green.

Entering the pavilion, he stowed his pack with the barman and asked if he might stand outside the tent. ‘Draw the customers in, if you will,’ he said winking at the fellow. The man nodded, promising him a meal and a drink for a job well done.

Arry spied a suitable place to call out to the passersby and sat his tri-cornered hat on the ground in front of him. Placing a few coins in it to give the partygoers a hint, he began to juggle, his hands and the balls weaving intricate patterns in the air as he kept of a steady patter to draw attention.

‘First chance for a tall cold drink here!’ he said smiling to a thirsty looking farmer who’d sent his wife and children on ahead to the Party Tree. ‘Come in, come in!’ he called out to the party from Rohan who caught his eye. “And you there,’ he’d yelled in a loud voice to a small troop of Dwarves who’d just marched in. ‘Come wet your beards at The Floating Log. Finest spirits you’ll find in this corner of the field!’

Arry chuckled as some took up his offer and others passed by with a raised brow or two. Coins clinked in his hat as appreciative gawkers nodded at his tricks and then moved on.

[Kransha]

Kransha, feeling particularly jocund this fine day, made his way as silently and politely as he could through the upturned mob maelstrom, constantly mouthing off random, “Excuse me’s” and “pardon me’s” to the wide variety of party guests in an insect swarm about him. Clamoring madly through their numbers, he managed to alight as a nimble bird upon a spot of open grass and sighed happily. There were so many people, which he noted quickly as he gazed around at the multicolored pavilions in their elegant stripped grandeur, the fluttering banners that pulled to and fro in a gentle wind, and the impossible to follow mélange of chatty conversations that sprung up like over-watered flowers around him.

Kransha was, in fact, an orc, (or an uruk, goblin, hobgoblin, or some such thing like that, he really didn’t know). He had the gait, the build, the head, and the surly, sinuous silhouette of such a creature, but certainly not the air or the dress. Instead of the limping, crude swagger of your average, run-of-the-mill orc, Kransha stood upright, as if balancing a stack of books atop his Neanderthal brow, which was surprisingly well groomed for his being. The dark and rough-skinned figure was stuffed rather foolishly into a blindingly cerulean waistcoat with tails and an overflowing mess of frills and things that probably looked extremely silly, a flawlessly cleaned white shirt, a trimmed little green vest with countless tawdry sequins, and a pair of ironed evergreen breeches. Though he was sure to elicit some unwelcome guffaws from more crude folk, Kransha considered himself a particularly civilized individual for being able to summon an aspect of formality to the event. His clawed hands cupped together in front with a pair of spatula-sized thumbs twiddling, the orcish non-brute made his way quietly through the swelling ranks of the crowd as he inspected the party field.

Smiling a toothy grin of an orcish smile, Kransha proceeded coolly past the many pavilions and stages brimming with entertaining folk doing all manner of things. He chuckled, a low grumbling sound the grunted as a guttural noise in his throat. He headed with a jump in his step and a humming tune upon his chapped lips, towards one of the few empty stages that was, of course, being crowded around already. Swinging the dangling tails of his waistcoat behind him, the orc marched merrily up onto the platform and over to its center. He gave an acknowledging cough, which didn’t really seem to alert anyone to his presence at all, but he continued on anyway.

“Greeting, party-goers, innocent bystanders, and all those caught up in this business. I suppose, if no one else would prefer to, I shall get the proverbial ball rolling, for my kind at least. If I may give a brief introduction, my name is Kransha and I must admit I haven’t been here a very long time…In the Shire that is…yes, right, in the Shire…Point is, I find that this place is the quaintest, most enjoyable little place I’ve ever been to in all my days, however many those may be. So, I wrote…or rather, I stole and revised, a little piece to commemorate this most happy, celebratory, jocund, merry, jubilant, exultant, exuberant, and joyous of occasions as an ode to the most respected person I know, the respected person who dreamed him up on technicality, and another respected person who has little or nothing to do with the other two respected people who I mentioned about ten seconds ago." he concluded delicately.

Kransha stood, rocking back and forth as he enveloped himself in recorded memorization, and summoned up a voice’s fullness as he cleared his orcish throat with a pompous flourish. Slowly, but with more jaunt then solemnity, Kransha began in true Ozymandian verve.

“I met an elf-chap from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless kegs of beer
Sit in the Shire. Near them, on the grass,
Half green, a regal visage stands, whose gear,
And creasèd lip, and smile of welcome crass,
Tell that its maker well those fashions lead,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lively things,
The lips that sip them, and the mouth that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Barrow-Wight, Wight of Wights:
Look upon my works, ye happy, and prepare!"
And all beside remains, Round the partè
Of that colossal place, boundless and fair
The lone and crowded fields stretch far away.”

With that grin still plastered on his face, Kransha gave a very curt bow and sprinted off the stage, but not before dashing off very gracefully (for an orc) to the ready and waiting table that sat near a very particular barrow and dropping something on it. The orc spun on his shoeless heels and sped off yet again in the opposite direction, the merry tune present again upon his lips, and headed deep into the surging tidal wave of the massive crowd, leaving behind only some clawed footprints that tore up the grass and a gleaming lump of ebony with the letter BW carefully etched onto it. Kransha knew not how much the material was worth, or even the aesthetic value of the bauble itself, since he’d been told by the other Mordor orcs that he had lousy taste, but it was probably good enough. If not, he had plenty of orc draught. He journeyed on, determined to find somewhere to sit down.