[Kransha]

Toby Hornblower had to admit, but not in the least to others, that he was confused. Perhaps it was just the fact that days passed too quickly now, or perhaps it was the fact that hobbits seemed to be spurting from between the slivers of the floorboards like blossoming, multicolored plants stuffed foppishly into a dizzying array of Halfling garb. Losing track of all the conversations around him, Toby had busied himself with manufacturing smoky circlets from his carefully carved pipe, which he held delicately between two fingers in an upper-class manner, dangling the device, and bobbing it up and down as one would a crystalline chalice of the finest wine. Marcho, the hobbit left to tend Toby’s nonexistent whims, had seemed wrapped up in his own descended gloom, which accosted Tobias with some slight, but manageable level of annoyance as he let the chair he had moved to devour him comfortably, still humming stupidly to himself.

Yet again, the old hobbit's mind wandered through the lofty attic of itself, searching within for some reminiscence, some vague and nervous memory he could summon up from murky depths and sigh over pitifully until he felt the need to be jocund again. He thought back to Snaveling, and his rugged, overbearing expression, hunched form, and wretched gait. He thought back to Roa, with her lady-like strides and her gentle, but firm attitude towards life. He thought back To Valthalion, that upstanding man, brave and brash, though somewhat stalwart and conffused about the theories he continually spawned. He reminded himself of that calm, brisk day when he'd come to the inn to hear Snaveling's raspy voice broken and, having undergone a magical metamorphosis, sweetly singing like the skyward birds, with the melodious melody of Galadel's flute behind. Those, thought the withered old Southfarthinger, were the days.

Soon enough, Tobias Hornblower was able to piece together what was occurring. Though the hobbits that Toby had been discoursing with were all but dispersed, they began to slowly reassemble. At last, two figures materialized before Toby and Marcho. One was the characteristically small silhouette with a long, flickering shadow painted on the floor behind him by firelight’s delicate brush-hairs, of Bingo. The other, more slender, less jovial, but still with a certain imposition, was an unknown female, who’s demeanor quickly caught Toby’s eye. As Bingo introduced the lady to Marcho, who seemed just as displeased with the state of things as ever, Toby stood, brushing himself off and smoothing his ruffled feathers politically, and stepped forward towards the woman and hobbit lad, acknowledging the presence of the former as he spoke to the latter, looking a little beleguered and sleepy, with an inane tiredness in his dark eyes.

“You’ll have to pardon my…antisocial tendencies, Masters Cotton and Brandybuck,” he murmured at first, his yet unaccustomed voice still quavering involuntarily as he addressed the two polar opposites, “but I have been a bit indisposed by my muddled self for longer than I can remember, so this uprising of new folk in the inn has stolen my wits from me. Let me say that I think those lost wits may have been recovered, so I may join you in the world of reality now.” With that, after bowing his head apologetically, the upstanding, barrel-chested Halfling turned to the delicate figure beside Bingo, not taking note of the scrap of parchment she clutched or the very mild glint in her enchanting eyes. “I see you’ve brought a charming maiden to our ‘table.’ Might I have the profuse pleasure of an introduction, madam?”