Brawlers: Part 4

Emberwood shouldered open the door to the gaol, careful to not spill any of the food she'd gotten from the mess hall. Her poor father had to leave his supper to help break up the terrific row that happened at The Prancing Pony earlier that evening. It had been several hours and she knew his belly was as empty as the drunk tank at the gaol was currently full. 

I miss all the fun. I bet it was exciting! Da'?" She set the basket down on the table. She could hear men muttering and swearing in the main holding cell and women crying in the smaller one.

Two human women were sitting on the bunk, their arms around each other's shoulders, loudly having a weepy conversation. 

"Right in his smug face! The dark haired woman was slurring."Boom! The arm on you! Legendary! And that other prick, too, the one that grabbed you. I could kick both their Elven asses! Drunk! I could do it drunk!"

"I know you could!" the redhead said, her voice wailing with sobs. "You kicked that one guy right in the balls for me. You're my best friend!"

"You're my best friend!" the dark woman howled, sniffing loudly. "I'd do it again! I'll kick everyone's ass in that place!" 

"I know you would! I love you so much!"

 

"I know! I love you too!" 

Emberwood walked over to the cell. "Were you two in that fight at the Pony?" she asked, awestruck. 

A slurring male voice drifted over from the main cell. "They fookin' started it, lassie!"

Emberwood's mouth dropped open. These girls were some hardened adventurers if they were breaking up taverns so bad the Watch had to be called. "Really? Wow!" 

The redhead sniffed, rubbing the bruise on her cheek. "It's a long story," she muttered. "They hiring little hobbit girls for the Watch now? You a Bounder?"

"No," Emberwood admitted. "Not yet. My Da's a Shirriff. I'm bringing him supper." 

"Oh. The dark-haired woman nodded. 

"But I'm learning how to fight, though," she said quickly, feeling a desire to appear as something other than a young country Hobbit to these tough and interesting women. "I'm pretty good at it." 

The redhead smiled. "Well, little hobbit girl that knows how to fight, we sure coulda used your help a little while ago. What's your name?" 

"Emberwood Hayward," she said, her cheeks flushing. 

"I'm Aubren, and this is Rhusty." Aubren gave Emberwood a friendly squint. I've heard that Shirriff Hayward has a kid named Emberwood. I didn't expect..."

"My Da' wanted a boy," Emberwood said sheepishly, trying desperately to hide her delirious pleasure that this woman had heard of her. 

"Well, we're friends now, you know," Rhusty said, her cheeks beginning to turn a sickly shade of green-grey behind the cinnamon sprinkling of her freckles. "We girls that don't take any shit need to stick..." 

Aubren deftly kicked the chamber pot out from beside the bunk and Rhusty fell forward, depositing several mugs of Blind Troll Stout and half a bowl of watered-down stew into it with a loud, ripping barf. She was breathing hard, trying to control her gorge. "...together," she gasped.

Emberwood agreed, pumping her fist in the air. "Hell yeah, we do!"

-By Gina

Brawlers: Part 3

 "So I don't know exactly what started it," Barliaman Butterbur said to Shirriff Hayward. "It was just a peaceful night, and then the next thing I know, a woman launched a tankard of ale at Gwin's head."

The city watchmen were dragging people out of the Pony, stumbling around shattered crockery and overturned tables.

"It was the redhead," Lethrel said, rubbing his skinned knuckles. "The one in the pink dress. I walked in just as she did it. Goes by Rhusty. I was...um...talking to her last time I was here."

"Tell me you didn't hit her," Gwintheldh muttered against the bloody towel he was pressing against his split and swollen lip.

"Of course I didn't hit her. But I grabbed her before she was able to follow it up with a bowl of stew, and a couple of other drunks decided to jump me on her behalf. What did you do, Gwin?"

Gwintheledh's eyebrows shot upwards on his forehead. "I didn't do anything! They started heckling and it just escalated. I think she thought I was someone else."

"Can't you fix that?" Lethrel gestured to his brother's bruised and lacerated face. "You're bleeding all over your shirt."

Gwintheldh pointed at the broken fiddle bow and the damaged headstock of his lute and sighed. 

Barliaman pulled a couple of green flasks from under the bar and handed one to each of them. "Boys, I'm sorry this happened to you in my place. Hob, Heathstraw, I'm sorry you and your men had to come out here during supper. Please have a round on me." 

Shirriff Hayward looked around. Stew and ale dripped from the walls. A few combatants were sprawled on the stone floor, groaning among broken dishware and wrecked benches. The barber that usually set up shop in the corner had fled. He nodded. "This is one for the history books, Barley." 

Barliaman scowled unhappily, shaking his head. "Yep."

"Barley," Hayward went on. "Remind me again why I left the Shire for this shite."

-By Gina

Brawlers: Part 2

Shirriff Hob Hayward was just easing his backside into a comfortable chair in the mess hall when Second Watcher Heathstraw threw open the door and stuck his head in. Hob jumped, startled. What now? My daughter's supposed to meet me here. I'm tired and hungry, I just wanna...

"Trouble at the Pony," Heathstraw said tersely. "We need help." 

Today, I missed Second Breakfast, and then Afternoon Tea. I'm going to waste away, I am. Hob stood back up, trying to focus on the situation at hand. "Oh, no. Orcs again? What..."

"No," Heathstraw said, waving over a couple of other men and Hobbits who were hastily abandoning their suppers.

"Those accursed Blackwolds again? Trolls? Do we need to call the fire brigade?"

 "Worse than that. Drunk girls." 

"Ah, dammit." 

-By Gina

Brawlers: Part 1

Somehow, taking a knife to her hair and hacking it all off had seemed like an excellent idea last night. After she'd done it, it had looked amazing. 

She wasn't sure what had happened to it in the night. It didn't look amazing when she woke up this morning. It looked like a porcupine made of rusty nails...and the raw eggs and pepper powder she'd had for breakfast didn't make it look any better. But she felt better, and she supposed that was the important thing. And her day had gone pretty well, so she didn't even care that Barliaman, the proprietor of The Prancing Pony, had watered down the stew a bit at suppertime. 

But what she did care about was the fact that Cricketsongs was not playing that night out by the fountain. She had spent most of the day very much looking forward to unwinding out by the fountain listening to some music. But the rain had driven everyone away and she found herself sitting in The Prancing Pony with a sparse and mostly bedraggled handful of other patrons. 

Listening to some Elven fop tune his lute over by the fireplace after having broken a string.

And eating watered-down stew.

She took a deep pull off her mug, feeling the Blind Troll Stout burn all the way down. 

"Hey Pretty Boy," she called over to the minstrel. "You know anything from Dunland?" 

"Maybe one or two," he said, glancing up and looking quickly around to see who had addressed him. His pale gray eyes met hers and he smiled.

He looks familiar, she thought, wondering where she knew him from. "I'd settle for something from the Shire. They have the best reels."

"Indeed, they do," he nodded, looking down again and drawing his thumb across the strings to test the tone. Satisfied, he stood up and launched into Bullroarer's Favorite, a jaunty reel he'd picked up in Brockingborings.

She narrowed her eyes, taking stock of him. Tall and slender in the way of elves, with long black hair and an aloof demeanor. His long nose had an aquiline curve to it, lending his face a scholarly profile.  

A sudden realization hit her. I know where I know that ratbag from. That's the idiot that ruined my chances with the other one last time I was in here.

She took another hit of the Blind Troll and scowled, glaring at him. Last time she was in here she had been having a good time, well into her cups, and talking to an extremely handsome Sindarian who had approached her. He had been surprisingly personable for an elf and the two of them seemed to be hitting it off.

And then this bent-nosed, cock-blocking minstrel had come in, said something to him in Elvish, and her new friend had excused himself and left with him.

She spent the rest of the night wondering what that orc turd of an elf had said about her. Her anger flared again, fresh heat flooding her face.

The serving girl had come around again and she took another mug off the tray and tossed it back. The minstrel had launched into some dry Elven ballad. The room shifted, wavering in the firelight as the ale burned its way down her throat. 

Definitely him. Absolutely him. I recognize the voice. 

There was a dark-haired young woman about her age at the bar, exchanging pleasantries with another patron there.

"Yeah watch out," she said, jerking a thumb back at the singer. "That one will swoop in on whoever you're trying to talk to."

The woman glanced over at the elf. "Oh?"

"And he'll bad mouth you in Elvish while he's doing it."

The woman took a hearty gulp of her ale. "He's pretty light to be bad mouthing anybody, yeah?"

The singer looked startled, his pale eyes darting between the two conversing women. A furrow of worry flitted briefly across his brow.

"Yeah he is."

The woman paid for a second mug, walked over to the table, and pushed the drink toward her. "Aubren."

"Thanks. Molly Rhust."  She stuck out her hand. "Next round's on me."

Aubren's fingers closed around hers with a satisfying, bone-bending shake. "This town is full of horses' asses," she said. "I like your dress."

"I like yours, too." She nodded. I wouldn't have come here if I'd known this pile of dung would be here. I wanted to hear Cricketsongs."

"Same. Hey," Aubren called out to the hapless bard. "My friend here says you like to run your mouth."

The minstrel looked genuinely perplexed. Ever the professional, he somehow managed to not miss a beat. He kept playing.

"Yeah, I imagine you're used to people heckling you while you play," Rhusty said helpfully. "I bet it happens a lot. Yeah see?" she said to Aubren. "He likes to ignore people, too."

"Men, am I right?" Aubren said, sloshing her tankard as she held it up toward Rhusty.

"You are right. Oh so very right." She raised her voice so that there was no way the minstrel would miss it. "Especially ones that think that they're too good to talk to you but not too good to ruin a nice evening!" Rusty clanked her mug into Aubren's. Ale erupted across the table. Aubren bent over laughing and this seemed to be the funniest thing Rhusty had ever seen. She took a deep gulp. Foam bubbled out of her nose, making her laugh even harder.

"So, Pretty Boy, you want to come over here and try to make off with my new friend here?" She hooted at him. "Isn't that what you like to do?"

The musician finished up his current song and exchanged his lute for a fiddle. "My Lady, I think you have confused me with someone else." He had a look of bemused tolerance on his face.

"No mistake. You saying I don't know what I'm seeing?"

"I'm not saying that," he said calmly, his fingers deftly finding the next melody on his fiddle. 

"Yeah, and you better not say that either,"  Aubren jeered at him. "Why don't you play something that doesn't sound like a troll farting?"

The room was soft and fuzzy, wavering and shifting through the warm haze of ale, but one thing, one tiny detail, was in crystal clear, singular focus. And that singular thing was the minstrel's cool grey eyes as he barely, almost imperceptibly, rolled them. 

Molly Rhust didn't realize the tankard had left her hand until she saw it wheeling in slow motion across the table toward the fireplace, twirling out galaxies of stout in golden ribbons and Shire fireworks, spinning its inevitable path toward the minstrel's face.

The door opened. An Elven man stood in the doorway, beads glinting in his honey-colored hair and a look of open-mouthed shock on his face.

Oh, she thought. That's the guy I was trying to pick up last time. 

-By Gina

The Fall of Ukko Surma

The twins hid in the snowbank

And watched the giant pacing, 

Their hands were all a-sweating, 

And their heartbeats, they were racing.

"I've seen Angmar's Watchers, and

I've seen the Flaming Deeps," 

said Kashvi to her brother, 

"But that leg gives me the creeps, so

Watch out for Ukko Surma,

Splat, splat, splat

That foot is coming down, 

Splat, splat,

That foot is coming down,

Watch out for peg-legged Ukko

Dante said, "you duck and hide,

I'll show myself and play him, 

And when he comes to crush me, 

You slip in behind and slay him.

"Eat and drink some snacks first. 

If you got 'em, get to smokin.

I'll sing a song of fortitude and 

hold up a hope token, but

Watch out for Ukko Surma,

Splat, splat, splat

That foot is coming down, 

Splat, splat,

That foot is coming down,

Watch out for peg-legged Ukko

So Kashti struck a mighty blow

When Ukko rushed her brother, 

But then the giant's deadly foot

slammed backwards and did crush her.

A giant with an iron foot,

A minstrel with a lute

And Kashti mangled in the snow

Beneath the stomping boot

Watch out for Ukko Surma,

Splat, splat, splat

That foot is coming down, 

Splat, splat,

That foot is coming down,

Watch out for peg-legged Ukko

Two minutes before Kashti

at their birth made him big brother

and he couldn't go without her 

back home to face their mother

So Dante shredded lute so fast,

He played through blood and blister

He dove around that deadly foot 

And grabbed his flattened sister

Watch out for Ukko Surma,

Splat, splat, splat

That foot is coming down, 

Splat, splat,

That foot is coming down,

Watch out for peg-legged Ukko

The minstrel's magic surged through her, 

She opened up her eyes

"I'm not dead," she uttered,

 in complete and real surprise.

She hauled her legs beneath her 

And she willed her feet to go, 

But Ukko's iron foot again

stomped her into the snow.

Watch out for Ukko Surma,

Splat, splat, splat

That foot is coming down, 

Splat, splat,

That foot is coming down,

Watch out for peg-legged Ukko

Dante dodged another blow, 

Prayed to the gods of luck,

But saw again his sister fall

And grimaced and spat, "Fuck!"

They say that minstrels cannot dance, 

They're ever cursed to play, 

But dance he did, with Ukko 

And that iron foot that day. 

Watch out for Ukko Surma,

Splat, splat, splat

That foot is coming down, 

Splat, splat,

That foot is coming down,

Watch out for peg-legged Ukko

Dante sang of lightning,

he howled out songs of fire,

His music filled the snowy vales

And echoed in the spires

His shouts were like the thunder

A crushing wall of sound

Ukko Surma's eardrums burst, and

He toppled to the ground 

Watch out for Ukko Surma,

Splat, splat, splat

That foot is coming down, 

Splat, splat,

That foot is coming down,

Watch out for peg-legged Ukko

There's creatures in the snow hills

And tigers in the blizzards

The hot springs of cold Forochel 

Are full of hungry lizards

Be wary of the giants

with metal legs and boots

And never harm a girl whose

twin brother plays the lute

Watch out for angry minstrels,

Shred, shred, shred

That lute is going to play, 

Shred, shred

That lute is gonna play,

Watch out for angry minstrels.

-by Gwintheledh of Mirkwood