[littlemanpoet]

"You didn't even miss me, did you, Ferdi, you old codger!" Falco went over to Ferdi and gave him a resounding slap on the back. Ferdi steadied himself with both elbows on the table and coughed hard. Falco turned his gaze to Ferdi's red cheeked wife. "Bedelia, what kind of thing is that to say about your long lost third nephew, twice removed?"

Bedelia puffed to as tall as her three feet and inches could make her. "I'll twice remove you, if you start bragging to the lasses about whatever it is you're fixing on bragging about!"

Falco shook his head, suddenly serious. "I am a changed Hobbit. It is true that I have seen things that one only hears in tales, but so have my friends here, and if not for each of them, I would never have returned." Falco gestured to the others, who had gathered at the next table.

"The same could be said of you, Falco," said the shorter of the two golden haired men, smiling. The Elf woman sitting next to him smiled and held his hand.

"That may be, Falowik, and you're the one who will have to say it, because I shan't. Now, where's that serving hobbit lass when you need her?" Falco turned back to Ferdi and Bedelia. "It's good to see the both of you as alive and curmudgeonly as ever! Good day to you both!" Falco sat down with his friends.

Ferdi and Bedelia exchanged surprised glances, and Falco just barely overheard him say to her, "Something's crammed some humble pie into his addled head." And her to him, "Maybe he'll finally make the good shirriff he shoulda been all this while."

Falco grinned and winked to Falowik.