The Golden Perch Inn

‘Well, now, I do find myself becoming quite fond of it. Not that I’ve given up tea altogether, mind you,’ she hastened to add. ‘It’s just that this coffee has a deeper mystery to it. And sometimes when I’m drinking it I think about the warm, mountainous country in the south where the little brown beans come from.’

Being for most purposes a quite practical person, her cheeks colored a bit to be caught out at fantasizing. She pushed her mug toward Will with a nod. ‘Take a little sip, if you’d like. Not quite as strong as drunk plain. But I find I like it better tempered with a bit of sugar and a generous drop of cream stirred in.’

[bill_n_sam]

Rusty surveyed his young cousin. Her injury was certainly responsible for some of the anguish he saw in her face, despite her efforts to put a good show. But the sadness in her eyes could not all have come from the fall. Sensing her reluctance to say more about how matters stood at the moment, Rusty had compassion enough to bite at the proffered bait and let things slide, for the moment.

“Well, young Primrose, I can’t say as there’s been any more eventful news than the excitement you’ve had here right at the inn. Wolves in the Shire! Tis a good thing you weren’t out and about when they were running amuck. With that game leg of yours, you’d been their breakfast, sure as sure can be.” Rusty’s eyes twinkled at her and he winked again. “Now, as for other doings round abouts, ‘twould seem things have been mostly quiet. Old Farmer Ham, now his old sow’s had a wonderous big littler – thirteen of the little squealers! I saw them myself, I did. I hold that’s a record here in Stock. But that know-it-all Bill Buckburrow, he claims there was a pig had fifteen, over to the Hollow. I don’t believe him though. He was always a one for trying to top a story, just for the sake of hearing his own voice.”

Rusty scratched his head thoughtfully, pushing his cap back and slightly askew. “Now what else is news?” he murmured. “Ah! Just now, as I was finishing up my breakfast, I heard a young miss from all the way over to Hardbottle saying she was asleeping in a hay rick when them wolves set to howling and she near died of fright! Have to be very careful these days, wandering about on the roads. She said as how she was looking for work hereabouts. Do you know of anyone needing an extra hand? She looked a sturdy thing, said she’d been helping with the lambing over Willowbottom way.”

[Arry]

Holding the mug near his nose, Will inhaled the enticing aroma of the coffee. With a nod to Miss Miribelle he took a large gulp of the hot liquid.

Oh, my! he thought, pushing the mug back across the table

His eyes began to water as the underlying taste of the brew invaded his tongue. And he felt his throat constrict against his swallowing. Will raised his brow to Miss Miribelle and raised his index finger as if to say, ‘Just a moment. Be right back.’

Will scrambled up quickly from his chair and made a dash for the kitchen, barely making it to the sink. He spat out the coffee and willed himself not to heave up the breakfast he’d eaten earlier.

‘Gah!’ he muttered, swishing some water about in his mouth to rinse it. ‘That was disgusting!’

[Folwren]

Dick had told Robby that he did not think any of the guests who had sung or played the night before had yet joined the company in the common room, but he would let him know as soon as he spotted one of them. “I’ll be out shortly, I imagine,” he said as he showed the man to the door. “And I doubt the others will be long in getting up.”

He returned to the kitchen table and his coffee and in a few minutes, Cella set a plate of breakfast before him and Primrose. They ate with little talking between them this morning. Dick was in a hurry to get out into the common room and exchange gossip and ideas about this wolf attack and Primrose didn’t talk much on her own accord this morning. Come to think, that was odd. . .Prim generally talked as much as any young hobbit lass. Was her leg hurting her all that much?

As though guessing his thoughts and trying to prove otherwise, she got up almost the next moment and moved towards the stove. He looked up, worried that she would hurt herself, but before he could voice any concern, the sheriff walked into the kitchen, and a conversation was taken up between him and Primrose. Dick shrugged and returned his full attention to his breakfast.

Just as he was finishing up his ear caught the tail end of the sheriff’s discussion. “Just now, as I was finishing up my breakfast, I heard a young miss from all the way over to Hardbottle saying she was asleeping in a hay rick when them wolves set to howling and she near died of fright! Have to be very careful these days, wandering about on the roads. She said as how she was looking for work hereabouts. Do you know of anyone needing an extra hand? She looked a sturdy thing, said she’d been helping with the lambing over Willowbottom way.”

Dick smiled and stood up as he picked up his plate. “I might be needing her myself!” he said. “Just for a little while. Don’t look like that, Primrose,” he said as she sent him a disappointed and reproving look. “You’re not fit to be doing all the work that you were. You need time to rest and to heal up.”

Before Primrose had half a chance to reply to Dick, Will suddenly burst into the kitchen. He must have come at the door at an angle, running fast. He nearly bounced off the door post as he tried to make the turn - anyhow it gave him momentum enough to nearly make the sink in two bounds. Something spewed from his mouth and he choked and rinsed his mouth with water for several seconds.

“Gah!” they heard him gasp. “That was disgusting!”

An amused twitch twisted Dick’s mouth as he tried to look sober. “What’s the trouble, Will?” he asked, honestly curious.

[Forest Elf]

Gable had just finished mucking out the last of the stalls. Then she supplied the ponies with fresh hay and water. She sat on a pile of hay and took out the locket again, puzzled at its being in the injured pony’s stall…She sighed as again, she could find no place anywhere of any inscription of whom it could belong to. She rubbed one side against her sleeve, to wipe of a tiny smudge on the edge, but, as she expected, nothing was writing under the smudge, or engraved into the locket. She knew that she couldn’t keep it secret, because if one of the visitor’s here were leaving today, it would be lost to them until their next visit, if they were to come once again to the Golden Perch Inn…

She sighed again, and put the lock back into her pocket. She had a sudden memory flash in front of her eyes, briefly, but one of the few that she had when she headed in a certain direction, off in her own imagination from when she was little. She had been pretending to help to slay a dragon, who was feeling rather grumpy about someone steeling his gold crown and a couple of medallions and his favorite goblet. He had been attacking the village for hours and she was among the three brave villagers’ who had the courage to face the dragon without any wizards being in the area.

They had been fighting for hours, their feet sore from the long walk, their arms tired from holding their shields and weapon. The dragon kept shooting a wave of flame at them, but then, she had been interrupted from her play, by a cry down by the river. She instantly ran down to it, though she knew the cry to be neither human nor elf. She had just reached the bank when she had seen a wolf pup struggling in the river, and she never knew why she did, but she climbed onto a branch and reached out over the river, where she had accidentally fallen in herself, when she had promised her parent’s to stay out of the water for one day, and trouble. Then struggling, she had saved the poor creature. Once she had reached the other side of the bank, she put the cub down and he bowed his head and then raised it and howled. Soundlessly, his mother came and through a silent understanding, thanked her, in some mysterious way….

Then, as sudden as the memory had come, it had vanished. She blinked and wondered why she had thought of it, after being nearly killed by three of them. She had always known that she could be strong, and brave, yet she always had a soft spot for little ones, one that she had never been able to overcome. She then shook the thoughts from her mind, and checked on the injured pony again. Eating like all the other pony’s, and some-what spook-able.

She then headed into the inn where she headed into the kitchen, and found Will swishing his mouth full of water. Then she heard Dick ask, “What’s the trouble, Will?” somewhat amusingly, but a more of it was curiosity. Without giving anyone the time to say something she cassually asked, to no one in particular, “Do you know of anyone who has lost a locket?”