Forsaken Inn

[The Good Hunter]

(With Rillewen)
On a Heartless, Moonless Night

Tam swallowed the lump in his throat. Somehow, either his anxiety infected the girl, or something far more insidious than he could have imagined was stalking the liminal periphery. Or both. There was no good answer to what was going on. For a heartbeat, Tam did not know what to do. He stared at Bel, frozen, not by fear but indecision, cold as any knife. A brilliant flash of lightning and the near-immediate crack of thunder pushed him out of the stupor. He had no idea what was going on, how this girl at the edge of nowhere knew anything, or what he was going to do about it all, but he had to do something. Inaction, it appeared, was deadly.

The avar took Bel’s hand in his and looked her straight in the eyes. His own were stormy grey, but calm. He took a deep, slow breath. “I believe, Bel. I do. I don’t think you’re mad or out of your mind. I’ve lived long enough to know things like this are very hard to fake. I believe you. I don’t know how you know what you know, but that does not stop me from believing your conviction. I’ve heard enough prophecies and pronouncements to know how to tell the crockery from the real thing.” His voice was even-keeled and soothing, he spoke in a metered tone, turning his words into a poetic recitation. He did this when he spoke animals in the wild, when he needed them to calm or to help send them on. Some found the technique insulting when he used it on sentient folk, but now was not the time to quibble.

“Your description…” he paused, thoughtful, “doesn’t bring anything to mind, but I’m a hunter, not a folklorist. I know that animals ‘round here well enough, but I doubt this…thing… whatever it be, is not an animal.” He released her hand and turned toward the room.

“If we must stop our ears, Bel, then let us find some stuffing.”

He didn’t say anything, but he felt a horrible weight of responsibility. Whatever it was out there, whoever, they were after him, after Tam, not Bel. By dropping at her doorstep, he’d put her in danger. He would have been out the door in a flash, broken and bruised ribs and all, if he thought it would save her, but that weight told him, mockingly, that he’d doomed her already, leaving now would only leave her vulnerable. For better or worse, she was involved now.

“Come along, no time to waste now!”

[Rillewen]

Attubêl Hûrphen
Forsaken Inn
A dark, stormy night

Bel blinked. For a moment, she wasn't sure if she had heard him right. He.. believed her? That rarely happened. A small amount of tension in her shoulders eased up, relieved to hear this. That was.. well, maybe a fourth of the battle. If he believed her, then he would act on it, right? And that would help. She only hoped she had understood the correct action that they needed to take in order to avoid the vision she had seen in her dream from becoming reality.

"It isn't an animal," She assured him softly, quite certain of that. "It seemed more like.. a person." She frowned and shivered. "Dead.. but not dead." She realized that was contradictory, but didn't know of any other way of describing it. "Its eyes were so cold and cruel, and it.. had only malice and a desire to kill." She closed her eyes briefly, trying not to feel overwhelmed by the fear that had been upon her in the dream. "It wants to kill us.. but I don't know why. And I don't know how long until it will find us in here."

At this realization, mingled with Tam's words to hurry up, she recalled the urgency of the matter. Shaking off what she could of the terror that had seized her, Bel set off on a search for anything that could be used. "Spread out, look for anything we could use!" She suggested. Tam might be more knowledgeable about such things than her, so he might have a clearer idea of what to look for even if he didn't know what the inn had available. Bel, however, knew the inn quite well.. all of its rooms and all the contents, yet she had a difficult time thinking of anything that could be useable in this endeavor.

Until, suddenly, it occurred to her to consider using paper. She paused, thinking about how a little wad of damp paper might be able to block out sound. It might work. There was plenty of paper at the front desk. Hurrying to the desk, she tore off small pieces of paper from the desk registry (which she'd forgotten to have Tam sign, but oh well), and crumbled one piece into a small ball, smaller than a marble. Then, using some of the rain water dripping into a nearby bucket, she dampened this, squeezed out the excess, and then found it soft and malleable enough to work into her ear. It took her a couple of adjustments to get it where it felt comfortable, then she did the other ear.

"Tam?" She called for him to come from wherever he was currently searching. Her voice sounded strange and very muffled to her, which seemed like a good sign. Now, she just had to hope that this would actually work to protect them from the malicious creature outside.

[The Good Hunter]

(With Rillewen)
On a Muffled, Moonless Night

The exact acuteness of an elf’s hearing is something for a deep scholastic and scholarly debate. Both textually and biologically, they seem order of magnitude above that of their fellow “Children”. Tam never needed consideration of that fact, doing most of his work tracking and hunting in solitude, until tonight. How much stuffing was he going to have to shove into his ears because Bel was so set on this path that hearing equated death? He rummaged around the room, still firmly believing that she was right, but unhappy about the strange situation he was in now because of it. A dozen different emotions, none of them positive or helpful, flooded Tam’s mind. He was angry at himself, annoyed at Bel, furious at the… Thing out there, scared, terrified, exhilarated, expectant, anxious, embarrassed, suspicious, and a half dozen others that flittered about him like lingering gnats. They distracted him from his task, a task he felt a keen and overwhelming urgency to complete NOW. There was no timeline in Bel’s vision or whatever it might more accurately be called, it could happen in a heartbeat in the moments before sunrise. He wanted his staff, his hands felt itchy and malformed without it. Wielding it in his current state would be agonizing, but he’d never encountered anything that could stand up against it, not bears, not boars, not full-grown moose. That brought to mind another gnatish question: what was this thing? Not living, not dead, not an animal, and only ‘like a person’. This land was strange, ancient, filled with old power. Cartographical, botanical, and zoological surveys had take place countless times over the ages by varying groups: Imladris, Lindon, Arnor, Bar-in-Gonagwelu, each of them found things previously and completely unknown to the last. If there was anything truly monstrous left in Middle-earth, it would be here in the lands of Eriador, the place that resisted urbanization better than anywhere else.

Tam stared at the bed and felt a pang of guilt, another pang in a long line of pangs. The only thing he could find was the frayed edge of a ragged blanket. It was not great, but it would have to do. He tore thin, stringy strips from the bed (making a mental note to replace the thing once this ordeal was over) and rolled them into balls as tight as his deft elven fingers would allow. He stuffed them in his ears and, then, looked at the candle, the wax was semi-viscous and shone in the dim light.

“Well, bottoms up,” he said, surprised at the muffled sound of his own voice. There were those that hated the sound of their own voice, Tam saw the innate wisdom in that hatred. The wax helped. It was hot and burned more than he was expecting it to, but it sealed away any space and crevice left by the fabric.

“Now that we’re both perfectly deaf,” the avar said as he came back into the room, barely even able to hear himself. “What say we have a drinking game.”

Did he know any sign language? If he did, it was high time remembered it or there were going to be a lot of miscommunications tonight.

[Rillewen]

Attubêl Hûrphen
Forsaken Inn
A dark, stormy night

Bel saw him come back into the room. She saw his mouth moving. And she was pleased to note that she couldn't really tell much of what he said beyond a muffled blur of sound. "Did you find something?" She asked, without hearing what she'd said very well. She knew that she'd said it, because she could feel her voice working, but it sounded muffled, as if she'd dunked her head under water. That was good.

It also looked as if Tam had something in his ears, so she hoped that he was also impervious to hearing her voice. If that was the case, then that meant he would be immune to the Thing's dreadful spell. "I have no idea what you said!" Bel admitted, raising her voice in a vain effort to be sure that she was heard. A flash of lightning from outside reminded her that there was still a storm going on.

An idea struck her, and she hurried back to the desk to see if maybe, possibly, Mr. Greylake's sons had left their slates behind. She was in luck! Both had been left, along with a couple pieces of chalk. She grinned proudly as she pulled these out, and handed one slate and chalk to Tam, keeping the other set for herself. There, now they could communicate without too much difficulty! She wrote swiftly on her slate, 'What should we do now?' before holding it up to show him, with a very uncertain look on her face.

[The Good Hunter]

(With Rillewen)
On a Muffled, Thundering Night

Tam took the slate and chalk, momentarily oblivious to what their purpose. Having them in his hands brought a wave of unexpected nostalgia over him. Years ago, years beyond count at this point, he had learned writing and basic maths on slates like this. They were quite different, of course, but the same basic principles were in effect. They felt small in his hands, a reminder of how truly long ago it was that he was a youngster, eager to learn. He smiled sadly to himself, a part of him, many parts really, had been lost over the long count of years and aeons. He was barely the same person he was when he was someone’s pupil. What was the man’s name again? Vanto? Where was he now? Had he given into temptation and gone westward? Was he still teaching students somewhere in the Utter East?

Tam shook the nostalgia off. Now was neither the time nor the place. Of course, now that he was thinking clearly, the purpose of the slate and chalk was blisteringly clear. His penmanship was never good, it barely passed muster with his old teacher. I’m not sure. He wrote. What was there to do right now? For the umpteenth time this night, Tam was made well aware his weapon was not at his side. But would that even do any good? Despite Bel’s warnings and precognitions, there was no way to tell what was out there. It could be some corporeal beast, a siren or lorelai of a sort, or a ghost or phantasm of incorporeal nature. He could fight a beast. A ghost? That was another matter altogether.

He erased the slate with the palm of his hand, smearing white dust. We wait.

What else could they do? To understand their foe, they needed to know what it was, where it was. They could glean neither of those two things at present, and going outside was as likely to be a death sentence as anything else. Occasionally, there was a flash of light outside and a rumble overhead, but the storm was nigh completely shut out of Tam’s head. He could feel it though. The moisture in the air, the change in temperature, the smell of the water and the wind.

As if to indicate to Bel that, for now at least, they were safe, he took a seat at the nearby table. He did not feel comfortable, however. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. That smell, putrescent and pervading, lingered in the air. It stung at his eyes here and there, but never quite enough to make them water. He maintained a stoically friendly demeanor. There was no need to frighten his companion. There was stress in the air enough.

All they could was wait…

[Rillewen]

Attubêl Hûrphen
Forsaken Inn
A dark, stormy night

We wait. Seeing the words on the elf's slate, Bel nodded and released a slow breath. There was nothing else they could do, right? She followed Tam's example and slowly took a seat at the table, across from him. For a moment, she stared listlessly toward the door and front window. She remembered the 'dream' that had terrified her so much. It.. whatever it was.. had come, calling to them with that creepy, hypnotic voice. Ordering them to unlock the door and let it in. And, in her dream, they had been powerless to fight this command. And they had both been slain gruesomely as a result. So, her reasoning was.. if they couldn't hear it, they wouldn't do what it said.. right? Therefore, they would remain safe, and it would.. hopefully.. move on. At some point. Right?

Stopping her fingers from fidgeting in her lap, Bel thought perhaps it would be good to do something more useful, perhaps.. distractive. She stood and forced a smile toward Tam, and hoped she hadn't missed anything he might have tried to say to her. Grabbing her slate, she quickly wrote, 'How about a game?'

During the long months when Gwestion and Gladhron had stayed there, recovering from wounds, she had made an attempt to learn to play various sorts of games to keep them both entertained. Mainly, Gwestion.. since Gladhron had only had a concussion, he had recovered much sooner and had been up and about and able to go off and do things, while his brother remained stuck in bed, waiting on his leg to mend. She was by no means very good at chess, but she'd gotten to the point of remembering which pieces could move which way, and she knew the basic idea. She couldn't possibly hope to beat Gwestion at it, but she'd been glad to give him a playing partner while he recovered.

Although he had gone and taken his chess game with him, Bel figured she could probably copy the setup well enough, if Tam wished to play. She could contrive something. Or, if he'd rather play cards, she had a set here and Gladhron had taught her a few easy games that could work for two players. As she waited for a reply, she seemed to feel a bit of a rumble through the floor, and glanced around. Just thunder, she told herself, trying not to feel so on-edge. But.. the door handle looked like it might be rattling too. Her eyes settled on that, and she tensed, catching her breath. Was that from the thunder, or.. was something trying to get in? It stopped before she could call attention to it. Maybe it was just the vibrations from the thunder.. she hoped. Forcing herself to breathe, Bel looked back at Tam to see what his answer was about the game.