Okay. Hopefully I'm not turned into a Balrog yet...
But here is my first post after the time jump. Put it in there when you jump. I will be online at the August 4th the earliest.
And if there are any things that need editing, please edit them. I can do that work only after a week from now.
There seems to have developed a certain timeline of things going on with the buildingsite. Please see if they look realistic enough for you - and change them accordingly if needed.
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Nogrod's post
Stigend had been busy the days that followed. The first days passed at the planning board, one of the tables of the Hall had to do as one. He and Garstan draw and redraw, discussed and sat in silence. They talked with Frodides and Kara several times a day and every now and then they consulted Eodwine, Saeryn and Marenil.
Stigend had made an inventory on the building materials on the second day, making himself familiar with the Mead Hall’s facilities and tools at the same time. There was enough timber to start building, but a lot more was needed. The saws seemed well enough, but the chip axes and framework-drills were rusty and dum. He got his own with him and could start by himself, and those of the Hall could be made usable with some care taken with them. On the third day they managed to make an order for required timber and other things needed.
Within a week they had started the actual work, beginning with the kitchen oven and the fireplace. Garstan had designed the oven and the fireplace with the help of Frodides and Kara and Stigend had designed a firewall to surround them and came up with a solution of how it should be attached to the wooden wall. Stigend was somewhat familiar with masonry and bricklayer’s work but needed some guidance from Garstan every now and then.
It was during these days that he came familiar with Náin. He hadn’t actually met a dwarf in his life before. It was a place of personal reflection and discovery that greatly humiliated Stigend. From the beginning he had been prejudiced towards the dwarf, going over in his mind with all the generalisations people had about dwarves and trying to see them in Náin. It took one visit of a travelling stranger that had given Modtryth a bad look, complaining about the Dunlending rabble around him in a decent Hall to make Stigend realise his own prejudices.
He had been so happy with this new place that had taken Modtryth and Cnebba as themselves, as equal human beings that he had had no need to keep an eye on how others thought of his family. But that way he had also forgotten to keep an eye on his own mind. Now he realised to have thought almost like the people he had despised all his life beside Modtryth. Stigend was ashamed. Luckily he hadn’t made any nasty remarks or behaved badly towards Náin. But they had been only fellows at work. There had been nothing else.
After the incident he started looking at the dwarf with open eyes and was astonished of what he saw when he was not bringing all his prejudices along. Náin seemed flexible and friendly enough, but his skills with stone were just incredible. Even though this seemed not to be his real trade – he had heard he was more of an artist – he helped them every now and then and proved to be a real help indeed, able to do many of the things Garstan did. And the grace of the things he had touched! Náin seemed to be able to shape stone into any form he willed, like it was clay.
After the first week they started to have conversations during the work and at the pauses when Náin was around. Stigend appreciated the dwarf and he seemed not to think bad about him either. Even Stigend’s mediocre skills in masonry started to get better day by day.
On the third week the timber arrived and Stigend had to change his focus. Garstan would have still work to do with the fireplace now as the oven and the firewall were finished, but hewing the logs and especially preparing the framework was something that required an experienced hand and so he stick to the logs by himself. As he had helped Garstan with the easier tasks, Garstan could help him when the time came. And anyhow, as they would start to hoist the logs to their places they would need lots of strong arms to help them.
That was a happy time. There was work that gave him satisfaction and he had been getting on very well with Garstan whom he considered now his friend. And his family was accepted! Stigend and Modtryth were enjoying their new appointments to the fullest. And what warmed Stigend the most was to see Cnebba’s shining eyes every evening when he made minute descriptions of the games and plays he had had with Lèoðern and Garmund.
And Cnebba kept speaking about Lèoðern all the time. Stigend had thought of it a couple of times. Indeed he had noticed a little uncomfortableness in Garmund’s expressions one or two times when he had seen all the three together, but he was too busy with his work to mind it any more.
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