The Golden Perch Inn

[Undómë]

‘Here, Gran!’ Rowan placed the little carved ship back into the shell-covered box and placed it in the older Hobbit’s hands. ‘You keep this safe and we’ll look it over more when I’m done.’ She watched as Granny Greenhill placed the box into one of the large pockets on her apron.

‘Coming!’ she called out to Prim who’d already started back toward the Common Room. ‘Now who did you say we’re freshening up the rooms for?’ Rose asked, catching up to her friend. ‘Ah, three of the Fair Folk is it?’ She stopped at the linen closet and opened the doors wide. ‘Give us a hand, then, Prim,’ she went on, piling three sets of sheets on her friend’s outstretched arms.

‘Yes, I know,’ she said answering Prim’s arched eyebrows. ‘I made sure I pulled out the long sheets. ‘Can’t have those Elvish toes poking out from the bottom of the covers, now can we?’

The two made their way quickly to the rooms reserved for the Big Folk and began to make up the beds, hang fresh towels, set out small bunches of flowers in earthenware vases and leave each a pitcher for water and a mug for drinking.

They were just smoothing out the green-hued quilt in the last room, their work almost done when Rowan leaned toward Prim and whispered across the bed. ‘You’ll never believe what I found in Cook’s room. Way back of the top shelf of that old wardrobe.’

‘Well?’ Prim whispered back, her brow furrowing. ‘What? What?!’ Spill it, Ro!’

Rowan put her finger to her lips, lifting her chin toward the door in a quick movement. ‘Someone’s coming, Prim. I’ll tell you later.....’

[Rose]

Granny's walking stick meets Widlast's foot....

Penstemon walked slowly back toward the common room, her gnarled yew stick tap-tapping along the well worn floor boards. Curious sort of a day she mused to herself, the knobbly fingers of her left hand patting the little case in her apron pocket. And curiouser still she thought on, peering about the room as she stepped through the entryway. ‘My, my,’ Granny reaching her hand up to pat against her heart. It was as if the disappearance of Miz Celandine had never occurred.....and just this morn, too. Business at the Inn seemingly flowed on as usual.

Someone had tidied away her mug along with her plate of toast and jam, Granny noted. ‘All to the better, really,’ she thought, looking about for a place to sit down. There, on the far side of the fireplace, was a nice little table. Woolgathering as she ambled toward the inviting chair, she didn’t notice the boot sticking out in her pathway, the rather large boot. Her stick thumped down squarely on the top of it.

‘Begging your pardon, good sir!” she said, looking up in surprise at the man attached to the boot. ‘Didn’t mean to mash your foot so!!’

[Lilly]

Away from the Inn....but getting nearer

‘You had any thoughts, yet, on that letter, Hugh?’ Hands on hips, Will looked expectantly up at the postman.
Hugh lowered his flask of tea mid-swig and swiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘What’s that you said, Will?’ he asked, pushing the cork securely into the neck of the flask. His mind had been on how his hindside was beginning to ache a bit, to chafe in the saddle, what with all this hurrying along back to the Inn.

He rubbed the back of his neck and let out a considering sigh. ‘Well, let’s see. Hmmmm....it was a big thick letter. Much handled. You know....a number of dirty fingerprints and some water stains, too. Crumpled, probably from being stuffed into sacks, and pouches, and such.’ Hugh pursed his lips and nodded his head as something jogged his memory.’You know, I think the hunter fellow who passed it on to me said he’d come up from the south and....and the west. And he’d got it from another man.....Oh good gravy, I know something was said about that fellow, too, but I just can’t seem to remember.

[Ilya]

The warmth snug in the fireplace's stones rubbed against his temple and lulled Widlast into feeling lead-limbed and content, a sensation he knew would vanish in a moment as the aches of the road remembered themselves to his mind. He stuck out his boot and cracked his toes and sighed. Probing a bruise on his wrist, Widlast was sifting for what would've occasioned it when he felt something push on his boot. That one I'll be able to account for, he thought, and looking down in a saw a sturdy walking stick withdrawing quickly from the toe.

He followed the stick up to...quite a sight. Like the innkeeper, she looked no more than a child, but was snowy-haired, withered and weathered, and in a boisterous, venerable tone was making him an apology. "Didn’t mean to mash your foot so!!" she said. A blink was all the surprise he betrayed, though studying bright brown eyes age had not robbed of their quickness, Widlast wouldn't have been surprised if she'd caught it. He laughed a cracked, unseasoned laugh that scratched his throat coming up. "No worries, old mother," he said, "no worries at all."

Bending down to rub his toe, he felt the soreness more in his neck and shoulders than in his foot. "All's where it ought to be," Widlast said but too soon, for just as he spoke the bodkin tucked in his bracer came loose. He caught it ere it hit the ground, but these holbytlan seemed unalarmable folk until they were alarmed. The last thing he wanted was to be chased out of Stock for supposed thuggery on account of a hidden dagger. As though backing away from a spooked horse, he lowered his eyes and rummaged through his haversack and, graces be, found a bruised apple within. He made sure to cut it in a slow, measured way, and offered the first piece to the holbytla woman, hoping the creases made by his smile would cloak those of his nerves.