Downers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your PT.

[Bêthberry]

Bethberry felt ever so sorry she had knocked down Glirdan but for the life of her she couldn't imagine what she had tripped over. Wasn't it the curtain she had heard swishing?

But then she paid attention to the purple eye in the tree and harrumped as only an RPG character trained in Victorian fiction could harrrump.

"Curiouser and curiouser you are, you flower-eyed feature of fustian fan fiction."

"A half-witted halfling?" "I am no halfling, you scamp, nor even a half-halfling. And it takes full wit to know real nonsense, let me remind you. There you are sitting up a tree imitating a cheshire cat and you laugh at me?"

Bethberry removed her fluffy footed false feet and waved them at the Dark Elf as if they were as famous as any prosthetic elf ear. "Although I suppose it isn't too unlikely that you can't place me. I am the veritable daughter of the most discussed enigma in Middle earth and if you aren't careful, why, I'll blow leaf and branch and you away."

She giggled at the thought.

"Will you get you to your horse in yonder shrubbery or come and join the party?"

At which point she heard Glirdan suggesting the same and offering her his hand.

"Dear Mr. Pieman," she said, "Think nothing of it as it was I who tumbled the tarts." She giggled again.

"Well, let us join the party. I smell chocolate. And I do believe there is dancing."

She nodded her head at the Dark Elf to invite him in after them.

[Morthoron]

The Dark Elf soon realized his arboreal ascension, although contextually correct in regards to his elvish idiom, was, perhaps, not quite in keeping with the subject matter of the piece. This gaffe, although not egregious, did make him look quite silly, particularly since he was aloft in the only tree in the area, and not in some copse or along a forest eave where subterfuge was more appropriate. That he stuck out like a sore thumb made him irritable - moreso than usual.

He clambered down the lone elder with the sinuous movement of a lithesome Eldar. Being quite pleased with the last sentence, the Dark Elf was assuaged in a meta-fictional sense, and this breaking of the fourth wall did much to overcome his initial embarrassment from the entire stereotypical elf-in-a-tree episode. But to his consternation, there was newfound reasons for exasperation. His vaunted elvish acuity had failed him as well, for he discovered that this Bethberry personage was not, in fact, a hobbit, but some sort of enema. When that too proved to be incorrect, and Bethberry corrected him, loudly proclaiming "E-n-i-g-m-a, not enema!" he was so abashed that he became the first elf in recorded history to blush.

Chagrined down to his very noble elvish toes, the Dark Elf bowed, and replied, "Ah yes, 'enigma'! Forgive me, Bethberry, I should have known, given your beard, bright blue jacket and the yellow boots at the doorway."

[Bêthberry]

In response to the Dark Elf, Bethberry knotted her hair under her chin in a faux resemblance of a beard.

"Will this do?" she giggled.

And then taking each Downer by the elbow, she guided them into the party.

"You are both probably too recently come to the Downs to know this," she whispered, stuttering on some hair in her mouth, "but Bethberry was a casuality of the rpg forum reforms."

The two looked at her as if to ask if she had already helped herself to too much party brew.

"Indeed," she said, sputtering again at the beard, "when Bethberry arrived on the Downs to rpg, her character was the daughter of Tom and Goldberry, and she was off on a grand tour of Middle-earth in hopes of finding her mother, who apparently was not around for Gandalf to visit when he returned to Tom's house at the end of Lord of the Rings."

"And was this a problem?" Glirdan inquired.

"Obviously some kind of Mary Sue character," muttered Morthoron.

"Alas, yes, gone went any characters who were actual characters in the story, or relations of them. So alas I was left with a sort of Lady of Bree character." She sniffled.

"And this party was my last attempt to foil those rules, maybe risk my PT, and return again, incognito of course--looking down at her now replaced hobbit feet--as the illustrious daughter of the enigmatic couple on the Withywindle."

She steered the threesome towards the tables of food, around the dancing, thereby giving a certain shooking appearance to be dancing with the two gentlemen at the same time.

"Those poor strange skwerls. They've lost their chance to reprimand me. I have missed the test and will remain plain Beth."

[Morthoron]

Morthoron listened sympathetically as Bethberry recounted her long strange trip. It was quite a downer, even for someone on the Downs. "I've heard of 'mistaken identity'," the Dark Elf grumbled when he could finally get a word in edgewise, "but not 'taken identity'."

"Yes, it was quite a loss when my bio was confiscated by the authorities," Beth sighed. "The blood, sweat and tears I put into the backstory! It must have taken at least fifteen minutes!"

"That long?" Morthoron replied dubiously.

"I know, can you believe it?" she cried. "It was the best cigarette break I ever had! I was really inspired. Now, we have to smoke off campus."

The Dark Elf nodded and smiled, pretending he knew what Beth was talking about. "And now you are a..."

"An indiscriminate Bree woman," she mumbled sadly.

"Ah," Morthoron said uneasily.

"Go ahead, say it!" Beth demanded.

The Dark Elf bit his lip nervously and stammered, "I - I wasn't aware there were any women in Bree."

"Yes! Yes, I know! Beth shouted shrilly. "Not one damn speaking part for a woman in all of Breeland and the adjacent townships of Combe and Archet! I had to make the whole thing up."

"Hmmm...speculative fiction, interesting," Morthoron nodded, trying desperately to sound enthused by her character choice. But having failed miserably, he glanced about, looking for any convenient reason to slip away.

But since everyone was dead in the Downs, he was stuck. He glanced over at Glirdan and said, "Tell me of your homeworld, Usul."