================================== Bree Time ==================================
Real time: Fri Oct 01 09:16:06 2004
Bree time: Early Morning 8:48 AM on Highday of Spring - April 28,1433
Moon Phase: Full Moon
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Breelands Weather
The early morning spring air is cool but pleasant around you. The murky sky is overcast and dreary.

At the Sign of the Prancing Pony(#27261Rnto)
The Great East Road bends around the southeastern corner of Bree-hill. The Road leads away to the west and southeast, and where it sweeps past the foot of the hill there sits a large three storey inn. The inn has a front on the Road, with two wings that run back, away from the Road to the east, on land partly cut out from the hill's lower slopes. As a result, the rear second-floor windows of the inn are level with the ground. A wide arch leads to a courtyard between the two wings. Above the arch is a lamp and beneath it swings a large signboard: a fat white pony rearing up on its hind legs.


Grey murky clouds drift around Breehill, threatening more rain but not yet delivering. The air is chill and damp, and few folks are about - it being neither meal-time nor late enough for gossiping and drinking. The sun rose some hours ago and most Breemen are hard at work.

Across the great road from the Inn, a lad hunches, half-hidden in the trees. His clothes are relatively new, unpatched and untorn; though a ratty home-built scabbard still hangs at one hip, it is conspicuously empty, and a mostly-healed lump adorns his forehead with glorious colors.


And who should appear on the quiet street but one of the Rangers. And the lad would be familiar with this one, his tall frame and long legs carrying him at a quicker gate than most others. Hence his given title in these parts. For this is none other than the infamous Strider.

The cloaked man stays his pace as he nears the inn, and from underneath his hood glances across the road toward the boy.


Toby is watching the entrance to the inn with a single-minded intensity, eyes flickering from it only to check the empty road at intervals. These same eyes widen at the sight of Strider, and the impotent fury and bitterness that hardens them moves to make room for some other, less easily defined emotion. The boy watches silently as the ranger approaches, his hand clenching spasmodically and then relaxing... empty fingers uncurling.


Now Strider puts his back to the arched entrance, and taking his attention away from the boy for a few brief moments he reaches into a small leather satchel and produces a long-stemmed pipe with a sack of leaf. Without flinching he proceeds to light it, and gives it several draws ere he looks up again. His eyes return to Toby when he does.


"Thought you was gone." Toby's voice is low, carrying no further than across the road, but he glances nervously around him anyways.


"Not gone," Strider says, himself not bothering to look about. He takes another draw of his pipe, and quietly motions for the boy to come towards him. His face is virtually hidden within the shadow of his hood as he leans upon the archway.


The road is empty. The sounds from the Pony small and distant... Toby hesitates, then edges into the roadway and plasters himself against the wall where he will be out of sight from any within the Inn's confines.


Stider keeps his eyes focussed across the road as Toby plants himself nearby. "Been rolling any more wary travellers? Or how came you by the bruise?"


"I ain't!" Toby snaps, but a bit of fear flickers, lightning-like, through his eyes. And at last, "I.. dunno," he admits quietly. "Were sleeping up atop Breehill there, an' I woke up inna field out by m'auntie's in Combe. I dunno how I got there." Despite his attempt at nonchalance, the creeping terror of a black-hole in his memory shivers through his words.


With his free hand, Strider strokes his chin. Another puff of smoke appears from beneath his cowl as he ponders this, and finally he looks down at Toby. "Have you had it seen about by the healers? It looks bad."


Toby nods. "Th'other one, he brung me in," he says, pride in the severity of his injuries overlapping fear. "I were raving, even; off m'head. They made me stay in bed more'n a week."


"Good," replies the Ranger, looking away once again. "Have you looked for your attacker?"


Toby shakes his head, no. "How can I?" he asks. "Never saw 'im. Told ya, I was sleeping up on Breehill, in the brush. Never heard nobody coming, an' I would've." As if seeking for reassurance, his hand drifts down to the empty scabbard, then flinches away and fury spits beneath the rest of Toby's short tale. "Meg tol' me her friend what oughta know said it were them elf folk from Imld-way. But she lied to me about the bird, so I dunno if she be telling me true on this either." His face, turned away from Strider now, is hard and unforgiving.


Beneath the cowl, Aragorn smirks slightly. "I do not think Elves would trouble about a single boy sleeping in the brush. Though they would find it quite odd."

With a last puff from his pipe, Aragorn empties the little leaf he has left from within and wipes the bowl clean with the hem of his weather-stained cloak.


"Then who done it?" the boy demands. "Anyhow, I ain't sleeping up there never no more. I likes waking up where I went t'sleep at."


The door of the Pony opens, and a woman steps out to greet the day. She stops short as the way is blocked with people. "My apologies," she begins, and then she recognizes the shorter one. "Toby! I haven't seen you in a while... what have you been up to?"


The woman comes out from the archway, and Strider slinks further into the shadows. He makes little to no noise as he removes his hand from the satchel.


Toby flinches at his name, his eyes turning to follow Strider as the man melts away from the light - something in them of hidden longing vies with spiky rage. "Nuthin'," he says sullenly. "Don' say m'name so loud."


The woman smiles, lowering her voice as requested... not that she was speaking with much volume in the first place. Her eyes follow Toby's glance, and she starts a bit, as if in surprise, at seeing Toby's companion. He seems to make her uncomfortable, as he does to most folks around Bree.


After a moment, she returns her attention to Toby. She blinks. "Toby! Your dagger is missing. Was it stolen?" No beating about the hedge for this girl, apparently.


Fury is too light a word for what storms in the boy's eyes as he drags them away from the ranger to the woman. "Yes," he grits out. His hands are clenched fists, the muscles in neck and back taut and hard. "Him at the stables, he stole off with my knife. Said I can't come back no more, neither. An' I din't do it!" It is the rage of the liar who has told the truth and is not believed, the thief who has not stolen yet is accused; and if there were some thought of guilt behind it, the lad's bitterness might only be increased.


"Didn't do what, Toby?" She may be annoying and interfering, but she also has the ring of sincerity in her voice, and gentle concern for Toby.


Strider nods quietly in greeting. As the woman obviously looks uncomfortable, he nods again, this time to both Toby and the woman and, he himself playing the part of wrongfully accused, makes his way down the Westward road toward the gate.


His all-consuming hatred is dented just a little by the departure of the ranger; Toby's eyes follow the man down the road and he is silent for a moment. Then, "I never let 'im steal that horse, I din't. I weren't even there. That Carlo, he lied an' said it were my fault and it weren't!"


"Oh, Toby..." The woman's voice reveals the lump in her throat at this. "I'm so sorry. If it helps at all, /I/ believe you."


Toby ducks his head and shrugs one shoulder, the words tumbling almost uncontrollably from his mouth. "Beat me an' said I can't come back no more an' stole off with my knife." It isn't clear which offense he considers the worst. "I'm gonna get it back though, just see if'n I don't."


One hand slips over toward the boy, to rest on his shoulder, if he'll allow it. "Now Toby," she says, worry tinging her tone, "Don' go an' do somethin' rash. Why'nt ye let me get it back for ye?"


The hand rests, light and still, on his shoulder for one brief instant before Toby shrugs it off and steps away. "I ain't doin nuthin' rash, I'm just getting it back." he says, refusing to look at her. "Sides, why'd you care, nobody else does." Bitterness overtops the anger.


"Ye know better'n that, Toby. Don'tchye?" Anna's voice is gentle, reassuring, kind. "And I do care. That's all ye need know. Let me do this for ye, please? Might save ye another treatment from the stablemaster, at the very least."


Toby slides a considering glance sideways. "Y'did help me with the watering," he admits reluctantly. Finally, "All right. But if'n y'can't get it tonight, I'm doing it m'self. He ain't got no right to take it, it's mine!"


Anna nods, and it is clear in her features that her word is her bond. "I'll do what I can, I promise. I'll look for you tomorrow, then? Say, in the market?"


Toby nods and edges away, staying cautiously to the low parts of the road, where he cannot be seen from within the Pony complex.