Breelands Weather
The mid morning spring air is cool but pleasant around you. The day sky is cloud-filled and gloomy.

================================== Bree Time ==================================
Real time: Tue Jan 14 10:16:54 2003
Bree time: Mid Morning about 9 AM on Hevensday of Spring - April 12,1428
Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent

Hobbit Smials
The road winds up the side of Bree Hill, going past many hobbit smials on the way to the hilltop. The view from here is lovely, looking out over the city of Bree and the lands beyond to the west. On a clear day, one can see the Blue Mountains far, far to the west.


The road is steeper here, winding up the side of the hill around trees and past hobbit holes. Off to the west stretch out rolling hills and fields and beyond them, if it was clear, you could see mountains. But it is not clear. A glowering cloud hangs over Bree, threatening still more rain and shrouding the tops of the hills in mist.

On the side of the narrow twisty road, a girl is sitting on a stump. Her knees are drawn up, her face twisted into a fearsome frown, she is doing something.. one hand holds a bit of wood. And where it can be seen as she hunches over, a bright flash of blade shows now and then. Little flakes of wood fly out at random, showering the still-soggy ground with tan.

Ack! I erased Toldo's pose somehow. :(

Tathar makes one last painstaking slash at her stick before looking up. For a second her face remains blank, and then a pleased smile spreads widely across it. "Good morning. I'm fine, how are you?" A bit of breeze plays with her curly hair, tugging it across her shoulders and forehead, but the girl ignores it; bright eyes fixed on the hobbit. "I'm Tathar, by the way. I don't think I heard your name?" Swinging from comfortable nonchalance to polite formality, her manner is an odd mixture of child and adult.


Toldo looks ambivalent, but says "Well, erm, I'm Toldo, and well met if I may say so Miss Tathar." He looks interestedly at Tathar's stick. "What's that you're making there Miss Tathar?" He smiles softly, glad to be out of the rain.


Dark eyes drop to the mangled stick and a doleful tone enters Tathar's voice. "It was /supposed/ to be a lizard." She holds the carving out for his inspection: there is a lump that might be a head with two gouged eyes, another nob that with a great leap of imagination could pass for a leg; but in no way does it resemble any manner of lizard known to Middle Earth.


"Well, it could do with some work here and there," says Toldo, taking the 'lizard', "though I'm sure it will be a wonderful lizard when you've finished with it." He holds up his pipe, showing its very smooth bowl, and intricately carved shaft, complete with "Toldo Appleleaf, Longbottom" carved in among the leaves. "See this pipe? Not to be showing off or owt like that, I carved this when I were a wee teenager, so if you wanted, I could take your lizard and see what I could do with it? What do you say?" He is smiling, and squats down on his ankles beside Tathar.


"Toby can carve and I wanted to, too. I thought it would be easy." Tathar continues along her own thought for a minute before finally starting to listen. "It looked easy when he... you made that?" She cranes her head about to examine the pipe from all angles. One long strand of dark brown hair falls across her nose and she blows at it, going cross-eyed for a second. "Can you? Would you? Will you show me how?" And all the gloom vanishes from her face in an instant, leaving it sparkling with enthusiasm.


"Aye, me brother Timbo showeded me how to do it. I'll just nip inside and get a few bits and bobs that'll help you out a bit." He goes inside his hole, and comes out with a small leather pouch. He sits down on the stump next to Tathar and unrolls the pouch on the floor to reveal a craft knife, and a smaller knife. There is also a curved knife and a small piece of wood. "First off, the tools." He picks out the knives, very carefully and begins to show them to Tathar.


Tathar's gaze wanders down the lane while she waits, across a few hobbits who seem to be out for a stroll, and off into the distance. But when Toldo returns, her eyes sharpen at once, focusing on the knives with something close to glee. She bends her curly head down inspecting them with care and then asks, just a hint of puzzlement in her voice, "You need more than one?"


Whistling to himself, a tall man, around 6 feet tall at a glance, strolls along. His hand resting casually on his blades hilt, he has a rather 'disturbed' look on his face as he wanders past a few hobbits, probably not a huge fan of the small folk.

Catching sight of Toldo Gaunt walks over to him, and his female companion, "Toldo" he says with a smile and a nod, he glances at Tathar and reaches out to ruffle her hair "aren't you a pretty little thing" he squints slightly, "wow.. you look just like Tanna", he seats himself down without asking and scratches at his chin, where a week of unshaved stubble shows through.


"Aye Miss Tathar, see," he holds up each knife in turn and explains what they all do. "Now, let me show you how you use them." He hands the larger craft knife and a piece of wood from the tree in his garden to Tathar. "Now, you do it like..." He is cut off by Gaunt. "Is everything alright Mr. Gaunt?" he says nervously.

Toldo exclaims "Goodness gracious me look at the sun! It must be midday already!" He looks at Gaunt suspiciously, wondering why he has come, but he thinks he knows. "Well miss Tathar, you have a go with these, and I'll see how you're doing next time I see you eh? Right now I'm due on patrol, so I must be off I'm afraid." He begins to make his way down the hill towards the Breeguard's headquarters.


Interrupted in the midst of this very important lesson, and by such a man! Tathar fires up at once. "I do not!" she snaps, glaring at him. "That horrible meddling woman? And keep your hands off my hair." She turns back to Toldo with an audible sniff and takes the knife and offered wood. But even as she holds them and waits for the hobbit's instructions, her dark eyes slide now and again towards the tall man; then leap away.

But her teacher's imminant departure erases the man from her mind completely. "Oh," she says, disappointed. "Do you have to go? You haven't told me anything..."


Gaunt smiles at Toldo and waves "sorry!" he calls, before turning to look at the young woman once again, "hello there" he says with a chuckle "I apologise, I take it back, you aren't a pretty little thing.." he rakes a hand backwards through his hair, "may I have a name?"


Fury, bafflement and uncertainty chase themselves across the girl's expressive face. "I am! .. you... I.." She sputters for a minute not able to say anything at all, and then all her anger dissolves into laughter. "I'm Tathar Appledore," she says when her giggles have subsided. "Who are you? You know Toldo... Are you a guard too?"


Gaunt smiles and inclines his heas to one side, "nice to meet you miss Appledore" he extends a hand "my name is Hamfist, Gaunt Hamfist" he smiles and nods "I am a breeguard yes, I was the one who gave Toldo his job". He folds his arms across his chest, "how old are you? if I may ask, little lady?"


Tathar shifts her knife to the other hand and reaches out to shake his. "You did?" She eyes him speculatively. "Would you be angry? Mr. Thistlewool said you would be." A smirk plays acros her lips at some memory. "Oh, I am fourteen," she adds as an afterthought. A sudden gust of wind howls down the street and she shivers, looking up at the threatening clouds. "I hope it doesn't start raining again. I am getting tired of it always being wet. Mother thinks I should stay inside and that is very dull. I have to sneak out."


Gaunt smiles and shakes Tathars hand, "why would I be angry?", he nods at her age, "a shame, probably too young for me to take you to dinner" he offers a wink before chuckling, he looks up "I don't think it will rain again.." he says with a hint of doubt in his voice.


"Oh," Tathar looks away, half shy, her cheeks dimpling with a grin. "I wanted him to arrest me, I thought it would be fun, but Mr. Thistlewool said it was against some regulations or something and his supervisors would be mad." But she bristles again at the suggestion that she might be too young for anything. "I'm not! I'm almost grown up! Only... being grown up doesn't seem like very much fun," she adds dolefully. "You always have to be worrying what people think or say or something."


Gaunt smiles, "if you want someone to arrest you, just kick them in the groin, but it isn't fun.. so don't try it" he chuckles and inclines his head to one side, "so your old enough eh?" he smiles "would you like me to take you to dinner then?" he says, a wry grin on his face. He shrugs his broad shoulders, "and growing up isn't that bad, better than working when you are a bit older"


The girl laughs again. "Oh, I wouldn't," she says. "Unless I had to." Her eyes sparkle with fun as she confides her plan. "I told him I was a dangerous bandit, see?" And she looks down at her thin arms and hands proudly. "Don't I look very dangerous?"

In the next minute though, she is scanning his face a little dubiously. "I don't know you... perhaps my parents wouldn't like it. Where would we go?"


Gaunt raises an eyebrow and looks at the girl "dangerous?... yes.. very" he smiles and yawns slightly, "oh I don't know, the prancing pony?"


Drawing herself up primly, Tathar says, in a burst of proper ladylikeness, "Thank you, kind sir, I will consider your offer." And then she relaxes and grins at him. "AND I have a knife. Two actually, if you count this one." She gestures with the larger blade that Toldo had given her just a little while ago.


Gaunt raises an eyebrow "knives?" he frowns "what do you need them for.." he asks suspiciously, he shakes his head "you really /do/ look like Tanna you know"


"Well," replies Tathar a bit ruefully, "I was trying to carve a lizard." Again she profers her bit of wood for someone's inspection. "It looked so easy when Toby did it, but it is much harder than I thought." The lumpy scarred stick still bears no resemblance to any form of lizard, or anything else for that matter.

"I don't like her. She said she would tell my mother that I didn't have shoes on." Tathar looks down at her bare feet and wiggles her toes in the grass. "I don't need shoes, it's spring now. And I wasn't a bit cold!"


Gaunt smiles and stands up, he stretches and chuckles "well.. I think it is very good, besides, no-one can get it right on the first try". He stretches and makes sure his sword is secure on his belt, he shrugs "not many people like Tanna, she is quite.. grumpy" he smiles and leans forwards to give the girl a kiss on the cheek, "it is a shame you are so young, you're cute" he yawns and nods "I must be off now, farewell miss Appledore"


A faint hint of red colors Tathar's cheeks at this unexpected farewell. "Er," she says, confused. "Thank you... goodbye." But in the next minute, she is again hunched over her knees, busily shaving at the already mutilated stick with Toldo's knife.