[Kransha]

As old and as withered of bone and form as Osric of Aldburg was, still he plunged wholeheartedly into the meal set before him on a polished platter. After the dragging length of a minute’s span had passed, he reared up like a braying steed from the plate, letting it vibrate meagerly as he slammed a satisfied fist on the table and fell back, sagging fully backward into the cradling palm of his seat. He sighed gently, scratching the clinging strands of foot from his unkempt beard with a hand wrapped loosely in a leathery, fur-cuffed glove. He extracted each of his gnarled digits from the glove and pulled it off smoothly, laying it on the table top as, with his other fidgeting hand, he lifted the quivering tin tankard from beside his empty plate and raised it to his lips. He sipped it with nobility at first, but soon began to guzzle the tasteful fluid, letting it spill into his mouth and wash away the troubles of his sore, ragged throat. His tongue burst out from the wall of his teeth to lick up every last residual dot of the morning ale that might have alighted on his beard, but found none, hearing his soft breath well up and grow in volume ominously inside the tankard before him.

New arrivals had come, which was only to be expected upon another day of regal festivities. Osric’s face puffed out into a glowing smile as strands of people began to drift like smoke through the ready and ever-full doorway of the Horse. He searched the room wistfully, his dry lips drifting apart as he was lulled into a calming stupor while looking about. He saw men, young and old, some who’d seen barely the number of cold winters to be called a young man, vivacious boys and girls frolicking through the inn and those whose playful tones, high of pitch and with a fervent melody within, could be heard seeping through the windows and door. There were aged folk as well, who’d all taken their respective places in the room. There were only a few, and one in particular, who was staring out with a blanker look, who caught the brunt of Osric’s drowsy gaze, but he shook off a remorseful look and continued in his optical business in the Horse.

Osric at last let his eyelids droop after fixating his gaze on the Horse’s threshold and staring profusely at it for a time. His aged eyes, turning in unison, bobbed up and down as he scanned every surface in the common room, analyzing his surrounding through a blurred vision, tinted with a colorful lens set over each deep orb by the impending festivities and the decorations they entailed. Pushing himself up from his chair, his stiff leg arching uncomfortably beneath him as he dragged it over so he could stand, wobbling before he regained his stock steadiness, he began walking through the room. At last he found his needed target, the innkeeper, Alywen. He fitted towards her with as much speed as his rusty, manually maneuvered limb would allow him and waited for her to turn and see him. Despite the possible chaos of the day ahead, she seemed flawlessly serene. Osric did not know the ways on innkeepers, guessing that this calmness might be some clever façade, but he did not guess at the methods of Miss Alywen, for he thought his mind would spend too many needed hours trying to accurately decipher the matter.

“Good morning, Mistress Alywen,” he said politely, loosing a curt bow before he continued, “I trust you slept well?” She looked at him, grinning mildly with that same calm, respectable, but gentle air that she always had held when Osric spoke to her, and replied with jovial dignity while Osric looked on, wondering how she held up such a composed stature when the world around her was so hectic, “As well as can be expected on such a night, I suppose. And you?”

“The same, madam.” Osric nodded dutifully. He paused for a bare moment and then rolled back into speaking in a lazy, tired drawl manufactured by the resonating tranquility of morning as it was slowly washed away by surrounding hustle and bustle, “Alywen, I do believe I saw that lad Hearpwine here this morning, but now I see him not. Has he already headed off to ‘scope out the competition’?”

Alywen glanced at him again as she’d been about to turn away, seeing from his unattended face that he’d already eaten and did not require her service. A look appeared slowly but with delicate swiftness upon her features, which told Osric that this was not the first time the question had been posed that day. But, she bore it easily and smiled in response as she spoke. “Indeed he has, but he will return and we will all surely hear more of him, and from him as well.”

“Oh,” the aged Rohirrim nodded in understanding, “I had suspected as much.” He turned from her, having known the answer before it was spoken to his query. He admitted with some vague reluctance that he still yearned with a thundering hope to hear the songs and lays of Hearpwine and Liornung, the two bards who’d left for to seek a future. If the job was found by either of them, that would mean their continual stay in Edoras, and frequent trips to the White Horse Inn, where Osric would be sitting, perhaps a pipe cupped in his mouth and a tune on his lips to wile away the time until one of them had mustered the vocal energy to delve into the musical realm again. Thinking merrily of such things, Osric returned to his chair and set himself down carefully upon it, leaning back and taking a deep breath as his chest heaved.