Hard Winters RPG

[Folwren]

Eodwine did not stir. Saeryn sighed and drew her hand away from his forehead. She had hoped to discuss with him the arrival of the caravan and of the contents of the letter from Athanar, but it would have to wait, she told herself.

She went back out and had nearly reached the kitchen again when she spotted the back of a small red head poking up amongst a pile of sacks stacked near the door. She stepped around the bags and looked down at her daughter, sitting just in the midst of them, a raw potato held in both little fists.

"Look, Mama," Ruari said, holding the potato up for her to see. "They brought food." The potato skin was scored and broken, and the white flesh showed through. Ruari had been gnawing at it with her little baby teeth. Tears sprang up into Saeryn's eyes when she saw it.

"Yes," Saeryn said. She smiled, trying to hide her tears. "Yes, daughter, but potatoes have to be cooked before eating. We have porridge cooking in the kitchen, let's go in and get some of that." She held out her hand towards Ruari. For a moment, her daughter hesitated, still clutching the potato. Then, without putting her potato down, she reached out and took Saeryn's hand.

They went into the kitchen together. The women glanced at her as she came in, and she noticed an expectant silence in the air, as though she had entered just in time to interrupt a question from being answered. A young man whom she did not know stood by the table with two jars in front of him.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Upon the sight of the leaven and honey, Stefnu rushed to the table. She looked first into the jars, then quickly up at the boy who had brought them. She did not have to make an effort to put a big smile on her face.

"These are treasures, lad! Treasures! Aren't they, lady Saeryn?" she glimpsed her entering the kitchens.

"His mother sent this for you," she added, pointing at the leaven and then at the youth towering over her. "That is so lovely!" Then she spotted little Ruari's red head sticking out in curiosity from behind her mother's skirt. Stefnu smiled at her, which was already enough to make the girl break away from her mother and run towards the table and the unfamiliar young man, a thing she had obviously been itching to explore since the moment they entered the room.

Stefnu moved the jars closer to the edge of the table, so that Ruari could examine them.

"Come and take a look what this good boy has brought us. See? There is leaven, so we can make bread! And here is some honey," she picked up the jar and held it towards Ruari to smell. "He brought it all the way from his family where they have bees that make this honey. We can put a little bit in your porridge if you are nice! Has she been nice today, lady Saeryn?"

[Mithalwen]

The new arrivals put Elfthain into a bit of a quandary; the tall woman although much younger was clearly the lady of the house and for the long moment of silence that followed her appearance he thought perhaps he should repeat his speech, awkward enough the first time. He was saved by one of the older women, the one with fire-gold hair whose effusive reception of the simple gifts made him colour a little from embarrassment. Nevertheless it also relayed the information without him having to, so he was grateful. However Elfthain felt he should say something but what? The woman had opened the jar to examine the contents and the sweet fragrance transported him back to his home and his childhood, days of plenty when porridge with honey and thick cream was standard fare not a treat that required good behaviour...he hoped that the little girl had been nice, she was the Eorl's daughter seemingly and yet was clutching a spud as possessively as if it were a mead cake at Midsummer.

Elfthain had a lot of cousins of varying degrees and he was especially close to Elwin's large brood who regarded him as their big brother. So he noticed that the the little redhead was eyeing him curiously and she was definitely the person he was least daunted by... so he sank down to sit on his heels and held out his hands to the child so as to let her decide whether to approach him or not.

"Hello, my name is Elfthain," he said softly

[Firefoot]

“Of the first nine months, I will say little yet save that it was a long and wearisome journey - I hope never to make such a one again – and that it was about a matter that must be brought to the Eorl.” He felt the clenches of that ever-present knot of fear. Soon all would be made known, soon he would be free. “The next three years I spent with my family.” The word still felt strange in his mouth, as if it ought not to belong to him. “I stayed with my brother Bedric, and from my brother Aelfred I learned something of leatherworking. Last October I made up my mind to leave and return here, but as you know winter came early and hit hard, and I have been in Edoras waiting out the winter.”

It was a perfectly factual account, yet expressed so little. He did not have the words to explain the great joy he had found in his young nieces and nephews or in setting his mind to a craft, nor the way he had never quite belonged, never quite felt at home. He looked around at the familiar landscape. The Hall itself had changed a bit, but not the land: that was exactly as he remembered. “It is strange to be back,” he said.