Oh, a-dipsy and a-doodle
And a-doodle and a-dip,
There she spun, round and round,
Until her feet went slip!
Ivan sang the silly ditty wholeheartedly atop his designated perch on the shoulders of the fountain of Speculo Malum in the Directian main square. A few children danced around to his song while Amber and their parents smiled on and continued repairing the storefronts. They were nearly finished with this section of town, which was impressive since this was where many of the demons had swarmed after being unleashed in order to… feast. It was from so high up that Ivan noticed the large gates of Directian being opened, which was strange because Jalerom wasn't expecting the food shipment until later that evening or even tomorrow. He squinted off into the distance, but couldn't see much of anything coming through the gate until…
A small brown-cloaked figure entered, and he dropped his hood. Ivan couldn't see much, but he did see a dwarf-like beard, and that was enough to get him scrambling down from the statue and darting to the entrance.
"I'll be back soon, Amber! Bye, kids!" he called over his shoulder, and they all waved at him as he dashed off. He wound in between damaged structures and hard-working Directians as he ran down the familiar path to the entrance. He skidded to a halt and a huge smile lit up his face when he realized he had guessed correctly as to whom the newcomer had been.
"Oin!" Ivan cried, and Oin turned to face him, the faintest traces of surprise gracing his hardened features briefly.
"Ivan," Oin returned as Ivan bounced over to him happily.
"You're back! I'm so glad!" the gnome cheered, "How was your trip?"
Oin did not reply to the question and instead shrugged off his cloak and asked, "Where are the others?"
"Amby is in the main square working on repairs. Fae is in the library studying Baator since she finished splitting the dragons—" Ivan stopped to see if Oin would be glad at Fae's accomplishment, but his face remained stony as ever, "Rose just arrived yesterday and she is tending to the garden, Jalerom has been meeting with the stewards of Directian today to figure out a plan of action for when we leave, and I'm right here with you!"
Oin resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he set off for the palace, Ivan walking leisurely beside him and humming something Oin felt was familiar. He shook his head; of all of them, the perpetual ball of sunshine had to be the one to greet him. He had mentally steeled himself against any sort of cheeriness that Ivan projected, but that song…
The two of them walked mostly silently through the city, Ivan greeting people by name along the way and waving to each child they passed, until they reached the main square. Oin was only mildly surprised to see Speculo's statue still up at the fountain, given what one of his daughters had done to their kingdom, but it was none of his business either way. Four children came up to them and grabbed onto Ivan's hands. Oin was slightly surprised that there could possibly be children shorter than Ivan, but as they looked to be halfling children, he supposed stranger things had happened.
"Sing more of 'Dipsy Doodle'!" one of the little girls cried, and the other children cheered their assent. Ivan looked genuinely contrite as he shook his head.
"I'm sorry, but I can't. I'm taking my friend Oin up to the palace! Jalerom and Fae are waiting for him, and you know how busy they are," Ivan explained, and the kids looked sad.
"Is Miss Fae going to come and play with us again?" a younger girl asked.
"I'll ask her, okay, Mia?" Ivan replied, and the little girl smiled a fairly toothless grin.
"I want to see Jalerom again!" the older boy commented, "His sword is really cool!" Oin felt a brief wave of déjà vu wash over him – the last child he'd heard describe something as cool was back in Salania – as Ivan smiled.
"I'll tell Jay to come play too, Hadrian." The smallest of the children, a little human boy of around four years, turned his attention to Oin.
"Which one of Ivan's friends are you, mister?" he asked, and Ivan jumped in to save the dwarf from answering.
"I'm sorry, Flynn, where did my manners go? This is Oin Lightbringer! He's the one who keeps us healthy and strong with healing spells and really good food," Ivan introduced, and Oin was a tad bit amused at how the gnome identified him by his ability to produce food rather than anything else about him. The children all looked up at Oin, their eyes wide in awe and their mouths agape.
"You can make food?" the oldest girl (as yet unnamed to Oin) asked shakily, and Oin nodded. A well-timed collective grumble came from the children's stomachs, and they all looked down shyly. Ivan looked sadly up at Oin.
"The food shipment is really late this week, so the kids have all had to go without sometimes. Actually, everyone in town has. And they don't want to ask because… everyone in town feels bad for needing so much charity and help," Ivan explained quietly so only Oin could hear. "Most of the rations go to the sick and injured, then the elderly, then the kids, but we have so many sick and hurt that sometimes not all the kids get something. Jalerom and Fae have refused to eat the last two days, and Amber has only been eating half a meal a day."
Oin directed his eyes into Ivan's as if to ask, "And you?"
Ivan got the message and confessed, "I've been sharing my rations with the kids."
Oin looked over at the children, who were still looking at the ground sheepishly. He even saw a tear trickle down one of their noses and fall onto the cobbled ground. Sighing slightly, he asked, "Are there any large tables we could use?"
The kids looked up, confused, and Oin clarified, "If I'm going to feed people, we will need tables." The little ones' eyes lit up and they scrambled to a few nearby adults, shouting and gesturing happily. Once the parents had deciphered their children's cries, they looked up at Oin with looks of such gratitude that he had to look away. Ivan smiled proudly up at his friend, but Oin pointedly ignored him as he began the incantations necessary for four sets of Heroes' Feasts.
Though his spell conjured up tables set for sixteen, Oin knew that there would be more than 64 people dining with them today. By his thinking, each feast that fed sixteen hearty warriors would easily feed at least thirty common folk, even more if some of those common folk were children.
Oin was nearly finished with the ten-minute-long ritual when the townspeople returned with tables, chairs, plates, and cutlery. Ivan helped the children set the tables, and Amber came to the square carrying two tables on her own. She smiled over at him as well, but he was too busy concentrating on the spell to even bother looking away from her.
With a brilliant flash of light, four incredibly full tables, complete with chairs, plates, and cutlery, appeared in front of the dwarf. Everything was prepared, cleaned, and cooked to perfection: turkeys, hams, roast beef, game pies, legs of lamb, fish, stews, soups, eleven different kinds of vegetables, vibrant fruits, breads of varying sizes and flavors, rices, potatoes, yams, biscuits, gravies, muffins, pies, and cakes. Any food that Oin could think of was on the tables, and he felt a little twinge of pride at the stunned looks on the townsfolk's drooling faces. In a surprisingly orderly fashion, the youngest adults helped dish out food to the elders and children that had gathered, making sure to plate a few for Amber and Ivan to take to the local cleric's patients. Then the middle-aged adults gathered their plates, and finally the young adults took theirs. There had to have been 150 plates served up, and there was still some food left. The dwarf sent up a quick prayer of thanks to Olidammara; surely his mischievous patron had something to do with the extra food.
Oin snagged an apple from one of the tables and bit into it, moseying along towards the palace. He had eaten at dawn that day on the last leg of his journey so his hunger was nowhere near as severe as that of the Directians.
Ivan returned from Leea Rumenthal's home after delivering the meals to the injured in her care. The cleric of Pelor had happily taken the meals and bid Ivan to thank Oin for providing the food. Some of the patients – those with cursed or missing limbs – had even called out their thanks to Ivan. Amber had taken the meals meant for the sick to the other cleric in town, a halfling healer of Rao named Jonesy Proudfoot, and Ivan figured she had insisted delivering them to the patients herself so that the old halfling didn't have to. He happily skipped back to the main square and picked up a remaining piece of quail meat pie before looking around. Many of the villagers that he'd met the last few weeks were smiling and eating happily. He knew it wasn't the whole city - the population had dwindled to around a thousand with people either moving or dying - but at least there were many folks who had a full belly and a renewed sense of morale.
Hadrian, Mia, Olive, and Flynn ran up to Ivan, all with gravy or fruit-stained faces, and tugged on his arm.
"We can't find Mr. Oin!" Olive cried sadly, and Flynn nodded.
"We wanted to say thank you," Hadrian explained, "but he's gone." Ivan smiled down at the kids.
"Oin isn't really the type who likes to be thanked," Ivan told them, and the kids looked confused. "He's a good friend who always looks after us, even when we get on his last nerves."
"Like how Hadrian takes care of me even after I broke his toy sword?" Mia asked, and Ivan nodded.
"Do you say thank you to Hadrian all the time, Mia?"
The little girl shook her head, then tugged on her big brother's shirt and murmured, "Thank you, Hadrian." The older boy looked a little uncomfortable and patted her head. The others laughed, and Ivan chuckled at the boy.
"Just like that. Oin feels embarrassed when he gets thanked. So let's think of a special way to thank him that isn't just saying 'Thank you', okay?" The kids nodded and the five of them huddled together to whisper about their plan.
The path to the Directian palace seemed longer without Ivan next to him, humming that oddly familiar tune, but Oin trudged on, discarding his apple core in the proper receptacle along the way. He kept his eyes focused on the road ahead, and it seemed long and daunting.
He heard a crowd of feet pounding on the stones behind him, but he paid no heed until he heard a familiar cheery voice call out, "Oin! Wait!" Sighing, Oin heeded Ivan's request, and turned to see the gnome with the children that had been with him earlier. All five of them had huge smiles on their lips, and Oin was suspicious when Ivan pulled out his lute and the children assumed some choreographed positions.
The bard began to sing.
Oh, a-dipsy and a-doodle
And a-doodle and a-dip,
There she spun, round and round,
Until her feet went slip!
With a smile she tumbled
All the way downhill
And she cried, loud and long,
As she laid there still
Doodle came upon the hill
And saw her where she fell
He tumbled down after her
But he made it down quite well
He picked her up and said,
"Dipsy, careful you must be!
We all must work together
To be the best that we can be!"
Doodle carried her back up the hill
And the townsfolk they did cheer
For he had shown the goodness
That they all held so dear
Doodle married Dipsy
At the bottom of the hill
And they spun round and round together
And they spin together still
The children danced and acted out the story as Ivan sang, and Oin realized why the tune had sounded so familiar. It was a dwarfish nursery rhyme, designed to teach the young to help one another, and one that he had heard many a time while the other children jumped rope and played together, and he sat off to the side. It surprised him to find that, though the song stirred up bitter memories, he still found himself thinking warmly of the ditty itself. The message – helping one another in order to survive – was one he found himself following without even realizing it, and he wondered to himself if Olidammara had some hand in Ivan's choice of song. It would be the kind of thing he would do for a cheap chuckle, after all.
The song ended, and the children bowed to Oin, slightly breathless. Ivan put his lute on his back, and Oin nodded to Ivan.
"Shall we proceed?" he asked and turned around. Out of his peripheral vision, he could see Ivan give the children a thumbs up before he chirped, "Coming!" and followed behind him. Oin heard the children giggle and run back the way they came as the two adventurers continued toward the palace.
"Interesting choice of song, Ivan," Oin afforded him, and Ivan skipped ahead.
"I thought you'd like it," he replied, pulling out his lute again and strumming random but pleasant chords. Oin sighed quietly.
The gnome was more tricksy than he had given him credit for, and he wasn't sure if he liked it. But it would have to do.