Breelands Weather
The early morning spring air is cool but pleasant around you. Rain pours down from the day sky, drenching all around you.

================================== Bree Time ==================================
Real time: Sun Jan 12 17:35:06 2003
Bree time: Early Morning about 7 AM (breakfast time) on Highday of Spring - April 7,1428
Moon Phase: New Moon
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Town Hall
You are in the main foyer of the Town Hall of Bree. Sunlight comes in through two large windows at opposite sides of the entrance. The room is fairly nondescript, with several wooden chairs for waiting. A small table is at one end of the room, with a vase full of flowers atop it, to add some color. The floor is wooden and uncarpeted, and creaks when walked upon. A few doors leading off into various offices, and a staircase goes upstairs to still more. The walls are covered with paintings, some of them are familiar, others are beyond even the local stories.


Morning; but the overcast sky gives little indication of it. Although open for Town Hall business, the place is still fairly deserted; only faint noises of someone -- probably a hardworking clerk -- moving on the floor above give evidence that work has started. A quiet pitter-patter of rain outside echoes faintly in the large room, while the fresh scent of rain and mud, mingled with musty books and damp corners, adds to the greyness of the morning.


"Bah, confouded raid, ad here was be, hopig for a dice suddy sprig." Toldo sneezes loudly, three times in a row, as he takes shelter in the Town Hall, carrying a small lantern and a small walking stick. His cloak is soaked through and a small puddle has formed around him. His nose is a very bright red.


The door squeaks a little as it opens, letting in a wave of cool moist air; and a very wet girl. She is wearing a cloak, though it isn't doing much good, for the hood is back and the front hangs open. Dark curly hair sticks to her face, little rivulets of water running down red cheeks. A little tune echoes through the mostly empty room and Tathar hops once in time to her own music. Bare feet leave a trail of sloppy footprints behind as she wanders from picture to picture, either unaware of anyone else or ignoring them.


Toldo runs his hand through his hair, squeezing out some of the water, and he turns to Tathar. "Good bornig biss. Though I do't know whats good about it." He sneezes again.


The melody stops abruptly and Tathar turns around, sharp eyes hunting for the source of the voice and landing at last on Toldo. "It's a lovely morning," she says decidedly. "Gorgeous. Beautiful." She gives up on her perusal of the various paintings scattered over the walls and plumps herself down on a chair near the hobbit. "Do you have a cold?" she asks interestedly, "You don't sound very good."


Toldo looks at first taken aback, then confused. He sneezes, then says, "Aye Biss, I do have a cold, see" he opens his cloak to reveal a soaking wet Breeguard uniform, "I've beed od patrol sitce six o'clock this bornig." He makes a shy attempt at a half-smile, but is forced to stop smiling by two more sneezes.


"You're a guard!" Tathar's face lights up and she scootches around on the chair to face him. Her cloak drips, plink, plonk, quietly adding to the puddle on the once-clean wooden floor. "Do you like it? What do you do? Have you arrested anyone?" Questions tumble out one after another, stopped only by his sneezes. And enthusiasm falls away, replaced by a half-chiding, half-motherly tone. "You ought to be home in bed. With soup or something. And a fire."


"Aye Biss, ad thats exactly what I'll be doig whed I fidish, id about ad hour," Toldo says, laughing, "Ad id adswer to sub of your questiods, I love beig a Guard, but subtibes I get a bit cold as you cad see! I havet arrested adywod yet, but thigs have beed a bit bit quiet of late. Ad you Biss, what do you do with your tibe?"


Tathar's dark eyes flicker towards the door and once around the room. Satisfied, she leans a little closer and hisses quietly, "I'm a bandit. A very wicked one. I live in the forest and rob people." Straightening, she adds in a more normal tone, "Today anyways. Tomorrow maybe I will be a forester." Outside, the rain redoubles its efforts to drench everyone foolish or unfortunate enough to be outdoors. "And I am hiding from Mother. She said today we should mend the old quilt and so I snuck out when she wasn't looking."


Toldo laughs and grins through a sneeze, "Oh really?" he says in mock shock, imitating an official voice, "Well if you're a dadgerous baddit, thed I'll have to arrest you I'm afraid." He grins again, and takes a small package wrapped in brown paper from a deep pocket in his cloak, and removes from it a square of flapjack, and breaks it in half, offering one half to Tathar.


"Yes." Tathar nods firmly. "You should. I am very dangerous." An answering grin spreads across her face. "Oh, wouldn't Mother have a fit. Thank you," she adds politely, accepting the flapjack and taking a bite before returning to blissful reverie. "Would you really?" she asks after a minute. "I suppose not.." disappointed.


The oak door swings open and a small hobbit walks in, wearing a dark green hooded coat and soaked from head to foot. He drips as he walks in, and his face is barely visible under the hood of the cloak. He shuts the door and throws the hood up, off of his head, water flying everywhere as he does, and the face of Baskil is visible. His hands reach up to his shoulders, and tug on the cloak, making water fall to the ground where he stands. He notices the other two in the room and walks over to them. As he reaches the two, he looks at them both in turn. "Not a very nice day, it seems."


Two men come down the staircase. One is a clean-cut, youngish man that some may know as one of the council members, and the other a much shorter, older fellow who tags along afterwards like a dog after his owner. "...and she wants you to know that their current meeting-room has a leaky roof and that they won't stand for that," the little man says protestingly. His quarry makes no response, but pretends to ignore him and heads toward the exit.

"Hello now, what's this?" asks the councilman as he sees a large puddle. "I'd be more worried about the Town Hall leaking, Mr. Thistlewool. Seems like the rain's found its way through every ceiling in town." Wilbert pauses as well, the angered look not coming from his face.


"Would" *munch* "I really what?" Toldo says, a combination of cold weather and food slowing his already slow mind. He rips off another huge sneeze, rubs his nose and says "Bless Be". "Dot a dice day at all I bust say" he says to Baskil, with a slight ironic smile on his face.

The two men coming down the stairs attract Toldo's attention, and he says, "Bore roofs a-leakig? Why I was odly helpig repair the roof at the Pratcig Pody the other day, the raid dever stops does it?" He shakes his head, and returns his attention to the flapjack.


"Really arrest me?" Tathar looks hopeful. She tears a bit off and pushes it into her mouth, then is forced to chew and swallow very fast as another hobbit comes up to them. "I think it's a lovely day." A hasty glance at the ceiling shows no signs of water and she dismisses the subject of leaking roofs. "You could. And then I could resist arrest and.." Her eyes unfocus, dreams flickering rapidly through them.


The council member opens his mouth to speak, but is quickly interrupted. "Yes, yes, I heard about that," Wilbert begins. "I've never seen it rain so much in one winter and one spring! Nor so many roofs fail. I have a quality roof, of course, which has always kept me dry. But The alley by my house had a rushing stream flowing down it, and my cellar flooded for that reason...crept under the door and I had a pond down there and--"

The taller man looks down and taps him on the shoulder, as he has been gazing at the ceiling above the puddle. "Mr. Thistlewool," he says, pointing upwards at the ceiling--a perfectly blank ceiling. "I don't think there's a leak there. No water marks or anything."


Nodding his head to the man walking down the stairs, and another to the hobbit who seems to not to like the weather, and another to the human who seems to like it, Baskil walks to a table and takes a seat, pulling a bundle of scrolls out of his cloak and unstringing the binding. He starts to flip through them after he sets them on the table. "No, not it."; "Where is it"; "Nope..." and many more small mumbling can be heard from the hobbit as he tries to find a certain paper, from what it seems. After about ten pages he finally sets them all aside and rests his head on the table. He quietly mumbles to himself. "Why did....." the rest is not able to be made out, but it does seem that he says the same thing many times over.


Toldo grins at Tathar, but turns to Mr. Thistlewool with a sneeze, "I theek we'd all be buch better off if we all lived in proper holes, dud of this leakig, ad it would be warber as well." He shakes his head and sneezes again. He looks at Baskil and his papers, but then looks away again, uninterested.


"And it wouldn't matter if you threw mud at them," Tathar adds, her attention drawn to the other conversation for a minute, and snickers a little before continued her attempt at convincing Toldo to arrest her. "Just for a day," she wheedles. "Half a day? An hour?" One soggy curl droops over her forehead, and impatiently, she shoves it aside, leaving a wet smear across her face. "Please??"


The little man steps forwards, narrowly avoiding slipping on the wet floor. "Don't arrest her, sir. You'll only be giving in to her silly child wishes." He shoots a dark glare toward the guard, for good measure. "And I doubt your superiors would be particularly pleased to hear of you putting her behind bars."


"Well I suppose I could just for a..." Toldo begins, smiling, but trails off, and shakes his head, defeated by the resolution of the Big Man, "Doe, I'b afraid I couldet do that Biss, I....its agaitst regulatiods." He grins at her and whispers "Sorry,"


Just then, the councilman begins to leave again. "See to it that you have that puddle cleaned up, sir," he says to Toldo with a wink on his way out. "We wouldn't want anyone to slip and fall." And as he departs, so does the little man, taking quick steps to catch up. The pair disappears into the town.


A look of sheer enchantment brightens Tathar's face, but only for a second before it falls into dark and gloom-ridden dejection. She glowers at the short man and then turns her shoulder to him coldly. Morosely, one bit and then another of the remaining flapjack is stuffed into her mouth; by the look on the girl's face, the world contains nothing more of pleasure or hope. "He's mean," she says at last.


Stacking his papers once more, after bringing himself to bare, baskil stands from his seat and heads for the door. "sorry, sirs, but I must take my leave for now, so sorry." And with that, he tucks in the papers and flips up his hood, walking through the door. It slams closed behind him.


Toldo stands and smiles sympathetically at Tathar, and leans over and says, "Baybe toborrow you could be a Guard eh? Adyway, I bust be back odto by rouds, so, I'll be seeig you Biss" With a sneeze and a wave, he goes out the door, pulling his cloak around him.


Tathar waves, still gloomily. "Goodbye. I hope you feel better," she adds as an afterthought. But instead of leaving herself, she hunches over, leans her elbows on her knees and ponders the puddle on the floor.