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Old 11-22-2002, 10:14 AM   #30
Gandalf_theGrey
Visionary Spirit
 
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 633
Gandalf_theGrey has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

THE CATCHING BLACK-HANDED OF GAMBA IN HIS CUPS

* The roast chicken soup and brown bread with dill-butter graciously provided by Ransom was followed by a compost of pickled winter vegetables and pears, venison, rice with almonds, custard pie, and strong red wine. Varda too, came to join their dinner-table fellowship and feasting. Gandalf bade her a warm welcome and promised a tale for later, though likely he'd save it for the White Horse Inn at Rohan. *

* Meanwhile, the Seventh Star hummed with song and story, goings and comings. Gandalf had watched as if out of a dream the entrance of the Lonely Star crew ... Pio, Mith, Cami, Gamba, Bird. But though he'd known them as Ancalimon, perhaps even closely, he now felt the distance of many years between them, and looked at them as though seeing through a pane of glass seven inches thick. It had been all the wizard could do to make small talk with Bird, and then it had only been trifling silliness about his staff. *

* Suddenly, there was a tiny sound of breaking glass. Then, a tinier sound of hands sweeping it away. Funny thing, the hands seemed to be reaching out from below Gandalf's table, and the wizard's wine-glass had disappeared. With a firm grasp, Gandalf's own hands bent down and reached around two small wrists, until their owner came up into full view. *

* Gamba was quite a colorful study, face flushed beet red from wine and discomfit, hands covered in ashes and soot where the fireplace stones had sprinkled their debris on coming to rest in front of Ransom to cure his cold. *

* Gandalf smiled. * From the lowest place to the highest you'll now go, young Gamba! You tell a fine tale, perhaps now you shall become a tale for our telling. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

* Placing the end of his staff inside the back collar of Gamba's shirt, Gandalf hoisted him up to a standing position on the mantlepiece, next to one of Rimbaud's fancy Great Wyrm lamps beside the elegant plaque. * Now we can let the good Innkeeper decide your fate.

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Gandalf_theGrey ]
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