Disclaimer: I do not own LOTR.
Author's note: Thank you to all the people who are taking their time reading the fic. It's truly appreciated.
La Femme Absurde: I'm glad that this fic has piqued your curiosity. It is going to be a slow burn, so it might take some time for her to know the main cast. Though for the time being, I hope you enjoy this chapter :)
Narylfiel: I'm still in the process of reading the books, so if you see some mistake feel free to tell me. I totally agree with the fact that books are better. They capture details that movies mostly overlook. WOW! It's so amazing that you're trilingual. Thank you! I hope you enjoy this chapter too :)
Enjoy the chapter! RR.
Chapter 4: Adjustment and Future Plans.
"... I knew that he won't be anything but a scam!", one of the men sitting at the congested table finished his tale and spontaneously caused the rest of the table to burst into loud jeers. Looked like he got more than a few sympathisers and I couldn't help but strain my ears to hear more. It wasn't like I was actually eavesdropping, at his booming voice resounding across the crowd it was as if he seemed to be heard and I felt this to be merely a way for me to improve my vocabulary of Westron, the plus point being that their tales were quite often extremely amusing, no matter how exaggerated and impossible they seemed. I wiped the beads of sweat forming on my forehead and sighed as I put the last plate back into the stack. Wiping my hands clean, I looked around the inn to see if my help was needed anywhere. My gaze met with Raforta who smiled at me slightly and mouthed at me to leave if I was done.
Nodding in return, I raised a hand to show that I understood. Taking a small dinner of stew and bread from the kitchen, I made my way back to my room and collapsed on my bed.
Being a waitress in medieval times was a hard job. With no technology or gadgets, everyone always wanted to socialise. Almost every night the inn was filled with rambunctious laughter and loud yells with the whole of Bree gathering in the few inns in the main road to get the stress of the day's work off their chest, which led to me being most often than not confused, either by their language or their culture, who was to say.
I sat up to eat my dinner, nearly devouring the food. It felt good having food after a long day at work. Not like my work was done, I reminded myself. tired just by looking at the stack of books on the floor at the side of the bed.
It had already been more than four months since I started working at the inn. Initially, I decided to work only for a few days but It gradually turned into weeks and now four months had passed. All the doubts I had about not being in America or the modern world were already removed. For the past months, I've listened to the tales of countless travellers, trying to decide what to do in future. I could just stay here, I knew that. Butterbur and Raforta will be more than glad to let me stay. I had even developed a great friendship with a few people from the town. I was grateful to them for it wasn't easy to be friends with me, at least not for the first few weeks. The society of Bree, the town I was currently residing in, was quite conservative according to my modern standards. I had been so genuinely surprised when I learnt that Bree was one of the few places that were thought to be ostentatious. I guessed that no one in Middle-Earth liked pant wearing, outspoken, confident and independent women. I rolled my eyes at the memory of the horrified gasps I received when I had accidentally decided to wear breeches and shirt one day. The women staring out of the windows and whispering in horrified voices behind their hands. Raforta had been totally scandalised at my attire, demanding from where I had even got these clothes. Not like I was going to reveal my sources. If I was truly planning on travelling then I had to smuggle a few pairs of breeches and shirts in the near future. There was so much long one could wear dresses every day without going mad, and wearing dresses on the road was a big no-no for me.
'Travelling...' I mused. The main reason I had not already started it was because I wanted to learn the language first. It was one of the worst experiences I had ever had. There was one thing learning a new language when you could at least get the English translation of the text. Learning Westron was like learning ABC again at the age of twenty-eight. Not a pleasant experience. The first two weeks had been pure agony. My knowledge of a few words and verbs disabled me even construct the basic sentences properly. Once I had gone through the principles with Raforta, it seemed that Westron was slightly similar to English, especially in accent. I had been trying to listen to as many conversations as I could, reading as many books, children ones at that, I could get my hands on and then learning from Raforta whatever I didn't understand. Trying to learn Westron in every speck of free time I got. I was quite proud of my success until now. I could speak the language well enough to go by because I had four months of practice talking to the people here. All of them also seemed to understand me quite well.
Another reason for not travelling yet was the fact that no one here would even entertain the idea of a woman travelling alone. I had already touched the topic with Butterbur and his eyes had extended to the size of dinner plates. Consequently, I had given a lot of thought to this particular topic and the only solution I could come up with was finding someone who would take me with them on their travel. Especially someone going towards Rohan or Gondor. I heard that those two kingdoms were host to the oldest generations of men, maybe I could find a few clues there. Maybe there was also someone before me stuck in the same circumstances. Even though I was sure that I was not in Modern day California anymore, I needed answers about my situation. Why was I here? What am I supposed to do? How did I even get here? How do I get back?
Maybe I could get a few answers from their libraries, hence my urgency in learning the language as soon as possible. I had already talked Raforta into introducing me to a customer who was knowledgeable about these places and was travelling to somewhere near them if she sees one that is. I had assured her that I only wanted my questions answered. She had agreed but with no little suspicion towards my actions, as if she wasn't sure of what I'll do. 'Not like I was sure of myself either' I thought amusedly.
Living here for four months had not been easy for my modern day self. The hygienic conditions never failed to leave me baffled. The fact that I bathe every day is still a strange concept to half of the Bree. My small lectures, with my limited vocabulary, about 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness' weren't even reflected upon.
Some people here had the tendency to bathe after weeks, going about their work life without caring about how grimy they were. The thought alone caused me to stress about their questionable health. I shivered involuntarily while gathering the empty dishes. Placing them on one side, I contemplated whether I wanted to read something today. Reading texts in Westron was a huge task in itself. In the past I had prided myself on being a fast reader, always enjoying a good book in my free time. But reading something, even if it was just a children's text, was hard with my limited knowledge of the language. It took me hours to complete a fifty-paged fairy book last week.
My already thinned patience stopped me from picking up another book. Laying down on my bed, In absent-mindedness, I reminded myself of reading more tomorrow before I fell into an exhausted sleep.
I was woken up the next morning by the blazing rays of sun falling directly onto my face. I groaned and turned to rid myself of the brightness. The agonising chirp of the birds and the chatter of Raforta, the reason for the sudden brightness, was enough to shake a deaf man awake from his sleep. I had been waking up early every morning for the past four months but this time wasn't enough to shake away a lifetime of morning grouchiness. I mumbled incoherently. Closing my eyes again to get a teensy bit of sleep, I was startled awake once again as Raforta shook me violently.
"Up! I'm awake", I said rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. Making sure that I wasn't going to fall asleep once again Raforta left to do her own chores. 'Whoever wakes up at the first light of the sun' I groggily thought. Not like it was 'The first light of the sun' as I put it. I was sure that that time had already passed a few hours ago. But for a morning spirit which was me, it was still too early for me to think with the capacity of a working, mature woman. With the speed of a grandpa snail, I slid out of the bed. Squinting slightly I tried to figure out where my shoes were. Once I completed my morning shoe finding ritual, I rubbed at my eyes and proceeded to leave my room. Going to the private bath, which was identical to the bath reserved for customers, I began to undress. The wooden tub was already filled with water. Without a second thought, I stepped into the tub, rubbing and scrubbing at my skin to get clean. Not like I was mucky. At first, I always bathed whenever I got up just to kill time. People weren't as welcoming to me as they were to other travellers. Not like I could blame them, my attire the first day and my tendency to let modern mannerisms slip into my actions had probably creeped them out. What was initially a way to escape from judging eyes and whispering voices, the time I took for myself, had now become more of a morning routine for me? Chewing on a piece of chew stick to clean my teeth, I stepped out of the tub. It took me a while to dry my hair with the towel I was given. At last, when I was done dressing up in the plain brown dress Raforta had made for me, I made my way downwards. There was work to be done.
The inn was scarcely populated this time of the day. Most of the travellers who stayed overnight started on the road at dusk to reach their destinations on time. In the brightness of this pleasant morning, no one wasted themselves on drinking. 'Until now' I thought grimacing. There were a few drunkards who came to the inn in the morning and wasted away till night. It was a pure hassle to serve them and as women, it was more so. Butterbur didn't let me or Raforta serve such customers, usually, Bob or Nob took care of this. A little more than a month ago the inn had been brimming with people. It was one of those days when the whole staff including the boss looked haggard. I would have laughed at the picture Butterbur posed at that time, had I not been looking as careworn as him. He stood near the counter waving papers, shouting orders, yelling at troublemakers. The large beads of sweat that formed on his bald head rolling down continuously, his eyes wide and voice coarse. The day was already hectic but it became more so when one of the travellers found something a drunkard said offending. It led to one of the most ruthless bar fights I had ever seen. In California, you could get arrested for using violence. Smashing heads and breaking glass was something I wasn't accustomed to. It started off just as a fight would both men stood up knocking their chairs down. Then the shouting began. Even with my limited knowledge of Westron, I caught some pretty abusive words. The crowd wasn't exactly helping the matters. The loud jeers and cheers made the men even more aggressive. Amidst the loud yells and jabs, I didn't quite catch what man number 2 said. All I knew was the fact that the inn went deadly quiet for a moment, and then the real deal started. The man number 1 tacked the other to the ground. He fisted him across the face not once not twice but more than a few times. The crowd jeered in disappointment at the incapability of the one getting smashed. It was a surprise when he caught the fist of the first man and rolled him over. It was now him the hunter and the other one his prey. Butterbur shouted a few times to break up the fight but no one paid him any heed. It would have been alright had it been a fight of just the two men. I don't quite know how or when it happened but something triggered the ones standing the closest to the fighters and they joined the fight. I looked on wide-eyed as soon almost all of the drunken inn was engaged in a bloody war. Tables were overthrown, chairs broken and glasses smashed. Raforta had dragged me to the back of the counter so we could be semi-safe from the flying objects. I knew I looked like a wide-eyed, non-believing, open-mouthed fool as I took in all the happenings around us. It had taken sober people from neighbouring houses and Butterbur hours to calm down the fights and kick out the culprits. The damage was huge but the way everyone shrugged off the fight in the morning was even more unbelievable to me. When I had clarified with Raforta that I had never seen such a bar fight in my own home she had scoffed not believing my word. It seemed that these were common here. 'God forbid' I gulped remembering the fight.
Making a beeline for the kitchen I closed the door. I wasn't going to serve anyone before having breakfast myself. My short-tempered morning self-didn't work quite as well as it did with a good old cup of tea. My breakfast consisted of a few pieces of toast and jam with tea. I washed the plates after I was done. Going back to the counter once again, I looked around to see if there was someone waiting for service. Only three tables were filled today. One table had two travellers almost done with whatever business they were discussing. Shaking hands, both of them nodded to each other. They dropped their bills on the table and left the inn going their separate ways. One of the tables hosted an old wrinkled man enjoying his morning tobacco. What really caught my attention was the man sitting on the table near the windows, at the far end of the room. He was someone you could pass off as your common day to day traveller but something seemed a little different about him. He was clad in breeches and shirt. Hard leather boots drawn over his breeches. A large cloak was bound around his shoulders. I couldn't exactly see his face under the shadow of the hood but I got the feeling that he knew I was staring. Drawing my eyes away abruptly, I started cleaning the counter. 'No use pondering over nothing. You've got a lot of work to do' I reminded myself. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't exactly shake away this instinct that something might happen in the near future. Something closely related to this man.
To be continued...
A/N: In the last chapter I said something about incorporating Westron and English. Although I've already removed it but still if someone has confusion to why I didn't italicise the Westron, it is because at first, I wanted to write in a different format. The storyline is still in the process of construction so changes are being made to the next chapters.