[Belin]

Much has been happening, but Belin has been going about her business in the background.. Sometime last night, she somehow managed to find a place to change and reemerged in the simple dress of a freakishly tall hobbit-maid. After a quick snack, a perfectly lovely dance with Stephanos (for which great thanks [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] ), and a chorus of "Happy Deathday," she wanders over toward the gift table.

Of course, it's a hideous and rapidly dimishing mess. Hobbits at birthday parties follow no rules but their own, and many have decided that the lack of labels on the gifts is due to the busy life of the Barrow-Wight, and that they should simply pick the gifts themselves. All around the field, in addition to Princess Estelyn's "party favors," can be seen hobbits decked out in belts, crowns, and some truly astonishing pieces of jewelery. What a generous and open-handed Barrow-Wight! thinks Belin, then stops to consider. Something about the yoking of the terms "generous" and "barrow-wight" strikes an ominous chord, or maybe that's just the organ music one of the Shirriffs has begun to play. Is he playing for them, Belin wonders, or for the fall of a semi-respectable hobbit into conspiracy? At any rate, he's very good, and seems to have missed his true calling in life, doubtless because of the lack of organs in Middle-Earth.

[ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]