faderift | [open] concerning hobbits

WHO: Samwise Gamgee and EVERYONE HE CAN FIND
WHAT: Sam's arrived at Skyhold and is exploring! Also asking questions. All the questions.
WHEN: After arriving from the Fallow Mire
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Feel free to meet Sam in any part of Skyhold! He'll be all over.

He'd tried to stick close to who he'd already started privately thinking of as his new friends - the other Sam and the wizard Twisted Fate. He'd even glimpsed, once or twice, the Man who'd pulled him out of the Mire in the first place, and saved him from being drownded. But the road from the Fallow Mire had been long, and Sam had spent much of it on his own, tucked away in small corners of wagons or sitting astride horses alongside dwarves, being too short to walk and have a hope of keeping up.

And when they'd arrived at last, he'd found himself suddenly left completely to his own devices.

Skyhold. He rolls the word around in his mind, staring up, up at the battlements and the clouds beyond. It's a good enough name for the place, he supposes, being up in the mountains as it is. And there's something in it that appeals to him - it's not quite Elvish, not quite Rivendell or Lothlórien, but it's a bit more fanciful than Hobbiton or Bywater, he thinks. As for the place itself, he finds himself a bit overwhelmed - not only with the size (which is enormous in its own right, apart from everything in it being built proportionate to Big People), but with the ceaseless activity and the seemingly endless places to explore and get lost in.

He finds the kitchen first, hobbit-senses guiding him true, but after he's snacked his fill he finds himself wanting to explore more, and he steps carefully down the stairs into the yard. There are folk of all shapes and sizes everywhere (though nobody he recognizes), and he takes a deep breath before walking forward, not quite sure where he's going.

There are Elves here; he knows that much. If nothing else, perhaps the Elves will know more about what's happened and why he's come here. Perhaps they'll at least know Gandalf's name.

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Well, he was going to find he was surrounded by people like that. In fact he was walking next to one of them right now. Katniss hated to be idle, when she could be doing something useful. She did like her quiet moments, but even then she was doing something with her hands, or two things at the same time.

She tilted her head at that description, "So ... there are a lot of things that seem to be the same? What is off, in our world?"

"Oh, a lot of things," Sam said earnestly, hardly knowing where to begin. "The wizards, for one - or mages, as you say. We only ever had the one at home; well, two, but the other, he turned all sour. Here I can't walk a step without tripping over someone doing a spell, or so it seems."

He goes quiet for a moment, thinking not of Saruman and his turning sour, but of Gandalf, and how he had been lost. It doesn't sting as much now as it had; it seems further away now, somehow, but it still hurts to think of it too much.

"Really? Is magic so rare where you come from? Seems to be coming out of our ears, here." She smirked a little, as she put out a hand to stop Sam as a group of soldiers marched by. Then she lifted it again, so they could keep walking.

"You're small, for a man." She finally said, because it was going to nag at her.

"It's rare enough," Sam agreed easily, halting to watch the soldiers go by with wide eyes. He'd never seen so many in one place, and he was glad to hide a bit behind Katniss until they'd passed. "There's Elvish magic, of course, but they won't call it that, not by choice."

He laughed a bit, though not unkindly. "So I would be, if I were a man," he said. "But I'm not. I'm a hobbit - the only one here, so it seems."

"Aaaah, the elves have magic here too. It is not different just -- used differently. Like water, in different vases." She adjusted the weight in her arms, and kept walking once more.

She looked down at him, looking bemused, "And what, praytell, is a hobbit?"

Sam shakes his head. Katniss isn't the first person who's needed to be told just what he is, but the explaining never gets any easier, it seems. "You might as well ask what's a tree, or what's a house," he says ruefully. "It's what I am - what my people call ourselves. Some of the Big Folk call us Halflings, but that doesn't seem right: we're not half anything, we're just ourselves."

Huh. Well. Katniss gave him a thoughtful look, before she nodded her head slowly, "I can see where that would offend you, Master Samwise. I'm sorry if I did. I can understand why being called 'half' anything would bother you."

She crooks up a small smile, "So a hobbit is a hobbit. Where do all the hobbits come from?"

"From the Shire: or at least this hobbit does. There are a few in the Bree-land, though they're awfully queer, in their own way," he says, though with a touch of fondness. He'd quite liked the hobbits he'd met in Bree, even if their ways were a bit different than he was used to. "But I suppose none of that'll mean much to you, will it? Anyhow you don't need to worry. I'm not offended a bit - I've been called worse and less truthful than small, and no mistake!"

She nodded her head with that information - although it meant little to her, it meant a lot to Samwise. She can hear the fondness in his voice, and being of the country herself, she could appreciate loving your land, and the people who lived there. "Perhaps ... but I shall enjoy learning about your home, if you would like me to speak of mine. We can share tales."

She huffed out a small snort, before she looked down at him seriously, "If anyone calls you anything you don't like - you let me know, Samwise. I'll set them straight."

Sam's a bit taken aback at the offer, but touched all the same, and he rewards Katniss with a broad grin.

"I might set them straight myself at that, but no one's called me worse than dwarf, at any rate, and I suppose that's not so bad," he says reflectively. "But I'd love a tale or two, if you don't mind. Is your home far from here? What is it like?"

She gives him a smile in turn, as they finally break through the crowds to the area close to the stables, and the small hut where a tree seems to be growing right out of the middle. Outside, a cat is sunbathing, and gives Samwise a dirty look as they approach.

"You'll probably get that a few times ... the only short folk we really have around here are dwarves." She put down the lumber, giving the cat a dirty look in turn. "Don't you start anything."

She pauses, as she goes to gather her hammer and nails, thinking, "Pretty far. I am from the Hinterlands, in Southern Fereldan. Some of the most beautiful woodlands in all of Thedas, and filled to the brim with all kinds of wonders. And terrors. The last ten years haven't been easy for us either - the Blight, the Civil War, then the Mage and Templar War. Giant rifts opening in the sky ... but we're a tough people. If the undead and Darkspawn aren't enough to destroy us, you can be sure anything that Corpheyus continues to throw at us is child's play."

Sam looks with interest at the cat, and with even more interest at the tree, wondering at the walls surrounding it. But his attention is caught by Katniss' story. The names and events are as unfamiliar as everything else here, though he recognizes darkspawn from Ellana's story about the Elves.

"The undead?" he says, and frowns, thinking with a shudder of the Mire. "You mean like those horrid ghosts in that awful bog?"

Katniss smirked a little, as she put down the wood and then went to grab the hammer and nails. She looked over at the small man, before quirking one corner of her mouth.

"Yes. The undead ... but in our case they were coming out of the lake."

"The lake!" Sam cried with real fear. He hesitated, as if considering a deep dilemma, then shook his head. "I don't know which sounds worse, a lake or a bog. I suppose it's possible to be drownded in either, and a lake would smell better, I'll wager; but then a lake would be so very deep and cold." He shivered. "And undead coming out of both! Well, any place with wights of that sort is bound to be cold and horrid, in any case."

[open] concerning hobbits

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