[Kransha]

For the first time in days, Kalimac Whitfoot felt like he welcomed sleep. Even though he did not and would have preferred to be on watch instead of old Fordogrim Chubb, he accepted the heaviness of his eyelids. Sand filled his stern orbs as they shut reluctantly. There had been some minor mishaps recently, which had alarmed Elsa as he expected, but oddly enough, that bumbling ancient fool of a Harfoot had done something right for once and saved his own offspring from watery talons, if one could call them that. Kal wanted to make amends, but he still tried to convince himself that the Chubb had done all of this rescuing by accident. He’d never gotten around to giving Fordogrim a hearty thanks for his deed, but he assured himself that he’d do it eventually. Now, he was content to sleep and dream of better things.

Bree had always been beautiful to him, but this new land, a land that was at least partially his by right, would be so much greater and he knew it. He could see the vast land stretched out before him on a mental plane; endless greenery as far as the eye could see, rolling hills that dipped and sloped like oceanic waves, lush treed groves dotting the subtle horizon, a red-rimmed golden sun hanging aloft in the sky; it was the stuff stories were written about. Through hardships and woe, through mishap and mischance, the company if Halflings would come to a new home after a harrowing quest to be remembered eternally by hobbit kind. It was a story that his children, Crispin and Alora, would tell to his grandchildren as he sat in some billowing-cushioned lounge chair in a cozy study, smoking a pipe and watching wisps of smoke climb to his ceiling and expand out into the room’s warm air. He could hear the crackling fire and the birds chirping with their chiming notes from outside and the gentle yet rhythmic fluttering of their delicate wings.

His dream was vivid enough to give him that idea, at least. There were fields everywhere decked with flowery gardens and neat little houses all around. He could see the new hobbit abodes, and yet their shape was unperceivable to his sleeping eye, so he dismissed the contours of his new world and surveyed the landscape and the flowing rivers that severed the horizon in two. It was such a stunning sight, a golden hue covering the land offset by the natural green of the amber gardens. He saw Crispin, Alora, and Elsa, standing on the cobblestone path that lead through a great garden to what he knew to be his home. Unfortunately, there was now a rainy sheet coming down upon the area and the hobbit folk around fled inside. But still, it was so perfect: a quiet, peaceful, tranquil, uninterrupted paradise for his kind.

The first ray of sunlight struck Kalimac from his reverie, beaming almost through his shielding eyelid as the eye opened and bringing the new day in with blinding force. Slowly, the hobbit rubbed sand from his eyes and tried in vain to stand, only sagging into a crumpled heap of Halfling looking up at the wagon he’d fallen asleep leaning again. Yawning and groaning, Kalimac pushed himself up into a sitting position and smoothed the wrinkles in his dusty vest, grumbling under his breath. A new day had dawned, as Kalimac kept reminding himself. The night had soothed his racing mind, but now work had to be done again and more progress had to be made. Snorting with indignation at nothing in particular, Kalimac tried to stand again and failed just as quickly as he had the first time, landing where he had before.