[Hilde Bracegirdle]

The familiar feeling that she would soon become a pumpkin crept over Hilde. She was not used to late nights, and stretched, bending her head this way and that before wiping dry her bowl and rejoining the party just long enough to wish them well. Carrying the transparent bowl in the crook of her equally transparent arm, she grabbed her bag with the other swinging it over her shoulder clumsily and crossed over to the table that held the gifts as the crowd listened attentively, grooving to LMP's show. Rummaging at the bottom of the bag, she drew out a bit of inheritance that she had never properly appreciated; a gaudy brooch she thought might find a better home with someone fond of such things.

But she found she was not prepared to leave the brooch on the table with the other gifts. Pulling off her nametag, she chuckled to herself. Scratching out what she had written there and over all scrawled ‘HILDE ->’ sticking it on the brooch. Quickly going to the bookcase with a clank she threw the thing in the spittoon, and turned to go.

Seeing that the Barrow-wight was in their midst, she started over to him with half a mind to ask about the photograph gracing his shelf, but thought better of it. Some mysteries are better off as mysteries. It was probably just a bit of mathom. “Wish I knew Master Bombadil, wings or no,” she muttered to herself. “Now there’s the one who would be like to get a straight answer about such things from the Wight himself, make no mistake!”

And so bowing low, first to the Barrow-wight and then to Esty/H, she thanked them both, and walked out her form, rapidly dissolving into the mist.