The Green Dragon Inn - Part 9

[Amanaduial the archer]

Aman paled at Buttercup's words, and her eyes widened. "Coming home...now?" she croaked incredulously, looking at the two industriously cleaning hobbits in turn. She had come down from waking up Hawthorne and tying her hair up into a more practical bun and had been greeted, as she passed, with Buttercup's news.

"In a fortnight or less, she says, Miz Aman," Buttercup replied, polishing a spoon fervently. Aman looked slightly more horrified, glancing at the space where the Inn had been and what there was of it now, gave a strangled cry and darted off towards the Inn. The two hobbit servers looked at each other questioningly before shrugging and continuing to their work.

Aman passed into the Common Room through the absence of wall on one side, ducking easily as a long wooden beam, accompanied by a panicked cry of warning, swung over her head, supported at both ends by metal chains which were attached to one of the other newly placed rafters ahead. The Innkeeper looked around the room, and her heart continued to beat fast - but not only in panic now. They've done so much in a week... she thought proudly. Beams all around the room and forming a net across the sky outlined where the burnt down Common Room would be rebuilt, and after that proper building work could be structured around that and the upper rooms could be re-built. One side of the room, however, had been almost undamaged, and the restoration on it and the magnificent fireplace was well under way, and Regin said he had plans for that, as well, as the doorway, which he was keeping under wraps. As she scanned the room, Aman spotted the dwarf, sternly overseeing a pair of hobbits who were manoevuring a pile of long oak boards through one window to each other, not without difficulty. As Aman came towards them, the dwarf called out a greeting to the Innkeeper. The two hobbits, mistaking it for an instruction, simultaneously began going in opposite directions with the beams, one confusedly backing out and the other, for some reason, swinging sidewards. Regin looked quickly backwards and gave a shout, jumping down from his platform, but Aman was already there, grabbing the beam...just before it smashed into the frame of the large window. She breathed a sigh of relief, whilst Regin started berating the 'bubble-brained fools' (a phrase which semed to have become something of a catch-phrase for the dwarf) of hobbits, who stood meekly looking suitably ashamed and even more suitably tired.

"How goes it, Regin?" Aman inquired when he was done, handing the surprisingly heavy would-be floorboards back to the hobbits who managed this time to get them through without incident.