Dear Mother and Father,
After reaching the Trollshaws, Rua and I made our way to Barachen's Camp. Rua met a friend there, Heithur Ironfist and they had a high old time, drinking ale and swapping stories. We stayed there for about two weeks, gathering dwarf iron ore and smelting it into ingots. Heithur had been helping transport some dwarf relics from Thorin's Hall to Rivendell to bring to Glóin as gifts for Elrond. He went on ahead to Rivendell to announce their arrival, but the rest of the company never arrived. So he went back to look for them. That was when we met him and an elf by name of Belmoira. She was very graceful and kind. She acted almost like a mother to me. We started a search party for the missing dwarves and got as far as the ruins of Ost Dúrgonn, north-east of the Last Bridge. There we found a colony of caveclaws and an injured dwarf by name of Tóki Whitebeard. He told us the stones had been stolen by trolls and Heithur insisted we mount an offensive to get them back! Being old friends, Rua of course agreed to help, so off we went, in search of trolls. With Belmoira's tracking skills, we found the trolls and attacked them. I will not speak of the carnage or the fright I felt. It is enough that we killed them and retrieved the stones for Heithur. He was overjoyed for now Glóin would for certain be made welcome in Rivendell.
I was fascinated by Belmoira and was overjoyed that she decided stayed with us for a time in the Trollshaws, then accompanied us back to Bree. It was during this time that she told me she loved to decorate houses. I too, have a passion for this so we decided to join our talents and thus the Ladies' Housing Committee was born. Our first projects were our own homes of course and very well they turned out indeed! Belmoira then wrote a proclamation in the homestead, to let everyone know we were in business. This is how it read:
Greetings!
Let us introduce ourselves... we are the founding members of the Ladies Housing Committee! We are a very professional group who ventures forth into various homesteads, giving our Official Seal of Approval to how homes are decorated. We are very thorough in our criticisms and do offer our expertise on how a home should look for maximum effectiveness for when you have friends stop by for a visit, come for tea and biscuits, a nice hot pie or several mugs of frothy ale.
Our requirements are thus... we shall need to have a list of names and addresses in order for us to enter and critique, we shall then prepare a list of those homes and/or kinhalls we approve after the initial visit and if any are in need (and we have seen many dire ones!), then we shall require for a short period of time authority to redecorate using our professional skills. We shall then invite the homeowner to view his or her newly decorated home, and/or give our advice on perhaps moving this trophy or that for maximum effectiveness and then and only then shall the Ladies Housing Committee grant the Seal of Approval.
The LHC does provide floor and wall paint and various pieces of furniture to make the ensemble come together and also do landscaping; however, cash donations are welcome as the aforementioned items are not free of charge and special items may be charged according to rarity. Any items that do not fit our standards will be gathered and mailed to the homeowner or if given a key, placed in their chests.
The Ladies Housing Committee is a professional foundation with superb references by request. Thank you for your consideration,
Signed, The Ladies' Housing Committee
I wonder who our first real project will be, I'm so excited!
Your loving Zara
