The King's Players RPG

[Galadriel55]

Thiliel didn't mind the sandy-haired woman leaving. She appeared to be another actress from the same group, but she was so different from Sereth, snappy and irritable.

"I, Sauron the Great, the Darkest of all Dark Lords, do not fear thy words!" Thiliel made up on the spot, to echo Sereth's lines. She stretched out her hand, as if preforming a powerful curse, and said in the most dramatic voice she could muster, "Never shall victory be yours. For the army of the West shall crumble against the very walls that thou speak of. Behold now the might of the Lord of all the Living and the Dead!"

Thiliel couldn't keep a straight face any longer. Sauron the Almighty burst out laughing and fell in a heap onto the floor, unable to contain himself. Thiliel just couldn't stop; she laughed so hard that tears streamed from her eyes.

[Mnemosyne]

Rollan only grinned. He'd love to welcome Coldan into his family!

"Well," he said, "here's three mites of advice for you, that my own pa told me when I first wanted to start courting Brinn: be confident, be patient, and be very, very stubborn. And I know they're all a lot easier said than done! But. You can't go around acting like you're terrified of her, just because you might take a shine to her. You've got to respect her"--he pounded his fist on the table, maybe a little too heavily--"but you've also got to show her she should respect you, and your intentions towards her. Oh," he added, "and flowers don't hurt either.

"As for Asta herself--well, it's right hard getting into a woman's mind, and I've given up trying. She seems to think you should know exactly what she's thinking, and whether what she says is truly what she means. I don't think Asta's one of the worst in that matter, but as soon as you think you know a woman..." He snapped his fingers in the air. "That's part of what makes married life such an adventure! But go ahead, give her a try. Why, even if the worst happens, you'll be no worse off than you are now--better, even, for you'll actually know a good deal more than you do now."

[Mnemosyne]

Well, Brinn thought to herself, that riddle, at least, is utterly useless. The last thing we need is an arrest on grounds of indecency!

"Thank you for your information," Brinn told Branor and Therian. "Though I have to wonder--Elf Warrior or not, why would the Lord Samwise and his family think it acceptable to see him portrayed as one when he most clearly was not? Especially if he was embarrassed by it?" She thought a moment. "Still, if the play is lacking action sequences, that's a good way to put them back in.

"So you've told me about Merry and Sam... but what about the other two? Did you learn anything more about them?"

She ignored, for the time being, Branor's clearly-fed advice concerning Merry and his suitable actor. She'd have to talk this over with Asta.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Therian explained what the old man had told them in his moments of lucidity. He finished with a summary. "So it seems that Peregrin, the one most famous in this city, didn't do a whole lot until he got here. Except for turning the White Wizard's home into a garden. Maybe a new place to use the witch's trees?"

Branor said, "And Frodo... well... it seems like he was always almost dying. Up until the very end. Therian is great at death scenes, by the way. Have you ever seen him moaning in pain? He's great. I could punch him for you, show you what I mean..."

[Boromir88]

Brinn raised one of her eyebrows, "That won't be necessary."

"You sure? It won't take long to show!" Branor was all too excited and Therian wondered if he was just looking for an excuse to punch him to show off to Brinn.

"I'm sure." replied Brinn.

"Suit yourself." shrugged Branor. "Oh, Frodo and Sam fought...and beat...Sauron's pet. Shelob I think was the creatures name? Yes Shelob. This is why the orcs thought Sam was a great elf-warrior, because Sauron loved his pet and the orcs made sacrifices to it. It must have been some monstrous deformed beast."

[Dimturiel]

Harrenon was still elated by the way things had gone earlier that day with Bergil. He felt even better when Coldan had sent him to give Brinn the rest of their account of what they had found out – even though he also recognised it as a pretext for the former to speak alone with the other two. He left to search for Brinn, being in such a good mood that he decided not to mention to Coldan that no one had called him Harry since he had been about seven years of age and that he would let few people get away with that.

He found Brinn talking to Therian and Branor. He was glad to see the two had finally returned to the inn. For a while he had been worried they would have to send a search party for them. He nodded to the two and addressed Brinn:

“When they finish with their report, perhaps you can find time to listen to the rest of mine, also. I have Coldan’s notes, too, so you can check them. There are still some things that Bergil told us, about Boromir and Denethor and he did talk quite a lot about Eowyn too.” Here Harrenon paused and cast a furtive glance in Therian’s direction. “I tried asking Bergil whether it was true that Eowyn had been given the body of the man to be able to defeat the Witchking. It seems that no. Actually, when he heard that, Bergil started laughing and asked about the person who had told us that. Apparently, he was very interested in whatever beverage he was consuming when he came up with such a rumour.”

[Pitchwife]

Rollan's advice had Coldan quite befuddled. Did Asta really expect him to read her mind? If he could do that, he wouldn't have had to ask for advice in the first place. And flowers? Seriously? It wasn't like he hadn't thought of that himself, but the one time he had tried to give her flowers she had looked at him as if he'd offered her a dead duck and all but flung the bouquet in his face. Maybe, he pondered, yarrow and tansy just happened not to be her favourite flowers; come to think of it, the roots and clots of soil still attached to the stalks might have had something to do with it, too.

Being patient was easy - what else had he been in the last three years? - , and he could be as stubborn as an ox if he had set his mind on something, like when he had defied his father by choosing to live with an acting troupe over the family business. Confidence, on the other hand, was his big deficiency, at least as far as women were concerned. And respect? He thought he respected Asta all right, but how was he supposed to make her respect him? Even when she was friendly with him, she never seemed to take him seriously.

In one point, however, Rollan was absolutely right. He didn't really have much to lose.

"Zank you for your open ear and your kind vords", he said, turning his cup and watching the wine swirl inside. "You hev given me a lot to zink about." Not that he hadn't already done more than enough thinking and too little acting up to now. And right then he remembered a thought that had quite lapsed from his mind since yesterday; time to do something about that while he was in Brinn's good books.

He emptied his cup in one draught and rose. "Last round is on me." He left a couple of coins on the table to pay for the drinks and his meal and strode out of the common room.

In the courtyard, he found not only Harrenon talking to Brinn but also Branor and Therian, who had finally returned from whatever they had been up to since he'd left them on Lamedon Square. All the better. Asta was there as well, standing a few steps apart from the group and apparently studying a crumpled piece of paper, from which she briefly looked up to glower at him. He felt that obnoxious blush rising in his cheeks again, but did his best to ignore it. Fighting the instinct to avoid her in her present mood, he walked up to her and said:

"Listen, I understand zat you're upset because you can't be a heroic elf-maiden, but it's not my fault she never existed, nor is it my fault zat Aldarion got zat wrong in the first place. Neverzeless, I'll try to make it up to you for zat. In ze meantime, can you please stop looking at me as if I hed just wrecked Smaug's gears with a sledgehammer."

So, that was out. Now he could only hope he hadn't angered her even more, but instead of waiting for a reply, he turned to join the little group around Brinn just in time to hear Harrenon say:

“I tried asking Bergil whether it was true that Eowyn had been given the body of the man to be able to defeat the Witchking. It seems that no. Actually, when he heard that, Bergil started laughing and asked about the person who had told us that. Apparently, he was very interested in whatever beverage he was consuming when he came up with such a rumour.”

Perfect. Just the opening he needed. "Indeed", he hastened to affirm, "and zat's vy it's plainly absurd zat Therian should play her; he doesn't vant ze role anyvay, and it's beyond me vy you keep casting him in it. I hev an idea, Brinn - vy can't Asta be Éowyn? She looks ze part, and besides ve both know she's going to be unbearable for ze rest of ze month if she's stuck viz Gollum the She-Orc as her only major role. She'd make a gorgeous shieldmaiden, and Therian vould do much better as a halfling hero or vatever you've got." Or at least no worse, he was going to say, but stopped himself in time. "Vat do you zink?"

[Nerwen]

"Will you do it, Asta? I know it's awful have to learn a new part at the last minute, but you must already know most of Lady Éowyn's lines."

Asta opened her mouth to say exactly what she thought about having to take on Therian's cast-off rôle, but Brinn's pleading look stopped her short.

"All right," she agreed reluctantly, realising she had no business making things any more difficult for her sister. "I suppose I can do it. It's not as if," she allowed a trace of bitterness back into her voice, "she has that many lines to learn, after all."

Unlike Mary, the Shieldmaiden only appeared in a few scenes; yet, now that she thought about it, Asta could dimly remember that Éowyn had once been a somewhat larger rôle, and Mary a smaller: they had changed places, somehow, over time. She frowned. That was really quite odd, wasn't it? How had it happened, exactly?

Brinn's sigh of relief was quite audible. "Oh, good. You'd better go and rehearse with Coldan. It was all his idea, by the way," she added, giving the prompter a grateful smile.

Avoiding Coldan's gaze, Asta concentrated on winding a tawny tendril of hair around her index finger. She was not at all pleased by this development, as she had planned to let Coldan stew in his own juice a little while longer– especially after the way he had spoken to her just now.