Eorling Mead Hall

[Esgallhugwen]

Gudryn despite all the goings on had wandered off into the garden shortly after dinner. As friendly as she was large groups of people made her nervous and perhaps a little frightened.

She wasn't sure why but she sought to immediatly escaped the tension. Gudryn scolded herself for being such a weakling, she was a young woman after all. A young woman who had witnessed and been victim to many horrible things in her short life. And she was angry that those things kept her from trying to live a normal life, almost kept her from being human.

Her skinny form wanted to scream until nothing was left of her but a memory. She rested herself up against a large apple tree, STUPID GIRL!!, she banged the back of her head up against the trunk. She despised the burning tears grazing her cheeks, but she couldn't stop them from flowing.

A gentle voice creeped in with the pain, soothing like the old woman she used to know. Her only friend when Rand was free.

You are stronger than this dear child, let those past experiences raise you up not bury you in endless despair. You have been given a new life one filled with love and hope, don't toss it away, you're not a dumby are you? No I thought not, no dumby would be able to do what you've done. You've changed your life around with sheer will and that's something to be proud of!

By the time the elder Lady's speech was done, Gudryn's tears were dried and she had a small smile on her face. She stood up and started to dance around the tree singing merrily to herself. She knew she was crazy, but right now she didn't care.

[littlemanpoet]

"Am I not right?" asked Linduial.

Eodwine smiled, just enough for the girl to see in the light of the lantern they washed the cutlery by. He looked at the piece of hog lard in his hand that he had been using to scratch the cutlery clean. Pungent stuff. He would have to get Frodides more. She would wonder how he got through so much in just one short night.

"Start from where you are," Eodwine murmured absently. "Yes, of course; that is always true, I suppose." She was saying something deeper than that. She sought reassurance, naturally, especially in the face of such difficult goings on as she had had to endure this day. It was no more business of Eodwine's than she chose to make it, what she was fleeing from or what she hoped for. Yet she was opening her heart, at least in a small way. Ah, the ways folk do things, say things. It was a small test, not only of reassurance in the wisdom she had spoken, but of the trust she was hoping to place in him, this unknown lord, newly made, no doubt she had found out by now, of a newly wrought Emnet. How am I to reassure her without overstepping her unspoken question?

"I have a thought," Eodwine said at length, "that maybe it would be good for me to send a letter to your father along with your own, telling him who I am, and giving what bond I may at distance. To put his mind at rest. What think you of that?"

[JennyHallu]

Linduial smiled shyly, drying the last dish and starting on the cutlery, moving a little more quickly. "I think my father would like that. As would I. I will enclose it with my own letter and send it to Belfalas as soon as I may." She finally caught up and finished rinsing and drying the cutlery.

"If it please you, sir, I would visit Marenil now before I sleep." Lord Eodwine nodded, and she ran out of the room with her small smile still on her face.

~^~

She slipped quietly into Marenil's room, where the old man lay sleeping, the natural color finally seeping back into his skin. She sat down in the hard, hand crafted wooden chair, leaning over far enough to slip her small white hand inside his gnarled, calloused one. "I'm so glad you're all right, Marenil," she whispered. "I was so frightened." She sat there, watching him sleep, for a few more minutes, then laid his hand back along his side and pulled the blanket up where movement in his sleep had pulled it down, tucking it gently around him with an almost motherly smile. He'd spent so many years taking care of her, and had the circumstances been different, it would feel very good to return the favor. As it was, it only felt--right, and proper.

She turned off the oil lamp, and moved out of the room with near silence, giving the sleeping man one last smile before walking into her own room next door.

[Folwren]

“Wedded?” Thornden repeated, rather amused. “Married? No. Not I. Rather a determined old bachelor, if you asked my friends and family. It’s quite a hopeless endeavor for me, you know,” he cocked his head, his eyes twinkling merrily as he smiled at Manawyth. “But what marriage seems to disturb what women? I have heard of nothing. . .”

Manawyth told briefly what he had heard, and Thornden could not help but chuckle. “I doubt the young ladies would be too pleased to know that you overheard their conversation,” he said. “But have no fears, it won’t reach them from me that you hear. Nay, there is no one wedded here that I am aware of.” He looked over his shoulder at the twins and the hobbit, still at the table, talking and laughing before they departed. “I am not certain that Eodwine has not had a wife, but I really don’t know him particularly well.” He turned back to Manawyth. “I am almost as new in this place as you are.”

There was a short silence. Thornden looked at his folded hands and considered what Manawyth had said. He drew a long breath and looked back up. “You have clearly lived a hard life, Manawyth. But here, where you have come, peace dwells, at least for a while. You’ve come to witness a new beginning of the Mead Hall, and perhaps it will give you ground and place to begin a new life of your own. Happier memories you hope to acquire. You mourn for the lost art of harp playing-” motioning towards the harp sitting near by “-and I think you’ve come to the right place to nurture that skill. Stay a while. Eodwine loves a good song, and anyone who can make it clearly has a welcome from him.”

He rose as he finished. “It is late. I am going to see about getting a place to sleep. Are you going to stay here?”

[littlemanpoet]

A week had passed since that busy day when so many new folk had arrived. Now they seemed old hands, though most of them still had three weeks to work before their one month stints were done, at which time Eodwine would give them news of his thought in their regard.

Marinel was improving and Linduial was happier with each new day's greater health in her guardian. Eodwine had written a letter to her father to send with her own, and it had been posted six days agone. Travel being what it was, it would be at least months before they heard back.

It was raining. The cattle-skin roofing of their tent was noisy with the patter. Eodwine sat on a wooden chair in the midst of the enclosure, which had been erected hard by the western wall of the Mead Hall. That building was missing its roof, at least over the Great Room. And the hearth had been disassembled and laid safely away until its parts could be used in the building of the new open hearth that would sit amid the floor at the very center of the new Mead Hall.

A new door had been cut in the wall of one guest room that had had to be emptied, so that there was easy passage between kitchen and tent-hall, and between guest rooms and tent-hall. It was a mess, truth be told. Dirt and grit and water and sticks and broken dishes turned into footpath stone here and there.

At least it was warm for the season. The new year had come with the first day of spring, marked now on March 25 to honor Frodo the Nine-fingered. It was now the first of April. Eodwine smirked, wondering what shananigans might not happen on such a day amongst such a young and lively folk as dwelt in his Halls.

Breakfast had come and gone, and midday meal was a little way off yet. Of course, Falco was yammering for his Second Breakfast from an unsympathetic Frodides, but Kara seemed to like favoring him with whatever she could find.

At the moment, Eodwine was the only one sitting under the tent in the rain. He knew Falco and Kara and Frodides were in the kitchens, Marinel in his room, and Léof in the stables, but of the others he was unsure. Well enough. He liked the sound of the rain and would not mind a mid-morning slumber if chance brought it. He closed his eyes and sighed contendedly.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Saeryn smiled to herself contentedly by the low fire she had kindled in her room's small hearth. She sat curled in a warm quilt, cozy, watching raindrops streak the window. She had made early rounds, seeing to it that nothing was wanted. Now she took the rest of the morning to herself, listening to the heavy pitter-pat of water above her, smelling the musty fresh scents of spring.

Her ribs felt nearly new, still achy in the damp, but no pain plagued her no matter how swift her motion. She pulled her hands from around her knees, tugging the edge of the patchwork closer to her chin. It was not cold, but the extra warmth comforted her. It was a day for rest... her features softened as she let her thoughts wander, pausing on only those that lingered. Her eyes focused gently into the grey distance through her window. The coals of the fire shimmered, the light within them dancing brilliantly red beneath their blackened edges. The light smell of burning wood filled the room and Saeryn breathed deeply, relief filling her that she could comfortably do so simple of a thing. She briefly entertained the notion of talking a walk about the halls before letting it pass. If she was needed, she'd be found.

[Bêthberry]

Luckily, the rain ran off the well-trodden earth alleyways and roadway, into the large stone channel which ran through Edoras. No sucking sound of squishy mud accompanied each plodding step that the old rag lady made. She wound her way amidst the wooden beams and wattled buildings. Spring had brought brisk trade in the rag business and Ruthven had had much to do since her friend Bethberry had taken leave of the mountain city. Yet on a day such as today, with its rain inhibiting large amounts of out of door labour, it was high time Ruthven stopped by the old Mead Hall to see what progress or lack thereof Eodwine had made in his constructions. Besides, she hadn't had a good laugh with Falco for over a week--they had at first often seen each other around the town, but Eodwine was keeping him working so hard that Ruthven feared the poor halfling might be at risk of losing weight.

And so, with her cloak wrapped around her and her hood pulled well forward, the old woman plodded her way into the tenthall, spying Eodwine asleep--or at least napping.

"Tut! March Warden or Reeve or what high faluting name you be calling yourself these days, you have picked up some halfling habbits to be asleep so early in the morn. Did you overeat at breakfast perhaps?" With a hearty shake of her head, her hood fell back and rivulets of water drops splattered over the man, who came to somewhat indignantly.