The Green Dragon Inn #11 - The Last Chapter

[Larien Telemnar]

Larien listened as Ginger explained the Spring Faire, thinking how exciting it all must be. Perhaps I shhould go. I need to get to know my kinspeople. She thought, smiling at Ginger's last question.

"I would love to accompany you, Ginger. I do know how to use a bow, but not as well as some people I know. Who is Ferdy?"

[littlemanpoet]

Uien had been wandering over the hummocks and turves of the pastures behind the Green Dragon for hours. Her Elvish step was light, but her heart was not. Her mind was dark with images she did not know from her own memory, nor that of her family, nor from any long lost friends from Lorien. Nor from Falowik. The trees and stream might as well not have been there, for she did not see them though her body knew to pass them by without injury.

The images flowed in and out, melding with horrors from her own past, then breaking away again. Beside a red bonfire a fair woman sneering, spitting at her would turn into a slant eyed, sallow faced orc padding at her with their filthy hands. She had survived imprisonment in the darkness of Caradhras, but these new memories overwhelmed her. Now she was walking over a dark, blasted land, dead and cold, fleeing from a dread that assailed her heart. She could not leave it behind. A man came at her with a firebrand as others held her down. The firebrand scalded her face and she screamed, fighting to back away. Only to find that she was standing in front of a tree, a limb waving in the breeze; someone was whimpering. She stopped to listen, and realized it was her own voice.

She closed her hands into fists and furrowed her brow. It was that burned elf. He had shouted her away from his mind, and in doing so, had cast his own violent memories into her mind. Had he done it on purpose? How could an Elf be so evil? Maybe he had not intended it. Still, why had he been so violent?

She was walking again, not seeing the land and trees.

After all, she had done no more than had always been the way of the osanwë in Lorien. One touched the edge of the mind of another Elf to discern whether the other was open or closed. It was like saying "would you like to talk?" If the other's mind remained closed, you pulled away, no harm done to either. But this burned elf had behaved as if the way of Lorien was, what? Akin to torture! Ridiculous. He had something to answer for, that was certain. No more probing the edge of his mind. She was going to confront him face to face and be answered.

She strode back toward the Inn with a purpose.

[Lasbelinion]

He bristled as Mistress Bunce pushed the pot of salve toward him. The urge to push her away rose like bile in his throat, immediate and burning and bitter. Her words touched him before the cool side of the pot brushed lightly against his finger tips. He forced down the words that were already forming on his lips. Dipping his head down as if to inspect the salve, he swallowed them one by one.

She bears a certain light, he thought. Should I speak without thinking, the tenuous line between us will snap.

Lithmîrë drew his thoughts inward, considering that connection. It was not a familiar one. And being unfamiliar it did not call up the bristling defenses he had so long cultivated. Still, it was troubling in its unexpectedness. He turned his attention fully to that little link, probing and pushing at it as one might a sore tooth with the tongue . . . looking for any darker motives he might discern.

Her words seemed to be winding down now. They held a tone of regret. She had asked a question, and looked to him to see if she had been too forward with it. With an effort he recalled what she had said. Poppy, she had asked about poppy.

‘Yes, I have used that at times,’ he heard himself answering her, His voice level. ‘But not often. It dulls the pain, but clouds my mind, too. It leaves me too . . .’ defenseless he was going to say . . . ‘too tired and feeling weak.’

He dipped his fingers into the salve and brought a small smear to his nose. It had a light, clean smell. and as he rubbed it on a small portion of the scarring on his arm, he could feel a certain cool comfort spread out in the ropy, tight tissue.

'This will be good, I think,' he said, the curve of a quick smile fleeting on the right side of his face. 'It will go well with the tea I've put together.' He put the cover on the pot, saying he would use it more fully later. 'And I was wondering, my store of herbs for that tea is nearly depleted. Would it be possible for me to replenish them from your garden?'

[piosenniel]

Heading back to the kitchen

Cook was more than happy to let the Elf see to the herbs he mentioned. ‘I’ve many of them,’ she told him. ‘I use them myself for treating the ailments that happen at the Inn. ‘But some of those I think you’ll have to look for in the wooded areas south of here. I could speak to Granny Oldbuck about them. The woods border on her little parcel of land. We often trade herbs. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. Might even pry the recipe out of you for your tea.’

The flask was unstoppered and more of the tea Cook had brought with her was poured into their cups. And the talk turned in earnest to gardening. Though, Cook noted it was her that did most of the talking with Lithmîrë making a few responses when prompted. From what she could gather, he’d spent most of his life cultivating fields and growing plants and in places that seemed none too hospitable for such pursuits. Or so she gleaned from the few brief descriptions he let fall. Still, he was a good listener and he didn’t seem to mind as she bragged a bit about her own accomplishments.

She wondered how he had gotten his injuries, but he seemed the sort that was best left to come round to the telling of that sort of tale by himself. ‘Bit like a hedgehog, he is. Curl up in a tight little ball to protect his soft underbelly; spiky bristles coming to his defense if he’s poked at too much.’

The sun had moved a few finger lengths west as their conversation wound down to a close. Cook excused herself, saying she needed to get back to the kitchen. the last touches on the supper meal would need to be done. He helped her load her basket back up and saw her to the entrance to the bower.

‘Come by the kitchen later for your evening meal, if you will. Be glad to have you. I should know from Granny Oldbuck by then if those herbs you need are near her.’

Cook trotted off, stopping once to wave at him as he stood watching her go.

[littlemanpoet]

As Uien came toward the Inn she saw out of the corner of her eye Eswen and Falowik sitting with their backs to the Inn, deep in discussion. They would have to wait. She passed them without a glance, and ignored Falowik's belated call.

There was Cook hurrying back to the kitchen from a little enclosure of trees and well tended brush. Cook turned one last time and waved briefly to someone who was within. Then it could not be the burned elf, for he could not possibly be on friendly terms with anyone, though Cook was not an ordinary hobbit. Out of curiosity Uien turned toward the enclosure and glanced inside....

...and almost walked headlong into the burned elf. She stopped, recoiling at the suddenness of meeting her new bane. What was not burned of the elf's expression, changed from thoughtfulness to sudden ire. They stared at each other wordlessly for a long moment. The burned elf opened his mouth as if to speak harsh words, but he closed his mouth into a bitter line.

Uien's hands met in tight fists over her abdomen, her arms straight and tense. She found her voice.

"You-" Her voice trembled. "You have-" She faltered, suddenly unable to finish her accusation. This burned elf looked as if her words could rend him to ashes. She drew breath. "What new darkness is this, in my mind, elf?"

[Lasbelinion]

Uien is ill received

What tenuous feelings of safety and shelter he had felt just short moments ago now fled at the entrance of the other. Anger rode her voice and features. Her fists were clenched as if to punctuate what her words would name. It mattered not the offense, he had learned. Better to stand still and get it over.

In long learned reflex his muscles tightened as he awaited the sure to come blow; his mind shut hard against the expected pain, severing his receipt of it from consciousness. For a space of time there were two beings which stood in his place . . . waiting . . .

The air thickened with her unmouthed accusations. And still the blow did not fall. Taking a quick short breath, Lithmîrë stepped back from her trembling form. A fragment of a question she threw at him settled precariously in his consciousness.

‘What new darkness is this?’ he heard.

Harsh voices rose at the edges of his memory. ‘Thinks his kin will come looking for him.’ The voices of dark men and Orc grated against his ears; their rude laughter assailing him as sharply as the stick with which they beat him. ‘Dark and ugly as we are now to them . . . that’s how you are to your foul kin in their precious forests.’ They’d laughed again as they sent him running back to his fellows in the fields; the lashes of the overseer biting at his back . . .

He struggled up against the ghosts, to see that she was still standing there, unmoving. A small glance to his right showed a break in the bushes between the trees. He registered she had no weapon on her . . . save her mind. It was she that had tried to force her way into his thoughts. Like the others with their sullied ways . . . she was small . . .

From some hidden corner of his awareness rose a stench of revulsion at his thought that he could choose to kill her. And with it some understanding that such an act would indeed be dark and ugly. What faint hope he held for himself would be quenched in such overwhelming shadow.

Lithmîrë shut his mind hard against her. ‘Stay back,’ he warned her in even tones. ‘Look to yourself,’ he rasped, taking another step back, lengthening the distance between them. With a sudden gathering of his cloak about him, he turned quickly to his right and ran; the brutish jeers and laughter of summoned ghosts biting at his back.

[Primrose Bolger]

An invitation to Larien

Ginger colored at the question. ‘Ferdy. Well, he’s my fellow. Lives with his family in Hobbiton.’ The thought of him caused her to blush even more deeply. Wanted as it was, this new tie between her and Ferdy was new. And she found it hard to name it. Giving herself a breather from further consideration, she took a gulp of cider. ‘Anyways, we’d be happy to have you walk about with us.’

From the corner of her eye she caught the door to the kitchen opening. Buttercup’s voice called to her, saying they needed to set the conies and vegetables stewing for supper. ‘Oh! I’ll need to get the flour and such measured out for the biscuits,’ Ginger said, half to herself. She looked up at Larien as an unexpected thought came to her.

‘Say, if you’re not busy, would you like to help us out in the kitchen. I’m sure there are more carrots and taters to be chopped for the stew. And you can help roll and cut the biscuits with me later when it’s nearer to supper. And there’s the rest of the tarts, too, to drizzle with icing. Buttercup and Ruby will be there. they’re older than me, but real nice. You’ll like them, I think.’ She got up from her chair as she waited for her new friend’s answer.