[the guy who be short]

Fléin woke with a start - of the table. He tried to look up at whoever had shook the table, but his face seemed stuck to it, and his eyelids to one another. Struggle as he might, and did for a few moments, he could free neither with ease, and didn't wish to appear as ridiculous as he knew he must. He stopped moving, hoping to give an air of being completely at ease stooped over the table with his eyes shut.

"Excuse me, old chap, are you quite alright there? You don't mind if I sit here, do you?" a constipated, or perhaps educated, voice floated down to Fléin.

"Go ahead" Fléin growled into his beard, a little more aggressively than he intended to.

"I do thank you... I say, are you quite alright?" the man persisted.

"Merely tired..." the Dwarf lied.

"My poor Man! Let me get you a coffee."

More vibrations, the table jogged a little more, and Fléin presumed the man was gone, giving him a little time to unstick himself if he could. He dug his finger into the corner of his right eye, scooping up as much conjunctival gunk as possible and flicking it onto the table for some poor unfortunate to fiddle with later. He noticed that there was perceivably less gunk than there had been last time he woke up.

The process was repeated with his left eye. He opened them, and was greeted by the sight of the eternally sticky table. Fortunately only a small portion of his beard, near the sideburns on his left cheek, was actually stuck to the table; the majority drooped over the edge.

"No! No, old chap, that's not at all what I meant!" the constipated voice, raised, interrupted his thoughts.

"Are you insinuating," a loud Orcish voice rose over the hubbub, "that I, as an Orc, can only serve black coffee? Is that it? Eh?"

Fléin smiled to himself. Political correctness... ridiculous, but ever so amusing when stuffy old upperclassmen were confronted by it.

He focused on his beard again, letting the raised voices of the Orc and the burbling responses of the stranger merge into the background. There was only one way out of the current situation, and he didn't much like the idea of it.

Placing a hand to the left and right of his head, he yanked his face off the table. There was a sound like velcro ripping, and pain shot through the left side of his face, but he was free! He rubbed his face a little.

"Sorry about that," the upperclassman reappeared and interrupted him again, causing him to quickly drop his hand to his side. "Those orcs... make a dreadful amount of trouble, much more than they're worth, but what can one do?"

Fléin smiled a little and took the proferred coffee. "Thank you," he replied, "those Rakhâs are a lot of trouble, aren't they? You're lucky, I got an oration on Language."

"Yes well... Did I introduced myself? Most rude. Aranwe Mullion at your service."

"Fléin son of Fréin at yours." He stood up and bowed, before resuming his seat and sipping his coffee. It was surprisingly good, for Mordor. "Thank you once again."

"Think nothing of it. I thank you for letting me share this table... all the others are taken, or full of undesirables." He scowled a little at the room in general before turning back to Fléin with a smile.

Draining his cup, Fléin stood up a second time, before seating himself again rapidly.

"You wouldn't happen to know where Edgingville is, by any chance, would you?"

A frown crossed the man's face. "Edgingville. No villes around here anymore... all have long since been swallowed up by Lûndûn, or Lûn-dun as I call it, ha-ha." Fléin resisted the temptation to roll his eyes at the poor joke. "You don't mean Edge-Where do you?"

"Yes! Yes, that was it! Edge-where!" the Dwarf beamed up at him. "Edge-Where... that's where I need to get to".

"Rather. Edgewhere, where-"

"Could you tell me where it is please?" the Dwarf interrupted before he could complete what was almost certainly going to be another ill attempt at humour.

"Only I'm in a little bit of a hurry"

"Why of could, my good chap. You're at Amon Haradow. You need only travel about five miles North East. You could get there in a few hours, though if I were you, I'd get a taxy."

"Taxy?"

"A Lûndûn phenomenon, I see you're new to the city. So called because they overcharge so, and the journeys are usually quite taxing - they're simply vehicles driven by Orcs that take you wherever you wish to go. Some call them cabs, because they're often even tighter a squeeze than cabins. Just hold out a hand to a black car on the road, it'll most likely be a taxy."

Fléin thanked Aranwe and left, finally feeling slightly in control of his quest.