HELP WANTED! Check Thought Process section.

All translations, explanations, advertisements, and thought processes are at the end of the chapter.

Disclaimer: All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I don't own them.

Cerweth the Nineteenth of the Year 2002 during the Third Age

Bree was a small dark crown on the crest of a large sloping hill, the buildings' sharp roofs were the points of said crown. The wind was strong enough, as it swept over the land, to toss Gandalf's beard, hair, robes, and scarf about. Thankful for my hair being tied back, I was left to wonder how his hat could have possibly stayed on...

The land was comprised of rolling hills surrounding the road with farms and trees dotted here and there. Mostly though, it was an empty place. As we approached the town, I realized that it was surrounded by a wall. Somehow the thought occurred to me that perhaps the people might not exactly welcoming and/or happy to see us.

After all how likely was it that the slightly ominous wall was just to keep the chickens in?

When we first passed through the dark wooden gates the townsfolk were curious but not overly welcoming. Mostly they gave a scrutinizing look or two before returning to their business. That only lasted until Gandalf started speaking to a number of people with all of the conversations including the word 'Dunedain.'

The pattern was pretty simple, Gandalf would be speaking with the person, the word 'Dunedain' would be used, and the other would tense up. Most of them made what was obviously an excuse and quickly left.

What really stuck me as odd, was when I had seen a lady with a cat on her lap sitting nearby. I went over and held out my hand to the little critter, while looking for permission from the woman. She stared at me a hard glint in her eyes. Confused and a bit frightened by the harshness that she had looked at me with, I quickly returned to Gandalf and covertly griped a portion of his robes.

My Old Man would never look at me like that. Ever.

...Where had that come from? The fudge?

Of course he had by far proved himself to be at least somewhat trustworthy, but to mentally refer to Gandalf as mine? Why was I being so childish? Running to him, clutching at his clothes like a two-year-old...

I was fifteen for the Lady's sake! No matter what fanciful delusions my mind supplied he wasn't my Grandpa, even if his name did start with a 'G' and they had the same eyes...

...Even if I wished he was...

The folk of Bree were always known as a rather wary lot, yes, and it should have occurred to him that they might react thusly...

But one should at least try, no?

Gandalf sighed, as he sunk a tad further into the wooden chair of the tavern. At least as far as one could sink into a wooden chair. He closed his eyes briefly, hoping to calm the pounding in his head. Opening them, he pondered the child curled in the bed of the room they had acquired.

She had healed remarkably well as they had traveled. It had taken a mere week before she was back on her feet. He had been surprised when she had remained focused on traveling. She had not paused to do any of the other things a usual child might.

For example, not chasing a butterfly that had gone right in front of her. It flew practically under her very nose! Instead, she merely continued walking along while gazing after the small creature. It was odd to say the least.

She had told him of her sister, how they were separated, where she had stayed afterwards, and where she was attempting to go. Yet, there was no mention of her parents, nor of any other family but this sister... Had she been raised by her sibling?

Perhaps.

The youngling turned in her sleep and he could now see that a good part of the blanket was bunched up in her arms. She clutched the cloth as if it were a much loved doll.

Inspiration struck.

Cerweth the Twentieth of the Year 2002 during the Third Age

I woke to a rather nice bed and a bit of sunlight filtered through the window of the inn room. Blinking, I sat up and in doing so I discovered the oddest thing...

A doll.

A cloth doll dressed in a basic dress of brown and a belt of what looked like twine. It had been tucked under the blankets near the pillow at some point during the night. Just then, before I could contemplate the new arrival, Gandalf entered the room, a serious expression on his face, "Solreen, now that we've reached Bree, what are your plans?"

Well, dang, he certainly got straight to the point. As far as plans? I had originally planned to ask after Honor here. That or try and follow the river. But as we (Gandalf and I) traveled, I had realized that the odds of success in that situation would be nearly impossible, as in I would have more of a chance of seeing a Flying Purple People Eater type of impossible. To top it all off, now I could not even communicate with anyone but Gandalf... I was a fool to ever think that might work and here I was now.

"I... I don't know. I was going to ask after my sister, but I can't even talk to the people here..." As I said this I got the oddest impression of Gandalf looking like a cat that just ate the canary.

...How would a Gandalf-cat avoid getting all those feathers stuck in that beard?

"I would like to help you find your sister." He was going to help? Why? Sure he had come to Bree as well, but still... Why did he actually want to help an utterly random person go wandering around and look for another equally random person? Either he was a saint or had at least a tiny bit of some other motive. And with his expression turn more like a cat that got the cream right after it ate the canary, the latter was looking more and more likely...

"Why?" I asked, trying to discern just what exactly he wanted.

"Because, I happen to know some Dunedain and to them children are important." Because he knows people like me? Then... this is for them? I guess that is the other motive. I never would have guessed that he was the three-option: A manipulative saint... Sheesh.

"Oh, what is your plan?"

"I was thinking that since those I know who could help usually frequent here, it might be better to wait for them here for a few days. Then if they do not arrive, we could try heading towards another place they and those like them are regularly at."

Wait in town for a bit? It sounded reasonable, except that the longer we waited the longer Honor could be in danger and I could have been there to help.

Wait, scratch that.

I would not be much help anyway. I could just see myself with a stick against some sort of rabid creature, a fat lot of good I would be. "That sounds like a good idea." Because truth be told, Gandalf has a bigger stick than I do, which is to say I don't have one and a doll would not be much good anyway.

"Do you want to go down for breakfast?" That popped any immediate all the dark thoughts that were filling my head like hot air in a giant balloon. As per my usual thought process in similar cases: 'Food? Did someone just say food?' This excitement was evidenced by the slight growl of my stomach. Nodding, I eagerly got out of bed and followed him down the stairs. My thoughts focused on thanking the Stars that Gandalf didn't comment on my- well, I would not say obsession, but something similar to it- love of food.

The inn was by no means a grand place, yet it had the feel of comfort and rest. Overall, a very down-to-earth type of place. Naturally, I loved it. The wood was dark and sturdy, while the floors were smooth from all the feet that must have walked on it over the years. When we reached the main area there were only a few people there, seeing as by then it was late morning.

The room was large; it had long wooden tables and benches taking up most of the space with a bar on one end. A pair of men sat at one table on the other side of the room, they had. There was what looked like either a child or a very short man at another table that was closer to our side of the room. He had curly blond hair and upon closer inspection...no shoes?

How odd...

Gandalf approached the bar-like structure and spoke to the man behind it before sitting down at one of the tables. Curious, I watched the strange person from behind my doll's hair as I pretended to 'play' with her. He was alone, did that mean he was an adult? I would just have to watch and find out. Before long a rather tall boy set two bowls of what looked like... chicken soup!

Even as a very young child I was a fan of this stuff, especially chicken noodle soup. My family had a chicken dumpling recipe dating back to my great-grandmother. That was how crazy we were for chicken soup. Said recipe is also now ingrained into my head, and for that I am quite thankful...

Anyway, disregarding my rant on the wonders of chicken soup, suffice to say that anything else at the particular moment, well, it went out the proverbial window.

That included thoughts of strange short adults.

When Gandalf opened the door to the room he found Solreen awake. The child was sitting up in the aforementioned bed and he had briefly wondered if she had discovered his gift...

Their conversation had gone as expected until the youngling asked why he was helping her. That had baffled him, was she unused to simple kindness and how adults looked out for children?

A chilling thought.

Either way he explained that he was looking for others like her and that his own plan had been to wait. Then if no one came they would move on to another location. He didn't mention that this other place would be Rivendell, or in the tongue she knew, Imladris.

When they had gone down to the main dining area, he had pointed out a table for the girl to sit at and headed over to the bar to order a breakfast of the previous nights leftovers. Sitting down next to Solreen, he noticed that she was attempting to covertly watch a hobbit that happened to be eating at a table nearby. Apparently, she thought that her new doll's hair was decent camouflage.

This rather amusing behavior continued until the food was brought out by a rather fair lad who looked to be around eight-years old. The youngster carried two bowls on a wide round board. When these were set on the table the boy scampered back behind the bar. Turning back to his charge, Gandalf was even more amused to see her with a large smile as she soaked the provided bread with the broth and began to eat as if the food was the best she'd ever had. It appeared that chicken soup was a favorite... And as the scent of said soup was quite good he decided that perhaps he had better eat as well.

After the utterly delicious food was gone, I noticed that the strange adult-child was still at the other table. Still curious, I gave in and asked Gandalf why he... well, why the other person looked so different, if rather nice.

"He, Solreen, is a hobbit. Their land is rather near here, on the other side of the Old forest as well as down the road, in fact." A hobbit? Huh.

Since we were going to be stationary for a few days, and since I somehow doubted there were any good books around, I decided to explore. I doubted that they would let me into the kitchen, and the same would most likely go for a lot of the other areas as well, that left finding the stables. Said stables were relatively easy to find. They had half a dozen stalls and a hay loft on one side. The only occupant was an old grey mare on one end. I had tried to jump to see over the wooden stall gate. However, as many other times before this, I was far too much short, to my chagrin.

After my third attempt, someone spoke from behind me. Turning, I saw the boy that had brought the soup out earlier. He had light brown hair and blue eyes that somehow reminded me of the look of a cat; curious and playful. I could not understand what he had said, but I could tell he was being friendly; unlike the lady and her cat from before.

It took him a bit to realize that I could not understand him. When he did, he, for some unfathomable reason, smiled at me. He opened the stall door and motioned for me to follow him inside the stall. When we were directly in front of the mare, he pointed to said mare, "Eba." Apparently that was her name.

He then pointed to himself, "Aled."

Grinning, I followed suit, glad to make a new friend, "Solreen." He grinned back and turned towards Eba, holding out a hand for her to sniff at; she nuzzled his hand looking for treats. Giggling, - giggling? Since when did I giggle? Oh well, I suppose that since I look like a little kid I can act like one once in awhile - I petted her velvety nose. She was certainly an old horse, but she was quite gentle and calm. She most definitely enjoyed the attention... And as I looked over at Aled, I realized that I enjoyed having a new friend.

To Be Continued...

Translations: *Cerweth is July.

*Solreen means "Memory-Shackles."

Further translations are in the explanations section.

Explanations: * Bonus points to any one of you who know the song. "...It looks like an purple people-eater to me..."

* A person with the look of the cat that ate the canary is a person who appears and behaves guiltily mixed with other qualities, such as satisfaction or feigned nonchalance.

*A person with the look of the cat that got the cream is a person who looks very pleased and excessively smug with themselves.

*It was Tolkien who created the beings called hobbits. They essentially didn't exist before he can along. So obviously if they [Honor Rae and Laura] have never watched or heard of the Lord of the Rings, then they would have never heard of hobbits before.

And now a word from our Mayumi Mizuki:

"Since Tolkien never went into great detail for Westron and even less concerning 'Hobbit-speech', that leaves us having to find names else where. Thus here are the origins and meanings of some names:

Aled, Welsh in origin and meaning 'offspring.'

Eba, short for Ebahe, a variant of a variant spelling of Eabah. Irish in origin with the meaning of 'life.' It is intended as a hobbitish type name."

This has been a word from our Mayumi Mizuki.

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TITLE: Roel

AUTHOR: Mayumi Mizuki

ID: 8470649

SUMMARY: A companion collection to Ring of Endless Light, a collaboration posted by my co-author neoko-chan, side stories and such. Requests taken.

OPINION: Rather nice. It's a refreshing thing to read in between our chapters to see what is happening back at Honor Rae and Laura's home as well as some flash-backs and one-shots. Beautifully done and simple.

Thought Process: We need your help! Yes, it turns out our plot line only extends into part-way through the next arc and only so far as chapter thirty.

PLEASE SEND IN YOUR IDEAS!

What do you want Honor Rae and Laura to do?

What do you want to happen to them?

Good things?

Bad things?

YOU DECIDE!

Please keep it G to PG-13. Remember: They ARE children at this point.

Thank you in advance and Merry New Year's day.

...

Oh! Before I forget, in response to a reviewer, "Yes, there will be Celebrian. She has 507 years before she, unfortunately, is supposed to be assaulted by the orcs in cannon. 507 years is a long time... it might happen, it might not, but remember: We ARE trying to keep this as CANNON AS POSSIBLE!"

Have a nice 2013.

Date Submitted: Tuesday, January 1, 2013.