Close to midnight it was when the traveler ambled his way to the camp Kitten made beneath an old, wide oak tree outside Tuckborough. Fully cloaked, his heavy hood fallen over his dusky face, he was invisible on his approach to the meager campfire she built; suddenly he appeared out of the gloom in one step within the gentle golden ring of fire-light. She flashed him a quick smile, but then the expression faded and her demeanor was disheartened.
He slung his newly-burdened rucksack down on the grass across from her, then seated himself between. A copper, said he. She repeated his phrase back to him, in question. For her thoughts, came the reply.
She sighed and dejectedly laid out her day for him. Her every attempt to find a hobbit of the Shire willing to borrow books from the library on her behalf failed. Like him, she had tried varied approaches – asking, begging, bartering – though she had not been successful in any way. He listened to her sympathetically, shaking his head and grunting at her poor fortune, while stretching his legs out and pulling his lumpy bag further out of her view.
As she finished speaking he looked out into the night distantly, as if he was mulling something over. Then he turned to her and asked if she had eaten, and when she shook her head he pulled himself to standing and said he would go look around in town for something to eat. His cloaked form melted into the darkness again, and silently he crept back into the deeply slumbering Tuckborough.
He had recalled seeing a grocer's stand along the main throughway of the town and reckoned he would check if any produce had been left behind. It was quite late for provincial folk and the traveler saw no one about as he snaked the edges of the town, save one sleepy Bounder dozing off against a half-lit lamppost down the lane. He expected no trouble pilfering any forgotten remainders of the grocer's wares.
Rounding a hedge, he saw the covered stall and sideboard of the grocer and paused only long enough to peer again at the drowsy Bounder, still snoozing at his post. He stole behind the stand and crouched out of sight. Running his fingers under the tarp's edges, he found that the grocer had only left her cutlery and sacking supplies on the stall. The traveler shrugged, half expecting that, and moved on to the sideboard table closer to the grocer's house.
Even in the dark he could make out the promising shapes of crockery, though he noted that the grocer's nearby curtained window softly glowed still even at the late hour. Unphased, he slunk beneath the window and his eyes settled on a prize: a stack of mushed pies left under the table, thick sugary filling spilling over the lips of the pans and coating the ground beneath them in fruity sludge. Silently his fingers gripped the bottom most pan and the traveler lifted the pile of damaged desserts; finding them heavier than expected, he had to pull himself upright to rebalance himself.
It was an unfortunate moment for him to have donned boots worn so thin as to have no grip left to them, and his right ankle pivoted beneath his weight atop the thick layer of pie filling pooled across the ground. His body slammed against an old wooden cellar door aside the glowing window with a loud bang. Scrambling to pull himself up while still cradling the pies, the traveler shot a desperate glance to the window and now saw the fleshy face of the grocer peering back at him. Her small mouth opened wide in a scream before she disappeared behind the curtain, and the sound of a door opening and slamming shut followed by yells for help echoed down the lane as he made off with his stolen pies.
When he reappeared at their camp below the hill of Tuckborough, Kitten's eyes widened incredulously at the pile of pies that he set before her. He took his place on the ground beside her and eyed the top of the hill, where the sound of voices could just barely be heard now, a frantic female one drifting above the rest.
Kitten dug into the pies with her fingers immediately, scooping the gooey filling into her mouth with enough relish that the traveler presumed that it was probably the only time she had eaten that day. She had nearly cleaned one pan before she heard the growing commotion in the town, and followed his wary gaze upwards. More voices were being raised, and a few new torches had been lit now though it was past midnight. She asked him if he had met any hobbits that day.
Not intentionally, he muttered.
What did he mean? He was supposed to look for a hobbit to borrow books for them, she gently reminded him.
The traveler warily scanned the town line above and he saw that the main square had filled out with a small crowd and a line of fresh torches. He thought he also saw the black outlines of shovels, or perhaps rakes, waving above heads.
Hobbits are not hard to find here, he absently responded. Then he turned back to Kitten and frowned when he saw that she had stained her tunic with blueberry filling... or as he now thought of it, evidence.
She persisted, heedless of their precarious situation. He was supposed to spend his day finding a way to borrow those books, she chided. He stopped responding to her when he saw that the angry mob had dispersed in multiple directions, each of the town's lanes now patrolled by a small battalion of torch- and hoe-bearing hobbits with a thirst for vengeance at the unforgivable affront.
Art Credit: Warhammer, Regiments of Renown
The traveler slipped his tattered cloak off his shoulders and whipped it over their small campfire, extinguishing it. Swiftly he looked over the girl next to him, still eating though she now understood that something was afoot. He barked at her, asking if she could carry the remaining pies, but with the cacophony of outraged and overtired hobbits approaching steadily he already knew that his spoils had to be sacrificed. He jumped to his feet, snatching his rucksack, then extended his arm to Kitten to pull her up and hissed to follow him into the night.
They ran as fast as they could until their legs ached and their lungs had trouble pulling breath, then progressively slowed to a steady trot between trees and over fences and across planted fields and empty meadows. Long sturdy legs carried them further than those of the stocky half-men, and eventually the torches and din of the enraged denizens of Tuckborough faded away and shadows and stillness once again blanketed the land.
The traveler stopped the retreat under a copse of trees beside a farmhouse, dropping his heavy rucksack to extend an arm again to Kitten and ask if she was well. She only panted slightly, though he knew the unexpected run had to have been hard on her having a belly full of pie. She placed a hand on his arm to steady herself and asked where his cloak was. The hobbits have it now, he replied cheerlessly.
He told her to rest now and to choose their next destination, but the girl only shook her head sadly and reminded him that visiting the library and studying certain books had been the last stopover she wished to make. Without the chance to read and make notes of what she wanted to study, there was nothing else she was interested in seeing. He shifted his position and jostled his rucksack away from view, which she noticed and then stated that he was being peculiar. He playfully dismissed her observation and was thankful when she let it go.
Instead she asked him why the halflings chased them so and he told her truthfully what had transpired. And after he retold his part in the riot-raising, the tension melted away in shared jokes about pie banditry and hobbit-sized gallows. He was still laughing when she abruptly told him that he had a nice smile.
His face went blank, and it took him a moment to regain sensibility before he admitted that it had been a while since he had laughed and smiled so broadly. And yet a moment longer before he remembered his manners to thank her for the compliment. And still a few more before he said that she had given him reason to smile, which brought colour to Kitten's cheeks.
He gestured for her to lie down, and said that he would go scout the farmhouse ahead for supplies. She nodded and curled up on the soft grass as he slipped away, but he did not go to the farmhouse straight away. Instead he skulked behind some hedges for a time, and then returned to her side. He paused to ensure that she was softly breathing, then opened his rucksack and relieved it of its burden; he withdrew the borrowed tomes he had acquired through Dandelily, and tucked inside the cover of one was the slip with an underlined DUE scrawled with a date four days hence. He slipped the tomes under her small hand before disappearing behind the hedge-fence again. As he did, he realized that he had not had a smoke in quite a long while and lit one.
Kitten stirred and looked confused at the tomes by her side. Her eyes whipped around but saw nothing amiss, and when she picked the topmost book up a bright smile lit her face.
Unseen, the traveler mimicked her smile in a haze of grey pipe-weed smoke.
