The Ancillarion: Of the Silmarkenstone Conspiracy and the Incidental Fellowship

[Morthoron]

Amarthanuin drained his ale down to the bitter dregs, and wallowed in extravagant melancholia like a kraken lurking in a dark pool. He grimly gazed about in vain for a busty barmaid to fill his empty tankard (a little know fact about Hobbit maids was they not only had big feet, but they were also well-endowed elsewhere), and with his hyperacuity he immediately noticed something odd: in every corner of the inn lurked darkly hooded figures like him. Wherever there was darkness, wherever the light of hearth or candle did not touch, there were cowled characters cowering in conspicuous but incondign inconspicuousity, the chiaroscuro of light and shadow playing in parallel to the bright bustle and clammer in the center of the inn as opposed to the inordinate coolness and covert counterpoints, pregnant with portent, around its dim edges. Stranger still, the dark hooded figures all had savage glints, gleaming glances peering perilously from the unfathomable unlight of their covered miens.

Amarth chuckled knowingly to himself. It always amused him to think in ridiculously ornate verbosity, a garrulous internal monlogue that never impeded his everyday conversations. After all, these folks were all simple; he needn't flaunt his superiority among the guttural farmers and stuttering ploughboys dripping rank ale down their filthy jerkins. They wouldn't understand him anyway. He moved from thinking about his thoughts back to the mysterious figures ensconced in the gloomy recesses of the Prancing Pony. He wondered if the other inn patrons thought it odd that so many sinister shadowmen (there were at least twenty of them) in clandestine camoflage (all wearing some variation of a weatherbeaten hood or cowl in somber tones of scarlet, black, gray or dark green) were surreptitiously quaffing their stouts or ales as if they were stealing sips. Then Amarth noticed they were all glaring at him, as if he were casting unwanted attention on their furtive subterfuges. Catching the scent of unease in the air, he nervously fidgeted with his mug and cast down his eyes in embarrasment. He had got caught spying on spies!

Shifting uneasily in his chair, he sunk deeper into the darkness of his corner, and looked elsewhere in the inn, hoping that the other hooded figures would forget about him and allow him to once again eavesdrop and reconnoiter unhindered. It was then he notice a passel of hammered hobbits failing miserably at their half-hearted attempt at remaining incognito. He gave a sideways glance around the inn at the shadowmen. They had indeed forgotten about him and were all eyeing the hobbits intently. Amarth shrugged and decided the hobbits might prove entertaining to watch for a while, or perhaps he would shift his attention to and fro between hobbits and shadowmen as a means of passing time, for he was now dreadfully bored.

[Morthoron]

Amarthanuin's boredom grew downright fatiguing. Between the tediously covert but clumsily conspicuous shadowmen in the corners, and the jovially sloshed Hobbits (one of whom was singing an off-key rendition of a Shire lullaby -- something about spoons forking dishes over the moon, or some such nonsense), Amarth eventually slumped against his tankard and began fitfully dozing. He was startled awake when one of the drunken hobbits (the one with the horrible tenor and childish lyrics), tripped over Amarth's outstretched boot and was sent sprawling to the floor.

Amarth wearily gazed with glazed eyes down at the prone Hobbit, when *POOF* the hapless Hobbit vanished. Amarth wondered at the alcoholic properties present in Butterbur's obviously potent ale. "Damnation! Th' stuff is better'n I thought," Amarth belched and fell back asleep.

[Kitanna]

Astalder gasped as the singing hobbit fell and disappeared. It couldn't be, could it? This was who she had come so far to find. And now she learned he was as clumsy and hapless as any hobbit. She sat forward in her seat, straining her ears for the sound of an invisible crawler, but to no luck. There was far too much external noise to here the softness of a hobbit crawling away from his landing spot.

This was a most unfortunate turn. If someone was out there, following this poor fellow, no doubt they would now be drawn to this incident. Astalder shuddered to think. The hobbit had reappeared by the feet of a man. Astalder immediately recognized him, Aragorn. She need not worry for a little while. It was time for some fresh air anyway.

She pushed herself away from the table. She made sure her hood was up and her ears were concealed. The hound at her feet trotted out in front of her as she made for the door. She passed by the man who had tripped the hobbit in the first place.

She could disguise her face and body, but Astalder's sweet, melodic voice would always give her away. So when she spoke to the shadowy figure she kept it low, "You should be more careful where you stick your feet." He didn't move and appeared to be asleep. Astalder, in elven grace and beauty, kicked his foot and headed for the door once more.

[Nerwen]

The voice was not too low for Moonflower's super-keen hearing. She recognised those cloying, would-be musical tones immediately. The padding of the fleabitten hound who followed her aunt everywhere only confirmed her fears.

"Auntie Astalder! Here!" she gasped. All Moonflower could think of was that her family was looking for her, trying to take back her hard-won independence.

She shrank back into her shadowy corner, hoping to escape the notice of her least-favourite relative. Astalder had always pretended to sympathise with her blind niece, but never missed a chance to remind her of her handicap. Worse, Moonflower suspected that her aunt knew all about her unhappy love for the Balrog Slayer– knew, and secretly laughed at her.

Only when she heard the door close behind her aunt did Moonflower allow herself to breathe a sigh of relief. It was shortlived: Aunt Astalder might have gone, but her other problem remained.

She desperately needed someone to explain to her what was going on. For her, invisibility had no meaning; she did not understand why a simple hobbit's drunken singing had made a shocked silence fall over the common room. Yet she just knew, somehow, that danger was in the air.

Moonflower rose to her feet and made her way to the mysterious individual her aunt had rebuked.

Standing over the slumped figure, she increased the strength of her psychic "vision". With her power at its height, she could see more clearly than those with working eyes– but it was a terrible strain. For now, she made do with dimly recognising the outline of a hooded head and... could it be a beard?

Moonflower fought down her disappointment. For a moment there she had thought she sensed the presence of a kindred soul, but clearly this being was no Elf.

Still, she reasoned, anyone who annoyed her aunt so much couldn't be all bad.

Moonflower cleared her throat.

"Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo," she said. [Sindarin. = "Hi there."]

[Lalaith]

“Oh Morcair-shu! You bad, bad boy! What will daddy say?” Sharpairien wrinkled her freckled nose in adorable dismay and tossed her shining auburn locks over her bare, Arien-kissed shoulder. She pushed aside the luxurious damask sheets, got out of her hand-carved Nan Emloth mahogany bed, and removed the chewed circlet from the maw of the little dog that sat wagging its tail on the exquisite Teleri-crafted rug.
“Oh no, it’s the one You-Know-Who gave Daddy. And he gets *so* weird and boring about anything to do with Her.” Sharpairien’s mother, Ivanariel, never referred to the first wife, Celebrian, by her real name, and had brought Sharpairien up to do the same. It was kind of a mother-daughter private joke. It had to be. Elrond would smile indulgently at most of the antics of his charming and wilful youngest child, but he did not like any jest or disrespectful reference to the departed Celebrian. And now Morcair-shu had destroyed her last gift to Elrond before she passed over the sea – the priceless amethyst and crystal-studded mithril circlet he always wore on his noble brow at Council meetings.
“Now, you naughty thing. Make amends by going to fetch Daemian, tell him to come to help me choose my outfit for today.”

[Morthoron]

It was not that he hated Hobbits. Truthfully, he had never even engaged one in a conversation longer than a brief remark about the weather or to ask directions (which always turned out to be an insufferable chore, considering the Halfling predisposition to long-windedness). But there was something annoying about the paunchy little blighters: in their omnipresent and almost manic cheerfulness; their incessant geneological rambles (I mean, really, how far could they trace their brief ancestries back -- one or two hundred years? Pffft!); their inveterate butchering of Westron, droppin' the g's and losing the 'andles on the 'aitches; and the folksy but addled adages that peppered their glib speech (''After all's gone, nothin' is left", "I don't cotton to conies lest they're skinned and sauteed", "Don't count your barley before it's batched", or some such rot).

No, Amarthanuin did not have any ill-will for the half-witted Halflings, but he couldn't countenance their annoying presence for more than a few hours at a time, and the alloted amount of time that Amarth could bear these plump periannath had reached the frayed edge of forebearance several hours ago. He noticed the Prancing Pony had thinned out dramatically; in fact, all the Hobbits, including the one who seemingly disappeared, were long gone, and only a few drunken sots were left, sprawled and snoring, until the next morn's cock crow. No longer drunk himself, but with a headache to match his annoyance, he wondered how long he had been napping.

Catching the proprietor of the inn, one Barliman Butterbur, at the top of a flight of stairs, Amarth inquired about a room. Butterbur scratched his head for a moment and drawled confusedly, "Well, that's just the thing, beggin' your pardon, kind sir. You see, it's like this: what with the seeming invasion of hooded strangers lurking about, it seems the old inn is piled to the rafters with 'em."

"And...that means...what?" Amarth growled rather sternly.

"Well, one thing pushes out another, as they say." Barliman replied, "and no new is good news."

Amarth bit his lip and stared hard at the innkeep.

"Now, now, no need for all that," Butterbur continued hesitantly, mopping the sweat off his forehead with his apron so that half of his words were muffled in beer-soaked cotton. "It just that there are no rooms left for the big-folk. There, I've said it, and beggin' your pardon and all, but there's just so many rooms to let and so little time to make sure every patron is...ummm....patronized."

Amarth sucked his teeth in exasperation. "So," he sighed, "there are no rooms to let then?"

"Oh no, not at all, I mean, yes, we have rooms, of course we have rooms. It's just that..."

"It's just that, what?"

"Well, you see, there's no rooms for big-folk, and, well, seeing as you're rather on the short side, I was wonderin' -- no offense and beggin' your pardon and all -- if you wouldn't...ummm...all things bein' equal and all, if you wouldn't mind..."

Amarth's ire was growing exponentially, particularly since Butterbur made reference to his height (a sore spot for him, to be sure). "Butterbur, if you don't spit it out, I shall cut out your tongue and nail it to your forehead, for all the good it is doing you now."

Barliman took a deep breath and then rushed through an explanation: "Well,allweseemtohaveatthemomentisanice,cozyHobbit room,ifyoudon'tmind,kindsir."

"A...Hobbit room?"

"Yes...yes sir," Butterbur gasped as if he were in agony.

"Well, I guess that will have to do."

"It will? Why, yes, of course it will," Barliman wheezed in relief. "I'll go roust out that lazy slowcoach Hob to fluff up the pillows, dust off the blankets and throw some new rushes down. It's flea season here in Bree, you know. Can't sleep tight if the bedbugs bite, as we say."

Equally relieved to be done with the fat innkeeper, Amarth nodded and answered, "Very well, Butterbur. In the meantime, I will take a walk outside for a bit."

Not waiting for Butterbur to reply, Amarth wheeled away and headed toward the great oaken door that led to the sodden streets. It had been raining on and off for most of the week, and the cesspool that was Bree was a muddy mire. Careful to keep his boots centered on the wood planks thrown down in a halfhearted attempt to keep passers-by from sinking waist deep in the puddling muck, Amarth tread lightly down the darkened street. He hadn't gotten very far when he espied shadowy figures huddled sinisterly over a body laying in the middle of the street.

[Kitanna]

*save*