thelioninmybed:

“Listen!” cried the bard. “Listen, good folk and I shall tell a tale such as never you have heard before.” 

The taproom of the Prancing Pony stilled and quieted, which said much for the skill of his voice, or of the mannish want for new stories.

“The Dark Lord is thrown down and a king crowned in the West!” the bard went on, leaping up onto a table and drawing out his harp. “But Sauron – yes! I shall speak his name! – is not the first nor the greatest foe of the free peoples, and there are kings that sit e’en now in a West more distant than Gondor. A flagon of ale and a warm bed for the night, and I shall tell you of the fall of Morgoth, and the fall, too, of the great Elvenkings of old. I shall sing to you the Noldolantë, as was first sung by Maglor Fëanorian, the greatest bard to ever walk this earth.”

Barliman Butterbur looked around at the crowded taproom and the folk squeezing in from the stables as the news spread and decided he knew a good deal when he heard it. He filled the requested flagon and handed it up. 

The bard drained it in one long gulp, wiped his mouth upon his sleeve and struck another cord. “There was a man – a prince! The greatest of all princes! – and he had seven sons-”

It was a long story, but a good one. Barliman liked the clever maiden in the vampire fell even if he couldn’t quite keep up with all the Fins – what kind of names were those, he asked you? – and much of it was sadder than he liked. But it kept the patrons in and kept them drinking, which was more than enough to recommend it to him. 

The young bard told the story well, slipping into the characters like they were well-worn boots and a favourite jacket. He was a handsome fellow, bright-eyed with hair as raven-dark as the plumes in his fine hat, and the flames licking in the hearth threw shadows across his features that made him seem now fair and merry, now old and fell as a grizzled wolf in keeping with the characters in his tale. 

When he was done with his tale, had accepted another flagon of ale and refused, despite much pleading, to do an encore, the room started to empty out, the patrons wending their way home or upstairs to their beds. 

“Here now, though,” said Barliman, pausing with his hands full of empty jugs and greasy plates. “What about that last fellow? You never said what happened to the second son.” He was an innkeep after all and every innkeep has a sense for when he’s been cheated.

“Faded from grief,” said the bard, wearily for it had been a long performance. “Or drowned with Beleriand. Returned to the West when the weight of his sins grew too great for even his proud shoulders to bear up under. Or perhaps,” – he leant in closer and Barliman was not sure why he’d thought this old man young. “Perhaps he lingers still upon these shores. Haunting the woods, and singing sad songs beside forgotten pools. Perhaps he steals away Mannish children to raise as his own, scions of his dead house.”

“Not around here, I shouldn’t think,” Barliman huffed indignantly. “That may have gone over in that drowned country but we have a proper king now and he wouldn’t hold with stolen children.”

The bard laughed merrily. “Of course, of course. The poor fellow’s surely dead, but I’ve long found a neat ending, all tied up in a bow, makes for a poorer story. A more forgettable one, certainly, and I would not have poor Maglor fade from history altogether. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am for my bed.” His hard heeled boots rang on the stairs as he picked his way up them. 

His words rang on in Barliman’s mind a good while longer. After the tables were wiped down and Barliman was in his nightshirt blowing out the candle, he thought about that wanderer, weeping upon the cold sand of a distant shore.

All innkeeps have a sense for when they’ve been cheated and a new thought tickled at the back of Barliman’s mind. 

But the bed was soft, the hour was late and Barliman never had had much luck in recognising kings.